Marrying A Convert

It does not make sense to me why somebody Orthodox from birth would want to marry a convert or a baal teshuva (penitent). I figure the more you have in common, the better.

There tends to be a naive wide-eyed enthusiasm with converts and penitents while those Orthodox from birth have a more realistic attitude towards Judaism.

One has a very different mentality when one is born into Orthodox Judaism than when one embraces it later in life.

As far as status, being a convert has no status in Jewish life, nor should it. Being a baal teshuva has no status either.

Christianity celebrates penitents and converts. Jews don’t. Makes sense to me. If being an Orthodox Jew is such a great thing, then you’d want to primarily hang out with those who’ve been doing it their whole lives.

If somebody did just a non-Orthodox conversion, then they did not sacrifice as much to join the Jews and they’re not as interesting. They may be finer and kinder and smarter, but they’re not as provocative.

By the way, 90% of Orthodox Jews in America were born into Orthodox Judaism. There is no great wave of converts or penitents into Orthodox Judaism. Many come in for a while and then move out. It’s a demanding religion. It will never have mass appeal, neither to Jews nor to goyim.

Heshy Fried blogs:

Reasons to marry a convert:

You never have to spend yom tov with their family (maybe Christmas or Thanksgiving)

They are usually hotter than us Jews

They are probably already trained in tashmish hamitah

They have better manners

They can teach you about their former religion

They can give you a better understanding of the privileges of being a Jew

They won�t go crazy when they catch you looking at porn

They don�t look at every little thing as a �crisis�

They always have a good story about their conversion to tell

A lot of the time they are from somewhere weird and cool

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
This entry was posted in Conversion, Orthodoxy and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.