As Israel gets richer, people around the world decide to become Jewish.
Forward: More than 100 men and women converted to Judaism in Madagascar this month, a historic first for the large island nation off the southeast coast of Africa.
The May 13 conversions, organized by Kulanu, a volunteer-run American nonprofit founded in the 1990s to support “isolated and emerging Jewish communities” worldwide, was the product of years of planning.
“Our task is to create a new community that is part of world Jewry in this unlikely place,” Kulanu posted on its website during a weeklong trip centered on the conversion. “Our hope,” the group continued, is for the community to “become part of the fabric of the world Jewish community.”
