Why I Choose Judaism
A convert finds strength and belonging in the Jewish community
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
The first time I took my mother to a Kabbalat Shabbat service, there were two NYPD vans flanking the gate at our otherwise beautiful East Village synagogue. The gate, in fairness, is beautiful too, but knowing that it serves a security purpose can sour the view if you dwell on it. I try not to.
“It’s just a precaution, as a courtesy,” I assured her.
“Why did you do this?” she asked, hugging our twin loaves of store-bought challah to her chest.
By “this,” she meant “convert to Judaism.” I didn’t have a reason as tidy as marriage or genetics or hearing the voice of Hashem in a dream. Why did I join a historically marginalized community, a minority that even in a time of relative stability needed four NYPD on an ordinary Friday evening? Why, my mother wants to know as she clocks the bright blue panic button by the door, was this of such interest to me?
“You’re going to love the rabbi’s singing voice,” I answered. “Kabbalat Shabbat is so peaceful.” This both was and was not an answer to her question.
When I first signed up for a conversion course, only two friends—of the many I consulted about this massive life change—brought up antisemitism. They suggested, politely but firmly, that my future children might not appreciate having to contend with near-universal hatred, bias, and a diminished sense of personal security. I, for that matter, might not appreciate it.
I thought I knew the contours of that particular brand of hate. I had seen the swastikas on my law school campus in the fall of 2016. I had studied the Holocaust in Europe; had been lost, sweaty and disoriented among the pillars of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. But it became personal on October 7.
To be Jewish was to live with an awareness of your own compromised safety. It was the armed guard at my sweet daughter’s Chabad summer camp, and the bomb threat check set off by an abandoned purse on a mundane winter Shabbat. It was the man who spit at my husband and called him a Yehudi when he forgot to take off his purple kippah on the subway. Just two weeks prior, on the same line, a man had screamed Jewish conspiracy theories in his face. Yet I held on to the notion that other than fringe antisemites, most of my fellow Americans truly cared.
After October 7, to be Jewish was to realize that we are often alone when we most need protection. It was to picture my face or my sweet girl’s face on a torn-up hostage poster. It was to picture someone celebrating my death, calling it my own fault. It was to feel immense shame for the suffering of Palestinians in a region of the world I have yet to set foot in. It is to feel that maybe non-Jews would like me and protect me only I could convince them that I am one of the good Jews who wants Palestinians to live in dignity.
October 7 and the days that came after were, and are, not about me. I am a comparatively safe American Jewish convert, frequently confused about my relationship to Israel and my responsibility for her government’s choices.
I don’t know any of the deceased personally, but I know that my neshama burns in a heretofore unfamiliar way when I see a video of Hersch Goldberg-Polin’s mother speaking at his funeral. And to be Jewish is to know that no matter how I feel about Israel, I will—to so many people—be nothing more than a Jew, and therefore a fair target.
I can easily dispense with the question before it is asked: no, even now, I do not regret becoming Jewish. It was hardly a choice at all. Jewish is who I am, and am Yisrael is my home. Being Jewish is to hug harder at Rosh Hashanah dinner this year, to double down on Jewish education, and to finally stop telling my husband to remove his kippah in non-Jewish spaces.
I am more scared and more proud and more content than ever. I love the community more than I ever have, which feels impossible—and also as natural as breathing. To be Jewish is to know that it is this very love and pride that has held the tribe together through every challenge that has come before, and to know that I will be there with my people through whatever comes next.
Shannon Gonyou is a Midwestern Jewish convert, a lawyer, a mother, and a writer. She published a memoir called Since Sinai about converting to Judaism, and frequently writes articles about American Jewish life from a convert's perspective.
Instagram: @shannonleegonyou
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
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