Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of conversion, the process by which those of other faiths adopt Judaism. Most streams of Judaism, unlike many other religions, do not evangelize.
Conversion
The Latest
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Life For Chelsea Clinton, a Jewish Fiancé
Today we learned that Chelsea Clinton, seen at right, will be the latest celebrity to walk down the aisle with a Jewish partner — her longtime boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky. And thus, the most powerful liberal political dynasty in the country has firmly allied itself with the Chosen People. It’s unclear whether, like Ivanka Trump did…
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Opinion Knesset Moves To Ease (or Is it Tighten?) Conversion Rules
While the attention of world Jewry was riveted on the United Nations, Israel’s Knesset quietly gave initial approval on September 22 to legislation that’s intended to ease the process of conversion to Judaism in Israel. The bill authorizes local rabbis to perform conversions at the request of would-be converts, permitting converts to seek out friendly…
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Life From LiLo to LeahLo?
You might think Lindsay Lohan’s Monday morning Facebook status update would make light of some raucous weekend parties. Instead, it’s where the freckled star announced that she intends to convert to Judaism. After attending the Saturday bar mitzvah of girlfriend Samantha Ronson’s half-brother Saturday, the 22-year-old star of “Mean Girls” and “Herbie Fully Loaded” told…
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Life The Jewish Press Leans (a Little Bit) Left for a Change
The Jewish Press, the nationally distributed, Brooklyn-based Orthodox weekly, can be counted on to lean pretty far to the right when it comes to both politics and religion. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised by a pair of remarkably progressive (by contemporary Orthodox standards) opinion articles on two hot-button religious controversies that were published last…
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Life Poof, You’re Not Jewish Anymore
Jewschool’s Josh Frankel is up in arms — and with good reason: Just when you thought the conversion mess couldn’t get any worse – the good folk in Israel drop another bomb. The Jerusalem Post reports that the High Rabbinical Court has ruled to invalidate, retroactively, all of the conversions performed by Rabbi Chaim Druckman…
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Life How Anthony Lake Became a Jew — First in Others’ Eyes, Then Officially
Speaking before an audience at New York University’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life — where he was boosting the presidential bid of Barack Obama — former Clinton administration national security adviser Anthony Lake related the amusing story of how he was often mistaken for a Jew, sometimes allowed others to think he was a…
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Life Israeli Rightist: Conversion Is Existential Issue
The debate over conversion has been heating up, here in America and in Israel. Last week, the left-wing Israeli daily Ha’aretz weighed in with a searing editorial urging the rabbinate to stop obstructing the conversion of the masses of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not considered Jewish under halacha. This week, it’s…
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Life Who’s Your Messiah?
“If you believe that a dead man is the messiah, does that disqualify you from converting to Judaism?” That’s the question raised in a Jerusalem Post article about an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who came to Israel under its Law of Return and was interested in converting to Judaism. While the rabbis were…
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