Three Wisconsin Reform rabbis who attended the Central Conference of American Rabbis convention last week in Monterey, Calif., expressed surprise that the convention’s approval of guidelines for working with converts received as much outside attention as it did.
“I was surprised at how much news coverage there was for something that I didn’t consider as significant,” said Rabbi Marc Berkson, spiritual leader of Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun in River Hills. The passed document “really reflected what many of us are already doing.”
Yet these three rabbis did see significance in the document, which effectively replaces an 1893 resolution stating that traditional Jewish conversion rituals were not necessary in Reform Judaism.
To Rabbi E. Daniel Danson, spiritual leader of Mount Sinai Congregation in Wausau, the new document “gives us a benchmark to point to. It establishes at least an ideal standard of conversion, that when we do our own conversions, we can look at it and go, ‘I’m either doing what the guidelines say or I’m not doing so deliberately for a particular purpose.’”
It also provides “measurable standards” that can help everybody involved in the process in Reform synagogues, Danson said. “The convert wants to feel authentic. The rabbi wants some sense that the conversion he or she is performing will be seen favorably at least in the Reform Jewish world.
“And the synagogue members at large want a sense that the people being welcomed into their midst are knowledgeable and sincere. These guidelines provide that for everyone involved.”
To Rabbi David Cohen, spiritual leader of Congregation Sinai in Fox Point, the new guidelines are “an important piece of curriculum. They provide a framework and a lot of useful resources to enable rabbis to make the conversion experience a significant and transformative one.”
“For example,” Cohen continued, “[the document] emphasizes the importance of a rabbi maintaining contact with those who convert in the years that follow to make sure that they feel a sense of connection and have a path for ongoing Jewish growth and development.”
To Berkson, the document “clearly indicates that we as a movement … are concerned about klal Yisrael [the totality of the Jewish people]…. It does reflect our concern for tradition and our understanding that we can’t fully cut ourselves off from the rest of the Jewish community.”
But all three also said that they already follow many aspects of the guidelines in performing their own conversions.
In Jewish tradition, a prospective convert after a period of study has to be approved by a beit din (religious court), undergo immersion in a ritual bath (mikvah), be circumcised if male, and declare readiness to observe Jewish religious law.
While the Reform movement in 1893 declared these unnecessary, since 1979 the movement has offered these practices to converts as an option. The new document says Reform rabbis “should use them as appropriate” and encourage some kind of public affirmation and acceptance ceremonies.
Berkson said that he uses the mikvah at Congregation Beth Jehudah in Milwaukee or two mikvaot in Chicago, one at a Conservative synagogue, one constructed as a “community mikvah.” Danson said that he will take converts to the Eau Claire River in summer, and to the mikvah at the Anshe Poale Zedek Synagogue in Manitowoc.
“What I’ve been doing fits very well within the guidelines,” said Danson. In fact, in his experience, “people who are converting like and want these things; they are eager to do them, at least from my small sampling.”
Cohen said that while the guidelines describe “exactly what I was doing anyway,” nevertheless they “present resources I wasn’t aware of that will help me do a better job [and] enrich the experience of those undergoing conversion.”
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