meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Tablet Studios

The Conversion Episode, 2020: Ep. 230

Tablet Studios

Tablet Magazine

Judaism, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2020

⏱️ 82 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Unorthodox, we're proud to present our third annual conversion episode. On Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that starts tonight at sundown, we read the Book of Ruth, which tells the story of a Moabite woman who converts to Judaism and becomes the great-great-grandmother of King David. Shavuot is the perfect time to celebrate those who convert to Judaism, and on today's episode you'll hear a variety of stories featuring Jews by choice and their different journeys. (Listen to our 2019 episode here and our 2018 episode here.) First, we hear from Lynn Hyde, a resident of Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, who was living a Jewish-adjacent life but was moved to undergo conversion following the Tree of Life shooting in 2018. Stephanie talks to two of her Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sisters—her 'little little' and her 'little little little'—who are both in the process of converting. (One of them even sent Stephanie the mezuzah that she mounted on her doorpost in a previous episode) David Ben-Moshe shares his complex journey to Judaism, exposing some of the injustices within the American criminal justice system as well as the Israeli rabbinate’s standards for who is a Jew. We also hear from Rabbi Shira Stutman of Sixth and I in Washington, D.C., who has overseen more than 300 conversions in the DC area and for 10 years has led Jewish Welcome Worship, a year-long course designed for people in their 20s & 30s who want to learn more about Judaism and/or convert. She takes us behind the scenes on the other side of the conversion process, telling us about the different types of people she's encountered, why they want to convert, and why the Jewish partners can sometimes be a real pain. And finally, Alix Wall brings us the moving story of Vy Nguyen, who at 25 was diagnosed with an extremely rare soft-tissue cancer. She was raised Buddhist, but met with every chaplain at the hospital to see what their religion had to say about her predicament. Moved by the words of the hospital's Jewish chaplain, Dr. Bruce Feldstein, she began an Orthodox conversion, a process that continued throughout many hospitalizations and surgeries, and finally took her to the mikveh and then the chuppah. If you like what you heard today, please consider making a donation to Unorthodox. Your generous support allows us to continue bringing you ambitious episodes and reported features, and we're deeply grateful. Tell us what you thought of the show: Email us at unorthodox@tabletmag.com or leave us a voicemail at (914) 570-4869. You can also record a voice memo on your smartphone and email it to us. Join our Facebook group to get more Unorthodox and connect with other listeners. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow Unorthodox on Twitter and Instagram. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies here. Shalom, friends.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi this is Joe I'm 49 years old I live in San Diego and I converted to Judaism last year

0:07.4

I love listening to unorthodox and I particularly enjoyed and appreciated the two

0:12.3

conversion episodes as someone who's been Jewish

0:14.8

adjacent for almost three decades, but who only recently took the plunge, in my case literally,

0:20.3

into the Pacific Ocean. I wanted to expand on a thread that I've heard in some of the unworth that I've wanted to expand on a thread that I've heard in some of the

0:34.5

unorthodox conversion stories. I wanted to talk about talking with your family

0:39.4

about converting. My primary qualification for talking to you about this is that I'm a complete failure

0:45.2

and talking to my own family about becoming a Jew. My only partially successful conversation

0:50.8

about converting was with my wife.

0:53.0

I told her of my intentions as we were flying back from a vacation in Europe,

0:56.0

a trip which I now jokingly referred to as our

0:59.0

Tragical History tour.

1:01.0

We first went to Italy.

1:02.0

We went to the Ukraine in Poland where my wife's

1:04.7

Bobby and Zaidi grew up and where many of their family were killed. I can't say

1:09.1

exactly what clicked at me. I think it was confronting the complete

1:12.1

decimation of once vibrant Jewish communities

1:14.6

and my own personal connection to people who had experienced this destruction

1:18.4

firsthand.

1:19.4

Somehow sparked me a desire to try and reclaim and to try and make sure my kids understood where they came from.

1:25.0

But it was more than that too.

1:27.0

It was also a desire to fill a void of my own life, a feeling of incompleteness,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tablet Magazine, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tablet Magazine and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.