goyim on this webbed site willfully refusing to understand the concept that jewishness isn't determined by blood quantum
meanwhile the (conservative) rabbi at the shul in my hometown will actively stop people from telling him or even implying that a particular reform ger's conversion wasn't fully halakhic because he doesn't want to be obligated not to count them
meanwhile before i went to the mikveh i sometimes had to remind *my own sponsoring rabbi* that i don't count in a minyan yet
meanwhile i've learned our prayers so thoroughly that the stranger standing next to me on rosh hashanah assumed i must've gone to hebrew school as a kid
meanwhile at my first shabbat morning service when i told the floor gabbai i was just starting the conversion class she double-checked which honors i could do then had me open the ark
meanwhile when i told another congregant i was studying to convert she immediately invited me to shabbat dinner
meanwhile my rabbi straight up gave me a set of tefillin when i couldn't afford to buy my own
meanwhile one of my friends recently offered to make me a tallit katan completely unprompted when i said i hadn't been able find one in my size
meanwhile when i went to the one year memorial for october 7th, only a month or two into studying, the ritual assistant from my shul said she was so glad i came because "you're already one of us"
meanwhile every jew who knows i'm a ger or who knew me while i was still studying has invariably welcomed me into the tribe with open arms, because the idea that that makes me any less jewish just isn't there. not even remotely
i asked my rabbi in september 2023, about three months into my conversion, if it would be okay to start wearing a kippah -- i had one from a bat mitzvah and wanted to wear it. he said yes and i've worn one ever since.
two of my best friends bought me a tallit after i went to the mikveh. one of them gave it to me at hebrew school so i wore it for t'filah that morning and got to show the kids what a tallit is and how it's used -- my friends were already enabling me to fulfill the mitzvah of tzitzit, but that day i got another mitzvah out of it by teaching it to the kids.
my best friend and i have been invited to the same friends' house for dinner the past two rosh hashanahs; they've shown us pictures of their grandson.
i sign up for aliyot as often as i can because the mi shebeirach for aliyah has become kind of crucial to my mental health and there's nothing more meaningful to me than to stand in front of the congregation and affirm that g-d gave us, all of us, the torah.
i've said this before but there was a fellow ger on my beit din, and having "avraham v'sarah" written twice on my conversion certificate is so special to me -- sometimes i think of gerim as a sort of tribe, in that we're all siblings, b'nei avraham v'sarah.
i'm secure in my jewish identity thanks to my community. racists are mad because they can't do shit about the fact that my people love and embrace me.
