Judaism does not look for converts. Jewish teaching holds that the covenant made at Sinai binds Israel, the Jewish people, to a particular set of obligations, and that non-Jews are not required to take those obligations on.
The reason is not indifference to outsiders. Rabbinic teaching holds that righteous Gentiles have a share in the world to come by keeping the seven Noahide laws (sheva mitzvot b'nei Noach), so Judaism is not presented as the only path to God.
Because being saved is not held to depend on being Jewish, there is no religious urgency to recruit. Jews describe their own task instead as staying Jewish and living the covenant visibly, as a witness to the Gentile world.
The phrase "a light to the nations" (Isaiah 42:6) is regularly quoted for this. Most Jews read it as a call to model a way of living rather than as a licence to persuade others to join.
History reinforced the reluctance. Under Christian and Muslim rule conversion to Judaism was for long periods a capital offence for both parties, and communities learned to keep the door narrow.
The reluctance became a formal procedure. A person who approaches a rabbi about conversion is traditionally turned away three times, and only a candidate who keeps returning is taken on.
Definition
Giyyur is the Hebrew word for conversion to Judaism.
It describes entry into a people as well as a change of belief.
The person who completes it is a ger, feminine giyoret.
Jewish law treats it as entry into the covenant rather than a change of opinion.
Common Mistake
Judaism's reluctance to convert people is often mistaken for hostility to outsiders.
Rabbis teach that the discouragement tests seriousness, not worth.
Non-Jews are not held to need conversion in order to be righteous.
Communities are obliged to welcome the candidate who persists.
The course of study
Conversion is built around learning. Candidates study Torah, halakhah (Jewish law) and Hebrew, usually for a year or more, so that the obligations they take on are ones they already understand.
The study is practical as well as textual. Candidates are expected to keep Shabbat, observe kashrut (the dietary laws) and pray the daily services well before any ceremony takes place.
Orthodox programmes are the most demanding of the movements. They commonly require a candidate to move within walking distance of a synagogue and to live inside a community for two or three years.
Reform and Liberal programmes are shorter and more flexible, often a structured course of about a year. The emphasis falls on Jewish knowledge, ethical commitment and identification with the Jewish people.
The ritual acts come at the end of the process. Male converts undergo b'rit milah (circumcision) or, if already circumcised, hatafat dam b'rit, a symbolic drawing of blood, and converts immerse in a mikveh (ritual bath).
Orthodox and Masorti practice requires both acts, while Reform and Liberal communities vary in how far they insist on them. Converts often describe the immersion as the moment the change becomes real.
The convert emerges with a Hebrew name. It is usually formed as ben Avraham or bat Avraham, son or daughter of Abraham, since Abraham is counted as the first person to enter the covenant from outside it.
Definition
Mikveh names a pool of naturally gathered water used for ritual immersion.
Immersion in it completes a convert's change of status.
Judges from the Beth Din are present as witnesses.
The same pool serves other purposes in Jewish life.
The Beth Din
Conversion is not in the gift of an individual rabbi. It is authorized by a Beth Din (house of judgement), a rabbinic court of three, which alone can accept a candidate into the Jewish people.
The court's job is to establish that the acceptance is informed and freely given. It examines the candidate on belief, on practice and on kabbalat ol mitzvot, the acceptance of the yoke of the commandments.
Converts often describe this examination as the most exposed moment of the process. Years of private study are tested in one conversation by three people the candidate may barely know.
Orthodox courts weigh likely future observance heavily. A candidate whose practice the judges expect to lapse may be delayed or refused, since the court holds itself responsible for what it certifies.
The non-Orthodox movements run courts of their own. Reform, Liberal and Masorti battei din keep the same three-judge shape and set different thresholds of observance.
The decision is recorded in a shtar giyyur, a certificate of conversion. The convert keeps it, and it becomes the document by which their status is checked years later.
Definition
Beth Din names a rabbinic court of three judges.
The name means house of judgement, and the plural is battei din.
Only such a court can admit a convert into the Jewish people.
Each movement operates its own courts.
Standing of the convert
In Jewish law the convert is a Jew without qualification. Rabbinic sources state that a convert is as much a Jew as a person born to a Jewish mother.
The Torah backs this with repeated commands about the ger, the stranger. "You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 10:19) is read as binding on the community's treatment of converts.
Rabbinic law extends the protection into speech. Ona'at devarim, wronging by words, forbids reminding a convert of their former life or of their non-Jewish parents.
Ruth is the tradition's model convert. Her words "your people shall be my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16) are read at Shavuot and quoted at conversion ceremonies.
A few differences of lineage remain in Orthodox practice. A convert may not marry a kohen, a man of priestly descent, and roles that depend on descent are not open to them.
Converts commonly report that lived acceptance takes longer than legal acceptance. The gap between the rule and the experience is a recurring subject in Jewish writing about conversion.
Definition
Ger tzedek means a righteous convert, a full member of the Jewish people.
The term marks them off from the biblical ger toshav, a resident non-Jew.
Jewish law counts a ger tzedek as a Jew for every religious purpose.
Children born to a giyoret after her conversion are Jewish by birth.
Example
Naomi tells her widowed Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth three times to go home.
Ruth refuses, and says her people and their God will now be hers.
Rabbis read Naomi's three attempts as the pattern for discouraging a candidate.
Ruth's persistence is read as what a genuine convert looks like.
The book ends by making her the great-grandmother of King David.
Conversion across the movements
The movements agree on the shape of the process and differ on the threshold. All require study and a court, and they part company over what level of observance a candidate must accept.
Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox courts require acceptance of all the mitzvot, ritual and ethical alike. A court that doubts the acceptance is genuine will not proceed.
Masorti and Conservative courts require the same ritual acts and expect halakhic observance. They differ from Orthodoxy in holding that halakhah develops over time.
Reform and Liberal courts hold the ethical mitzvot binding and the ritual ones open to modification. They ask a candidate for Jewish knowledge, identification with the Jewish people and ethical commitment.
Reform in North America and Britain also recognizes patrilineal descent, counting a child of a Jewish father raised as a Jew without conversion. Orthodox and Conservative authorities reject that position.
The consequence is that conversions are not universally recognized. A person converted by a Reform court is a Jew to Reform and Liberal communities and is asked to convert again by an Orthodox one.
Note
The movements do not accept each other's conversions equally.
Orthodox courts accept only conversions performed under Orthodox authority.
Reform and Liberal communities accept conversions from across the movements.
The disagreement is about halakhic authority rather than about the converts themselves.
Israel's laws of status
In the State of Israel the question becomes legal as well as religious. Matters of personal status for Jews, including birth, adoption, conversion, marriage and divorce, are administered by the state's Orthodox rabbinate.
Only conversions performed under Orthodox authority are accepted by the rabbinate for those purposes. A Reform convert may be fully Jewish in their home community and not on the rabbinate's register.
There is no civil marriage for Jews inside Israel. A couple the rabbinate will not marry, including many converts, marry abroad, and the state then records the foreign marriage.
The Law of Return works on a wider definition than the rabbinate does. It grants citizenship to anyone with a Jewish grandparent and to converts of recognized movements, so a person can be Israeli under one rule and unmarriageable under another.
Israel's Supreme Court has narrowed the gap in stages. Its rulings have required the state to register non-Orthodox conversions for citizenship purposes, while religious status has stayed with the rabbinate.
Jews outside Israel meet these rules at a distance, and converts meet them directly. For many people the arrangement is the sharpest form of the question of who decides who is a Jew.
Active recall
Why does Judaism not seek converts, and what task do Jews describe instead?
What is a candidate expected to be doing before the conversion ceremonies take place?
Who sits on a Beth Din, and what does it have to establish?
What does ona'at devarim forbid in relation to a convert?
Why might a Reform conversion be accepted in London and not by Israel's rabbinate?