Monday, April 14, 2008

Prologue-- Why Liliana is integrating into the Jewish community.



So I went over somewhat superficially a little background on Judaism. I am not sure what your impression was from reading this but if I made things sound simple and easy they certainly have not been :(
You might be wondering why I decided to convert in the first place and enter into this new world and stretch not only my own boundaries but that of others as well...



In the picture: That's Adam. I fell for him about 5 years ago and we started dating a little over a year and a half ago. He's very Jewish and his family is too. We didn't start dating 5 years ago because I was not Jewish. Making the decision to convert took almost a year of both learning about Judaism and trying to understand why it was so important for Adam to marry someone who was Jewish. It was pretty crazy. Adam was stressed and confused, his family was very angry with him for dating a non-Jew which I found very difficult to understand especially having not ever felt like part of a community and certainly not tied to a community in any way. So I decided it would be best, because I love Adam and we both wanted to be together, for me to convert. For myself, it wasn't such a big change. Of course some religious people think I'm completely confused and lost but my whole faith basis just happens to be pretty consistent with almost any religion so switching from Catholicism to Judaism was just a matter of expressing my faith in a different way. And of course, in a way which I thought was good. But conversion is a long and tedious process. While you learn a lot it is time consuming and kind of uncomfortable since it feels like you are being judged. But aside from that, it has been an amazing experience becoming a part of this community. I'll try to sum it the process and story in the next few posts...

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