Welcoming Converts

A friend of mine is converting to Judaism under Reform auspices. Leaving aside my feelings about the Reform movement, I have become good friends with this person and feel that I welcomed her into the Jewish community here. I invited her to our house for religious celebrations, brought her along with me to events in the community (or, rather, got her to come to things that I had to run at my old job), etc. It wasn't until after she left the state that I found out what a difference I'd made in her Jewish experience here in this city. Apparently, she did not feel that she had much of a place in our community (strange, neither do I!), and that my welcoming her made her feel that she belonged somewhere. Unfortunately, she has moved to an area where there is only a small Temple for her to go to, a place that isn't very welcoming at all, and her family isn't all too supportive of her decision to convert.

Today she asked me if I would do her a favor. She knew of another Reform convert in my city and wants me to talk to her and invite this other convert in like I invited her in. I said I would be happy to be online friends with her, and we'd see where it went from there.

I have to say I am touched that she asked me to do this favor for her. I am not under the impression that you should shun converts until they've accepted the yoke of all the commandments and then you can pretend like their old life never happened. I like to welcome people in - often, I feel a sort of camaraderie with them, as I didn't grow up knowing many Jewish people and many times feel out of place in communities wherever I go. I find that welcoming people who feel out of place helps me to form my own little community, I guess.

I will have to write more about welcoming converts, but it's 3:30am right now so I will leave that to another day.

Awkward!

There is this outdoors/camping Jewish young professionals group in this city. Apparently there are chapters all over the country. Awesome, right? I love camping, I love Jews, I want to meet more Jews my age. I haven't been able to go to any events because they are all when I am working, but finally they were having a "picnic and/or planning meeting" today, so I decided to go. I RSVPed, asked how many people were going, and my response was "OK we'll see you there," totally ignoring my question. I begin to get a little worried.

At the last minute it was moved to a restaurant because of the weather. Now, today was beautiful. Sunny and 80s. However the ground was still a little soggy from yesterday's rain so I was like OK. I wanted to back out at this point, but as an event coordinator I know how shitty that is, so I was determined to keep my commitment.

I had a bad feeling because they keep planning these picnic/planning meetings and so it sounds like nobody goes. But someone said "maybe they're successful but nobody wants to do anything else." I decided to give it a chance - maybe this picnic thing was a really successful event but nobody was free to do the other things.

So I got up early specifically to go to this thing. Well, not early, but let's say I set an alarm so that I would wake up in time. And I went.

The guy who met me there was in his 30s, at least, and the only other person there was a woman who must have been in her late 40s, or 50s - a retired teacher (who kept ranting about how great it was that she "got out." yikes). And she was really awkward and strange. And the whole thing was weird, but I didn't want to leave and be rude. I showed up right when he was telling her that the average age of the people who participated were in their mid-30s. And she paused and then said, "Well, are there any people older than that? Because I am definitely older!"

And then about 20min into the meal, after I'd ordered already, this random guy shows up who looks like he's stepped straight out of the 80s. Let me paint a picture for you: probably in his 40s, wearing big, tinted aviator glasses, bad teeth, heavyset with a tight, plaid button-down shirt and his greasy hair parted severely to the right. You know what I'm talking about. The first thing he says to me is, "Is that a veggie burger? It looks like a veggie burger. Have you ever heard of this company called bah-ka [Boca] burger? They make a veggie burger that almost tastes like real meat. Man, I am telling you, if I had to live off of things like that I would just kill myself." He talks about how the Jewish singles scene is so difficult for people in their 40s and 50s. "And when I'm in my 60s I can't imagine how hard it will be!" Then he takes out this huge stack of folded loose-leaf papers with pictures and pieces of paper taped on (with a smattering of highlighter marks) and proceeds to read aloud the events that are going on in the city today. He eats a pickle, puts a dollar on the table, says, "Well, it seems as though I am a one-band show here," and leaves. WTF?

The retired teacher says, "That guy comes to everything. He just wants someone to go with him to one of these things. If one of us had told him we'd go with him to one of those events, he would have been a happy man. I've met him at other adult singles programs and he really just takes over."

Then another man shows up, also probably in his 50s, and sits in the seat the 80s guy just left. He actually seems like an interesting and nice man and we have a nice talk about whatever.

Let me just say that the whole experience was so fucking awkward that I am definitely never going back to participate in any of those events. I was hoping to find a group of fun, hippie-ish campy Jews who liked to go to the local rock gym and who wanted to plan a canoe trip for the summer. What ever.