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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We've had three people in our family convert. Two "converted too far" and wanted to make their spouses be more religious than they wanted to be, and those two ended in divorce.

The one who did not do that went to conversion classes (for a year? 18 months?) weekly, and is not kosher, but does light candles and have challah on Friday nights, and the older kid goes to Hebrew School once a week. They don't go to temple ([b]right now it's not safe[/b], but when it was they didn't go regularly either - maybe twice a year). [/quote]

Where do they live where it's not safe to go to shul?[/quote]

A major city in the country where the temple is under construction so all classes and services have been moved to, ironically, a nearby church, which doesn't have the same level of security as the temple's property. [/quote]

So it's not too unsafe, but you feel unsafe. [/quote]

It might indeed be unsafe, it’s hard to say for sure. My synagogue here in D.C. has full-time police protection, armed guards in addition to the police, and spent huge amounts of money after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting to redo the entryway to install permanent security doors and metal detectors, and after Oct. 7, that’s basically the only door they let you use to enter. And they don’t have a sign or a flag or anything out front, either. Is all that necessary? I’d like to hope it’s not, but apparently someone thought it was, so a place without that could definitely be unsafe. [/quote]

Do you have kids? So you send them to school? Schools aren't sad either. [/quote]

I send my kids both to school and to Hebrew school (and I'm at the synagogue usually two or three times a week). I don't think the synagogue is unsafe, but it's also got a somewhat unfortunate amount of heavy protection, as I detailed above. I do think they're probably safer in their DCPS schools than we are in the synagogue, but again, I feel pretty safe in both locations.[/quote]

My dcs go to public school but dd is a counselor at a Jewish school. I will say that I have safety concerns at both: public I feel is a higher risk bc there is less security and it is more open, but I feel the Jewish school is more of a target, so the higher level of security may not matter if someone has more motivation to attack. I basically do not feel good about either, but live with the risk. I absolutely understand people not feeling safe about going to synagogue too. People are allowed to feel fear and act however they feel comfortable. It's not a far-fetched feeling with no basis in reality given past events and current atmosphere.[/quote]

To unite this chain of thought with OP's post about conversion: I was in a study group recently where the rabbi told us that the only real guide to conversion in the Talmud is that rabbis should ask three questions. Those questions are (1) will you keep Shabbat? (2) will you keep kosher? (3) you do understand that everyone else wants to kill us, right?

I wonder how Jews by choice grapple with the very real and justified need for this kind of security measure, and with the fact that it's not at all unreasonable to feel uncomfortable going to shul in a building that lacks them. It's a lot to try to take on! It's a lot for those of us who were born into Judaism, too, but we didn't really have a choice about it, and most of us weren't aware of the "everyone wants to kill us" part until years later.[/quote]

I am a convert. I think I was always aware of that part because I am not from the US, and knew many people who suffered under Nazis growing up, including my own grandparents. I was aware of it more than my Jewish American dh in a way, partly because of what the article addresses about a Golden Age in the US. But it was still very important for me to be Jewish, partly because I feel like it was my duty to continue on with traditions and passing them on after so many uninterrupted generations, and partly because since my dh and dcs are Jewish, I want to be on that same boat with them, with everything that comes with including antisemitism.[/quote]

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