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Showing posts from June, 2014

How I Stand With Ruth - A Shavuot Sermon

I heard the term “fake Jew” for the first time at a small Shabbos dinner gathering many years ago.  It was actually a celebratory pot-luck for a friend that had just had her Beit Din and had successfully converted to Judaism.  She had an Israeli boyfriend and had planned to move to Israel with him, but her conversion had been a personal matter that predated this relationship.  One of the invitees in a quite varied group was an older lady, a born Jew of Sephardic heritage.  She had at one point after the discussion of making Aliya asked my friend about her own parentage.  When my friend responded and then commented that she has just converted, the guest nodded and quipped, “Oh, so you are one of those fake Jews.” This wasn’t the last time that I have heard this term or some crass variation used.  Sometimes those commenting simply are repeating something that they have unfortunately learned and on which they have never been challenged, others have driven the words into others’ f