UNITED STATES
St. Louis Jewish Light
Uriel Heilman
There’s some tantalizingly interesting material in the final report of a committee charged with reviewing the way the Rabbinical Council of America, the country’s main Orthodox rabbinical association, deals with conversion.
Much comes from a survey of 439 Orthodox converts that provides the first-ever statistics about American Orthodox converts. Some comes from a survey of 107 rabbis who sponsor Orthodox conversions. A few other interesting nuggets are buried in the report itself.
Here are 10 I found interesting:
Of the RCA’s Orthodox converts:
78 percent are women
72 percent are ages 20-39
45 percent have Jewish ancestry
80 percent cite “spiritual-intellectual search” as their reason for converting
* About 85 percent of converts said the process of immersing naked in a mikvah ritual bath in the presence of three rabbinic witnesses was handled with sufficient modesty.
* About 57 percent said the experience was “filled with holiness and excitement that left little room for anything else,” 29 percent said it felt like a sanctified moment but a little uncomfortable, 12 percent said it was just awkward and uncomfortable and 2 percent said they resented it.
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