I am Reform Jew that opposes Israeli violence towards Palestinians. There are lots of us.

I think your experience will vary widely between different rabbis and congregations, but I would not expect you to be directly questioned on your views regarding Israel during the conversion process. I would expect that almost any decent reform congregation would focus your conversion on spirituality and community, not political viewpoints.
posted by gnutron at 11:40 AM on May 9, 2022 [14 favorites]

I'm not sure about conversion, but if you want to be part of the Jewish community, you're going to have to really try to understand why some American jews (just assuming you're in the US) have visceral ties to Israel as a Jewish state, based on their Holocaust experiences.
posted by haptic_avenger at 11:42 AM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]

If you choose your synagogue carefully you shouldn't have any problem. Right wing Israelis have attempted to make allegiance to their views a litmus test of the Jewish faith. Luckily they have not succeeded. There are plenty of Jews, inside and outside Israel, who do not support these policies.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 11:51 AM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]

I've been a confirmed atheist, but lately that's changed for whatever reason

One of the nicer things about Judaism is that you don't really need to un-become an atheist if that is still a part of your core identity. I agree with both of the above statements: this will depend on the congregation a little (i.e. you may have one that donates/contributes to Israel and you'd have to see how you felt about that) and also you'll probably need to at least understand the support for Israel even if you do not share it. But no, technically you can convert without having to espouse a pro-Israeli stance in general, but in specific it depends on the congregation since there's not really a "central church" where the rules are made.

My experience has been that younger Jews are more likely to be pro-Palestine and in opposition to Israeli policies. I am a born Jew and did not convert.
posted by jessamyn at 11:54 AM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]

Of course. Many of the pro-Palestinian movements are being driven by Jewish people. There are plenty of Israelis who don’t agree with what’s happening. I think this is touchy because so often people ARE anti-Semitic when they express support for Palestinians, but that doesn’t have to be the case. I think nearly everyone at my shul is against what’s currently happening, so please know that you won’t be alone among Jewish people saying “this is wrong.” You may learn some more nuanced ways of discussing it, but that’s a good thing. Judaism is not the Israeli state. I have a much more nuanced feeling about how I want things to be, and the importance of not falling too far in one direction or the other. The best thing you can do is talk to the people in the communities you are actually considering. Approach with openness and be ready for back and forth because we are people who have many opinions and like to get into the nitty gritty details of things. If you can do that, I think you would probably be fine.

Also, I think you may be thinking that this is more of a central issue in Jewish life than it is. Like. This is not something that comes up in conversation with my Jewish friends very often. We aren’t Israeli. We have opinions, but we also have opinions about other geopolitical things. I am much more likely to have a conversation with someone who isn’t Jewish about it because they’re much more likely to think I ought to have an opinion or that they’re ready for some kind of fight or something.
posted by Bottlecap at 11:56 AM on May 9, 2022 [11 favorites]

Bottlecap said it perfectly. I’m not Jewish and I don’t know how relevant what I have to say is but I just thought I’d mention that I’ve been studying Hebrew for a while now. Over the years, I’ve been asked if I support Israel over Palestine and/or if I’m a Zionist (Fwiw, I’m based in the UK). Interestingly, none of the people who have ever asked me this have been remotely connected to Israel/Palestine/Judaism.

People will always have opinions – you should do what you want to do. Just have a script ready if you come across people who feel the need to question you. It’s a lot easier that way. I wish you all the best on your spiritual journey.
posted by bigyellowtaxi at 12:37 PM on May 9, 2022

I am a Jew-by-Choice, I am absolutely against the current policies in both Israel and the occupied territories, and I don't feel a particularly strong connection to Israel, though I understand why others do. I'm not a Zionist (in the sense that I don't believe that any people, anywhere, have an innate claim to a land based on ethnicity); I defend the existence of Israel because it's now the home of millions of Israelis (Jewish and non-Jewish), and I advocate against settlements and the occupation because of the way that it hurts the millions of Palestinians in the occupied territories. I wish that Israel were a place of refuge for the world's persecuted peoples, including Jews, but it's not really that (not even all Jews, especially Jews of colour, are granted the right of aliyah). But is also won't be what it wishes to be so long as it continues to illegally occupy territory and allow settlements to chip away at the Palestinian territories - also, it will need to find a way to be a "Jewish state" without disenfranchising its non-Jewish citizens (I think there are good models, like how the Anglican church works in the UK, but not many Jews or Israelis seem familiar with this).

I converted through the Reform movement in Canada, which on many issues (like intermarriage) can be more small-c conservative than the Reform movement in the US. My sponsoring rabbi was fully aware of how I feel, as I believe the Beit Din was as well, though I don't recall the questions specifically. (I can remember the questions about my belief in G-d/a G-d more strongly - I'm agnostic/pantheist leaning, like Spinoza, which wasn't a problem, unlike in the 17th century.*)

Your congregation will affect your experience. I happen to belong to a congregation headed by a rabbi who I would describe as a "critical-Zionist" - someone who believes whole-heartedly in the mission of a Jewish state, but also wants that state to live up to the Jewish principles of social justice for all. I don't how I would feel being in a congregation that was more Israel-is-always-right-even-when-its-wrong. But the Reform movement in general seems to be much more on the critical-Zionist side of the issues.

One thing I have done is get to know some of the great organizations working for peace and justice in Israel-Palestine, especially T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. In the most recent conflict, I was recommending that people who wanted to learn more about the issues in general look to organizations like T'ruah because they are on the side of people of both sides.

* Note: while born-Jews can be atheist without question of their identity, if you convert through a theist movement like Reform or Conservative, you may not be allowed to convert as a convinced atheist. If you converted through Humanist Judaism, it might be an issue. I don't know where the Reconstructionist movement stands on theism these days.

Also, I think you may be thinking that this is more of a central issue in Jewish life than it is. Like. This is not something that comes up in conversation with my Jewish friends very often. We aren’t Israeli.

It's still pretty central if you spend time in organized-Jewish spaces, like synagogues, Jewish organizations or community centres. My synagogue does a prayer for Israel every week, as well as a prayer for Canada (where we are), and we have an Israel-engagement committee with Israel centered events. And you're going to hear about what's happening, always, and you're going to encounter different reactions.

In the wider (and less liberal) Jewish community, your opinion of the current Israeli government can become a kind of litmus test. Our local Jewish community centre has a policy of banning speakers if they have ever supported BDS or if they spoken at an event that had other speakers who supported BDS.

But there are also other organizations, like T'ruah and Heart-to-Heart who are trying to forge a different path.
posted by jb at 12:38 PM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]

Even the Israeli Jews I know are in support of Palestine and regularly object to their country’s policies and actions in whatever way they can. You’ll be fine. Also, you don’t need to not be an atheist to be Jewish, although that can get fuzzy among converts who tend to be more intense in general.
posted by Mizu at 12:39 PM on May 9, 2022

Jews are not necessarily Israelis, and Israelis are not necessarily Jews. More than a quarter of Israel's population is not Jewish, for example. Being Jewish, especially religiously as opposed to ethnically, has nothing to do with Israel. You can be spiritually Jewish and never have any connection at all to Israel.

One of the examples in the IHRA's definition of anti-semitism is "Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.", and whilst I am in no way saying that's what you're doing, it is important to remember that the actions of the Israeli government in no way represent the beliefs or intentions of every Jew any more than the actions of the British government represent the beliefs or intentions of every Anglican or Protestant Christian.

So when you say "I'm wondering if, on a religious level, this makes me completely unsuitable as a conversion candidate" I can tell you categorically that your beliefs and opinions on the Palestinian/Israeli issue are completely irrelevant to your desire to convert, in the same way that your opinion on gun ownership would be completely irrelevant to a desire to convert to Christianity.
posted by underclocked at 12:42 PM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]

I think you'll be fine and/but that you should pick a congregation and rabbi who share your perspective and values about this.

I will also echo some of what haptic_avenger said, mostly just a request to be mindful that your own relationship to anti-semitism, the Holocaust, and by extension potentially to some of the nuances of...Israel and all that entails, will not the same as Jews (American or otherwise*) with family memories of the holocaust. I am pro-Palestine but sometimes I have a hard time with the amount of space that Jews without that familial memory/history take up in these conversations.

*Part of my Holocaust-surviving family is not from the US, and I notice that people sometimes don't realize that there are Jews from countries with tiny Jewish populations, which in and of itself makes their relationship to Israel a bit different from US Jews who have access to ~gestures at major East Coast US cities~
posted by needs more cowbell at 12:48 PM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]

In my experience being Jewish—which, yes, includes understanding the Holocaust on a bone-deep level, which is going to take more work for you—allows me to be more pro-Palestine. Because of being a Jew (with survivor family) I understand where the desire for a homeland comes from, and even the self-righteous belief that your suffering entitles you to one; I'm not in danger of ignoring or minimizing that need. But I also understand, again because of being a Jew, that some things are simply not defensible.

I don't know how this is going to play out in the conversion process. But I think it should be achievable to find a congregation that is more interested in a commitment to social justice (an important Jewish value since forever) than a commitment to the state of Israel (an important value to some Jews under some circumstances since 1948). My understanding of the conversion process is that while the letter of Jewish law is relevant, it takes a greater interest in the spirit.
posted by babelfish at 1:05 PM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]

So that I can understand better: What prompted this question? In particular this:

But is this view acceptable to hold before one converts, and can one get through the conversion process without compromising on this? Do people tend to grill you about your views on the I/P conflict, like during conversion classes or the beit din, or is it not necessarily a big deal? Does it mostly depend on the congregation?

What about Judaism, and in particular what you've learned so far of the conversion process, makes you think you might be subject to questions like this during a beit din? There are a lot of resources out there that describe the kinds of questions you're likely to face; here's a good example. Your views on the government of the modern state of Israel and its policies are very unlikely to come up. Should Israel come up in any form, you would simply answer forthrightly.

But the questions won't come as a surprise to you, not only because you'll likely be told the questions in advance, but because you'll bring up your feelings—on Israel and many other topics—with your rabbi the first time you meet them. If for some reason the rabbi has a problem with anything you say, then you would simply look for another one who is more sympatico. As the link above says, the kind of beit din you would go before would not be a test of your knowledge or ideology. It would be a test of your sincerity.

As that link also says, the beit din is the final step in a very long process. This is spot-on: "They're not looking to keep you out, they're looking to invite you in. But it's a process, and even though you can't 'fail,' you do have to do it to prove that your motives are genuine." This squares exactly with the experience my late wife went through many years ago. No rabbi would let you get all the way to the step of going before a beit din if they were not certain you were ready to convert and would be welcomed in.

As for conversion classes, you teachers are there to help you learn, though you will also do learning on your own and in other settings (such as attending services). They aren't there to vet your political ideology.

Note that OP did not ask "what might life be like for a Jew such as me, should I convert"? They only asked whether their views would be an obstacle to conversion. They would not be.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 1:15 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]

I'm an American Jew with Israeli Jewish friends(who live in Israel). People have posted such good answers but I just want to personally echo two ideas. First, that not every Israeli Jew, even living in Israel, supports the government's stance/actions on Palestine. I had heard that, and saw it personally when I visited.

And secondly yes, the idea that "all Jews are accountable for the Israeli government's actions" is in fact antisemetic. As an American I can easily equate the ridiculousness of this position when I consider if I should be held accountable for the actions of President Trump and his ilk, when I didn't vote for him/them, and actively work against them in my daily actions.
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:51 PM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]

My understanding of the conversion process is that while the letter of Jewish law is relevant, it takes a greater interest in the spirit.

This will differ a lot by movement as well. Given that the Reform movement is officially a-halachic (does not require members to follow the official laws as laid down in the Torah and interpreted in the Talmud and later legal texts, though they can if they like), the spirit will predominate. But if you convert through a more halachically oriented movement (e.g., Orthodox Judaism), there will be a lot more emphasis on the letter of the law (because they believe that doing the right things leads to the right spirit). As I mentioned, my Beit Din asked me about my believe in g-d, but (being Reform) did not ask if I meant to keep a kosher household, let alone whether I intended to follow the laws of nidah (family purity). This is mostly relevant for people who converted with very Orthodox rabbis, particularly in Israel; the validity of their conversions have been threatened if they stop practicing strictly Orthodox Judaism (example). People who convert with liberal movements won't be threatened with having their conversions revoked and are recognized as Jews by the state of Israel, but may not be recognized as Jews by the Orthodox rabbinate within Israel (thus affecting their ability to have a Jewish wedding in Israel, unless that's changed recently).

If you convert through a liberal movement (Reform, Conservative, the Reconstructive movement, Liberal Judaism (in the UK), etc.), this should not be an issue.

Getting back to the original question: is being against the current Israeli government's actions in the occupied territories be a barrier to conversion? No, not with the right rabbi, and definitely not in the Reform movement (the only one I have direct experience with); in many liberal synagogues, it would put you right with the mainstream.

Being fully anti-Zionist/anti-Israel (believing that Israel should not exist and that Palestine should go from "the river to the sea") would be a barrier, but that's obviously an extreme position that I doubt the poster holds. Less extremely, being pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) could be an issue in the conversion experience, even if many Jews-by-birth actively support it. Speaking as a convert, sometimes we are held to stricter standards, even in the liberal communities.

I'm aware of Reconstructionist Judaism, which seems way more liberal about this stuff, but there aren't any congregations near me.

Reconstructionist Judaism is a relatively small movement; even in a large city with dozens of synagogues, we only have one Reconstructionist one, and I believe the rabbi there may have been ordained in the Reform movement. That said, the two movements have grown very close together in the last few decades; having attended services at local Reform synagogues and at the Reconstructionist synagogue, I would be hard-pressed to tell you the difference, whereas 40 years ago, they may have been quite different. Even a liberal Conservative synagogue isn't so different now, except that the service may be a bit longer, (A queer and socially liberal friend of mine joined a liberal Conservative synagogue after moving to a smaller city where there was no Reform shul, and was perfectly happy).

If you are looking for a community local to you, I would suggest being open to any liberal synagogue, whether Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, or unaffiliated synagogues which have a liberal/egalitarian bent. (There is a local synagogue that bills itself as "Egalitarian Traditional", meaning they don't divide things by sex/gender, and their practice and social outlook is also very similar to our Reconstructionist community.)
posted by jb at 2:28 PM on May 9, 2022

My dad is Jewish by birth. When I visited Israel in 1999, all of my family members where against the Israeli government's policy towards Palestinians.
posted by signal at 3:12 PM on May 9, 2022

I am an anti-Zionist Jew.

If you oppose the oppression of Palestinians I suggest researching which local synagogues share this value and pursuing your conversion process through that channel.
posted by latkes at 3:20 PM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]

Certainly. I know several people who have converted and none of them have been asked about their views on politics by the beis din. Those rabbis were all left-leaning. Most of the congregations I have been in are mixed - for example, my current shul hosts events with panelists who are Palestinian and Israeli activists working together. Having explicitly anti-Zionist views is fairly common for young liberal Jews. You definitely wouldn't be alone.

However, communities vary, and many right-leaning congregations are very supportive of Israel, and you may not have a choice about who is on your beis din, and you don't know what questions they will ask you.

Further, if you wish to become Jewish, it's important to understand the history and see where other people's views come from. This is not a simple topic and it's deeply entwined with religious, ethnic, and cultural history. If you cannot understand why the Israeli government feels threatened by Palestine, you're not understanding a thousand years of Jewish history. You'd be joining a culture, not just a religion, and the context is important. Be willing to see all the sides and back your views up on religious, historical, cultural, and political terms. And remember that dissent and learning are core Jewish values!
posted by epanalepsis at 3:48 PM on May 9, 2022 [3 favorites]

I wonder if the deal breaker is on your end? Would you feel comfortable being part of a religion that has members that actively with a nation-state oppress others? How do you want to engage with years of old knots, confusion, emotion and harm? What would you like your role as a convert to be?
I am from a survivors family (who were denied when they tried to first go to Israel post WWII) - there are as many feelings and opinions about Palenstine as there are Jews. Yours would be welcome but you would need to make alliances.
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 4:08 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

I can't really go beyond what everyone has said here, but I want to add: there are many who claim support of the BDS (Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions) movement, which is a movement to try to sanction Israel for its actions, makes you anti-semitic. In Florida, this has mostly come from right-wing folks who tend to be Christian, and from politicians who are afraid of angering Florida's Jewish voters (a fairly important bloc). These people couldn't be more wrong. Opposing a _nation's_ policies on a particular topic in no way makes you an opponent of the _residents_ of that nation, nor of their religious and/or ethnic heritage.
posted by TimHare at 11:12 AM on May 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

Just don't hang out with (or date) super Zionist Jews. I'm Jewish and support a binational state — not a popular view among Jews. But to some degree the old saying is true — get 4 Jews together and you'll have 5 opinions. I'm just really super careful about with whom I speak about Israel and Palestine. If they're heavy on the social justice side, there's a good chance they'll be sympathetic to my views, and I might broach the subject.

From my experience, Israel/Palestine has long been a point of discontinuity among Jews — where otherwise liberal Jews will have some very illiberal views on Israel/Palestine. However, like so many things in US political culture, this is becoming more polarizing — Republican Jews are going to be really anti-Palestinian, while liberal Jews are ... starting to be a bit more skeptical about the idea of a religious ethnostate.

All of that aside, I think the Jewish religion and identity is almost entirely separate from Israel as a country. For much of our history, Israel wasn't even a political entity at all. I see myself as a diaspora Jew and a citizen of New York City. Israel is very much someone else's country.
posted by panama joe at 2:04 PM on May 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

You can absolutely become jewish while supporting Palestinians but the process may be a little more thorny than it would be if you had different views.

As you can tell here, there's an extreme variety of opinions about this, and an equally wide variety of meta-views about how important or central it is to being jewish. I will point out that, paradoxically, support of the Israeli government and military is often more compulsory in American Jewish communities than it is in Israeli ones. That does not at all mean you have to support it to be Jewish, though, and there are more and more vocal nonzionist jews in jewish spaces day by day.

I didn't convert to judaism. I was born into it. I am nonzionist or antizionist, depending on the day and who's asking, and am friends with a lot of people who converted. While it shouldn't be the case, gerim (converts) may have their views more litmus-tested. It shouldn't happen, but it does. I remember hearing about a reform rabbi getting reprimanded for trying to prevent an antizionist with sincere interest in becoming jewish from converting; I believe the person in question ended up converting with a different reform rabbi and it went well.

I have heard of people being asked about Israel in the conversion process, not looking for a particular answer but checking to make sure the issue's one you've thought about--which clearly you have! A good start, for sure. One thing I've seen suggested is to think about the relationships between three concepts: am yisrael (the people israel, meaning jews everywhere); eretz yisrael (the land and its history, antiquity through the present); and medinat yisrael (the state of israel founded in 1948).

Even if it doesn't end up being where you land eventually or where you pursue your conversion, I co-sign latkes' recommendation to look into nonzionist jewish spaces in your city or online. Some synagogues that come to mind are Hinenu Baltimore, Mishkan Chicago, Kadima in Seattle, Kehilla in the SF Bay Area, Tchiyah in Detroit, and Kol Tzedek in Philadelphia. One side benefit is that many of these groups have kept a large part of their programming online due to the pandemic, so you can check them out on zoom even if you're not in their region.
posted by mismatched at 10:01 AM on May 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

Being part of a Jewish community will likely mean that issues around Israel/Palestine come up for you more frequently and in a more personal/intense way than they otherwise would, from both the inside and the outside of the community.

But there is no denomination of Judaism that I am aware of that has a political litmus test for conversion. Judaism was developing its conversion practices for well over a thousand years before a modern state became even a hint of an idea. What is more, from the beginning until now, there has been both secular-rooted and religiously-rooted Zionism and anti-Zionism. There are secular Jewish communities with a strong pro-Zionist consensus, and there are religious communities (including ultra-orthodox ones) with a strong anti-Zionism consensus. And vice versa.

(And of course, once you dig in a little bit, what "Zionism" even means to different people and communities is very variable).
posted by Salamandrous at 12:17 PM on May 14, 2022

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