Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday January 11, 2008

Rabbi offers naked truth on conversion to Judaism

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

Rabbi Dan Kohn is proud of his fourth book — but he’s not going to leave it sitting around on his work desk at the Contra Costa Jewish Day School.

Before you read on about what “Emerging Jewish” is about, let us answer the questions undoubtedly forming in your head about the cover photo.

The image is intended to show a woman entering a mikvah. The model is his niece, a college freshman. And, yes, she was wearing a swimsuit — which was digitally removed from the final image.

Kohn, a Conservative rabbi and the day school’s rabbi-in-residence, claims there’s a “more discreet version” at www.emergingjewish.com. Neverthe-less, it still doesn’t look like the kind of thing he should be viewing on his office computer.

The Mill Valley rabbi’s book explains the potential challenges facing a convert to Judaism. Too many times he has counseled heartbroken potential converts to Judaism who have encountered a “thoughtless, ignorant” Jew who told them something along the lines of “If you convert to Judaism, you’ll never be a true Jew.”

“That’s just wrong,” he says. “And it’s devastating for these people.”

Kohn details how to work with family members who may object to one’s conversion as well as insensitive Jews like ones described above. He also details the ins and outs of how Jews by choice are treated by the state of Israel and its chief rabbinate.

Kohn will discuss the book 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 13 at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center, 6350 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in San Geronimo and 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 17 at the JCC East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. in Berkeley.

Kohn is currently working on his fifth and sixth books. No word yet on which family members will grace the covers.

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.