by Jill Huber
NJJN Bureau Chief/Monmouth

March 04, 2008

On May 3, 2007, Linda Davies took part in the ritual of the mikva, which signified her conversion from Catholicism to the Jewish faith. The mikva’s “gift of purity and holiness” was only a part of what Davies calls her journey to Judaism, a path that has helped her define her identity and achieve what she calls spiritual harmony.

“My conversion has made a dramatic difference in my life, and especially in my home life,” said Davies, who lives in Shrewsbury with her husband, Ari (the couple has two children: Jonathan, 33, of Eatontown, and Catrin, 25, a college student). “There is peace in the house.”

Those tranquil feelings continue to grow, said Davies, who was raised in an Italian-Catholic home in Monmouth County and attended daily Mass during her childhood.

According to a major new study of American religious life, Davies fits into the 28 percent of Americans who have left the faith in which they were raised and either have joined a different faith or profess no faith at all.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, also found that 15 percent of America’s nearly four million Jewish adults were not raised as Jews. That means, Pew researchers say, they either converted to Judaism or embraced the Judaism of one of their parents or grandparents.

With fewer than 700 Jewish respondents and a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 points, some Jewish demographers suggest the conclusions about American-Jewish adults should be taken with a grain of salt.

Nevertheless, Davies’ story demonstrates what Pew researcher John Green calls America’s “extraordinarily diverse and dynamic” religious landscape.

Davies was an elementary-grade teacher in the Long Branch school district in the 1980s when she began following the news about Lisa Steinberg, a child in New York City who was killed by her adoptive parent. Subsequent police investigations revealed a years-long pattern of brutal child abuse. The young girl’s death had a profound impact on Davies.

“After that child died, I experienced a moment when I denied the existence of God,” she said. “That’s when I realized I had to find out how God exists for me every single day. So I embarked on a journey of faith, and I have been seeking that kind of spiritual understanding for the past 20 years.”

The Jewish religion always had a special appeal to Davies, who, during her self-described search for identity, discovered that some of her Italian relatives were Jewish. In 1999, Davies visited Israel and fell in love with the land and its people and with Jewish text.

“I became lost in the scriptures,” she said.

When Davies returned home, she earned a graduate degree in theology from Georgian Court University in 2000; in 2001, she then earned a doctoral degree in religion and religious education from Fordham University in New York. Although Davies was a member of Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church in Rumson (she also was a Eucharistic minister at the church) from 1985 until her conversion, she studied with Jewish theologians in Monmouth County and New York City. Her husband and children supported her quest for knowledge.

“The things I was learning fit like a glove,” Davies said. “During my Judaic studies, I learned to examine things from all directions. I found people who were united in their belief in God, and I found that the concepts of tzedaka and tikun olam represented everything I had tried to be as a practicing Catholic. I felt a kind of collective pulse, coupled with a single heartbeat, that was an integral part of Jewish life.”
As she continued to study Hebrew text in earnest, Davies also found a sense of freedom to explore and interpret the scriptures, she said.

“But there was no criticism — no one told me I was right or wrong,” Davies said. “What emerged was an expression of my joy and my truth. And my religious tutors taught me that I don’t have to apologize for my feelings. That was a wonderful sense of liberation.”

By then, Davies knew that her future lay in Judaism.

“This became my truth,” she said. “And I decided to follow it. I learned that Jews consider themselves accountable for how their behavior affects others, which is a psychologically healthy attitude that completely worked for me.”

A sense of harmony

As Davies prepared for her conversion, she joined the Red Bank chapter of Hadassah.

“The women in Hadassah gave me a community connection that was very important while I made my transition,” said Davies, who joined Congregation B’nai Israel in Rumson in 2007 and made her second trip to Israel that year, along with 50 congregation members. Her husband and children occasionally accompany her to Shabbat services.

“My husband and children always seemed surprised at how hard I ‘worked’ to live as a religious Catholic,” she said. “And now, they see that I am happy, fulfilled, and grounded in a real and philosophical way of life. The values I taught them while they were growing up now make more sense to all of us. It’s as if everything has fallen into place and created a sense of harmony and balance.”

She thinks that her own parents, who died before their daughter began her religious journey, would be happy at the way her life has turned out.

“I feel comfortable and at peace, and they always wanted me to have those elements in my life,” Davies said. “They were religious people, and I think that somehow they know my life has become a communion with God.”

But even the few Moishe House requirements are beginning to take their toll on Grudnikov, a third-year medical student, who has time for little beyond his studies. He said he plans to move back to his parents’ Elizabeth home, but will continue to hang out when he can at Moishe House.

Einstein and the third apartment mate, David Rosen, the Conservative Jew, already have a candidate to fill the slot. Mark Fiedler, a bartender at a restaurant, said he didn’t grow up with Judaism and wants to spend some time exploring his Jewish identity.

And what happens when these 20-somethings age out of Moishe House?

“Our hope is that existing programs and institutions will pick them up,” said Cygielman. “There are many organizations focusing on Jews in high school and college, as well as in their 30s and families. Moishe House is focused on the gap years in between.”

In the meantime, there are conversations to be had about what it means to be Jewish, which movies to watch, and what to fill the hookahs with.

As Einstein pulled the burgers out of the oven, the group shifted from the television to the counter, and the cigar smoke continued to waft around the room.

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Numbers game

WHEN THE PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life released its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey last week, its findings on converts to and from Judaism — which involve controversial definitions — drew the most skepticism among Jewish demographers.

The study reported that 9 percent of adults who were raised Jewish now profess another faith. Four percent of those former Jews are now Protestant, about half of them Evangelicals; 1 percent are Catholic; and nearly 5 percent belong to a non-Christian faith, ranging from Islam to Buddhism to a New Age religion. More than 35,000 of America’s 225 million adults were interviewed, including 682 Jews.

“While we can learn a lot from this kind of survey in a general sense, in terms of Jews per se we have to be cautious because they’re such a small part of the sample,” said Jonathon Ament, senior project adviser on the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey. The NJPS included 4,523 respondents.

The conversion figures offered by the Pew study differ from those of other Jewish studies. The 1990 NJPS showed that 210,000 Jews had converted out of Judaism, representing nearly 4 percent of American Jewry. By the time of the 2000-01 NJPS, that figure had risen to just above 5 percent, along with an additional 7.6 percent who said they had left Judaism for no religion.

The 2000-01 NJPS did not report the number of converts to Judaism, so it’s impossible to make a comparison with the Pew report’s statement that 15 percent of today’s Jewish adults were not raised Jewish.

— JTA

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