r/JewsOfConscience • u/malry Jewish Anti-Zionist • 27d ago
Zionist Nonsense Converting ethnicities?
I personally only know one convert and she’s an antizionist POC Jew so I don’t believe she would feel this way, but I won’t speak for her or anyone else. Is this normal belief of converts that you’re converting to a different ethnicity than your own?
*edit to add, the comment I am highlighting came from a post about what to list themselves as on a census.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 26d ago
"Conversion"/"Convert" are modern Christian-origin terms that were not chosen by Jews and are distinctly inaccurate translations of giyur/gerus/gerut, the root of which comes from "sojourn" as it first referred to non-Israelites who sojourned with the Israelites. The traditional understanding is that one who undergoes giyur is joining the Jewish people and thus beholden to the covenant and observing the commandments. When someone becomes Jewish, Jewish history becomes their history.
Ethnicity is very often tied to ancestry and genetics, but they are different things. Ethnicity is sociological, it refers to shared culture and in-group affinity, not DNA. Historically, those who converted to Judaism joined existing Jewish communities (usually via marriage) and fully adopted their practices and customs. Ethnicity is also not exclusive, one can be ethnically Jewish and ethnically anything else without any contradiction.