I’ve been Jewish for 522 days. When I converted, my child was nearly 8 years old, which is too old to take into the mikveh (ritual bath) with me without her agreement. If she’d been 5 or younger, I’d have taken her in the mikveh and she’d be Jewish now. That didn’t happen, so I began my Jewish life with a non-Jewish child. (My husband isn’t Jewish either.) Overnight, my conversion turned us into an interfaith family. I wasn’t sure what that would mean, yet I know I wasn’t expecting my daughter’s declaration that she doesn’t want to be Jewish.
At the conversion, I took a vow to raise my child within Judaism. It never occurred to me that the challenge in doing so would be my own child, because she adored religious school and attended Shabbat services with me. (Yes, she was allowed to attend religious school before I converted.) But now, my child is rebelling—politely, but still. She’s told me she doesn’t want to be Jewish or Christian. She wants to be “nothing,” she says. By rejecting it all, I think she wants to let me know it’s not personal.
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