Become a Jew
Name: “Sondra”
Dream: Become a Jew
Location: Boro Park
With a father in the service, we were stationed at different Air Force bases around the world, but home was always our little town of Mebane, North Carolina — blink while you drive through and you’ll miss it. To earn spending money, I picked tobacco every summer and drove a school bus while still in high school.
There were some blank spaces in our family history. My mother always referred vaguely to a family secret, but I never took it too seriously. When I got older, I learned from my aunt that although we were all blond and blue-eyed like our Grandpa David Daniel Dixon, we had the dark complexion of Grandma Delores, whose family had emigrated from Spain. There were other peculiarities, too, like the Hebrew-looking letters on my great-grandmother’s tombstone and my mother’s memories of soaking and salting chickens, and checking eggs for blood.
My siblings and I were raised in the Baptist Church, but even as a child, I was hungry for answers and drove my Sunday school teachers crazy with questions. Why don’t we keep the dietary laws of the Bible? Why is Sunday our day of rest? “Sondra, just have faith and believe,” they told me.
I’d never met a Jew, and all I knew about them was the bit I’d heard about the Holocaust. I was taught that Jews had been replaced by Christians as the Chosen People. In my nai ïveté, I never realized that current events were thick with events happening in Israel to real, live Jews.
The only Jews I did know were those of the Bible. I lived with those Bible stories; I wanted to walk the land with Abraham and Jacob. I could never understand why those stiff-necked Jews wouldn’t listen to G-d. Subconsciously, I was pining for the real thing.
In my late thirties, I began to explore, hopping between different branches of Christianity. Ironically, it was my affiliation with Messianics that started me on my quest to learn alef-beis. Their non-Jewish “rabbi” taught me Yigdal, but when I learned the translation, I was amazed: “You say ‘He has no semblance of a body’ but you’re worshipping a man?!”
I left, taking my “faithful” King James Bible with me. I went to the Chabad shul, where my Messianic pastor had learned to read the Torah. Here I was, 40 years old, and I’d never seen a Jew before. “I no longer believe in the Christians’ creed,” I told the Chabad rabbi. “Please, tell me about the Messiah and his role!” His answers left me so angry with the empty doctrines I’d been taught.
Around this time, I met the first Jew to show up in my community, a very assimilated fellow who knew nothing besides Shema — but he did show me a siddur. “Wow! Someone should translate this!” I told him, not knowing that the folks at ArtScroll had just done that.
I taught myself to read Hebrew in three months. Chabad doesn’t perform conversions; they were only willing to teach me the Noahide laws. I wanted the real deal, so I came each Shabbos to hear the parshah.
I decided I wasn’t going to let another Shavuos pass without receiving the Torah myself, so in January of that year, I left my job, my cat, and everything I owned, and moved to Monsey, where I’d heard there was a nice Jewish community. “I don’t care if I have to live in the car,” I told myself, “I want to be a Jew before Shavuos!”
I didn’t end up living in the car; a warm, loving family took me under their wing and set up an appointment for me with Rabbi Braun from Ohr Somayach. I made my plea: “Please convert me before Shavuos!”
Rabbi Braun had been burned by backsliding converts before, so he assigned me a huge reading list: Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, shemiras halashon, hilchos Shabbos. I felt like a walking encyclopedia. A series of circumstances delayed the actual conversion, and I was getting desperate. Finally, in tears, I wrote Rabbi Braun a letter, reminding him of the teaching that all souls destined to become Jews need their rectification before Mashiach comes. “What if I’m the last remaining Jew?” I pleaded.
With Rabbi Braun pulling some strings and a huge dose of siyata d’Shmaya, Rabbi Chaim Kohn shlita traveled from Brooklyn to Monsey on Erev Shavuos to make my dream come true.
When I came out of the mikveh, I was very emotional; I just wanted to cry and be alone with the Eibeshter. But my friends and the many wonderful people who supported me through that time threw me a party.
Then they threw me into shidduchim. “I want the real thing!” I told them: talmid chacham, beard, black hat — the works. My eventual husband was everything I’d davened for. He’d lived most of his life in Israel, had a traditional Jewish family, and was a kind and thoughtful talmid chacham.
From the time I got married, I longed to cover my hair with a scarf instead of a wig, but that’s not common in our community. When our hopes for parenthood were repeatedly dashed, though, I made a cheshbon with Hashem: I’d take off my beautiful sheitel and wear a scarf to be zocheh to a child. Hashem sent shefa into our lives, and at the age of 47, I welcomed our precious ben Torah. Today he’s a delicious third grader in a local chassidish cheder.
My life has taken a beautiful U-turn. Back in high school, our choir had placed third in a choral contest singing “Hallelujah.” Now I can finally sing it the way it’s meant to be sung.
What activities fill your spare time? I learn about the final redemption. I love gematrios. One exciting find was the name of Hashem going diagonally through the names of my family! When you take the first letter and last letters of my name, Avraham’s name, and Sarah’s name — the mamma and tatte of all converts — you get the gematria of Mashiach! We all have a spark of Mashiach and Hashem in our neshamos.
What dream would you pursue if you had unlimited resources?
I really want to find out if my mother is Jewish, but I don’t have the time and money to investigate; I’m davening that Hashem will open up avenues for me to find out.
What mantra helped you fulfill your dream?
Since I was small, I heard the voice. In our church choir, we sang Psalms: “As the deer longeth after water, so my soul longeth after You.” I knew all would be well because He’d guide me home. My soul knew where to run.
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 592)
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