Jews by choice? Orthodox conversion,the problem of choice,and Jewish religiopolitics in the Israeli state

Abstract

Anthropologists have long displayed interest in the tension between choice and coercion in processes of religious conversion. In this article, I draw from ethnographic work in contemporary Israel to explore the ways in which this tension animates pedagogic formations of Orthodox Jewish conversion. I argue that conversion teachers’ concerns are rooted in the tension they identify between the religious ideal scripts of Jewish conversion, as an individual voluntary act, and governing religiopolitical state structures of conversion. I show how teachers insist on the image of the willing convert, while simultaneously considering, albeit with limited effect, the withered resonance that these images hold in the lived experience of their students. By contextualizing and analyzing the ‘problem of choice’ besetting conversion teachers, this article sheds light on some of the underlying forces that influence how non-Jews become Jews in the Jewish state.