NYT Reporter Proudly Enters the Zalman Bernstein MISHPOCHEH: Nellie Bowles "Converts" to The Tikvah Fund Religion with "Bourekas and Haminados" Included!
David Shasha
New York Times Reporter Bowled Over by Judaism
By: Matthew Kassel
As a roving tech and culture correspondent for The New York Times, Nellie Bowles has earned a reputation as a witty and gimlet-eyed observer of the strange trends, mores and personalities cropping up in Silicon Valley and beyond. Since 2017, when she joined the paper, Bowles has trained her caustic pen on such bizarre phenomena as dopamine fasting, divinity consultants and millennials who live with nuns. In perhaps her most memorable profile, the Canadian self-help guru Jordan Peterson claimed that witches “certainly exist” and live in swamps.
Despite her japing approach, Bowles, 32, often demonstrates a deeper truth about how the human search for meaning and purpose can, at times, manifest in bizarre and quasi-religious displays that border on the messianic. In her private life, Bowles, who lives in Los Angeles, is embarking on her own religious quest — albeit one that is notably more timeless than the curious spiritual fads she has covered in her day job: converting to Judaism.
Ever the reporter, Bowles, who grew up in the Greek Orthodox church, has been documenting her journey in a charming newsletter, “Chosen by Choice,” launched in late December. The immediate inspiration for Bowles’s conversion is her partner, the journalist Bari Weiss, who is Jewish. But converting, Bowles makes clear, has by no means been a perfunctory endeavor. In her weekly dispatches, she reveals how the process of becoming Jewish has in many ways changed her approach to life and work.
“This is going to sound strange, but it’s made me much more confident,” Bowles told Jewish Insider in a recent interview. “Before this, my religion was my work. I lived for it. I worshiped it. Now, I see work as separate from my soul. And that allows me to be stronger and braver at work, less anxious about pleasing everyone all the time. Because my soul is safe. My center is working on something else.”
Bowles is such a big fan of Judaism that she wants others to try it too. In the following email exchange, she discussed her preference for Mizrahi food, her struggle to memorize Hebrew prayers and her strongly held — though controversial — belief that Jews should evangelize.
The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Jewish Insider: When did you decide to convert and how much longer do you have until the process is complete?
Nellie Bowles: I decided to convert a little over two years ago. I took a 101 course and joined a Jewish community, met for months one-on-one with my rabbi, Noa Kushner, and have finished most of the challenges laid out for me. Which is to say, I could “complete” the process this month if I wanted. My reasons for dragging it out: I want to learn more. I want to challenge myself more. I took my courses at a progressive shul, and I want to explore and learn now from a more Conservative or even Modern Orthodox lens. I don’t think the process will ever be complete, really. I think I’ll always be deepening my knowledge and becoming more Jewish. But for sure at some point I’ll dunk in a mikvah.
JI: At least anecdotally, it seems as if converts often become even more punctilious about religious details than those who are simply Jewish by birth. Do you think that’s the case, and if so, does it apply to your relationship?
Bowles: Absolutely. 100%. I am the Shabbat enforcer. You give me rules and I’m going to follow them!
JI: You’ve mentioned that you’ve had trouble with memorizing some of the prayers. How’s that going?
Bowles: They’re going OK, but I rely on the bencher a lot still. I want to spend a month or two soon just focusing on prayer memorization — the newsletter will be boring those weeks, but memorization is a really good skill and an important thing that our educational system ignores now (memorizing is not trendy so much as critical thinking). But memorizing is a way of internalizing and bending oneself around text. The poems I know by heart are part of me in a different, richer way than the ones I was told to read quickly and write an essay analyzing.
JI: You say in your inaugural entry that “Mizrahi and Sephardic food is simply much better than Ashkenazi food.” You’re not an enthusiast of brisket, chicken liver and gefilte fish?
Bowles: At the risk of getting myself in too much trouble here, I am just in a state of near constant shock about Ashkenazi food. You guys. You guys. Israeli food is an incredible treasure. A delicious and healthy cuisine. It’s time to bring over that cultural heritage — the spices! the tahini!
JI: Are you keeping kosher, and if so, do you plan to keep kosher after your conversion is over?
Bowles: This has been really tricky. I already never eat pork (pigs are deeply intelligent — smart as a dog, basically smart as a toddler). Meat in general is easy to do away with, so a vegetarian home is a good shortcut to kosher. But shellfish is a really hard one to give up. I’m from San Francisco, and I love clam chowder. I love oysters. We’re thinking maybe we just keep a vegetarian home? It’s an ongoing conversation right now.
JI: How does your family feel about your conversion?
Bowles: My mom is quite devout, goes to church a couple times a week, etc., so I think for her it was surprising at first, or maybe just a little awkward. My mom is so kind and loving, she would never say that, so I’m really projecting here.
We’ve done Shabbats now with my parents and with my extended family, and they see what it is and see how much Judaism is bringing into my life. And they love it. My mom texts me “Shabbat shalom!” I started the blog in large part to share with my family more of the things I was thinking and feeling. And I get lots of wonderful notes from them about it.
JI: These questions are arriving in your inbox the day after Shabbat. Any new insights or revelations to share after your day of rest?
Bowles: My big observation: People get annoyed when you don’t text back for a day! There’s a sense now that one should be constantly available — to friends, colleagues, landlords. And to not text back for 25 hours is like crazy. That was what Saturday night made me realize this week.
JI: You say in the newsletter that you’d like to write a book about conversion, perhaps with Bari. Can you describe what that might entail?
Bowles: Your guess is as good as mine. But I read and loved Anita Diamant’s oeuvre on conversion and living a Jewish life. I could see trying to add to that conversation. We both really feel that a Jewish life should be made more accessible to people who want in.
JI: In your latest entry, you mention that a planned trip to Israel was canceled because of the pandemic. Do you think you’ll visit when it’s safe to do so? And, more to the point, do you feel as if your identification with Judaism is tied up at all with any sort of identification with or connection to Israel?
Bowles: YES! I cannot wait. As I mentioned: the food. I plan to eat a lot there.
Now in terms of identifying with the land and feeling connected to Israel — I think it’s too soon to expect myself to understand that dynamic. I don’t yet feel particularly connected to Israel, and I know that going there and learning more is a huge part of my conversion that I’m excited for.
But, and I’m going to write about this on the blog: the anti-Zionism and hatred I’ve felt from people (some even who I know very well) for not immediately disavowing Israel as a place or an idea has been shocking.
Now, to caveat, I travel in extremely left-wing circles, since I was born in San Francisco and now work in media.
In many parts of these worlds, to not immediately say Israel as a Jewish state ought to be disbanded… or to disagree that the very existence of that nation is the number-one violence being perpetrated on the world, far worse than the existence of America… well, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t already had conflict in my social world over this point.
I’m going to write a lot more about all that one day. But first I gotta go there!
JI: Do you have any connection with Jewish values like tikkun olam and social justice?
Bowles: I very much connect with that. In the conversations around social justice now, people talk a lot of talk. Being performatively progressive has never been easier! What I love about the idea of tikkun olam is that it is about repairing. Repairing is not posting a meme. It’s not an ideology that sounds beautiful but might or might not result in suffering. It’s actual, tangible work of making the flesh-and-blood world better for the people in it. At least that’s how I see it. And it can be seen in broad political ways, but because of my work I can’t engage with activism, so I focus on the ways tikkun olam might feature in my little life. So: I have a dumb habit tracker journal and one of the boxes I have to fill in every day now is “did good thing for someone.”
JI: You’re currently collecting conversion stories for a Tablet piece. How’s that going so far — anything of note you’re at liberty to share?
Bowles: I’ve gotten wonderful, wonderful notes from converts. People don’t often hear Jewish converts’ stories, and I think there’s a lot of desire from my cohort to share. And people should send me more!
JI: Your entry on Holocaust jokes — and how feeling comfortable with them is relevant to conversion — was slightly reminiscent of the Seinfeld episode in which Jerry resentfully suspects that his dentist, Tim Whatley, is converting to Judaism simply for the jokes. Not to suggest that you’re converting for the jokes! But are you familiar with the episode? And are there any ways in which you’re engaging with Jewish culture — both past and present — in an effort to better understand what “being Jewish” might mean?
Bowles: LOLOL. Yes. I’ve now seen the episode, and it’s brilliant. And of course I’m diving into Jewish cultural traditions — I’ve found that the best way to do that is by falling in love with a Jewish woman and spending time with her family.
JI: Another related question: You write that “becoming Jewish is a cultural transition. It can’t be taught so much as lived.” Have you gotten to a point at which you feel entitled to any sort of cultural ownership over Judaism?
Bowles: I have definitely gotten to the point where I feel I am more Jewish than not. If someone asks me if I’m Jewish, I say yes proudly! But I feel no sense of cultural ownership, if what is meant by that is exclusivity.
JI: You argue that “Jews need to evangelize.” That would seem to be a radical view! Care to elaborate?
Bowles: It is radical, but it shouldn’t be. The vast majority of non-Orthodox Jews who do marry, marry non-Jews. Unless people are comfortable with Reform Judaism disappearing after a generation or two, then I would start with converting the spouses!
And also: Why not convert people? Judaism is wonderful. Living a Jewish life is a good life. The world would be better if more people lived more Jewishly. So I’m all for evangelizing.
From Jewish Insider, January 27, 2021
An Almost Jew on Christmas
By: Nellie Bowles
I’ve been converting to Judaism for a while, and it’s felt really natural for me, but as Christmas ends without much nostalgia on my end, soon comes Easter. Christmas has never felt particularly religious; Easter has.
It is the crux of the whole difference of course, but I hadn’t quite faced it. I can tell you how many stars have to be in the sky to signify that Shabbat (the day of rest) is over; that Shammai actually made some great points over Hillel; that Mizrahi and Sephardic food is simply much better than Ashkenazi food. But I haven’t reckoned with Jesus.
Growing up Greek Orthodox, Easter was my very favorite holiday. Occasional lamb on a spit in the front yard at Yaiya and Papou’s; incense-rich Church service — the whole thing. And the Easter greeting, the thing you say to one another in Church, is simple: Christos Anesti. Literally: He is risen.
I’ve been converting in my heart since my first date with a very beautiful woman named Bari. She thought I was a communist; she knew I wasn’t a Jew. Before we even went out she said there were two things she needed me to know before we kept talking: “I’m a proud American and a proud Jew.” I think I wrote back something like, “Cool!” (Nothing about us is cool.)
I started with a very fun Jewish 101 class at The Kitchen, a community in San Francisco led by Noa Kushner. I’ve met with rabbis, and I have a list of activities I’m still working through. I’ve gone to Reform Temples, Reconstructionist drum circles, Conservative synagogues, to an Orthodox shul where women sat separate from men, and to a farm shul featuring goats. I’ve been living on a Jewish calendar. I wear a Jewish star. We have Shabbat dinner and light candles every Friday. I’ve begun to feel quite Jewish.
Judaism’s not a religion in the same sense as, say, Evangelical Christianity is — it doesn’t require an a-ha moment of belief. There’s no one thing I need to accept into my heart and then poof I’m Jewish. But reckoning with Jesus is sort of a baseline requirement. That is the dividing line. I rationally can very easily get my head around the idea of Jesus being a brilliant and radical rabbi versus the son of god. But all the ways Jesus is imbued in my childhood and language is more complicated. Christos Anesti isn’t something I usually translate.
Judaism is a faith, yes, but it’s also — or maybe more so — a people. Ruth, the first convert, announced it as: Your people will be my people. So the best way to join it is to live it, among the people and the culture. I’ve been taking it slow. I’ve been enjoying it.
Before I dunk in the mikvah (the ritual bath used for major life events, such as a conversion), I want to go deeper into Judaism. I’ll spend my whole life studying it, but as I join this people and look toward starting a Jewish family, I’d like to really challenge myself to understand it and feel the ways being Jewish changes me.
This newsletter has a few purposes: 1) Most importantly, I want to keep my friends and family up to date and also make them laugh. 2) In challenging myself to learn more each week, knowing I have to send this out will keep me accountable. It’s sort of like a homework assignment you guys will receive but never asked for. And 3) One day in a few years I’d love to write a book about conversion, maybe with Bar, and these notes will be a good start for that.
I hope this newsletter has guest posts from people already in my life — various members of the Weiss family; my Jewish godmother, Alana Newhouse; and more. I’d love to hear from people who have converted or are converting. I only included family and friends on this initial list, but feel free to share it. Anyone can sign up. I’m going to shoot for this coming out Thursday nights.
I’m very pro-conversion. Some 60% of American non-orthodox Jews who marry, marry non-Jews. I say: Try and convert ‘em! And if you’re the goy in the relationship: Give it a shot! Judaism’s a great program. It works. It’s time tested. It offers the kind of community people need and that too many don’t have. It offers structure and ritual that elevate one’s week. And the thing I liked best at least at the start: it doesn’t require belief so much as practice. That’s really nice.
From my understanding, the main reason Jews don’t try to convert people is millennia of persecution, so now the idea of a proselytizing Judaism makes the Jews I know laugh. But if my exploration of Judaism so far has taught me anything it’s: Judaism is great. Putting electronics away on Shabbat has made me happier and kinder. Challah is delicious. And Judaism gives me historical perspective, a reminder of eternal things beyond the here and now. It feels good to not think of myself as an individual struggling against the world but a member of a community, with obligations to it. Finding obligation in a religious context has helped me see the other communities I belong to and have duties towards.
Anyway, I’ve gone on too long.
TORAH OF THE WEEK
One of my favorite rabbis is Meir Soloveichik. His lectures are brilliant (he has one Lincoln and the Jews that blew my mind). He has a series on all the Jewish holidays, and this week we watched the one on Hannukah.
The moment I especially loved from this is when he contrasts two archways or entryways: the arch of Titus, in Rome, and the archway of the Jewish home.
The arch of Titus, created to celebrate the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in the 1st century, features Roman soldiers carrying the menorah from the Jewish Temple on their backs — the ultimate sign of their triumph and Jewish defeat. The panel opposite that image is of Titus accompanied by his gods.
Soloveichik compares that combination of symbols — of paganism and of conquest — to the symbols that adorn the Jewish home during Hannukah. These are not symbols of empire, but of the mezuzah on one side of the doorway, which declares the oneness of God, and the lit menorah on the other side. “A place whose very entryway alerted its inhabiters that in a world that hated the Jews outside they were entering a haven of divine benevolence.”
Rome fell. Judaism survived. It survived because the doorway into a home became the triumphal arch. The table became the altar.
From Chosen by Choice, December 26, 2020