Religious Conversion Requires Support

Virginia Gilbert’s account (“Cost of Conversion Was Too High for Her,” Sept. 22) of the erosion of her conversion to Judaism points up a truth that is familiar to all religious movements: Religious identity requires ongoing validation. Our popular media culture, including our commercial culture, continuously provides such validation for Christian identity, often by implication. “Home for the holidays” usually implies “home for Christmas”; one’s first name is also known as one’s “Christian name”; saturation advertising campaigns sell merchandise to celebrate overtly Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter, and also for less obviously Christian occasions such as Halloween and Valentine’s Day; public occasions of prayer usually involve Christian content.

With such constant reminders, little wonder that Gilbert has nostalgic longings for her Christian background. Her problem is compounded by her husband’s aversion to Jewish religious identity. As she relates, “He didn’t feel the need to celebrate the Sabbath or the High Holy days.” Indeed, the Christian aspects of her identity may have been important in attracting him to her to begin with, and his reluctance to become involved in a more actively Jewish life may be motivated by an unconscious desire on his part that she maintain her Christian identity. He should have undergone an authentic conversion to Judaism himself, before asking her to do so.

--LARRY SELK

Los Angeles