001: A Blog? In this economy?
Hello critters, I’m Bobby, and I’m not Jewish. Yet.
I decided to convert and quickly had the realization that maybe I’ve been a lapsed Jew all along—and that I owed it to myself to document my strange, new, unexpected journey.
Why do this?1
- This is for me. Sorry to be selfish. It helps me organize my thoughts, my questions, my fears, my doubts, my excitement, and my path. I then also get attention (see #2)
- This is for you. Because it’s already proven fascinating to me and other people I know. Why not share?
That second one may seem self-indulgent; it’s hardly. (Maybe a tiny bit, OK? But I like to write.)
I’m a gay man, raised Presbyterian for a minute, then agnostic. I left Christianity and studied Buddhism before feeling like I was nothing, didn’t belong, didn’t need to, and that religion was the source of all the evil in the world.
To be sure, I just described a number of people I know. I’m not unique. But something grabbed me about Judaism, which I’d been around more than most until I was around 19 or so. And I wish I had met a person like me or come across their blog, a leaflet2, a flash banner ad3, or something over the last 20 years4 like a fiddler calling my name from the roof of my LA Koreatown-adjacent apartment.
I created a list of things to write about. It will be hilarious to compare that a year from now to what I actually wrote about!
- Are you Jewish, and do you know any converts?
- What do you think about my converting?
- What do you think about me writing about it?
- How do expect my life to change?
- In what ways do you expect me to contribute?
—Gay Goy
- 1 I bet you thought I was going to write here about why I’m converting. Slow your roll
- 2 A leaflet, you know, like one about Jewish sports legends
- 3 I seriously used to create Flash banner ads. I atone.
- 4 If you do the math in this paragraph and @ me, I’ll deny
