"In our house, asking questions was not allowed," begins Ayelet El-Nakvah, offering insight into her upbringing. El-Nakvah was born into a devout Christian family in a small Texas town. "My parents were the 'Neturei Karta' of Christians," she describes with a smile. "I was the only child in my family living in America's second-largest state. Every Sunday, we went to church, and our entire lives revolved around Christianity." Given this background, no one was surprised when the devout family member decided to study religion at the University of Texas, aspiring to become a missionary. However, once in the secular university environment, a transformation began. "Suddenly, I could ask questions," she says. Ironically, her Christian instructor at the university didn't even believe in the religion, allowing her to explore its truths. This freedom to question opened new horizons for her, and the revelations shook her world. "I suddenly realized that everything I had grown up with was one big lie." What were the lies you found in Christianity? "Someone unfamiliar with Christianity might not understand the depth of the deception on which this religion is built," she explains, yet she offers one of many examples. "Much of what I learned as a child was claimed to be written in the 'New Testament,' but when I investigated on my own, I discovered that these things were simply not there. They just don't exist. Conversely, there are things written in the New Testament that Christians, for some reason, ignore, such as the admonition to cover the head. When I inquired about it, they told me, 'It's not our culture.'" Ayelet El-Nakvah, 37, has undergone significant transformations in her life, ultimately finding peace as a Jew by choice, married to a yeshiva student in the Orthodox neighborhood of Givat Shaul, Jerusalem. "A stranger visiting the neighborhood would see no difference between me and my neighbors despite my different upbringing," she notes with a smile. Today, she sees a mission in conveying the message to Jewish women about how much they should be thankful and proud to belong to the Jewish people. But let's not get ahead of the story.
Career as a Witch
Following the revelations that shook her faith, El-Nakvah left Christianity six months into university, leaving her family angry and disappointed. She began searching for her path. "I knew there was a God because it didn't make sense to me that there was creation without a creator and that my entire life in this world was only temporary. However, I realized that Christianity had distorted the Creator's words, and I had to search for the truth elsewhere," she recounts. At eighteen and a half, El-Nakvah embarked on a long and twisted journey to discover the truth. "At the beginning of the journey, I told myself that if there is a God, there must be a way to reach Him. Like our forefather Abraham, I began to search." She first turned to her Catholic neighbors - the Protestants, a Christian denomination with different characteristics from the Catholics. "I hoped that maybe the truth was there, but I soon realized they believed in even more nonsense than I had as a Catholic." When El-Nakvah left the Protestants, she entered a rather frightening world. "I connected with a religion called Wicca, where they teach people to become witches. These people essentially took witchcraft and made it a formal religion. Within Wicca, its followers communicate with the dead through seances and attempt to change nature." El-Nakvah shares a particularly chilling incident: "One day, we gathered a number of people and attempted to conduct an experience of calling spirits. After we finished the eerie ceremony, I felt there was someone following and watching me. This feeling persisted for several days and did not leave me. Consequently, I decided to go to my friend, an experienced witch, who, upon seeing me, reacted with great surprise and asked, 'Who is the woman walking beside you?!'" El-Nakvah's bad feeling worsened after spending an extended period with the extremists. She describes how doors would suddenly open in her home; nightmarish dreams plagued her each night, and she would wake up feeling awful, a feeling that lingered. "It was terrifying and horrible; I felt it was something bad. Today, I know to call it forces of impurity." In a moment when her strength failed her, she decided to leave them. "I told myself: I am looking for God; for love, not this bad feeling." El-Nakvah continued her search until, in a moment of despair, she entertained the thought of creating her own religion to attract others. However, she quickly abandoned the idea. During this time, El-Nakvah continued her university studies until one day her world changed. "During one of the classes at the university as part of the religious studies I participated in, there was a course titled 'Introduction to Judaism,'" she recounts. "To be honest, at that time, I planned to start exploring Islam, but due to the fact that a course on Judaism had begun, I decided to investigate Judaism first. And the rest is history." A Sad Discovery in a Sukkah
Ayelet El-Nakvah entered the 'Introduction to Judaism' course at the university, initially as part of her studies. However, she received a surprise: the course instructor was a Jew, a people she knew only from her research. "I was very excited," she admits. From that moment, her wondrous journey to the Jewish people began. "He initially said that Judaism is the religion of questions, where you can ask any question that comes to mind. This greatly appealed to me, a girl who grew up in a house where questions were forbidden. The instructor continued and noted that there is a Jewish holiday: the Passover Seder, entirely dedicated to asking questions. 'On this holiday, we seat our children and teach them to ask questions,' said the instructor, adding, 'Why do we do this? So the child understands why they came to this world.'" Ayelet did not shy away from asking questions. "We began to study the Tanakh, and I asked the instructor all the questions I hadn't understood as a Christian. Suddenly, all the quotes and scriptures from the Tanakh that had been unclear to me became clear and understandable; all the questions I had carried with me since childhood were finally answered at the end of the second decade of my life. It suddenly became clear to me that the answers to my questions could be found specifically with the Jews." From there, the path to Judaism was shorter. El-Nakvah turned to the nearby Conservative institution where she studied, guided by her instructor - a Conservative Jew himself, and informed them of her desire to join the Jewish people. "The Conservative conversion was similar to traditional Orthodox conversion," she notes. "They told me I needed to keep Shabbat and kashrut, but did not address modesty. They also informed me about the need to go to prayers on Shabbat and holidays. During that period, I began to learn Hebrew, blessings, and more, and completed the Conservative conversion process." El-Nakvah was clear that her next step would be to become a full-fledged Conservative rabbi. "I bought a *tallit* and *tefillin*, began learning to be a *baalat tokea* during Elul, and studied intensively in yeshiva, where I learned *Gemara* in depth," she laughs. As El-Nakvah continued her plans, she encountered a discussion in the *Gemara* stating that women are exempt from *tefillin*. Surprised, she approached the rabbi and showed him the *Gemara*, but he responded dismissively, saying women could still be obligated to don *tefillin*. "I told him," she said, "that's not what's written, but he explained that sometimes you can bend the scriptures. I was very angry. I told them: the things written here come from Hashem - they are true: how, then, can you distort them?!" At that time, El-Nakvah resided in Nashville, Tennessee. "Near the Conservative temple where I studied, there were two other synagogues: an Orthodox and a Reform one. Every day I would walk to the Conservative temple, passing by the Orthodox synagogue. On that day, when I came back from the Conservative 'yeshiva' where I had been, I decided to stop at the Orthodox synagogue." To her astonishment, El-Nakvah discovered that the Orthodox did not hate women as her Conservative friends had told her. "I was especially surprised that they welcomed me warmly. After asking a few random people questions, they referred me to the rabbi's house, and there I found a listening ear. I talked with the community rabbi and his wife, and they turned out to be highly intelligent, wise, and nice people, exactly the opposite of what I expected to see." What did you decide to do at this stage? "I began to visit the Orthodox community on Shabbat and became part of it. I quickly realized that for the Orthodox, Judaism is the truth they walk by; they do exactly what is written in the Torah and do not cut corners. Additionally, there, I found an answer to every question, and it was clear to me that I had reached a place of peace and tranquility." After an extended period within the Jewish community, when Ayelet was sure she had found peace, she discovered a harsh truth. "It was during Sukkot. I was a guest in the sukkah of local community members, and during the festive meal in the sukkah, the mother of the host family asked me about my conversion. I told her. I remember that afterwards, silence fell in the sukkah. It seemed the mother was weighing her words. She approached me and said, 'We love you very much regardless, but you are not a Jew because you converted in a Conservative institution.' I was shocked." Ayelet El-Nakvah pauses. It seems that despite the time that has passed, it is difficult for her to relive that moment. After a few moments of silence, she continues quietly, describing what happened next: "I began to cry like a baby. I was completely sure that I was Jewish up until then, to the point where I changed my life from end to end - from clothing to kosher - and suddenly I discover the harsh truth," she says with pain. Jewish Twice
When the host family recovered from the initial shock, they approached the weeping El-Nakvah and tried to console her. "You will always be part of our family, and in any case, you can convert again," they said. And Ayelet accepted the offer. "I went to an Orthodox rabbi who told me I needed to convert with a valid conversion. Meanwhile, I continued my studies in the state of California." El-Nakvah hurried to finish her studies and flew to Israel, where she converted for the first time according to the law of Moses and Israel under the Chief Rabbinate. The second upheaval in her life struck El-Nakvah at the age of 25. It was several years after she had been living in Israel and considered herself fully Jewish, like all her friends. "I was studying at a seminary, and my life was flowing smoothly. One day I needed to go to the Interior Ministry due to a debt I had on a student visa. When my turn came, I approached one of the clerks and asked her to find my name in the conversion documents. Then, to my surprise, she told me that I was not found in the conversion records. 'What are you even doing in the country?' she asked incredulously. I felt like my world was crumbling. I hurried back to the seminary, where I cried my heart out. My friends tried to comfort me, to no avail." "At some point, one of the teachers decided to investigate the cause of the problem and discovered that the rabbi who converted me was also involved in invalid conversions and therefore was dismissed, and all his conversions were removed from the records. She gently explained to me that I was fully Jewish, and the reason I was not registered as Jewish was due to a separate incident unrelated to me. 'Ayelet, you are Jewish,' she told me but suggested converting again, as otherwise, the absence of the document certifying my Jewishness might follow me for years. This teacher accompanied me to Rabbi Nissim Karelitz's court, zichrono livracha, where I converted for the third time, or more accurately - the second." How did you meet your husband? Today Ayelet lives in Givat Shaul, where she is married to a full-time yeshiva student. "I am married to a dear person, a Jewish man of Mexican descent who returned to religious observance. I met him providently in the middle of my journey when I arrived in Mexico to serve as a teacher. We met at a Shabbat table, got married in Mexico, and immigrated to the Holy Land nine days after the wedding." What do you do for a living? "My husband is a full-time yeshiva student, and I am the primary breadwinner. Part of our income comes from this story, as I go and tell my life story as a comedian to groups of women. I also teach women who have returned to faith at the Neve Yerushalayim school, where I discuss the role of women in Judaism, the *Chumash*, and the Prophets." When you see the Reform Women of the Wall, who insist on wearing tallit and wrapping themselves in tefillin, what do you have to say to them? "They are usually like babies taken captive," El-Nakvah defends. "They know what I once knew, that the Orthodox hate women. This is what they told me too. But I discovered the truth after seeing that they lie about things written in the Torah, and I understood that if this is the case, perhaps they lie about other things as well." "And regarding the matter itself," continues El-Nakvah, "it is very childish to think that there should be equality among all the people in the world, each person in our world has a different purpose and role, for example, one is a prime minister and the other is a CEO of a company. To think that everyone should be in exactly the same status and do the same things is a childish and unintelligent thought." Final message? "The reason I tell this story is because initially, when I immigrated to Israel, everyone told me to keep my story a secret. But my rabbi told me that if I have a tool to strengthen the women of Israel with it, I must do what I can with it. And since then, I go to schools and seminars, and almost anywhere I am invited, to tell this story: to clarify to the women of Israel that they received their Jewish identity for free. I, in contrast, worked very hard for it; I invested many years of my life to become a kosher Jew, and therefore I know more than many how it is an incredible gift, Judaism. "All that I have gone through in my life," adds El-Nakvah, "is to reach the place where you have been from the moment you were born; so that I can bless 'He who did not make me a Gentile' and thank Hashem for choosing me to be part of the chosen people. In my lectures, it is important for me to emphasize how we should feel a great privilege that we are Jews; that we have the gift of Shabbat, Torah study, and other mitzvot of the Creator. I am proof that this is definitely not something to take for granted."
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