Other Gerim & Giyorot

Of his own volition, Moish, a friend of mine and a Jew, posted on his Facebook page a writing of mine that I wrote nine years ago to and for Jews about 'being Jews' and about 'Jews & the Land of Israel'. He shared with me some of the responses, of which the one that appears below was written by a Giyoret.

My initial response upon receiving it was to post her response in the “Introductions and Member News” forum, because my thinking is, “this is her introduction [to Jews] of why she became a Giyoret and Jew.” Despite that I feel strongly about posting it in that forum, I respect that the “I & MN” forum serves a different important purpose. Still, in not wanting let go of what she says, I’ve opened here in “Who Am I, this Ger?” a new topic, “Other Gerim & Giyorot” to provide a place for the voices of other Gerim and Giyorot I know or meet or come across. God willing, it will give us another place to meet other Gerim and Giyorot.

First of all thank you! Thank you for sharing how special and important it is for the Jewish people to live in Eretz Israel [the Land of Israel]. As a born non-Jew, I had no home in my life. The land I was born into was beautiful, rich, full of opportunities. But I felt homeless. In my early 30’s I moved to a different continent. Again, nature was breathtaking, the people were very kind, our parnassa [income] was flowing. But I was not home. I was a wanderer. My body was just a shell and I could not wait to go back home to heaven and to be with G-d. I searched for G-d everywhere. All my life I took every possible spiritual workshop, Buddhism, Meditation, Shamanism, Channeling, Healing, Astrology, Psychology you name it. And then I was connected with Judaism. My G-d became with every day more real! My family converted orthodox and we felt pulled to Eretz Israel. G-d made it very clear. We had to move to Eretz Israel. 5 years ago we came. I cannot describe with words what it means not to be homeless anymore. For the first year I saw the aura of nature here in Israel. It is the softest, golden aura I have ever seen in my life. There is no words to describe the peace and beauty. My husband pushes me to offer workshops in nature, to help connect other holy Jews to G-d’s land!…

As I, Daniel Eliezer, have written somewhere in my postings on JBC, the Israel I was coming to was not the Israel that is portrayed to the world, especially its tourists, however much that it was true that I was coming to the country called Israel. The Israel I was coming to is the Land of Israel of the Torah – Eretz Yisrael. It wasn’t something that I learned about as I moved toward becoming a Ger and a Jew, even though I did learn about it from many teachers. It was something that I discovered inside myself...long before I became a Jew - or even knew that ‘one could become a Jew’. Because this is true, stories like Shifra Bader’s have a special claim on my heart and soul.

B’Shalom,
Daniel Eliezer