A Conversation on Jewish Conversion – Ann Arbor Jewish Book Festival

I am speaking at the 2024 Ann Arbor Jewish Book Festival is doing a book panel on conversion.  Register here : https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_62UzzbvETDS8JkphY3CYcQ#/registration

A Conversation on Jewish Conversion

Saturday, November 16 | 7:30 pm EST over Zoom

Moderated by Rabbi Josh Whinston

Leaving Bacon Behind: A How-to Guide to Jewish Conversion by Melvin S. Marsh

Leaving Bacon Behind provides a comprehensive, easy-to-read guide for conversion that focuses on questions prospective Jews by Choice might have, including “Why should one convert to Judaism?” and “What happens after the conversion?”

This book is a direct result of the questions the author fielded during his time as a moderator in one of the largest Jewish-by-Choice internet communities and his own personal experience as a disabled transsexual Jew by Choice. This includes content discussed in Judaism conversion classes and live courses, as well as questions, comments, and feedback from prospective and successful Jews by Choice. No other book on Jewish conversion has incorporated widescale, peer-reviewed feedback from the target community. As the author himself does not fit the stereotype of an able-bodied, middle-class, white heterosexual female converting for marriage, this book includes a section of additional considerations for converting on a budget, if one is LGBT, disabled, or non-white, if one is already married to a non-Jew, or if one already has children.

Melvin S. Marsh is the award-win­ning, Ama­zon best­selling author of Leav­ing Bacon Behind. After grow­ing up in South Flori­da and becom­ing inter­est­ed in Judaism, he set forth on a trip that spanned over 16 years to get to the mik­vah in part due to the bar­ri­ers of being trans­gen­der as well as dis­abled. This is his first book.

Goyhood: A Novel by Reuven Fenton

When Mayer (née Marty) Belkin fled small-town Georgia for Brooklyn nearly thirty years ago, he thought he’d left his wasted youth behind. Now he’s a Talmud scholar married into one of the greatest rabbinical families in the world – a dirt-poor country boy reinvented in the image of God.

But his mother’s untimely death brings a shocking revelation: Mayer and his ne’er-do-well twin brother David aren’t, in fact, Jewish. Traumatized and spiritually bereft, Mayer’s only recourse is to convert to Judaism. But the earliest date he can get is a week from now. What are two estranged brothers to do in the interim?

So begins the Belkins’ Rumspringa through America’s Deep South with Mom’s ashes in tow, plus two tagalongs: an insightful Instagram influencer named Charlayne Valentine and Popeye, a one-eyed dog. As the crew gets tangled up in a series of increasingly surreal adventures, Mayer grapples with a God who betrayed him and an emotionally withdrawn wife in Brooklyn who has yet to learn her husband is a counterfeit Jew.

Reuven Fen­ton has been cov­er­ing break­ing news for The New York Post since 2007, and has earned nation­al recog­ni­tion for his exclu­sive report­ing on myr­i­ad nation­al sto­ries. He is a grad­u­ate of Yeshi­va Uni­ver­si­ty and Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of Jour­nal­ism. Goy­hood is his debut novel.