From Kirchschlager to Jewish

Last we left off, Michael and Alexis had just visited, and we were about to go through the Time of Great Busyness.

So!

Let the time of great Busyness commence!

After Michael and Alexis left, we had a masterclass with Angelika Kirchschlager in a very neat hall of the Musikverein. She was very nice and had helpful things to say. We then had free food. Excellent.

This was followed with the week leading to Melanie converting to Judaism in Bratislava. We (well, more she than I) spent most days going to rehearsals of Così in the afternoon, and the mornings and evenings learning hebrew and a huge array of facts about Judaism. We went to temple on friday night and saturday morning, crammed judaism all saturday night, and left early in the morning to Bratislava, Slovakia. Bratislava is a very soviet little town, with lots of broken down buildings, a huge collection of gigantic identical depressing apartment complexes, and a somewhat cute old town. We were in the old town.

The Beit Din is a council of three rabbis which is assembled to judge whether a given person is Worthy to Take On the Yoke of Judaism and all that. There are a ridiculous list of questions that they could potentially ask, but the main thing they're trying to assess is what you feel about the whole becoming Jewish thing, whether you're trying to exploit legal loopholes (If you convert to Judaism while on a tourist visa in Germany, they can't deport you once your 6 months are up, for example), and whether you're weird and creepy. Also whether you know much about the religion you're trying to convert to. Oh, and whether you can stumble through hebrew, which Melanie did a very good job of :)

The Beit Din deemed her Worthy to Take On the Yoke etc etc and she took a couple of dunks in the Mikveh, a ritual bath consisting of rainwater (which in Bratislava apparently is sulfurous) and that is jealously guarded by the orthodox rabbis that wish to assert their ownership of it. Melanie forgot to take her contacts out (you're supposed to be immersed in water everywhere, which means no touching the bottom of the pool or jewelry or anything), so she took them out mid-way through and went back under, which must have been funny to look at but unfortunately I was not allowed to see. :(

To celebrate, we ate at the pretty good jewish restaurant in the hotel in which the Mikveh was housed, and Melanie ordered a steak, which came back bleeding in a mushroom cream sauce. Nice. The Rabbis were thankfully still interviewing other candidates.

On the Friday afterwards, our congregation invited Melanie and the other 3 new converts from our temple to go open the ark. Much merryment was had by all, and then we had pizza.

And just like that, Melanie is Jewish. Shazzam.

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