Houston Jewish Herald-Voice

Judaism is more than 5,000 years. The Internet has been around for a small fraction of the time. However, a rabbi with a specialized Web site has brought ancient tradition and modern technology together, providing conversions to Judaism in a process that is conducted largely online. The rabbi, Celso Cukierkorn, offers an online course conversion for those who want to be Jewish. A PC and a network connection that the rabbi and converts from as far away as Australia and New Zealand together for online study and the final exam. Rabbi Cukierkorn (he pronounces COOK-your-horns) and himself a convert, somehow, to computer technology. It grew up in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and recalled that students learned to use computers in their school. But the team was square mainframe technology, probably in 1960, she supposed, and not pursue a computer training beyond high school. “Until the mid-90s, I was not in computing,” said Rabbi Cukierkorn, who is 34. But then I realized that there are different ways to touch people “and that the team had one. His ancestors, who were the rabbis,” traveled from town to town to bring the message of God, “he said.” This time is the same thing, except it does not go to a specific location. “I can do it from your computer. “Rabbi Cukierkorn also conducts in-person conversion classes at Congregation B’nai Israel, a Reform synagogue in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, but modern technology, he said, offers” a wonderful way to help people who can not find a rabbi to convert or live in places where a rabbi or your program will not allow them to convert “to more traditional forms. Most of their students in online learning on its website, www. conversiontojudaism. org, which continued its course or rabbis, he said. The on-line curriculum, which is divided into eight units, is a mixture of books and online material, some of which Rabbi Cukierkorn wrote. Y ‘customized for each student, depending on prior knowledge of Judaism . One of the units, for example, is what the rabbi calls the “life cycle” Jewish year, which begins with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and is directed through another day of celebrations and festivals in chronological order . At the end of each unit is a questionnaire. The curriculum requires approximately 80-120 hours of work, which can last from three months to more than a year to complete. Besides the courses on-line, the process requires the participation in a seminar of the conversion. Was held recently in Beverly Hills, California, and another is scheduled soon in Miami Beach. Rabbi Cukierkorn said he hoped to hold one in New York at least once a year. The course is followed by a final exam, also given online, which has 100 questions. But unlike most tests, there is no specific score. The rabbi said he seems to see “how it feels and what is inside them.” Reads the answers “to see a larger picture.” “That’s what this is all,” he said. “We’re not looking for intellectual capabilities.” The rabbi said he usually turns into how much to pay, and that payments have ranged from nothing to nearly $ 2,500. Many conversions involve someone who is married or plans to marry a Jew, but some people motivate others, said the rabbi. One of the most unusual interest to which he had seen the movie “Schindler’s List” and decided unilaterally that he wanted to become a Jew. One of the students in line Davimos Melissa R., 38, of Boca Raton, Florida, said he wanted to convert before her daughter, Spencer, was born. He said he was unable to find a synagogue in Boca Raton that welcomed converts, so he turned to the Internet. She said she and her husband, who is Jewish, which is expected to join a synagogue soon and to have a baby naming ceremony there for Spencer, who is now three months old. Another participant, Ana Scherer, Florianópolis, Brazil, said via email that he was born Catholic but at the age of 12 who “concluded that Catholicism was not my truth.” Ms. Scherer, 34, said she began studying online in Brazil and continued when he moved to Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, in 2000. Cukierkorn rabbi, who was trained as an Orthodox rabbi and graduated from the Rabbinical Seminary in Monsey Ayshel Abraham, New York, said criticism had not found that people who seek conversion online are not serious enough in their desire become a Jew. Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism, said the conservative movement requires at least one year of study for prospective converts, including the study of Hebrew, and requires “an lot ‘of human contact, although the process does not all have to be face to face. Rabbi Schorsch said it sounded to him as the program’s Web site and found the second test was “on track” to the first. Rabbi Cukierkorn said its online conversion process is identical to that used in the synagogue. “The only difference is that I can do the conversion interview over the phone,” he said. When asked where most of his converts the rabbi paused and then said: “I have the whole world. They come from where God touches their souls.”

Published: July 1, 2004 Times New York

http://www. convertingtojudaism. com / NewYorkTimes. htm