From Baptist to Beshert
When the 1994 Northridge earthquake struck, Delores Gray had an unusual response. Gray, an African American ordained minister and sales representative for Continental Airlines, took one look at the shambles the temblor had made of her Van Nuys condominium — the furniture overturned and every conceivable breakable object broken — and decided, "I’m moving to Israel."
She told her family and friends of her decision that day, and their response was unanimous: "Relax, Delores. We know you’re shaken up, but don’t lose your grip. It was only an earthquake."
"You’re right," she conceded. "I am shaken up. But I’m still moving to Israel."
Gray’s decision wasn’t the panicky non sequitur that it appeared at first. During the previous seven years, Gray had been making a quiet but determined study of Judaism. Growing up in Mississippi, the granddaughter of devout Baptist sharecroppers, Gray came from what she calls "a praying background." Sunday was "the Lord’s day," when all wore their best clothes, ate the best food that could be enjoyed, and sat around the table together in family harmony, she said.
In fact, Gray attributes her Baptist religious training to her ability to become an Orthodox Jew. "My grandmother did bikur cholim (visiting the sick), brought food to the needy, said the Psalms every day. I had role models of compassion and prayer. I got my boot training from my grandmother. Her commitment to God was mesmerizing."
Taking her grandmother’s lead, Gray embarked on a lifelong spiritual quest that would one day lead her to renounce her title of "Sister Delores" and become known as Ahuva, an Orthodox Jew who would find friendship and a spiritual home in the charedi (fervently Orthodox) neighborhood of Bayit Vegan in Jerusalem. She was formally converted on her 51st birthday three years ago.
"I like the charedi approach," Gray explained. "They cut it straight."
On a recent swing through Los Angeles at the tail end of a seven-week speaking tour throughout the United States and England, Gray spoke to a packed crowd at Young Israel of Hancock Park at an event sponsored by the Jewish Learning Exchange, where she peppered her story with quotes from Psalms and the Prophets and tossed around Hebrew expressions that are the common parlance of the Orthodox.
"The Vilna Gaon speaks about a gilgul, a lost soul that was meant to be Jewish all along but who wasn’t born Jewish," she tells listeners." Gray considers herself a gilgul who found her way home.
Leading the first of 14 tours to Israel of Christian groups, "I felt immediately that I was home," she said. "I looked at this lovely Catholic lady on my tour and said, ‘You may not believe this, but I’m going to live here one day.’ I had this dream and this vision."
Her connection to Jewish practice was uncanny. Before she knew that Jews prayed three times a day, she began doing so. Using a siddur she purchased in Safed that contained both Hebrew and English, she taught herself the Hebrew alphabet. "The power and authenticity of Jewish prayer set me on my course," she said.
After three years of leading tours to Israel, Gray decided to study at ulpan in Netanya. Although not Jewish yet, she wanted to prepare for the upcoming High Holidays and did so in earnest. She davened the special selichot prayers said before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. "I had preached about repentance before, but this time I experienced it personally," Gray recalled. "It was like I had spiritual surgery."
She didn’t quite understand what was happening to her, but she went to an Orthodox shul for the first time on Rosh Hashanah and returned for Kol Nidre. "I’ll remember this for as long as I live," she told the crowd in Hancock Park. "After the service, I walked around Jerusalem. I felt the kedusha (holiness) all around me. Not a leaf moved; all was still. I felt that my efforts of study and research all culminated with this night of Kol Nidre. After searching for my entire life, I realized I would have to tell my parents I was going to live in Israel permanently and become Jewish. I knew they’d think I had fallen off the turnip truck."
Gray gave up her job in the travel industry and moved to Israel, where at first she supported herself by cleaning houses. She acknowledges that part of her reason for leaving the United States was that she was fed up with corporate America and with the tacit racism that she felt lay under the surface. "In America, people always looked at me as black, and not as the essence of who I am. As a Jew in Jerusalem, people see me as a neshama [soul]," she explained. Although she acknowledges that converts often face discrimination from the Jewish-born, she herself has never experienced it.
Giving up material comforts was easy, she said, since living in Israel gave her a "much higher quality of life," including a group of close-knit friends in Bayit Vegan. She also praised her own parents, brother and sister for their understanding and acceptance of her decision to convert.
Although her study and preparation for it was intense, she noted that "the real test isn’t the conversion; it’s what you do each day afterwards. But I knew this was beshert [destined]."
Today, Gray works as group coordinator for Bound to Travel, a Fullerton-based travel agency, and leads inward-bound tours of Israel. Additionally, she lectures at Nishmat, a seminary she praises as the only one in Jerusalem that accepted her as a student before her conversion.
Though she once spread the word about Jesus, Gray now champions the 613 mitzvot and Torah from Sinai. She worries about the successful efforts of Jews for Jesus in Israel, who, she said, "prey on Reform and Conservative Jews who don’t know their Judaism and to whom they know they can sell a bill of goods."
That’s one reason Gray tells her compelling story to audiences everywhere: to help less affiliated Jews connect with their heritage. Gray’s autobiography, "My Sister, the Jew," will be published this June by Targum Publishers.
"I hope my story will offer some people some clarity," she concluded. "If it does, then baruch Hashem."
JJ Inside The Print
It’s crazy to think about it. With a predatory regime like Iran on its doorstep and more than 100,000 terror missiles pointed at its citizens,...
As an undergraduate at UC San Diego, I was active in our campus pro-Israel group. I loved every minute of it, even if it meant...
“Do you ever wonder just what God requires? You think He’s just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires?” — Bob Dylan “You call...
I’ve always had a low threshold for pain. Whenever I bump into a wall or get a little cut, I act as if I’ve been...
Fifteen years ago, the Journal published a story about cellphone use in synagogue. Some parents justified the practice, as they needed to call “Rosa” during...
Last week in New York, I was the lone son of a British Methodist amid 1,800 Jews and people of other faiths at the Anti-Defamation...
When Brooke Goldstein was in her third year at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, her graduation was almost...
When Republican impeachment lawyer Steven Castor and Republican representatives implied Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman might have dual loyalty to the Ukraine, many Jews cringed. After...
Israel is known as one of the world’s most vegetarian- and vegan-friendly countries. Perhaps it’s the abundance of fresh and delicious produce, Jewish dietary laws...
Writing a book about Israel can be frustrating for many reasons, the first of which is that it constantly needs to be updated. Reality changes...
On Sept. 18, one day after election day, the numbers came in — and they said nothing new. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud didn’t...
One verse, five voices. Edited by Salvador Litvak, Accidental Talmudist And he dreamed, and behold! a ladder set up on the ground and its top reached...
The word on the street is that polenta must be stirred constantly while it cooks, similar to risotto. There are even automatic polenta stirrers made...
A Jewish Sephardic vocalist backed by an Arab Moroccan string ensemble formed the backdrop to a unique event at the Beverly Hills Hotel when San...
Liz Vogel, the Los Angeles executive director of the nonprofit Facing History and Ourselves, recalls the moments in her young adulthood where she experienced anti-Semitism. And...
In her new book, “Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Wendy Wood, a professor of...
Some may wonder why actress and comedian Tiffany Haddish titled her latest Netflix stand-up comedy special “Black Mitzvah” and opens with a rap to the...
Producer Elisabeth (Lizzie) Bentley, the spearheading force behind director Terrence Malick’s new biopic, “A Hidden Life,” first became aware of the film’s protagonist, Franz Jägerstätter,...
Two things set apart “Mistletoe & Menorahs” from the other holiday romantic comedies airing on Lifetime this month. As the title suggests, it celebrates both...
As Shirley Maisel, the loud and overbearing Jewish mother of Joel and former mother-in-law of the titular standup comedian in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Caroline...
With phrases such as “Move forward,” “Listen carefully,” “Make art from your heart” and “Woman, speak up,” Sara Erenthal invites observers of her art to...
Over his long and remarkable career, Theodore Bikel achieved the status of living treasure. He is perhaps best known for the roles he played on...
“Theodore Bikel’s The City of Light” is based on a short story by Theodore Bikel but the book’s author is his widow, Aimee Ginsburg Bikel. Born...
Drew Leach was completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Arizona during the Second Lebanon War in Israel in 2006. On her campus, she...
A unique women-owned business is helping charities while promoting Hanukkah this year. Amanda Foley was busy working as a casting director in Los Angeles, while...
Sylvia Bar died Oct. 26 at 92. Survived by daughter Jeanine; son Malchi; 1 grandchild. Hillside Tully Becker died Oct. 9 at 86. Survived by...
I love receiving gift cards, but I do feel a little guilty giving them because I’m afraid the recipient will presume I didn’t put any thought...
It is the central irony of American life that the national holiday about gratitude anchors the biggest shopping frenzy of the year. Here’s what I...
Milken Community Schools held its third annual community-wide challah bake, during which 500 people prepared challah for Shabbat. Attendees at the Nov. 14 event at...
FRI DEC 6 Zamru Friday Night Shomrei Torah Synagogue holds Zamru Friday Night, a unique, musically rich kabbalat Shabbat service and dinner. Cantor Jackie Rafii...
Responding to Rosner I believe that Israel will never experience peace, and global anti-Semitism will not be reduced, until there is a real home for...