Reply To: Where to start becoming Jewish when family roots discovered

So many wonderful comments, and I want to try to respond to everybody! Many thank yous to everybody, especially for the good wishes in my endeavors to become Jewish and connect with my family’s roots.

YehudaTzvi, I believe that my mother’s mother’s mother, my great grandmother, was Jewish, and that my mother’s mother was raised for a portion of her life as Jewish (while still in Germany, before moving to Brazil between the World Wars).

Yytz, thank you for the warm welcome and your reading suggestions. I have also been meaning to go back and read Guide for the Perplexed, which I read a few years ago when I first began my exploration of Judaism through reading.

Golfer, thank you for your clarification on possible gender constraints.

Nechomach, thank you for more basic info on Chabad/Lubavitch. I feel a real draw to Judaism both emotionally (I think due to my hidden family history) and intellectually. I often felt very moved in synagogue when the cantor and congregation sang — moved to tears. I am not close to Orthodox synagogues so I would go to services in the only local Reform and Conservative synagogues. The other reason I went to them was so that I could have some English translation so I could begin to understand what was transpiring during the services. I loved watching bar and bah mitzvahs, even though I didn’t know any of the people. I kept imagining me doing that some day!

Thank you again everybody, I am trying very hard to take everything in that you are saying. It is very kind of you all to give of your time and knowledge to someone like me who is rather lost but trying to find the way pretty much on my own.