You Won’t Believe Where Dina Went to Become a Jew
In the wake of the tragic events of this past Shabbat, I wanted to share an awe-inspiring story I heard this morning from a young Chinese woman named Dina*.
Dina loves Israel and the Jewish people so much that before COVID she visited Israel 25 (!) times. Often leading groups of other Chinese people to show them the land of her dreams.
But visiting Israel wasn’t enough. She wanted to BE Jewish. But there was nowhere to convert in China. So around 2 years ago, she came to study at a Chabad seminary in Jerusalem, but only a few months after she arrived she was having visa issues and needed to leave ASAP.
Her rabbi told her to travel abroad and find a Jewish community that would write her a letter of recommendation for conversion, and with that letter in hand she would be able to get a student visa to continue her studies in Israel and convert here.
The problem was finding a country that grants visas to Chinese citizens. After getting rejected by country after country, somebody recommended she travel to Serbia, which doesn’t require visas for Chinese citizens.
So, because she wanted to become a Jew, she moved to SERBIA.
For weeks the security guards wouldn’t allow her inside the historic shul there. But eventually Dina realized that the rabbi there is friends with her rabbi in Israel. And so, she was allowed to start attending shul and becoming part of the community, and after an entire year she got her hard-earned letter of recommendation and is now B”H back in Israel studying Torah and preparing for conversion.
Israel and the Jewish people are under attack across the world. But Dina and the many converts like her (I have the privilege of meeting many converts like Dina because they study at seminaries in my neighborhood) are completely unfazed. By the missiles. And rising anti semitism. And the scary and sad news that never seem to end. For days and weeks and millenia. Dina and all the other converts’ eyes are set on Hashem. On the Torah. On becoming part of the Chosen People. All the way to Serbia. And back, B”H.
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Wonderful, B’H!