The Footpath: Online Conversion to Judaism

01/31/2024

After many wonderful years we have decided to announce the closure of The Footpath's Intro to Judaism program. We are thrilled to see how much the landscape for online Intro programs has changed since 2019; those seeking online options have many great programs to choose from.

I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to those who worked to make our online Intro to Judaism program possible: volunteers, teachers, & donors alike. Most of all I want to thank the dozens of students who chose to study with us. Helping you become Jewish has been a sacred calling and a true joy.

– Rabbi Michael Gilboa, The Footpath

11/04/2021

Hi all! Do you believe in The Footpath's mission of providing accessible, affordable online resources for those considering converting to Judaism? Do you like Zoom meetings? If not, will you tolerate them? If so, I hope you will consider serving on The Footpath's Board of Directors. We are interested in recruiting Jews of diverse backgrounds and experiences who share our love of conversion and converts. If this interests you, please reach out to us soon.

03/22/2021

We want to thank our friend Sean Mason and everyone over at Belvedere Trading for their very generous donation. If you believe in The Footpath's vision of accessible Jewish conversion resources for everyone and if your employer allows you to designate a non-profit organization for their giving program we hope that you would think of choosing us.

03/18/2021

How can we honor hassagat gevul (respecting boundaries between synagogues and other Jewish institutions) in the digital space? Are there still geographic boundaries? Does concern about "turf" stifle innovation? These are the questions we wrestled with when we created The Footpath. In this article Dr. Herbst offers an inciteful and scholarly overview of this ancient principle and its 21st-century application.

Recently, a rabbi based many hundreds of miles from American Jewish University in Los Angeles (where I am President) called my colleague Rabbi Adam Greenwald to complain. A congregant, the rabbi explained, was taking an online course from AJU’s Miller Introduction...

12/24/2020

Conversion to Judaism continues to enter the mainstream of Jewish and American life. Now we are poised to knock over another barrier, with an unabashedly Jewish, pro-Israel, African American convert to Judaism as CIA director.

In his 28 years at the CIA, Darrell Blocker figured out a reliable strategy for recruiting covert agents.“A person like myself is always looking for that anomaly, that person who doesn’t feel like they’re being listened to, that person who doesn’t feel like they fit,” Blocker said in 

12/14/2020

Happy Hanukkah everyone!

People call Hanukkah a "minor holiday." But can there really be anything minor about such a big milestone in Jewish history? Some well-meaning people have been knocking Hanukkah lately. They call it a "minor holiday." This idea is making the rounds on social media, where some have argued that the ou...