Deconstructing Judaism
Diana Hochman, c. Spring 2005, East Jerusalem
Today, I renounced my Israeli citizenship. I am no longer a citizen of the State of Israel, and thus no longer a part of the Jewish people—not politically, not religiously, not legally.
In November 1994, after about three years of a deep personal spiritual search, I determined I would convert to Judaism. I was a young, divorced, single mom with two small boys. I thought then that this choice would provide me an anchor by which to create a stable life for me and my sons. I envisioned then that one day I would move to Israel, and that my life records would be held in vaults, and in turn, that I would hold an Israeli passport, which would bear witness to the fact of Israel’s existence. I was 22 years old then.
I grew up in a religious Christian household where I suffered child abuse. This marred my childhood deeply. While I always loved the teachings of Jesus, I could not reconcile fanatical adherence to Christianity to the reality of my daily life, particularly when juxtaposed by the hypocrisy in the home in which I lived. From a young age, I developed an aversion to fanaticism, and extremism. And when I was a very young girl, I left home because I could not take the abuse anymore. I was afraid of what I would do if I stayed. I hated everything about my father. He was horrible to me! The experiences I had with my relatives are what made me who I am. I hate the cruelty of injustice.
After I had my two sons, at just shy of 18 and nineteen years old respectively, I needed a sense of community to help fill the void of the village that I lacked. I had no family to help me, and my ex-husband was MIA. The load I carried was crushing, and I suffered through incredible times that broke me. And that also taught me so much about how this world works. Having and raising children in the best of circumstances is the hardest thing to do. Imagine being a 19-year-old, all alone with no one to help her, trying to raise two young boys. Those times were tremendous.
It was because of that I started to go to church again. But after about a year and a half, the same questions I had in childhood nagged at me. Who was God? What was the meaning of life? Why was I born to suffer so much? What was my purpose? So I continued to search. I took time to pour into different philosophies and religions and traditions. I read so many books. Not for my mind, but for my heart. I appreciated the inherent beauty of the different beliefs I discovered, from Buddhism to Taoism, which was a personal favorite, and Native American spirituality, too. But what resonated most to me then, was Judaism. In hindsight, I later recognized that was a very logical choice as Judaism is one of the branches of monotheism. Given that I knew the bible very well, Judaism was already very familiar to me.
Many things happened in my life between November 1994 and October 2003, which is when I actually converted to Judaism. I had started on the path to conversion in September 2002 under the Conservative—or Masorti—movement. I had conducted extensive research over an 8-year period, enough to know that that was the best choice for me. I didn’t like the constraints of Orthodox Judaism, because I considered them fanatical. But, I am somewhat traditional at core, and so I tend to not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. My thinking then was that Reform Judaism did just this.
During the year of my conversion process, I was sexually assaulted by a prominent member of the community. He drugged, kidnapped and raped me. While I reported this to both the rabbi and the courts, I did not file charges. My choice then was to file a restraining order that was granted for a 6-year period, which barred this individual from coming to services. I did not want this to get out and I asked the rabbi overseeing my conversion to make sure it did not. As I felt I would be alienated in the community, since I was an outsider. Ten years later, I learned that the individual was visited by a constable from Canada, as he was seeking American citizenship and when they discovered this incident, it prevented him from achieving this goal at the time.
What I did not know then, is that Judaism for me was like a stillborn child. I had such noble convictions and this love for God and a dream to go to the Promised Land, from when I was a young girl really. I had a very hard upbringing and very bad fortune in life. My mother was murdered when I was two, and my father was absent for three years. Three years in which my relatives abused me. Then, during the seven years I lived with my father in my childhood, he was quite awful to me. So much so that once I left home, we were estranged for the next 20 years. My faith is the only thing that got me through my life.
Soon after my conversion, I left Sacramento and went back down south, first to San Diego and then Los Angeles, where I am from. I had already determined I would make aliyah to Israel. But I had also decided something else. I doubted myself. I wondered if I had chosen to convert to Orthodox Judaism, then maybe this horrible thing that happened to me would never have happened. On my way to Israel, while back in LA, I bumped into an Orthodox rabbi who would prove to be a master class in life for me. I became intimately involved with him. I was 31 years old then. After a few months of this poor choice, I knew I would never make such a mistake again.
In October 2004, I landed in Israel as a new immigrant. I had abandoned my quest to convert to Orthodox Judaism in LA. But within a couple of months, I was back at it, ready to try one more time. The rabbi from LA was instrumental in putting me in contact with all the right people in all the right places, that is, in terms of converting to Orthodox Judaism. He also sought to maintain a personal and intimate relationship with me. But that was over for me in Los Angeles.
There are so many things I learned in my 13 months in Israel. I often joke that Israel is where I lost my religion, and dispelled the myth. I saw apartheid in Israel with my own eyes. I visited all the places no tourists were ever told to go. Bethlehem, where I flirted with an Israeli soldier so that he would let me into the heavily guarded no-go zone. Hebron, where I told Israeli soldiers to leave the little Palestinian boys who ran up to me begging for a shekel alone. “Shekalim, Shekalim,” they cried out as they pointed to their hands. It broke my heart. So I gave them handfuls of shekalim. I never saw happier children in my life. Poverty is the same in every place, and it is a curse that only those who have experienced what it means to be poor understand. Gaza, where I observed the way Jewish settlers and Arabs lived in their villages. It was during Ariel Sharon’s ‘Disengagement’, a time when the only thing Israelis and Arabs shared in common was communal grief and despair. It seems not much has changed.
On the way home from work one day, I passed through a gay parade in Jerusalem, where I witnessed a religious Orthodox Jew stab a gay man. It was horrifying. I took pictures of coquette drag queens, one dressed as Marilyn Monroe, who I charmed when I said, "Well, aren't you so hot?” There are so many things I could tell you. Like learning all about Jonathan Pollard and being connected to people who were instrumental in his release. Or, being connected to people who are ‘big wigs’ in the settler movement, and who are closely aligned with people like Daniela Weiss and Shifra Hoffman.
One day in April 2005, I was on a bus in Jerusalem thinking to myself that I could not pursue this quest. It was not who I am. And whatever happened during my conversion in Sacramento, no matter how awful, nothing could change it. But this Orthodox religion stuff is just not for me. I am not a woman who could live in the confines of a patriarchal culture where men treat women like second-class citizens. As I was thinking about these things, and about how badly this whole plan went, I even thought to myself that religious Judaism in every way is a cult. And oddly, as if the universe meant to affirm this for me, I saw a man from the synagogue in Sacramento I went to cross the street on King George Street in Jerusalem right at this time. I could only smile, as I felt a peace then that I had not felt in a long time, if ever. Within a week, I abandoned the quest to convert to Orthodox Judaism and never looked back.
If a person converts to Judaism through the Conservative movement, the State of Israel will allow such a person to become a citizen through the Law of Return. However, Orthodox Jews control family law in Israel, and Orthodox Jews do not consider Conservative conversions halachic, that is, valid under Jewish Law. Moreover, not just any Orthodox conversion will do. The converting rabbi must be on a ‘special list’. The paradox is such that while the state will grant citizenship, largely to boost its quota, the citizen will not be able to get married in Israel. Thus, any person who may find themselves in this position and who wishes to start a family and build a life, will soon find this is prohibitive for him or her.
For many reasons, I was determined to leave Israel. Mostly, it was for my sons. My younger boy contacted me on My Space on my birthday, and told me about some problems happening with my older boy. I went to get my Israeli passport three days later, which turned out to be exactly one year from the date I arrived. Within a week, I was back in the States, first San Francisco and then Los Angeles. And I have never been back since. Many more things happened in my life, and over time I became increasingly removed from Judaism, until the only remnant of Judaism that remained in my life is that I still held Israeli citizenship.
It was around September of last year that it became very clear to me that Israel had crossed every line and there simply was no justification for supporting Netanyahu’s genocidal campaign. I wanted to wash my hands from that ordeal because I saw something more evil and sinister at play and it was truly the end of the road for me. This thing was done. It no longer existed for me.
It is said that technically one remains Jewish, even if not religious, unless one converts to a new religion. Last year, I began to consider converting back to Christianity, but finding the right church and time and place were at issue. On June 12, 2025, I decided to renounce my Israeli citizenship. My choice to renounce Israeli citizenship was on both religious and political grounds. Politically, it was to state that the whole reason I got the passport in the first place was to bear witness to Israel’s existence, and 31 years later, this truth no longer exists for me. Also, renouncing citizenship is the strongest condemnation I could offer of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.
On a religious level, I reasoned that if the only thing that makes me Jewish is that I hold an Israeli passport, which is a secular tie, not a religious tie; and since Orthodox Jews do not consider me Jewish anyway, then to relinquish the passport is to surrender my status as a Jew. If I ever convert to Christianity at another time, that is a separate matter altogether. I don’t go to synagogue. I am not part of a religious Jewish community. The last time I was a member of a synagogue was for a very brief time in 2010 in Los Angeles, CA. The last time I stepped foot in a synagogue was for a community-wide event in Las Vegas after October 7, 2023. The only purpose the Conservative conversion served was to grant me the status to hold an Israeli passport, which affirmed my Jewishness on a wholly secular level, while also prohibiting me from ever partaking in family life in Israel, which was supposed to be the centerpoint of Judaism. At least it was my hope.
Graffiti ‘Street Art’ - Jerusalem for All - Jerusalem, IL 2005
On the morning of June 13, 2025, I contacted the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, CA and inquired about the process for renouncing citizenship. Later that same day, Israel bombed Iran. Today, I renounced my Israeli citizenship. I am no longer a citizen of the State of Israel, and thus no longer a part of the Jewish people—not politically, not religiously, not legally. I support a Two-State Solution, and I condemn in no uncertain terms the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Israel as crimes against humanity. Moreover, I believe that Israel must determine whether it wants to remain an autocratic theocracy under the rule of Orthodox Judaism, or does it want to become a true democracy where there is a separation of church and state. An apartheid state in the 21st century in any country in the world is simply not okay. I do not hate ‘the Jews’, or any people, or any group for that matter. I may hate the evil that people do and what they stand for. Ultimately, I dream of a world where the religion of people is to choose good.
Published at 12:40 pm
