The Jewish Nun

Guest post by Sara Y.:
When I was living in France I used to attend a shiur (class) every Thursday. Amongst the attending students was a xian girl, [+/-] show/hide text
who, as a matter of fact, was a nun.

I very much respected my Rav and never questioned his integrity. In my mind, I was always astonished that he permitted a nun to seat with us and learn Torah.

We eventually became comrades, and she told me that she was observing Shabbat and most of the Mitzvot, because she found it natural to do it. On the other hand, she knew and practiced the "yoska" (xtian) heritage.

A few years passed and my Rav suddenly refused to let her attend his Shiur. She was gravely offended, and attempted to defend her case before the Rav, but he didn't want to hear more and stood firmly by his decision. None of us understood his motivation, but we thought he must have had good reasons to be so harsh with her, all of a sudden.

Few years later she confided the missing link to this story:

She always suspected something was hidden in her family and one day they cleaned out her deceased Grandmother's (her mother's mother) furniture and found an hidden drawer in the wardrobe. In the drawers they discovered many document, including birth certificate and death certificate, signed by Hevrah Kadisha .

She discovered that her mother and grandmother are Jewish. She asked her mother about her Judaic lineage but her mother vehemently denied their Judaism.

Wanting to investigate further, she took upon herself to travel to Romania. She looked up the Hevrah Kadisha that certified her grandmother's death, and found the burial cementary of her
ancestors.

When I saw her again, she told me she was going to the Mikvah to become a real Jew by Jewish standards.

I asked her why the Rav did not allow her to continue attending his shiur and she told me that he always suspected that she was Jewish. At a certain point, he wanted her to question her lineage. But because she was "comfortably numb" in practing xtian and attending his Shiur, he felt the need to drastically wake her up. This way, he forced her to investigate why he refused to let her attend his shiurim.

A year after her re-conversion, she married a Jewish man, and the last time I saw her, she looked like a genuine Bat Yisrael, living according to the Jewish laws. She was modestly dressed and her hair covered.

Who would believe that a few years ago, she was (tinok shenishba) nun, r'l???