How to Convert to Judaism: The Complete Guide to Giur

This guide is general education, not a ruling — every candidate works with their own rabbi and beit din.

If you typed "how to convert to Judaism" into a search bar at two in the morning, you're not alone. People from every background have stood where you are: curious, a little scared, not sure who to call. Some came from churches. Some came from the street.

I'm writing this as someone on that road. I grew up between Jamaica, Queens and Bogotá, I was in the street life, and today I'm on the path to an Orthodox conversion. I'm not a rabbi and I'm not your beit din. What I can do is lay out what the Torah sources actually say, step by step, with links so you can read every one of them yourself. Then you take it to a real rabbi. Let's go.

What is giur?

Giur (גיור) is the Hebrew word for conversion to Judaism. The person who converts is called a ger (a man) or giyoret (a woman), and a sincere convert is called a ger tzedek, a righteous convert.

Giur isn't signing up for a religion like you sign up for a gym. In Jewish law it's a permanent change of status: you enter the covenant of Sinai, take on the commandments and become part of the Jewish people.

The Talmud says it plainly: once the convert has immersed and come up from the water, "he is like a born Jew in every sense" (Yevamot 47b). Not a Jew with an asterisk. Elsewhere the Talmud teaches that "a convert who just converted is like a child just born" (Yevamot 48b): a new start, with the old record wiped.

For anyone with a past, read that again.

Where the rules come from

The rules run in a straight line through three layers of Jewish law:

• The Talmud, mainly Yevamot 46a–48b, where the Sages lay out how a convert is accepted.
• The Rambam (Maimonides), who codifies it in the Mishneh Torah, Laws of Forbidden Relations (Issurei Biah), chapters 13 and 14.
• The Shulchan Aruch, the standard code of Jewish law, in Yoreh De'ah 268, the chapter titled "How we convert a convert".

The Rambam opens with history. The Jewish people, he writes, "entered the covenant with three acts: circumcision, immersion, and offering a sacrifice" (Issurei Biah 13:1). Circumcision in Egypt, immersion in the desert before Sinai, sacrifices at the giving of the Torah (13:2–3). Then the key line: "Similarly, for all future generations, when a gentile desires to enter into the covenant… and accept the yoke of the Torah, he must undergo circumcision, immersion, and the offering of a sacrifice" (13:4).

A convert walks the same road the whole Jewish people walked out of Egypt. Since there is no Temple today, there's no sacrifice: the Rambam rules that in our time a convert needs circumcision and immersion, and will bring the offering when the Temple is rebuilt (13:5).

The four pillars of an Orthodox conversion

Put the sources together and you get four pieces. Miss one and, according to Orthodox halacha, there's no conversion.

1. Kabbalat mitzvot: accepting the commandments

This is the heart of it. Kabbalat mitzvot means accepting the yoke of the Torah and its commandments, all of them, as binding on you.

The Shulchan Aruch is clear that this piece can't be skipped. According to the opinion it brings first, it allows certain technical problems with the circumcision or immersion to be fixed after the fact, but it says that accepting the mitzvot is different: it must be done properly in front of the beit din, or it holds up the whole conversion (Yoreh De'ah 268:3).

And it means the whole package. The Talmud teaches that "a gentile who comes to convert and takes upon himself to accept the words of Torah except for one matter is not accepted as a convert" (Bechorot 30b). No "everything except Shabbat". That's not a negotiation. That's the deal.

What does the beit din teach the candidate first? The Rambam lists it: "the fundamentals of the faith, i.e., the unity of G-d and the prohibition against the worship of false deities. We elaborate on this matter." Then "some of the easy mitzvot and some of the more severe ones," without overloading the person (Issurei Biah 14:2). The Talmud adds something you might not expect: they tell the candidate about the gifts for the poor, the corners of the field and the tithe for the needy (Yevamot 47a). Before you enter, you need to know that being Jewish means your money isn't only yours.

2. Brit milah, or hatafat dam brit

For a man, the second pillar is brit milah, circumcision for the sake of the covenant. "A convert who enters the community of Israel is obligated in circumcision first," the Shulchan Aruch opens (Yoreh De'ah 268:1).

What if you're already circumcised? Then the halacha calls for hatafat dam brit, drawing a drop of blood of the covenant, done for the sake of conversion (Yoreh De'ah 268:1; Issurei Biah 14:5). It's not a second circumcision, but it is required, and he waits until he has fully healed before the immersion.

Women don't have a milah requirement. The Rambam: "A woman [who converts] must undergo immersion and bring a sacrifice" (13:4), and today, without a Temple, that means immersion.

3. Tevilah: immersion in a mikveh

The third pillar is tevilah, full immersion in a kosher mikveh, a ritual pool built to precise rules. Not a swimming pool, not a bathtub, not the beach behind the projects.

The mikveh has to be one that is valid for a woman's immersion after her period, and anything that blocks the water from touching the body (a chatzitzah) invalidates the immersion (Yevamot 47b; Issurei Biah 13:13). That's why candidates trim their nails, remove jewelry and make sure nothing is between them and the water.

For a woman, the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch describe a modest procedure: female attendants are with her in the water, and the judges stay outside, where they can hear but not see (Yevamot 47b; Yoreh De'ah 268:2).

The Shulchan Aruch adds a moment that gets me every time: while the candidate is standing in the water, the judges tell him again some of the light and some of the heavy mitzvot, one last time, and then he goes under (Yoreh De'ah 268:2). You go down a gentile. You come up a Jew.

4. A beit din of three

The fourth pillar is the beit din, a rabbinical court of three. The Talmud learns it from the verse "one judgment shall be both for you and for the convert that sojourns with you" (Numbers 15:16). Rabbi Yochanan says: since the Torah uses the word judgment, and judgment requires three judges, a convert requires three (Yevamot 46b).

The Rambam rules that the immersion must be "in the presence of three" (Issurei Biah 13:6). The Shulchan Aruch says all the stages, informing the candidate of the mitzvot, his acceptance of them, the milah and the immersion, need three judges who are fit to judge, and during the day (Yoreh De'ah 268:3). That's also why conversions don't happen on Shabbat, on a holiday or at night (268:4).

So that's the whole skeleton: accept the mitzvot, milah (for men), mikveh, in front of a beit din of three. Everything else, the classes, the years, the interviews, exists to make sure those four things are real.

"Turn back, my daughter": why rabbis push you away

Here's the part that surprises people. You show up sincere, and the rabbi tries to talk you out of it, sometimes more than once. That isn't rudeness. It's halacha.

The Talmud records the script. When a person comes to convert, "the judges say to him: What did you see that motivated you to come to convert? Don't you know that the Jewish people at the present time are anguished, suppressed, despised and harassed, and hardships are frequently visited upon them?" If he answers that he knows, that he is unworthy of sharing their sorrow and still wants to, they accept him immediately (Yevamot 47a). The Shulchan Aruch codifies the same words (Yoreh De'ah 268:2).

Why? The Gemara answers: so that "if he is going to withdraw, let him withdraw already at this stage" (Yevamot 47b). Better to walk away before the mikveh than after.

Where "three times" comes from

The famous custom of turning a candidate away three times comes from the Book of Ruth. Naomi, a Jewish widow, is heading home to Israel. Her two Moabite daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, start out with her. Three times she tells them to go back: "Turn back" (Ruth 1:8), "Turn back, my daughters" (1:11), "Turn back, my daughters" (1:12).

The Midrash reads this as a rule: "In three places it is written here 'turn back'… corresponding to the three times that one rejects a convert. If he insists beyond that, one accepts him." And it adds: "A person shall always reject with the left and accept with the right" (Ruth Rabbah 2:16). The pushing away is supposed to be the weak hand. The welcome is supposed to be the strong one.

Orpah kissed Naomi and went home. Ruth said the most famous words any convert ever spoke:

כִּי אֶל־אֲשֶׁר תֵּלְכִי אֵלֵךְ וּבַאֲשֶׁר תָּלִינִי אָלִין עַמֵּךְ עַמִּי וֵאלֹקַיִךְ אֱלֹקָי "Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your G-d my G-d." (Ruth 1:16)

The Talmud reads that conversation as an intake interview: Naomi warns her about Shabbat limits, 613 commandments and the ban on idols, and Ruth answers each one with a line of that verse. When Naomi saw that she was determined, "she left off speaking with her" (Ruth 1:18). From that verse Rabbi Elazar learns that the court "does not overwhelm him with threats, and is not exacting with him about the details" (Yevamot 47b). Push, yes. Crush, no.

What the beit din is checking

The rabbis aren't testing whether you can memorize blessings. They're checking why you came. The Rambam says the court checks whether the candidate is coming "for the sake of financial gain, in order to receive a position of authority, or… because of fear" (Issurei Biah 13:14). The Shulchan Aruch adds: for a man, did he set his eyes on a Jewish woman; for a woman, did she set her eyes on a Jewish man (Yoreh De'ah 268:12).

Fair question. Plenty of people find Judaism through a relationship. The beit din wants to know if you'd still be here if it ended tomorrow.

Hillel's patience

Don't read all this as "Judaism doesn't want converts." The Talmud tells of three gentiles who came to Shammai with crazy conditions, one of them wanting the whole Torah while standing on one foot. Shammai chased them off. Hillel accepted and taught them, and the one-foot guy got the most famous answer in Jewish history: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study" (Shabbat 31a).

Later the three converts met and said: "Shammai's impatience sought to drive us from the world; Hillel's patience brought us beneath the wings of the Divine Presence" (Shabbat 31a).

The door is heavy. And there's someone behind it who wants you to come through.

Orthodox and other movements: why it matters

In the Orthodox world, a conversion is only valid if it follows the halacha above: kabbalat mitzvot, milah, mikveh, beit din. Reform and Conservative movements also perform conversions, with their own standards. Orthodox rabbinical courts do not accept those conversions as halachically valid, because the candidate didn't accept the full obligation of the mitzvot as Orthodox halacha defines it.

The Law of Return. Israel's Law of Return says "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh." Section 4B, added in 1970, defines a Jew as a person "born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion" (Law of Return, 5710-1950). Notice: the law doesn't say which conversion.

The courts have filled that gap. On March 1, 2021, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that Reform and Conservative conversions performed in Israel must be recognized for the Law of Return and citizenship. The same ruling made clear it was only about immigration status, and it does not require the Chief Rabbinate to recognize those conversions for marriage or burial (Times of Israel).

Marriage in Israel. In Israel there's no Jewish civil marriage. Under the Rabbinical Courts Jurisdiction (Marriage and Divorce) Law of 1953, "marriages and divorces of Jews shall be performed in Israel in accordance with Jewish religious law" (text of the law). In practice that means the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate decides who it will marry as a Jew, and it recognizes conversions done by Orthodox courts it accepts.

Bottom line, no politics: if you want your conversion accepted everywhere, including for marriage in Israel and your children's status in the Orthodox world, you want an Orthodox conversion with a recognized beit din. Ask up front whether its conversions are accepted by Israel's Chief Rabbinate.

How long does it take, and what does it cost?

There's no fixed number, and anyone who promises you one is selling something.

Halacha doesn't set a waiting period. What sets the pace is how long it takes you to actually live as a Jew: learn the laws, keep Shabbat and kosher, pray, and become part of a community, until the beit din is convinced your acceptance of the mitzvot is real. For most people that's measured in seasons and years, not weeks.

Candidates have been left in the dark before. In 2015, after a scandal in Washington, the Rabbinical Council of America reviewed its North American conversion network and recommended that candidates be given "a clear sense from the outset of the timeline and requirements for conversion" (Times of Israel / JTA). So ask. You're allowed to ask.

Costs vary by country and court: classes, books, the mikveh, the beit din's fees, sometimes travel. There's no reliable public number, so I won't invent one. Ask for the fees in writing at the start. And if anyone asks you for big money to "guarantee" a conversion, walk away. Kabbalat mitzvot isn't for sale.

What the road actually looks like

Find a rabbi. Not a YouTube rabbi. A real Orthodox rabbi in a real community who will meet you, learn with you and, if you're serious, bring you to a beit din.

Move close to a community. On Shabbat observant Jews don't drive, so if you live an hour from shul, you'll be alone every Saturday. Plan early to live within walking distance of an Orthodox community, and ask what your beit din expects. You learn Jewish life at a Shabbat table, not from a screen.

Learn. Hebrew reading, prayer, the weekly parasha, Shabbat, kashrut, the holidays and the basics of belief. Read the weekly portion with Rashi and Onkelos side by side, and follow along on our Torah page.

Start living it. Shabbat, kosher, prayer, modesty, honesty in business, tzedakah. Not perfectly, but for real. One thing your rabbi will explain: the Talmud treats a full Shabbat rest as something that belongs to the Jewish people (Sanhedrin 58b), so a candidate keeps Shabbat under his rabbi's guidance until the day he goes into the mikveh. Ask him how.

Stand before the beit din. Interviews, sometimes more than one. Then, when they're ready, milah or hatafat dam brit for men, kabbalat mitzvot before the three judges, and tevilah. You come out with a Hebrew name, usually ben Avraham Avinu or bat Avraham Avinu, and a certificate you'll keep for the rest of your life.

Famous converts: the OGs of giur

Avraham, father of converts. Avraham himself left his father's house of idols to follow Hashem. When the Torah says Avraham and Sarah left Charan with "the souls they had made" (Genesis 12:5), Rashi explains these were people they brought under the wings of the Divine Presence (Rashi on Genesis 12:5). That's why every convert is called ben or bat Avraham Avinu, child of Avraham our father. The Rambam even rules that a convert may say "our fathers" in the first-fruits declaration, because Hashem told Avraham, "I have made you a father to a multitude of nations," and "he is the father of all those who enter under the shelter of the Divine Presence" (Hilchot Bikkurim 4:3). Read his full story: Who is Avraham Avinu?

Ruth. A Moabite princess, according to the Midrash, who chose the people that had nothing to offer her but poverty and a widowed mother-in-law. Her great-grandson was King David: Ruth's son Oved "was the father of Jesse, father of David" (Ruth 4:17). The Messiah comes from a convert. Sit with that.

Onkelos. The Talmud calls him the son of Titus's sister (Gittin 56b), the nephew of the Roman general who burned the Second Temple. He converted, and when the emperor sent soldiers to bring him back, he taught them Torah and they converted too (Avodah Zarah 11a). His Aramaic translation of the Torah is printed in almost every Chumash. Read it all: Who is Onkelos?

Rabbi Akiva's family. The Rambam, tracing the chain of Torah from Moshe down, stops at Rabbi Akiva to say: "Yosef, his father, was a righteous convert." And Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Akiva's great student, was "a son of righteous converts" (Rambam, Introduction to the Mishneh Torah). The Mishnah every Jewish kid learns runs straight through convert families. Read more: Who is Rabbi Akiva?

And the Torah protects the convert again and again. "You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 22:20). "You shall love each one as yourself" (Leviticus 19:34). Rabbi Eliezer the Great says the Torah warns about hurting a convert in thirty-six places, and some say forty-six (Bava Metzia 59b). The same page teaches that hurting a convert with words breaks three separate prohibitions.

Not sure you should convert? Meet the Bnei Noach

Judaism doesn't say you have to be Jewish to be close to Hashem.

The Talmud teaches that all of humanity, the descendants of Noach, were given seven commandments: to set up courts of justice, and not to curse Hashem, worship idols, commit forbidden relations, murder, steal, or eat a limb from a living animal (Sanhedrin 56a). The Rambam rules that a non-Jew who accepts these seven laws "because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Torah" is one of the pious of the nations and "will merit a share in the world to come" (Hilchot Melachim 8:11).

That's the Bnei Noach (Noahide) path. It's not a consolation prize. A good rabbi will ask you honestly which path is yours.

Giur adds 613 commandments and binds your children after you. That's a blessing and a weight. Choose it with your eyes open, like Ruth did.

Latinos, Spanish speakers and the anusim

All over Latin America, people are knocking on the door of Judaism. Some feel a pull they can't explain. Some carry family customs that look Jewish, like a grandmother who lit candles on Friday night without knowing why.

Many ask whether they descend from the anusim, the Jews of Spain and Portugal who were forced to convert to Catholicism during the Inquisition. Some of them did come to the Americas. Historians call their descendants Bnei Anusim.

Here's the halachic reality. Jewish status passes through the mother, and after five hundred years almost nobody can prove an unbroken maternal line. So in practice, organizations that work with these communities in coordination with Israel's Rabbinate say a formal conversion is needed. Shavei Israel, which works with Bnei Anusim in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, puts it plainly: anyone from these communities "would have to undergo a conversion to assure his or her status," and the conversion itself is left to the beit din (Shavei Israel). The same article reports that in Colombia alone there are easily 3,000 people who have formed their own Bnei Anusim federations.

If you think you're descended from anusim, that story may be how Hashem brought you here. But the road back runs through the same four pillars: kabbalat mitzvot, milah, mikveh and a beit din. Some call it a return. Halachically, it's a giur.

A warning: be careful with "rabbis" who promise fast conversions online or for a fee, with no recognized Orthodox beit din behind them. Ask where the conversions are accepted, at home and in Israel. Vague answer? Keep looking.

A word from the street

I came from a world where your name was your rep, and your rep was what other people said about you. Giur flips that. The beit din doesn't care what the block said. It cares what you'll take on now, and whether you'll still do it when nobody's watching. If you keep coming back, they'll see it. Ruth kept walking. Onkelos kept walking. Rabbi Akiva's father kept walking. Keep walking.

If this work helps you, you can support Six1Trey here. And if you want the long version of how a kid from Queens and Bogotá ended up on the road to giur, it's in the book: G2G: From Gangster to Ger.

FAQ

What is giur in Judaism?

Giur is the Hebrew word for conversion to Judaism. It is a permanent change of status, not just a change of belief. According to the Talmud, once a convert immerses in a mikveh before a beit din, he or she is like a born Jew in every sense, and a new start, like a newborn child.

What are the requirements for an Orthodox conversion?

An Orthodox conversion has four parts: kabbalat mitzvot, accepting all the commandments; brit milah for men, or hatafat dam brit if already circumcised; immersion in a kosher mikveh; and all of it before a beit din of three qualified judges, during the day. Women need acceptance of the mitzvot and immersion.

Why do rabbis turn away people who want to convert?

The Talmud tells the court to warn candidates that the Jewish people suffer, so anyone who will quit leaves early. The Midrash on Ruth teaches that a candidate is turned back three times, from Naomi's three "turn back" calls, and accepted if they insist. The push is meant to be gentle, the welcome strong.

Does Israel recognize non-Orthodox conversions?

Partly. Since a March 2021 Supreme Court ruling, Reform and Conservative conversions done in Israel count for the Law of Return and citizenship. But Jewish marriage in Israel is run by the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate under a 1953 law, and it does not recognize those conversions for marriage or burial.

Do I have to convert to have a relationship with Hashem?

No. Judaism teaches that all humanity received seven Noahide commandments. The Rambam rules that a non-Jew who keeps them because Hashem commanded them in the Torah is one of the pious of the nations with a share in the world to come. Conversion is a choice to take on 613 commandments.

I think my family descends from anusim. Do I still need to convert?

Usually, yes. Jewish status passes through the mother, and after centuries almost nobody can document an unbroken maternal line. Organizations working with Bnei Anusim alongside Israel's Rabbinate say a formal conversion before a beit din is needed to secure Jewish status, even when the family story is real.

Sources: Talmud, Midrash, Rambam and Shulchan Aruch texts and translations from Sefaria (William Davidson Talmud; Eliyahu Touger's translation of the Mishneh Torah; Sefaria Community Translation of the Shulchan Aruch; JPS Tanakh, gender-sensitive edition), checked October 2026. Legal and news sources are linked in the text. This guide is general education, not a ruling — every candidate works with their own rabbi and beit din.