COLLEGE CONVERT: Evan Kaplan, 19, will be baptized as a Catholic this Easter.

The first time Evan Kaplan stepped into a Catholic Church, he felt at home. That same sense of familiarity convinced Jason to become a Jew for Jesus. Joseph Kempler was drawn to the Jehovah’s Witnesses during his labor camp imprisonment.

All three men were Jews, born and raised. Yet what unites them more than their religious roots is that they have all made the conscious choice to leave the Jewish faith.

More people convert into rather than out of Judaism, but there are some Jews who look for answers elsewhere. It’s a corner of the community that few Jews care to look into. Yet when you look, some interesting questions surface: Who are these people who make such a change? Why? And, in some way, do they still retain their Jewishness?

The Intellectual Pursuit

Evan Kaplan first began questioning his faith as a freshman in college. Although he attended religious school until becoming a bar mitzvah, his Jewishness ended there. After his 13^th birthday Kaplan stopped being observant and considered himself agnostic. But that didn’t feel quite right.

“When I came to school I felt like there was this void in my life,” the now 19-year-old University of Missouri sophomore says. “I wanted a more active spiritual life.”

Kaplan started spending more time at temple and re-immersed himself in the Jewish community, but something still wasn’t right.

“There were certain things that just did not line up,” Kaplan says.  “But instead of giving up, I starting looking elsewhere.”

Kaplan’s search led him to Methodist, Unitarian and Lutheran churches, but they all lacked the familiarity he was looking for. Then he attended his first Catholic Mass.

“It was something I was comfortable with,” he says.  “I don’t pretend it’s perfect, but it fixed a lot of the problems that I had with Judaism.”

It really bothers Kaplan that Judaism doesn’t address the idea of fate or what makes people extraordinary. Kaplan also finds Judaism hard to relate to because it does not contain any scriptures from the past 2000 years.

“It’s just a big hole in time,” he says.  “I like the idea of God always being present and active.”

Still, the prospect of switching religions was unsettling. After a lifetime of believing Jesus was just another good man, Kaplan was skeptical that Jesus Christ was indeed the world’s savior. But Kaplan’s apprehension of the Son of God eventually lessened.

One Sunday at church, Kaplan was following the congregation as they received Communion.  Because he was not yet baptized he had to cross his arms over his chest to indicate that he could not fully participate in the ceremony.

“The first person put a hand on my shoulder and said a prayer.  Then the second person put a hand on my forehead and I felt this powerful feeling that somebody – a friend or somebody I knew well but haven’t seen in awhile – was with me,” he says.  “It wasn’t a vision or anything special.  It was just a feeling of meeting an old friend, and it stayed with me for a long time after I left mass.  That was the first time I felt Jesus in my life.

“Before that I wasn’t completely sold on Jesus and I didn’t understand how I would believe in him when I had been taught for so long not to,” he says.  “But after that day, there wasn’t any doubt in my head of his being real and being the Son of God.  It was an awakening.”

Kaplan will be baptized this Easter.

The Accidental Search

Jason was also surprised at his ability to accept Jesus after his Jewish childhood.  For him, though, accepting Jesus didn’t mean he had to give up his Jewish faith. Jason asked for his last name to be withheld because he still has friends and family members who do not know that he has become a Jew for Jesus.

“I am Jewish and I’m not giving that up for anything,” the 29-year-old from Milwaukee says. Jason has never missed a Passover, Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. Although Jason’s mother had grown up an Orthodox Jew, his parents decided to raise him and his sister as Reform Jews, following their father’s denomination.

In college Jason became intrigued with the Torah.  He read the entire Pentateuch and Mishnah in order to understand Jewish traditions and history more fully.  He would go out with his friends, have a few drinks and then return home to read the Torah.

During this soul-searching time, Jason moved to the Twin Cities with a business partner who kept inviting him to church services. Every weekend Jason turned down the invitation.

“Jesus is for gentiles,” he would tell his business partner.

One week, however, Jason accepted the invitation.  When he got to the ser vice, he was shocked to hear familiar Jewish scriptures. Even more shocking was his immediate spiritual connection.

“There was something telling me to go confess, but I couldn’t do it,” he says.  “For some reason, I wanted to accept Jesus.  I had this spiritual urge to go do it.”

But Jason didn’t want to give up his Jewishness. Soon, he came into contact with Messianic Jews, who told him they believed that he could still be Jewish and believe in Jesus.  Jason still goes to Shabbat services every Saturday morning and does not celebrate any non-Jewish holidays like Christmas and Easter.

“Sometimes when I talk to Jewish people, they say that their people hate my people, so I tell them that they hate themselves,” he says.  “I am still Jewish in everything I do.  Every Shabbat I still wear a kippah.  I have become a better Jew after accepting Jesus.”

In order to officially become a Jew for Jesus, Jason had to say a formal prayer in which he publicly acknowledged his personal relationship with God and Jesus. Jason compared this process to Yom Kippur because Jesus had to forgive him for his sins.

The search for faith

Jason and Evan explored their religious orientations in young adulthood, a period known for self-exploration and identity crises. Joseph Kempler also began questioning his religious faith as a teenager. However, unlike Jason and Evan, Kempler spent his teenage years as a labor camp prisoner.

Joseph Kempler, 80, had a hard time believing in God’s existence while witnessing firsthand the horrors of the Shoah. Yet while in the concentration camp Rakowice, located outside of Krakow, Poland, he encountered a group of people who seemed to hold on to their religious beliefs as strongly as ever.

“There was this one barrack with wire all around it, and nobody was allowed in or out,” Kempler says.  “I wondered what kind of people were in this barrack.  I found out they were Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I had never heard of these German gentiles so I started asking questions about them.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe God’s kingdom is supreme over the national government, which means that they should not salute a flag, sing any nationalistic songs or join the army.  They also believe that everything – including Jesus Christ – was created by Jehovah, the one true God.  They avoid celebrating holidays because they believe these customs come from pagan religions.  This includes birthdays, Easter and Independence Day.

Although Kempler was not allowed to talk to the isolated prisoners, he remained curious about the people in this forbidden barrack.  What really struck him, he says, was the fact that, unlike many Jews in the concentration camp, this group never gave up its loyalty to God.  Kempler did not come in contact with another Jehovah’s Witness until after the war, when he ran into two followers at a displaced persons camp in Poland.

“They were nice people,” he says.  “One of the Witnesses was paralyzed, but he still couldn’t give up his faith.”

Kempler was astounded that a person who had been through so much could still be a believer. He decided to investigate Jehovah’s Witnesses further and over the years gained even more interest in the group. After he turned 30 he decided to officially convert. Kempler was also featured in a PBS documentary called “Knocking” about Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Kempler says that his goal as a Jehovah’s Witness is to spread the hope he observed during the Holocaust that inspired him to covert to the religion.

“We go [door to door] to help others accept faith by learning about it, he says.

Kempler meets wit his congregation to study and learn more about the religion for four hours each week.

“We want to keep up to date,” he says. “We are continuously learning about speaking in public, teaching people and improving ourselves.”

Is it possible to convert out of Judaism?

While Kempler does not identify himself as Jew, some rabbis do not believe it is possible to convert out of Judaism at all.

“There is this concept of a, mumar, or one who has rebelled,” says Barry Wimpfheimer, an assistant professor of religion at Northwestern University who specializes in Rabbinic Judaism.

“This is someone who eats non-Kosher food because of his appetite and not to demonstrate that he is not eating Kosher food.  Some just find non-observance more appealing.”

Some Orthodox and Conservative rabbis equate Jews who claim to have converted out of the religion to Jews who are no longer observant.

“They’re Jewish, but they just don’t do anything Jewish,” Wimpfheimer says.  “Once you are Jewish in the Halakah (the collective body of Jewish law), you are still Jewish even if you are sinning.”

Wimpfheimer also points out that much of Judaism is cultural.

“There is this essential Jewishness that is part of the soul that is found in Jewish people,” he says.  “If your soul is originally part Jewish, what happens after you decide to leave?”

Israel also does not recognize conversion and allows people who claim to have converted into other religions to maintain citizenship in the country.

“Biologically you are Jewish, and if you convert you are still considered Jewish by the ministries,” Wimpfheimer says.

Regardless of what these rabbis say, neither Kempler nor Kaplan considers himself to be Jewish.

Kaplan, the 19-year-old student who converted to Catholicism, says he would only participate in Jewish traditions as part of family-bonding time.

“I would go to spend time with them, but I would not be saying the prayers or participating actively in the service,” he says.  “I would be present and respectful, though.”

Although Kaplan’s family was initially shocked when he announced that he had left his Jewish identity behind, they have since come to accept it. His mother actually had converted to Judaism from Christianity years ago.

“They weren’t thrilled at first, but they saw it was something that was really picking me up,” he says.  “It was filling a void in my life, and when they realized that, they become much more supportive.”

Still, most of Kaplan’s extended family do not know about his new religion.

“It’s a personal thing.  I’m doing it for myself and not for anybody else,” he says.  “I would never hesitate to talk about it, but I have no desire to bring it up because it could only lead to a strange sort of confrontation with my family.”

Kempler, the Holocaust survivor who became a Jehovah’s Witness, lost most of his family during the war. He married a Jewish woman after the war who died only two years later.  The couple had a daughter, though. She is still Jewish.

“Although [my daughter] probably wishes I was still Jewish, she accepts my faith,” Kempler says.  “I wish she believed in my faith, but she doesn’t have to.”

For Jason, the Messianic Jew, acceptance from his family did not come easily. His sister had decided to become an Orthodox Jew at around the same time that Jason accepted Jesus into his life. She told him that he was dead to her and even made Jason meet with her rabbi to discuss his beliefs. But nothing changed Jason’s mind.

Now, three years later, Jason and his sister are on better terms – he talks to her every week.  Jason also successfully convinced his parents that he is still Jewish.  He says that accepting Jesus was the best decision that he has ever made, and his life has improved drastically.

“I stopped drinking.  I used to drink three to four times a week.  I also used to swear a lot, and I’ve cut back on that.  I used to use God’s name in vain, too.  I have changed completely,” he says.  “I’m fulfilled, and that’s what God wants.”

-Emily Laermer