Culture
How I have adapted to life in Zurich since my conversion to Judaism
My life in Zurich began in 2012. After studying law at the university in Ukraine. I studied for Master’s degrees in London and California but neither place felt like somewhere I wanted to settle down or to eventually call my home. California is lovely; it’s an easy place to be – the weather is always great and the people are friendly, but it felt like a long way from my family and friends. Furthermore, I struggled to find spiritual resonance, something that worked for me. After completing my studies abroad, I knew that returning to Ukraine would only be temporary before I took the next step forward.
I soon relocated to Switzerland for studies and work, and I realised within a few weeks of arrival that I had found my place.
I instantly took to Zurich – a beautiful small city where the opportunities to explore nature are endless, and I soon came to love everything about it. The city I arrived in then was very different to the one I know today.
In 2018 I started dating Marnin, the man who was to become my husband. I was very happy with my life here but was still searching for that sense of spirituality I had been unable to find in London and California.
The moment it became clear that we wanted to spend our lives together I also knew that I had found the spirituality I had been looking for. It was then that I decided to convert to Judaism and a year of intense study began.
In many ways, we live as other professionals do in the 21st century – we are both lawyers working full time – but it is also a life deeply rooted in a faith that was written down over 2,000 years ago.
Friday evenings mark the start of the Jewish Shabbat – the Sabbath. Whereas previously at the end of a working week I might have done something recreational, like meeting friends in a bar or going to see a film, now, whatever kind of week we have had at work, it is time as evening falls to welcome Shabbat. My husband and I and friends and family too will be settling down for a meal that starts by lighting two candles, saying welcoming prayers before moving on to share food and wine in the companionable and spiritual tradition that Jews have followed for centuries.
It has been more than a year since I converted to Judaism. Since my conversion I have experienced one complete year of the Jewish calendar and embarked on a second. I have now lived through all the festivals at least once as a practising Jew, rather than as someone working hard to convert.
Nor has it been a typical year. Barely six months after my conversion, the global pandemic changed the routine´s face of worship for all faiths. Lockdown measures closed synagogues, churches and mosques. When they were reopened some months later, numbers were severely limited. All of this threw up new and unexpected challenges and has meant that many of our festivals have been celebrated and observed in a different way than usual. It has been much more difficult to go to synagogue in the past six months, much more of our religious practice has taken place at home.
It seems possible to me that Judaism has been particularly well equipped to cope with this change. We have, after all, experienced much worse. Prayers and worship can and do take place within the home anyway; it is a faith that is able to function behind closed doors. There was of course a time when Judaism was completely banned in the Soviet Union. But Jews, like other faiths, don’t stop practising because they are told to.
We are very fortunate as my husband is custodian of a 400-year-old Torah. (You never own a Torah.) This has been passed down through his family, and he will one day pass it on in his turn. It is very precious and this, together with his knowledge of his faith, means he is able to lead a service at home. And so we have moved forward, at home, through the various festivals that have unfolded since the pandemic changed the way we live.
Our Shabbat and festivals, celebrated at home, regularly include friends who in normal times might never have attended synagogue at all. It’s lovely to feel our community expanding in this organic way.
Early in our relationship, Marnin took me to the house of some friends of his. As I witnessed my first Shabbat supper, with the prayers and thoughtful conversations about what a particular prayer meant, and the emphasis on family being included from the tiniest baby to the eldest member, I instinctively felt very drawn to it. I liked it a great deal, and very quickly I saw that Judaism had so much to give.
I saw that it was very different from the way I had experienced religion, with visits to church and big celebrations on one or two important days a year. Judaism is something that is with you all the time, that operates much more in the everyday. The family is at the heart of it and a lot of the religious aspects take place in the home. It isn’t something that is confined to a special day or place. It is in your life all the time. It affects how you live on a day-to-day level: the choices you make, the person you are. All of that really resonated with me, and felt right, and like something I wanted to take into my life.
At every Shabbat there is a lot of learning. There is a discussion about why we do certain things and what purpose those things serve, and what they are reminding us of. It didn’t take very long for me to think, yes, I can embrace this as a regular way of life.
Family, friends and colleagues were intrigued by why I decided to convert to Judaism. I could offer no short answer to the complex question so I began to write down my thoughts, and this became the basis of my book, Osher. Books are crucial to the study of Judaism, but when it came to reading about the personal experience of others, there weren’t many books of this kind to be found. I’m very much hoping that my book will be helpful to others who are curious about what conversion to Judaism entails or want to understand the choices that their own families and friends have made.
When I arrived in Zurich, almost ten years ago, new to the city, I had no idea of the twists and turns that life would take. Back then, I occasionally attended the Orthodox Christian Church in Zurich because this was the tradition I had been brought up in, but I knew nothing of the extensive Jewish community in the city that I know now. I imagined that I would be enjoying all the best that the city has to offer – the outdoor life, nature, the walks in the mountains. But I find that we have all this and more, much more. This community has become my family in Switzerland, and thanks to this wonderful welcome I have received I know more people and certainly have more friends than ever before.
This article is written by Tetiana Michaels
About the author:
Tetiana Michaels is the author of Osher: My Journey to Judaism. She grew up in a part of Western Ukraine known as Bukovyna, in a city called Chernivtsi, historically predominantly Jewish. She received Master´s degrees in Law from top universities in Ukraine, the USA and the UK and then pursued an international legal career. She lives in Zurich with her husband and daughter.
