Looking Back: The Day I Decided to Convert to Judaism

My journey from Cairo to Judaism and Zionism; the Introduction

The Israeli Ambassador’s London residence glowed with chandeliers and quiet resolve that December evening in 2024. Families of soldiers spoke of bravery; diplomats murmured about the war. Then a Chabad rabbi recognised me. "I know you from Twitter," he said. "But tell me—when did you first decide to become Jewish?"

His question unearthed a memory I’d nearly buried: a trembling version of myself in Cairo, hunched over a computer in 2012, typing a plea into Chabad’s "Ask the Rabbi" portal. Twelve years ago. Had I ever spoken of it?

I scrolled through my phone—past security briefings, work memos, photos of my children’s first time in synagogue—until I found it. The email. His eyes widened as I showed him. "This rabbi you wrote to? We went to yeshiva together!"

I nearly laughed aloud. An Egyptian’s secret plea for conversion, sent from a city where synagogues crumble behind police barricades… now echoed in an embassy where I stood as a Jew. A defender. A member of the tribe.

Later, I reread those words. They felt foreign. Penned by a ghost: Alias: "Jack Collins", Sent: 12 January 2012. 9:17 AM Cairo time.
"You never know if it’s safe over the internet," I’d written.
Twenty-two. Terrified of state security. Certain Judaism held my salvation. And utterly clueless.

His reply was a bucket of cold water: Conversion demanded community. Study. Commitment. No online shortcuts. No "Jewish Shahada."
What an awful man! I’d fumed back then. Why wouldn’t he just help me?

Now, I grin at that furious boy. How could he have known? In my Cairo, Jews were whispered legends. Synagogues: skeletal relics guarded by batons and suspicion. I’d never met one—only absorbed state telly’s venom and the acid gossip of streets thick with post-revolution rage.

I went back to my American friend, complaining:

The Backstory No One Knew

It began with a yearning to find meaning, sparked on Facebook.

2011. Cairo choked on tear gas and fragile hope. Mubarak had fallen. And there they were—an Egyptian and an American Jew—shouting into the void about who really won the Yom Kippur War.

I slammed my keyboard: "Who cares who won? We all won when the war ended and we made peace!". They fell silent. The American and I messaged. We talked for months.

But this wasn’t curiosity. It was rebellion. My Egypt was a prison of the past: a country obsessed with dead pharaohs and faded wars, where marriage required bribing gods of property and tradition. A place where "America is the enemy" dripped from minarets and coffee shops alike.

I lived two lives. Outwardly: the polite, secular Cairene who rolled his eyes at Islamists. Inwardly: a ghost bingeing Friends, hoarding US government briefings that profoundly contradicted everything I was taught, aching to walk into a synagogue without looking over his shoulder.

My escape plan? Judaism and imagination. Belonging. A truth I could hold.

The Punchline Only Life Could Write

July 2025. I’m a Jew. My children’s bedtime stories are followed by the Shema. My work? Defending the tribe I once hoped to join from shadows they’ve never seen and evils many of them fail to even understand.

That rabbi who said "no" in 2012? He was right. Judaism isn’t a Shahada. It’s a thousand rejections before a "yes." It’s London rabbis turning me away again in 2016. It’s realising conversion isn’t adoption—it’s tearing your skin off to regrow it.

What happened between Cairo’s dusty alleys and this Substack?

Betrayal. By countries, ideologies, even those I loved.
Terror. Staring down jihadists who’d gut me for this choice.
And joy—real, marrow-deep joy—watching my kids light Shabbat candles.

This is part one. I’ll tell it all: the government contacts, the nights I questioned my sanity, the moment Zionism stopped being a policy and became my bones whispering "Hineni."

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