The Road to Conversion
Hong Zheng on her wedding day with Haim Tebeica
At that point, Hong had never been to a synagogue and had not met religious Jews. Her decision to convert stemmed purely from her intellectual quest. Hong’s friends, including some secular Jews, had tried to dissuade her. They told her that Judaism has too many restrictions and leads to a miserable life. But for Hong, it was a matter of principle. She wasn’t looking for an easy life. She was pursuing truth.
Hong’s first step was keeping kosher. She didn’t know exactly what that entailed but she knew that religious Jews didn’t eat pork, so she decided to become a vegetarian. “If this is what it takes,” she said to herself, “I’ll see if I can do it.” She recalls, “I lived in the downtown Flushing Chinese community, and there, the smells from Chinese cooking are all over. And I can’t deny that the food is delicious! It was not easy but I could do it! I asked myself if I would be able to do it for the rest of my life and decided that I could.”
Hong’s next step was keeping Shabbat. Just like with kosher, she did not know what that entailed, so did the safest thing – she stayed in her apartment the whole Shabbat and didn’t eat any hot food. After several weeks, she said to herself, “This is really hard! But can I do it for the rest of my life? Yes, I can.”
After reassuring herself that living an observant Jewish life was doable Hong decided that it was time to speak to a rabbi. She’d never met a rabbi before and didn’t know where to find one. “I looked around,” she recalls. “There was a synagogue just across from the Chinese radio station. It was a beautiful large synagogue with a big Star of David and stained-glass windows. I walked in and said to the rabbi, ‘I would like to convert to Judaism.’ The rabbi said, ‘Wonderful!’ He received me very warmly, made a phone call, arranged for me to contact a school in Manhattan. But I just felt that something was off. I’d heard that Jews don’t really encourage you to convert. On the contrary, they might try to slow you down.”
On her way out, Hong asked the rabbi if he kept Shabbat and kosher. The rabbi told her that he drives to synagogue on Shabbat. “I politely said thank you,” says Hong, “but in my heart I turned that down. I had a good life in China that I could go back to any time. Why would I choose such a hard life if I wanted to do things superficially? What was the point?” She wanted to practice Judaism in the most authentic way.
In Search for a Rabbi
Hong was not sure where to turn to next. On the way to work, she noticed a building where people coming in and out looked visibly Jewish. She decided to go there.
When she walked in, she saw two teenage boys and asked them if she could speak to the rabbi. They went to check, then came back and told her that the rabbi wasn’t in. Hong asked for the rabbi’s phone number. They told her that the rabbi didn’t have a phone.
Hong thought to herself, “Now I’ve come to the right place. They’re trying to push me off.”
She told the boys that she would come at a different time and was about to leave when young adult men walked in and asked the boys what the visitor wanted.
Hong spoke up. “I’m interested in Judaism.” The men laughed in her face. “It broke my heart,” Hong recalls. “I walked out with tears in my eyes. I was so embarrassed. I had gathered all my courage, came to a strange place, spoke in my broken English, and they just laughed at me.”
Hong says that today, she doesn’t blame the young men. She found out later that the building was a boys’ yeshiva, and the boys were not used to strangers walking in and inquiring about conversion.
But at the time, she began to doubt her decision to convert. Then she thought to herself, “What if this is a test? There is an easy way, but you don’t want them. And this is the real deal, and they don’t want you. Let me try one more time.”
Hong got into her reporter mode. She took a tape recorder, went to the main street of the Jewish neighborhood, and began interviewing Jewish women about their lifestyle.
One of the women spoke to her for some time and then asked Hong why she was asking all those questions. Hong admitted that she wanted to convert to Judaism but didn’t know how.
“Because of the interview, we built up some trust,” says Hong. The woman offered to help. She made some phone calls and put Hong in touch with Rabbi Meir Fund, who dealt with Orthodox conversions in Brooklyn.
Hong met with Rabbi Fund. “We spoke for over an hour,” she recalls. “After he heard what I had to say, he said, ‘Sounds like you’re very serious. Where do you live?’”
When Rabbi Fund heard that Hong lived in Queens, he recommended she meet Rabbi Peretz Steinberg. Rabbi Steinberg helped Hong with her conversion and continues to be her rabbi. He also suggested that Hong meet other conversion candidates.
Through him, Hong got in touch with an Italian American woman who was in the conversion process. They decided to meet at a synagogue in Queens.
When Hong walked into the synagogue, she heard the beautiful singing and burst into tears. This was her first time in an Orthodox synagogue and she finally felt that she’d come home. Until then, Hong’s conversion journey had been purely intellectual but now, her emotions got fully on board.
Hong threw herself into learning Hebrew and the basics of Judaism. As she learned the Torah with the traditional commentaries, she was even more impressed and moved by the text that had originally drew her to Judaism. She also felt that G-d was guiding her on her path. “My life is full of miracles,” she says.
For example, when she began keeping Shabbat, Hong lost two jobs, one after another. She was disappointed and unsure how she would make it in America all on her own, but she continued studying for conversion.
A few days after she converted, Hong got a job in a Jewish-owned Shabbat observant company, which paid better than her previous jobs had. Her boss even offered to give her a ride to work every day. She says, “G-d was telling me, ‘I know what you gave up. I’ll make it up to you.’”
Hong had also given up her whole TV career. She knew that once she became Jewish, she would no longer live in China where Jews were few and far between. A precondition for her conversion was moving into a Jewish neighborhood and joining a synagogue. She had decided that she would stay in America, improve her English, and get into a different line of work.
Staying in America was not so simple. China did not necessarily want to give up its prominent award-winning investigative journalist. Hong had to get a special permission from the Chinese government, which she eventually received thanks to her connections.
Because of her sincere commitment and dedication, Hong managed to complete her conversion within six months.
Upon converting, she chose the Hebrew name Esther Tiferes.
