Consequential relatives: religious transformation and kinship in Polish conversions to Judaism

The resurgence of Jewish religious congregations in post‐communist Poland brought about the emergence of an institutional framework enabling conversion to Judaism. In consequence, the theological and legal precepts of becoming Jewish through a ritual act encountered the formations of relatedness forged in the historical and socio‐political realities of Poland. Drawing on ethnographic research with conversion candidates and converts in Jewish congregations, this article investigates the relationship between Judaism and kinship in this context, demonstrating the manner in which religious ideas and practices inform the remaking of kinship, and how the latter, in turn, reshapes the meaning and efficacy of religious transformation, turning it into a vocational act and an inevitable consequence of presumed ties to living or ancestral kin.