Journeys of the Soul

Penina Taylor’s life has come a full 360 degrees – she was born Jewish but then converted to Evangelical Christianity. She became a leader of a Messianic Congregation and succeeded in converting many other Jews to Christianity, including her own parents and sister. After 17 years she finally found her way back to Judaism and now tries to help other Jews escape the clutches of the Church.

Penina chronicled her life’s story in the book Coming Full Circle, which was published in November 2009. Shortly after the book was published, she shared her story with The Jewish Press.

Penina grew up in a turbulent, loosely-affiliated Jewish home. Her parents, both Jewish, had gotten divorced when she was four years old. As a child she had been emotionally and physically abused by a family friend. Understandably when she reached high school, the typical teenage challenges were compounded by the emotional baggage she carried with her. Penina was looking for answers and emotional support.

When she was a little more than 15 and in tenth grade, she overheard a born-again Christian girl in her class evangelizing other students. Penina initially reacted with anger and confronted the girl. But as she spoke to her, and in follow-up conversations, the other girl succeeded in winning her over. Penina began attending church with the girl and within the year she decided to convert to Christianity. She committed herself almost immediately to bringing other Jews into the Christian fold.

Her first targets were her mother and sister, and they soon converted as well. Following high school Penina attended Bible College and became a counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade evangelical organization.

After college Penina decided to marry her non-Jewish high school sweetheart named Paul. Penina had not seen her father in years, but had always dreamed about him escorting her down the aisle at her wedding. With her mother’s consent, she found her father and invited him to visit for a couple of weeks so they could get to know each other again and discuss the upcoming wedding.

During the visit her parents fell in love with each other again and decided to get remarried. But it wasn’t proper for her now-Christian mother to marry her still-Jewish father, so while they were together Penina and her mother convinced him to convert as well.

Following Paul and Penina’s wedding, the young couple moved to England for his service in the United States Air Force. They joined a local church and began doing missionary work there.

During this time, Penina and Paul began having some very strange experiences. One day as she was reciting her Christian prayers, Penina felt that G-d was telling her to light Shabbat candles on Friday nights. She spoke it over with Paul and he consented. Neither felt that it was contradictory to bring Jewish rituals into their Christian life; rather they both that doing so could make her a stronger Christian.

A few weeks later, Paul was reading his copy of the Old Testament and stumbled across the rules of Kosher eating. He showed them to Penina, and told her that because she was Jewish, she had an obligation to follow the rules of the Torah. She agreed and decided to abandon shellfish and pork products.

“I always felt that it was really important to worship G-d in truth,” Penina said. “[Our life was] a journey of discovering the truth of how G-d wanted us to worship Him.”

Later when reading the New Testament, they discovered an ambiguous statement that implied that married women should cover their hair. Paul and Penina had long before abandoned their Xmas tree upon learning of its non-Christian pagan roots. Penina was now covering her hair, eating kosher and lighting candles (while still attending church on Sundays).

Penina and Paul eventually moved back to Maryland to be near her parents. They founded their own Messianic Congregation which combined both Christian and Jewish rituals. Penina was extremely curious about Judaism, and began buying all of the Jewish books she could find. She was still committed to Christianity, but tried bringing some of the Jewish ideas she was learning into their church and personal lives.

They eventually were told about a house for sale in the Upper Park Heights neighborhood of Baltimore, in the middle of the frum community. They decided that there was no better way to try to convert Jews than to live among them. So they moved in and began attending a local Orthodox synagogue.

Paul felt like it was not ethical to hide their true identity from their neighbors, so they revealed themselves to the rabbi of the synagogue. The rabbi explained to them that it was impossible to be Jewish and Christian simultaneously. He referred them to local Jews For Judaism anti-missionary group. They called the group, and a man named Mark Powers came over to speak to them.
Although Mark had not been a missionary himself, he had been working as a counter-missionary for years. He challenged them to explain their beliefs in Christianity and the Jewish sources that they thought supported their Christian way of life. One by one, Mark showed them that their entire belief system was based on lies and mistranslations. Penina returned time and again to him with more questions. She was both curious to learn more, and terrified to find out how wrong she had been.

“Like bricks, the foundations of my faith were being pulled out one by one, and eventually there was nothing left to support the tower. It all came tumbling down,” Penina said.

Penina began slowly rebuilding her beliefs around true, authentic Judaism. She launched herself on a new journey of discovery of how to live as a frum Jewish woman. Her four children decided to follow suit and also eagerly embraced Judaism.

The events in his family were initially difficult for Paul. He had spent his entire life as a Christian. But several years later after watching the positive changes in his family, he decided on his own to convert. Penina even succeeded in helping her parents give up Christianity, and they eventually became Orthodox and moved to Israel. Sadly, Penina’s sister is still an evangelical Christian.

In December 2006 the Taylors made aliyah, and Penina founded an anti-missionary organization, the Shomrei Emet Institute. With her deep training and experience on both sides of the missionary world, she’s now trying to save other Jews from making the mistakes that cost her so many years of her life.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in May 2010

Ken and Beth Broodo of Dallas were inspired on their religious journey by a pair of non Jews, and credit a Rabbi’s blessing with helping them to have children.

The Broodos were both raised in non-Orthodox Jewish homes. Ken is a lawyer by trade and years ago he and Beth ran a small business selling Amway products.

Amway recruits people in local communities to sell its products and provides them with ongoing training, sales seminars and self-improvement classes. Sales people are strongly encouraged to attend the seminars, which are always on Saturdays. The Broodos were not observant at the time, so they attended the events without qualm.

At one of the regional sales conferences, the Broodos attended a sales seminar by the motivational speaker Les Brown. One pithy comment hit home with them.

“One of his refrains was, ‘if you put G-d first, you’ll never come in second,’ ” Ken said.

The Broodos had not thought much about G-d outside of synagogue and the major holidays, and especially never thought about bringing Him into their business. But this one comment made them realize that there is a spiritual element to business success which they needed to explore.

At a later Amway event in Conroe, Texas, the Broodos had another epiphany, also from an unexpected source.

They had arranged a meeting with one of the top-selling Amway representatives at the time, a non-Jew from the Deep South. People flocked to meet him for his advice and guidance. He was in such high demand that the Broodos had to wait for hours to meet with him, and finally got a chance to sit down with him at 3:00 am in a local donut store.

The Broodos shmoozed with him about his successes, their business and life in general. One of his comments made a profound impression on them. Ken recounts the conversation:

“We were sitting there talking about G-d and G-d-type topics. Not Christianity, not Judaism, but just G-d. I said to him jokingly, ‘It’s like you’re becoming my Rabbi.’ His eyes got very big. He said, ‘No I’m not, and you need to go find one.’”

These two comments led the Broodos to start thinking introspectively about their life, their values and their religion. The comments by this man and Les Brown helped them to see that there was more to life than they thought. They beginning thinking that maybe they were missing something spiritual.

After returning home, Beth and Ken began checking out different non-Orthodox synagogues in their area.

“Nothing rang true. They all seemed superficial in their observance and service,” Ken said.

The Broodos continued their quest. One day they attended a seminar given by a local Jewish organization, the Dallas Area Torah Association (DATA). The seminar was about the upcoming holiday of Purim. The event presented ideas the Broodos had never heard before, about the hidden messages of the holiday and the spirituality of Judaism. The Broodos were especially impressed by one of the speakers, Rabbi Aryeh Feigenbaum.

Following the seminar, the Broodos began attending other DATA classes. They began hearing amazing truths of Judaism, and saw that it held the spiritual secrets that they were pursuing. The Amway speakers were correct – the Broodos needed to bring G-d into their life, and they realized that their Judaism was just the way to do it.

Over time the Broodos began spending Shabbat at the home of the Feigenbaums and other families in the community. They were attracted by the lifestyle and the values they were seeing. They wanted so much to become part of the community, but were intimidated by some of the religious practices. In particular they thought that Shabbas was an all-or-nothing thing, that they had to commit to keeping it in its complete entirety or to keeping none of it. Rabbi Feigenbaum showed them how they could take it on gradually.

Rabbi Feigenbaum gave them other practical suggestions. The Broodos followed his advice and began slowly taking on some of the observances of Shabbat. But it took them some time to grow into fully observing Shabbat.

The Broodos eventually moved close to an Orthodox synagogue in Dallas and later became fully observant. A new Orthodox synagogue called Ohr HaTorah was founded in their living room. The Broodos remain deeply involved in DATA and the synagogue to this day.

Ohr HaTorah had its first services in their home on Sunday morning, the 14th of Shevat, 1999. The day before, the Broodos attended the annual DATA Shabbat retreat. Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser was the guest speaker of the weekend, and the Broodos had many conversations with him.

In particular, they asked him for advice about a major source of sadness in their lives - after many years of marriage, they were unable to have children. Even repeated medical treatments and experimental therapies were unable to help. The Broodos literally cried on his shoulders asking him for guidance.

Rabbi Goldwasser had heard that Ohr HaTorah was planning to start in their home on the following day. He gave them a blessing that in the merit of the synagogue starting in their home, Hashem should grant them children.

Exactly one year later on the 14th of Shevat, 2000, the Broodos were blessed with twin girls whom they named Rachel and Leah Esther.

Rabbi Goldwasser’s blessing held true. DATA and the community had given so much to the Broodos, and they had given so much back. It was in that merit that their two beautiful daughters were born.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in April 2010