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OTS Newsletter - Spring 2007

A Long Spiritual Journey Concludes at OTS

Rejoining the Jewish nation:
Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum,
director of the Straus-
Amiel Program 
(standing, fifth from right),
with the Portuguese group.

This winter, Ohr Torah Stone played a strong role in helping a group of 15 men and women from Portugal take their rightful place among the Jewish people. Ranging in age from 15 to 70, the group’s members, all descendents of anusim – crypto-Jews who hid their religion out of fear of persecution – came to Israel for a five-day visit to undergo the conversion process that would eliminate any doubt about their Judaism. Their relationship with OTS began this past summer when Rabbi Eliezer Shai Dimartino, a graduate of OTS’ Straus-Amiel Program, assumed the position of community rabbi in Porto, Portugal.

A joyous celebration:
Director of the OTS 
Wilstein Conversion Institute
Mrs. Renana Birnbaum
(second from right)
hosts the festivities. 

“Although there are many Marrano families in Portugal, there was no infrastructure for Orthodox conversion until three years ago, when Shavei Israel, an organization dedicated to helping ‘lost Jews’ renew their link with the Jewish people, began working here to expedite the procedure,” explains Rabbi Dimartino. “Some of these people had been waiting for as long as 17 years to complete the process of returning to Judaism.”
Soon after his arrival in the community, Rabbi Dimartino began working intensively with the group to prepare them for conversion in Israel, and in January traveled with them to Israel, where they were hosted by OTS’s Spanish-speaking Susan and David Wilstein Conversion Institute in Efrat. Accompanied by Rabbi Dimartino, Straus-Amiel director Rabbi Eliahu Birnbaum and Michael Freund, director of Shavei Israel, the men and women stood before the Beit Din in Jerusalem, passed their oral exams and underwent immersion in the mikvah. “Immediately following their conversion, three couples were married under a chuppah at the synagogue in Heichal Shlomo, followed by a festive meal and sheva brachot,” Rabbi Dimartino relates. “It was a beautiful, emotional conclusion to a very long journey.”


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