Explaining that a convert to Judaism is considered "a newborn child," the article recounted the conversion of 27-year-old actress Elizabeth Taylor to the faith. Her newly acquired Hebrew name, used in ceremonies accompanying life cycle events, combined the Hebrew version of Elizabeth with her biblical heroine, Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife.
Raised a Christian Scientist, Taylor’s decision wasn’t sudden. She first thought about converting when she married movie producer Mike Todd, her third husband, who’d been born Avrom Goldbogen and was the grandson of a Polish rabbi, Time reported.
But the theory that Todd - or that her soon-to-be next Jewish husband Eddie Fisher – provided the impetus for her conversion was one she disputed. Taylor's conversion came a year after Todd’s death in a plane crash, Benjamin Ivry wrote Wednesday in The Forward, a Jewish newspaper.
Judaism is not a proselytizing faith. In fact, an ancient practice that some rabbis still follow is to turn away would-be conversion candidates three times before agreeing to work with them as a way to test their commitment.
Taylor reportedly studied for about six months with the late Rabbi Max Nussbaum, a Holocaust survivor affiliated with Judaism's Reform movement and with Hollywood’s Temple Israel. She was assigned books to read and engaged in conversations about traditions and the struggles weighing on Israel, Time reported.
Nussbaum, Ivry of the Forward wrote, “was no star-struck pushover,” even though he’d long been linked to celebrities, performing funerals for people including Al Jolson, Fanny Brice and Sam Goldwyn. Not long after Taylor's conversion, he also would perform the controversial wedding of Taylor to Fisher.
Some gave Taylor a hard time about her decision to convert, but she stood by the choice, Ivry wrote, adding, “Biographer Kitty Kelley quotes Taylor as saying: ‘I felt terribly sorry for the suffering of the Jews during the war. I was attracted to their heritage. I guess I identified with them as underdogs.’”
Last August, The Jewish Journal in southern California published a blog post by Danielle Berrin about Taylor and her Jewish identity. The piece was written soon after the publication of “Furious Love,” which chronicled the actress’s volatile relationship with Richard Burton.
The blog post recounted a scene in the book in which the couple went at it over “who was more ‘Jewish,’” Berrin wrote.
Burton had referred to the Welsh as “the Jews of Britain”, a comment on their self-identity as the outsiders of the United Kingdom. [Note: Burton was Welsh]The JTA, a global Jewish news service, posted Wednesday a blog listing archived stories about Taylor. Among them was a piece about how her 1959 purchase of $100,000 in Israel bonds prompted a ban of her films by authorities of the United Arab Republic.
“You’re not Jewish at all,” he told Elizabeth in one of their very public fights, “If there’s any Jew in this family, it’s me!”
“I am Jewish,” she answered, “and you can f–k off!”
Another story recounted how Taylor sang in 1961 a Hebrew duet with Fisher in Moscow, while surprising United States servicemen who were stationed in the Soviet capital. And in 1987, she was among those who signed an appeal launched by a Jewish feminist magazine, Lilith, to free Soviet refusenik Ida Nudel.
Taylor, and her films, were barred in 1962 from entering Egypt because she was Jewish and had financially assisted Israel – another hiccup in the already oft-interrupted and financially strapped production of "Cleopatra," which almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox, according to the JTA
But her name was later removed from Egypt’s blacklist, after “officials decided the film was good publicity for Egypt which is mentioned 122 times in the movie,” JTA reported in 1964.
The JTA archives also reveal that Taylor “offered herself as a hostage for the more than 100 Air France hijack victims held by terrorists at Entebbe Airport in Uganda during the tense days before the Israeli rescue raid” on July 4, 1976.
That revelation was reportedly disclosed when Taylor and then-husband John Warner were honored at a June 1977 gala for the Jewish National Fund, an environmental organization best known for its tree plantings in Israel.
Israel’s then-ambassador to the United States, Simcha Dinitz, gave the couple a certificate for a forest planted in their names near Jerusalem. “Taylor’s offer was ‘appreciated’ and ‘the Jewish people will always remember it,’” Dinitiz said, according to the JTA.
In response, Taylor shared these words, the JTA reported: "'The trees we planted with our own hands in Israel symbolize a new hope that the whole world, Christian, Jew and Arab, will live as one in harmony under God.'"
A couple years later, she signed on to narrate "Genocide," a documentary about the Holocaust that went on to win a 1981 Academy Award. Taylor's participation in the project, which was the first film produced by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and her connection to center founder Rabbi Marvin Hier were recounted in a Jewish Journal piece published Thursday.
How much Judaism played into Taylor's life in recent years is unclear. But the Jewish Journal reported in its obituary that Taylor had been a supporter of the Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles. And Ivry of the Forward suggested that Taylor's relentless campaigning on behalf of AIDS research and treatment reflected a deep understanding of the Jewish commitment to tzedakah, or charity.
In the Jewish tradition, a person is laid to rest as soon as possible after death. A small funeral service for Taylor was scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.
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Monday, Apr. 06, 1959 Religion: Convert
Certainly the most famous and perhaps the most beautiful baby born last week was a Jewish girl named Elisheba Rachel Taylor. For according to Jewish legal theory, every convert is "a newborn child." And last week 27-year-old Film Star Elizabeth Taylor became a Jew and acquired a ceremonial Jewish name: Elisheba, the Hebrew version of Elizabeth, and her own favorite Biblical heroine, Rachel, the "beautiful and well-favored" wife of Jacob (Genesis 29:17).
This was no sudden shift for Actress Taylor, who had been raised as a Christian Scientist. She first thought of adopting the Jewish faith when she married her third husband, the late Mike Todd—born Avrom Goldbogen, grandson of a Polish rabbi. Her friendship with Singer Eddie Fisher, a Jew, may have increased her concern with Judaism. About six months ago she began studying under Rabbi Max Nussbaum of Hollywood's Temple Israel.
The path was not an easy one, for Judaism is not a proselytizing religion; according to the frequently quoted words of 4th century Rabbi Helbo: "Proselytes are as hard for Israel as leprosy." Reform Rabbi Nussbaum set Actress Taylor reading the Bible and A History of the Jews, by Abram Leon Sachar, president of Brandeis University. He also assigned her other books, e.g., What Is a Jew?, by Morris Kertzer, and Basic Judaism, by Milton Steinberg. And they discussed the ancient traditions and modern problems of the people of Israel.
Last week's ceremony took place in the chapel of Temple Israel in the presence of Convert Taylor's parents. Facing the open Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Scrolls, she answered the ritual questions put to her by Rabbi Nussbaum. Among them: "Do you promise to cast in your lot with the people of Israel amid all circumstances and conditions?" "Do you agree to rear your future children according to the Jewish faith?"
Then Elisheba Rachel Taylor repeated the pledge: "I, of my own free will, seek the fellowship of Israel . . . I believe that God is One, Almighty, All-Wise and Most Holy . . . I promise that I shall endeavor to live, as far as it is in my power, in accordance with the ideals of Jewish life . . . Most fervently, therefore, do I herewith pronounce the Jewish confession of faith: Shma yisroel adonoy elohenu adonoy echod [Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One]. Boruch shem kvod malchuso I'olom voed [Praised be his name whose glorious kingdom is for ever and ever]."
This was no sudden shift for Actress Taylor, who had been raised as a Christian Scientist. She first thought of adopting the Jewish faith when she married her third husband, the late Mike Todd—born Avrom Goldbogen, grandson of a Polish rabbi. Her friendship with Singer Eddie Fisher, a Jew, may have increased her concern with Judaism. About six months ago she began studying under Rabbi Max Nussbaum of Hollywood's Temple Israel.
The path was not an easy one, for Judaism is not a proselytizing religion; according to the frequently quoted words of 4th century Rabbi Helbo: "Proselytes are as hard for Israel as leprosy." Reform Rabbi Nussbaum set Actress Taylor reading the Bible and A History of the Jews, by Abram Leon Sachar, president of Brandeis University. He also assigned her other books, e.g., What Is a Jew?, by Morris Kertzer, and Basic Judaism, by Milton Steinberg. And they discussed the ancient traditions and modern problems of the people of Israel.
Last week's ceremony took place in the chapel of Temple Israel in the presence of Convert Taylor's parents. Facing the open Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Scrolls, she answered the ritual questions put to her by Rabbi Nussbaum. Among them: "Do you promise to cast in your lot with the people of Israel amid all circumstances and conditions?" "Do you agree to rear your future children according to the Jewish faith?"
Then Elisheba Rachel Taylor repeated the pledge: "I, of my own free will, seek the fellowship of Israel . . . I believe that God is One, Almighty, All-Wise and Most Holy . . . I promise that I shall endeavor to live, as far as it is in my power, in accordance with the ideals of Jewish life . . . Most fervently, therefore, do I herewith pronounce the Jewish confession of faith: Shma yisroel adonoy elohenu adonoy echod [Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One]. Boruch shem kvod malchuso I'olom voed [Praised be his name whose glorious kingdom is for ever and ever]."
