Anita Diamant

Shoveling dirt onto the coffin is the family's final ritual act of honoring the dead.

Contemporary couples are reinterpreting an old ceremony that set the financial and logistical arrangements for an upcoming marriage

Male converts to Judaism are traditionally required to undergo circumcision or, if already circumcised, a ritual removal of a single drop of blood.

Plan ahead to enhance the spirituality of the immersion experience; a mikveh or mikvah, a ritual bath, tends more toward the functional than the spiritual.

One of the joys of being "like a newborn baby" after the conversion is that you get to pick a Hebrew name--which is easier than you may think.

A convert must step gingerly across a minefield of long-held expectations, sometimes complicated by ambivalence toward Jewishness.

Conversion transforms formerly neutral territory into emotionally fraught real estate.

Plenty of empathy and emotional support can help most parents to understand and ultimately accept their child's decision to convert.

Because becoming a Jew is an evolving process.

Traditional and liberal possibilities for this little-known practice