Latter-day Saint Life

A Jewish Mormon Shares How Joseph Smith Taught Her About Judaism

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The following provides an interesting perspective showing how the LDS faith overlaps with ancient Judaism and modern Christianity: "While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints considers itself the restoration of ancient Christianity, it is much more than that. It bends backwards through time well into the Torah and Jewish mysticism."

When I became a Mormon at age 16 in Los Angeles, I didn’t convert from Judaism. It was when I finally made a trip “back east” at age 21 and met my relatives that I fully realized I was Jewish. Although I had spent day and night glued to the radio during the Six Day War, I had felt only a distant connection. Someone had mentioned my father’s Jewish heritage, but back east, it was my mother’s family welcoming me in Yiddish.

By then it was too late to go back to my Jewish roots in religious terms. I was only a few months away from marrying a returning Mormon missionary, had spent years at Brigham Young University, and loved my adopted faith dearly. But I was certainly going to reclaim what had been denied me as far as culture was concerned, by parents who were so assimilated that science had taken precedence in our home.

Yes, my father was a rocket scientist, so he had an excuse, but my mother had said she was Catholic. I began to recall that I had never seen her go to church.

Lead image from Forward

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