Ahuva Gray (née Delores Gray) is a writer on religion and

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

ist. She is a former

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

minister who

converted to Judaism Conversion to Judaism ( or ) is the process by which non-Jews adopt the Jewish religion and become members of the Jewish ethnoreligious community. It thus resembles both conversion to other religions and naturalization. "Thus, by convertin ...

and chronicled her changing beliefs in the book ''My Sister, the Jew'', published in 2001.

Biography

Gray is

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

and was born to a Baptist working-class family in the Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago. She is a relative of baseball player Lorenzo Gray. Gray worked for 23 years as a

flight attendant A flight attendant is a member of the aircrew whose primary responsibility is ensure the safety of passengers in the cabin of an aircraft across all stages of flight. Their secondary duty is to see to the comfort of passengers. Flight attenda ...

, living in Los Angeles. She became a Baptist minister. She began to doubt Christianity when she found what she believed were discrepancies in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

. Her discovery prompted a process of searching for a renewed faith. Eventually she found and studied Judaism; Gray believed that the Torah made the most sense. In 1996, she gave up her position as a

Christian minister In Christianity, a minister is a person authorised by a church or other religious organization to perform functions such as teaching of beliefs; leading services such as weddings, baptisms or funerals; or otherwise providing spiritual guidance ...

and completed conversion to become an Orthodox Jew. She took the name of Ahuva. She has written a book about this journey, entitled ''My Sister, the Jew'' (2001). Since the late 20th century, Gray has lived in

Bayit VeGan Bayit VeGan (, lit. ''House and Garden'', also Bayit Vagan) is a neighborhood in southwest Jerusalem. It is located to the east of Mount Herzl, and borders the neighborhoods of Kiryat HaYovel and Givat Mordechai. History Bronze Age A 4,000-ye ...

, Jerusalem.

References

Bibliography

*''My Sister the Jew'' Philipp Feldheim Inc, (2001)

External links

Ahuvah Gray

From Baptist to Beshert

From Mississippi to Mount Sinai
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Ahuva American Orthodox Jews Converts to Judaism from Baptist denominations Converts to Orthodox Judaism Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American emigrants to Israel Israeli people of African-American descent African-American Jews African-American former Christians Jewish women writers Flight attendants American women writers 21st-century African-American women writers 21st-century American women writers 21st-century African-American writers 21st-century African-American people