Yosef Juarez was born into a Christian family in Honduras and converted to Judaism along with his minister and fellow congregants. His future wife Tzipporah traveled her own journeyfrom Islam to a kosher beis din. Together they’re helping other bewildered newcomers navigate a confusing new reality
Yosef Juarez was born into a Christian family in Honduras yet in a dramatic twist of fate, converted to Judaism along with his minister and fellow congregants. While he was learning about Torah, his future wife Tzipporah was embarking on her own journey — from Islam and the Koran to a kosher beis din. Together they’re putting down authentic Jewish roots, and helping other bewildered newcomers navigate a confusing new reality
10years ago, Tzipporah was in the US on a student visa, having left her Muslim family back home in Tunis to study in an American university. She was the youngest child of a privileged Tunisian family, valedictorian of her high school, and a talented violinist as well — a super-achiever whose parents knew she would excel with the opportunities they gave her. But instead of following the straight path of academia they’d laid out for her across the ocean, she was sitting in a rabbi’s study in Brooklyn waiting for the go-ahead to convert. “Do you realize that, given your background, you might remain a spinster forever?” the rabbi said in an honest attempt to deflect her decision. “I don’t care,” she said. “At least I know I’ll be living with the truth.”
In some ways, Yosef and Tzipporah Juarez are a typical olim family living in Ramat Beit Shemesh. They belong to the English-speaking Kehillas Shivtei Yeshurun under the guidance of Rabbi Yaacov Haber, host seminary girls for Shabbos, shop for their favorite American brands in Osher Ad, and together with a few dozen other enterprising immigrants, they rent desk space at Subs, a co-working hub for start-ups in the Beit Shemesh industrial zone where Yosef is growing his web-developing business.
But Yosef and Tzipporah are anything but typical. Yosef was born in Honduras to evangelical Christian parents, and Tzipporah’s family members are proud Muslim Arab nationals of Tunisia’s upper crust — and ardent anti-Semites to boot. The separate stories of their childhoods, the drastic transitions they made as young adults, the merging paths leading to their shidduch, and the international bridges of peace they’ve created since their marriage in 2009 serve as a blueprint of inspiration to so many others today who are trudging the complex path of spiritual transformation.
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