April 27, 2001      4 Iyar 5761

From Minister To Rabbi

Holocaust atrocities pushed a Methodist minister to find comfort in Judaism.

Steven H. Pollak / Staff Writer

Looking at him, you'd never know that he's a former Methodist minister, born and raised in a small Virginia town.

For a life-altering change of seismic proportions, it started rather innocently. It began one Sunday morning before church. Asher would lead services at the English-speaking Methodist congregation in Hamburg, Germany, where he worked as a minister while completing his doctoral studies at Hamburg University. He and his wife, Naomi, were eating breakfast and casually flipped through the newspaper to find an article marking the 40th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. Many consider the widespread pogroms of Kristallnacht (Nov. 9, 1938) to be the beginning of the Holocaust.

Wade and his wife had seen pictures of Kristallnacht before, but the newspaper article was different. The accompanying photos showed places in Hamburg that the Wades were familiar with -- places in their own neighborhood.

"We were quite shocked and appalled not only to find the pictures of Kristallnacht," he says, "but many of the pictures were of Hamburg. And in the edges of pictures we saw buildings and landmarks and neighborhoods and intersections that we recognized. All of a sudden, history got a little to close for comfort."

When they dropped the newspaper and went to church, Wade says he and his wife were shaking and walking on eggshells.

"Now all of a sudden we looked at our neighborhood differently," he says. "Especially the neighbors, especially the ones we knew were over 60, 70 years old. I said to my wife 'Now that you think about it, many of these people probably lived through Kristallnacht.' Then my wife really hit me with a comeback, saying, 'Yeah, maybe they also participated in it.' "

That was when Wade felt a chill go down his spine. The newspaper discovery led to an intense investigation into the church's culpability during the Holocaust. As Wade and his wife tried to make sense of the tragedy, they could not come to grips with how an organization that was supposed to lift humankind to a higher level could have stood on the sidelines while such a heinous crime took place. The couple's questioning descended into a crisis of faith. How could the church -- and the universities -- stand by while this was happening?

Judaism was a natural segue from his Holocaust studies. The Wades began to investigate Jewish life. After a year, they reached the conclusion that "Torah Judaism fulfilled all the intellectual, academic, spiritual and emotional truths" they had been searching for.

It would be four more years until they could officially be proclaimed "Jewish," but Wade now has his smicha, or rabbinic ordination, and lives with Naomi and their six children in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Wade has also earned fame for his inspirational tours of the Israeli Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. He lectures often, retelling the story of his transformation. He toured Australia in November, speaking in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne, and has given talks in South Africa, Switzerland, England and Canada.

This week, he will visit Atlanta for the first time. Rick Halpern, president of Torah Atlanta, an anti-missionary organization, says the timing of the trip could not be better.

"With Yom HaShoah [Holocaust Remembrance Day] fresh in our minds, I think having a Holocaust scholar with Rabbi Wade's background will bring a fresh perspective," Halpern says.

Wade also teaches at Machom Gold Girl's Seminary in Jerusalem and maintains a psychology practice. And although he has been involved in counseling and pastoral care for most of the last decade, Wade received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Southern California last year.

He now casually jokes about being a religious, or "frum," Jew. When asked where he's from, Wade says, "I always try to answer properly by saying I try to be frum not only in public but also in private."

All kidding aside, Wade hails from Danville, Va., "a little shtetl" near the Virginia-North Carolina border, about 40 miles north of Greensboro, N.C. He graduated from Averett College in Danville with a philosophy degree and took off for Europe, studying in Scotland and later in Germany.

While studying in Hamburg, Germany, Wade received his ordination as a Methodist Church pastor. For three and a half years, he served as a minister for an English-speaking, Protestant congregation.

Shortly afterward receiving his ordination, Wade met his German wife, Naomi, whose father and grandfather were both prominent Lutheran ministers.

Using Jewish elbows

When he talks about his journey -- whether the group is secular, moderately religious or frum from birth -- they all react "like their ready to faint," he says. "They're just aghast."

After all, Wade was a minister with job security in the church, he was finishing his doctorate at Hamburg University and had an offer to teach at Cambridge University in England upon completion of his degree. His wife was the daughter and granddaughter of Lutheran pastors. So it's not difficult to understand the initial skepticism of the German rabbinic authorities.

"They just couldn't believe a couple like us were sincere," Wade says. "They thought we might just be trying to slip in and infiltrate. So they sat on us for a long time."

According to Jewish tradition, a potential convert needs to be discouraged at least three times before he or she can begin the process of becoming a Jew.

Wade and his wife were pushed away far more times before the German rabbinic authorities took them seriously. The process between seeing the photos in the newspaper to coming up out of the mikvah, or ritual bath, as a convert to Judaism took five years -- at least three years longer than the typical Orthodox conversion.

"For a minister to go through that, it takes a tremendous amount of resolve and personal honest, and scrutiny of what he had been taught to believe," says Halpern. "He is a very courageous person."

Wade says he is thankful to his seventh-grade English teacher who taught him to use "bulldog determination" to get what one desires. He found the quality could be put into a Jewish context also.

"When we converted, they congratulated us for having what's known as 'Jewish elbows,'" Wade says. "They said, 'Now that you're a Jew, you're going to have to use them.' That's the way Jews have survived for 2,000 years. It's like getting your wings, so to speak."

Wade could no longer work at the church and was unable to finish his doctorate at Hamburg University due to a supervising professor who, Wade says, had been a chaplain in one of Hitler's tank divisions during World War II and did not look kindly on his pupil's new lifestyle.

Wade persevered, but after two years of growing controversy at the university surrounding his conversion, he withdrew from the school and moved with his wife to Richmond, Va.

Nearly five years after the move, Wade was working as the vice president of a brokerage firm when an official at Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore ask if he'd be interested in a fellowship to study at Ohr Somayach, a Jerusalem yeshiva. Despite the 85 percent pay cut, Wade accepted. He was 39 years old and had three children.

Family reaction

His wife's family did not react favorably to the conversion. Wade says Naomi's German father, himself a Lutheran pastor, "hit the ceiling and screamed for about two or three months uninterrupted." After he calmed down, he took the opposite approach and did not speak to his daughter or son-in-law for 11 years.

Naomi's mother decided she wasn't going to let go of her daughter that easily. After the Wades converted and moved to the United States, she visited twice by herself. When the Wades later moved to Jerusalem, she again came twice to visit.

Naomi's mother eventually convinced her father to give in and he accepted an invitation to visit the family in Jerusalem. He came for two weeks, and Wade calmly answered his questions about Judaism. Wade even brought the pastor to a meal at a prominent Orthodox rabbi's home in Mea Shearim, an ultra-religious Jerusalem neighborhood.

After two weeks of touring Jewish Jerusalem, Wade says that just as the taxi was blowing its horn to take his in-laws to the airport, his father-in-law asked for forgiveness and said he saw a great deal of good in Torah Judaism.

"That was impressive," Wade says. "Granted, we didn't expect him to land in Hamburg and jump in the nearest mikvah and convert. But we now have a normal, open-door policy and we respect one another's differences."

Wade's parents reacted more positively. They had Jewish friends and were more broadminded about the couple's decision to convert. "If God in Heaven has signaled to both of you that He now wants you to serve him as an Orthodox Jew, you have to do it," Wade's father told his son and daughter-in-law. "My job as a good biological father is to make sure that you serve him as a good Orthodox Jew."

Wade talks about his conversion and uses the Holocaust story to inspire Jews to further explore their tradition. While serving as a tour guide at the Holocaust memorial, Wade emphatically disapproves of some photos on display that show mangled, often-naked bodies of concentration camp victims. He asks participants on his tours to lower their heads as they walk through those portions of the museum.

"He showed a great deal of respect when they go through one room with immodest pictures," says Mindy Ellis, an Atlanta resident who took a tour of Yad Vashem with Wade in 1999. "He told us that these people could be our bubbies and zaydes and they wouldn't want us to see these pictures. It really touched me that he had that sincerity, that thoughtfulness."

Wade has been petitioning the museum to remove the photos. Museum officials may not like Wade's views but, nevertheless, they allow him to continue conducting tours. "The do know that I bring out hundreds of Jewish students and adults that otherwise, because of their religious stance, would not come out there," Wade says.

Several Atlanta Jews already know of Wade's story and are anticipating the upcoming lectures. Among them is Trevor Horwitz, a Congregation Beth Tefillah member.

"Rabbi Wade will enable us to travel vicariously through his intellectual, spiritual and emotional voyage," he says. "I am certain this will be an experience not easily forgotten."

Wade says he brings to his audiences, both in Israel and abroad, first-hand knowledge about the non-Jewish, secular world -- the world that religious Jews may become curious about, curious enough to assimilate, intermarry or even convert out of Judaism to see. "They may feel that Judaism is too restrictive or exclusive," Wade says. "If they grew up that way, for sure they feel maybe the grass is greener on the other side of the fence."

But with Wade, they hear a story about someone who knows about the other side, someone who achieved a high level of success in academics and the church -- and then gave it all up to not only become a chasidic Jew but move to Jerusalem and become a rabbi.

No small moves for a rural kid from Virginia.

Meet Him In Person

Rabbi Asher Wade is spending a week lecturing in Atlanta. Here's a rundown of his appearances:

Torah Atlanta will host the rabbi for the following:
"A Pastor's Conversion to Judaism," Congregation B'nai Torah, 8 p.m. Sunday, April 29. A $5 donation is requested.
"God Did Not Die In Auschwitz," Congregation Or VeShalom, 8 p.m. Monday, April 30. A $5 donation is requested.
For more information about the lectures at B'nai Torah or Or VeShalom, call (404) 982-1530 or click on www.torahatlanta.com.

Chabad of Georgia will host the rabbi for a Shabbaton at Congregation Beth Tefillah, May 4 and 5. The weekend's events will include:
Friday, May 4 ($25 includes dinner & lecture)
6:30 p.m. Evening services
7:30 p.m. Dinner
8:30 p.m. Lecture: "A Pastor's Conversion to Judaism"
(Babysitting will be provided during the lecture at no charge.)

Saturday, May 5 (No charge for any of the events on this day)
9:15 a.m. Morning services
12 p.m. Community Kiddush
1 p.m. Lecture: "The Jews, 'The Chosen' But Chosen For What?"
(Babysitting will be provided during the lecture at no charge.)
7 p.m. Evening services
8 p.m. Lecture: "God and the Big Bang: Is there harmony between Torah and the theory of evolution?"
Reservations are required for the May 4 dinner. For more information about any of events at Congregation Beth Tefillah, please call (404) 843-2464.

Rabbi Asher Wade also can be reached in Israel for tours of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Museum, by calling 011-972-2-532-3004.