Christian monk, Jewish convert, Israeli: One man's journey to Judaism

William Karon’s father was born Jewish, survived Auschwitz, and converted to Christianity, setting the course of William’s journey in faith and identity

When William Karon, who converted from Christianity through Ohr Torah Stone’s Ulpan L’Giyyur, married in July, it was no ordinary life marker. Rather, it was the culmination of a tumultuous and deep journey with faith, years – generations, even – in the making.

William was a Christian monk for 28 years, and served in the faith alongside his father, Avraham, who was born Jewish, survived the Holocaust, turned to Christianity, and then re-embraced Judaism. Today, both live in Tekoa in Gush Etzion, a place that spawns acceptance and community.

Start of the story

This wondrous whirlwind story begins with Avraham, who was born to a Jewish family hiding in southern France in 1942.

Years earlier, in 1936, Avraham’s father, a snooker world champion, traveled to Berlin for a competition. There, he met a friend “who prophesied how bad it would get,”

William told The Jerusalem Post in an interview. This prompted him to leave Paris, and, thanks to local help, the family hid in Payrac, a small town located some 150 km. north of Toulouse.

At the time, Payrac had a population of about 600-700, and Nazi soldiers would pass by every day, William explained. Some 50 Jews hid there during the war.

Avraham, an artist, author, writer, and poet, was born sick, in extreme food insecurity, and, due to complications during the pregnancy, later had to have 17 surgeries on his feet. He survived Auschwitz, married, and had three children, William and his two sisters.

Avraham wouldn’t experience his theological shift until age 36, when he pledged to Christianity in 1978. This shift would transform the trajectory of his own life and that of his family; until then, he remained an atheist. But there was a stop along the way that sowed the seeds for the eventual destination: re-embracing Judaism and living in Israel.=

In 1982, the family made aliyah, prompted by a short trip Avraham and his wife had taken to Israel. “For my father, it was such a strong experience, because he felt such a connection and realized he wanted to be here,” William explained.

The family arrived right in the middle of the First Lebanon War, with all of the related hardships. William recounted the inflation rates that would change by the hour. “My mother tells of receiving her paycheck and running to cash it – the inflation rates were changing that quickly,” he said.

Avraham was Jewish by birth, but on paper, the rest of the family was Christian.

“We lived as a regular Israeli family – just one in which my parents went to Sunday services,” William said.

As a child, this time imprinted on William what it means to live within the largest Jewish community in the world: the full immersion in Israeli culture, “with its chutzpah and its unique characteristics; the things that come off to other people as harsh – I experienced them as soft.”

When he was 13, William already wished to convert. A conversation he had with a rabbi at the time gave him more insight into the fact that once he did, he’d be fully obligated in mitzvot (commandments). His experiences later in life, especially through his involvement in and exposure to the European art scene, posed for him the complicated task of merging the secular spiritual world with the Jewish one. “I saw that they don’t always work together. So I pushed the idea of conversion off” for the time being, he said.

Goodbye for now

The next phase of this family’s journey brought them back to Europe, with the memories of their years in Jerusalem serving as a sort of North Star. William’s parents divorced in 1985, after three years in Israel. Avraham returned to France, while William, his mother, and his sisters went to Barcelona.

“My rabbi, who is a very significant figure in my life and was involved in every step of my conversion, said he was certain that my mother had a Jewish connection,” William told the Post. His mother was not halachicly Jewish, but registered the children to a Jewish school, their home was kosher, and they observed Shabbat.

“Her Hebrew is excellent, she is fully Israeli, and that emotional connection is so deep,” William explained, adding that “she never fully converted, but she feels connected to it in her soul. Maybe she will complete the process one day.”

Back in France, Avraham entered a monastery and stayed there for two years. The year 1992 marked the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of Jews from Spain, seven years after the family left Israel. Avraham arrived in Toledo in ’92 for the commemoration, and was so moved by the ceremony, as well as the magnitude and significance of the interfaith that Santa Maria de la Blanca, also known as the Ibn Shoshan Synagogue, holds. First established as a Spanish synagogue, it was converted to a Catholic church in the early 15th century.

One year later, in 1993, Avraham established the Monasterio María estrella de la mañana (Fraternity of Mary Morning Star). In 2007, he received guardianship over the synagogue site, overseeing its interfaith events.

There, the connection with Judaism and Israel only strengthened. A painter, Avraham displayed on exhibit 70 drawings about the story of Israel, including of biblical figures and stories, and one year hosted a massive Hanukkah ceremony, complete with a giant, lit hanukkiah, singing of “Maoz Tzur,” and dancing, a ceremony attended by about 200 people, including 40 Israelis who had flown in.

Faith journey in the Holy Land

By age 19, William was well into his own faith journey since leaving Israel, and joined a monastery one year later. “I wanted to get close to the Creator, and the most direct way that I saw for that to be was through the church. When I was in it, I was in it with a full heart... [but] I felt like a stranger, that something wasn’t sitting right – not religious or theological, but more a feeling of not enough love,” he explained.

That love, he said, is something he experienced in Israel, “that sense you get when a hospital nurse takes care of you here, that she’s doing it from the heart. Outside of Israel, people were nice, and I was able to feel that, but here I feel at home, I feel connected, I felt that love from the nurse, which is the same as the love from your family.”

He continued, “When people look at Israel from the outside, all they see is that we want to take each other’s eyes out. But that is not true. The minute there is a problem, that same person will show up for you as a true friend.”

William exited the monastery in 2020, at the height of COVID-19, and, along with his father, began the re-immigration process to Israel, which was completed in 2021, William’s specifically on April 5. They moved to Tekoa, and Avraham, in 2022, underwent a brit milah, bringing his own journey full circle, the one he couldn’t complete all those years ago. Today, he is 82.

William arrived in Israel in the capacity of a priest, to aid his bishop in research on mystics’ works in Castille from the 16th century, and to aid his aging father.

“Because these mystics were descended from Jews,” William explained, “the research questioned how familiar they may have been with Middle Age Jewish literature.” But, the research had to go on pause “because I went through an internal process that changed everything.”

“When I first arrived in Israel,” William said, “I was living in a truth where Christianity and Judaism work together, where learning Judaism can teach you more about your faith.”

This bedrock belief began to shake. William approached Ohr Torah Stone’s Conversion Institute for Spanish Speakers – the Ulpan L’Giyyur – the only Spanish-speaking conversion institute in Israel. It focuses on Latin America and Spain, with students hailing from Spain, Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru. At the institute, they study Jewish thought, law, and practice, and gain a unique exposure to current Israeli society. The institute places an emphasis on the details that will make the student’s experience holistic – finding the right employment, housing conditions, and social life. It has been running for 25 years.

Rabbanit Renana Birnbaum, who heads the institute, met with William for a chat. “After telling her my story,” William shared, “she said, ‘William, you have a faith, a beautiful one; you don’t need to convert. But if you do, you’ll have to leave all of that.’ I wasn’t yet ready at the time to give up on what I held close to my heart for 28 years.”

In her account of the meeting, Birnbaum told the Post that her impression was that William “had not yet pulled that final plug pull. I told him, ‘William, if you want to love the people of Israel, you can do that without converting, but with this thing [Judaism], you can’t have one foot in both places. If you really want to start the process, I need you to come back to me and say, ‘I experienced a disconnect.’”

Birnbaum added that, already at that first meeting, “he exuded such warmth and love, and so much wanted to be a part of Judaism. But, at that point... we needed more time.”

This did not mean that the two severed connections; the opposite. Their friendship grew and strengthened as William continued on his journey.

Birnbaum noted that, in learning more about him, she was able to better understand the rest of her students: “You can’t really teach Judaism correctly [to conversion students] without understanding the basics in Christianity, where these people are coming from.”

At this point, William was already settled and integrated into Tekoa. What followed this conversation were two incidents that served as the severance for that final connection – one with Torah study and one with prayer.

During a study session with his brother-in-law of Daf Yomi (daily study of a page of Talmud), William suddenly noticed that his study partner was visibly uncomfortable and inquired. He told William that he had read an article that a Jew who teaches a non-Jew Torah is punishable by death, but he didn’t know enough of the halachic details on the subject. William took it to the rabbi of Tekoa, whom he described as “sweet and smart, and is also a poet. His approach is to keep Halacha in all of its details, but in a gentle way.”

William relayed the concept, the way the rabbi described it, as follows: “For the Jewish people, the two pillars of Torah study and of community are intimate – meaning, anyone from the outside who wants in is welcomed as a guest, but if someone wants to be close to it in a real way, they need to really be a part of the community.”

This topic was written and argued on by rabbis at a time when Jews were a minority controlled by a larger power – a fraught, tense, and dangerous relationship at times. “Meaning,” William explained, “that anyone who taught these ideas to someone on the outside was effectively handing over an arsenal to be used against the Jewish community.”

"But,” he added, “there is another way to understand it that is more spiritual and that I connect to deeply as a convert: If you teach Torah to someone who isn’t Jewish, they will become aware of so many answers that are already inside them.

“We have the tradition that a convert always had a Jewish soul.... If you talk to them, their curiosity is awakened. And, if you go down that path, if you investigate, when you are in the dark you imagine the light, but then finally see it for real, you see things for what they are. This kills the gentile in you and the Jew is born.”

This sensitive and gentle, but firm boundary line was now somewhat more clarified for William.

The second incident, which really highlighted the importance of community to him, took place in a synagogue, where William was invited to take part in the Torah reading. Some in the congregation knew he wasn’t halachicly Jewish, others did not, and it led to an uncomfortable situation. At the advice of the local leaders, he stayed home for about two weeks.

These incidents sealed the deal for William. “This showed me something very important and helped light the way; now there was no confusion: Not everything is allowed or permitted; some things can only work, are only permissible, under certain circumstances.

“This commitment is crucial,” he explained. “This was a really big shift for me because, before that, theologically, I didn’t see a problem. And now, an answer was beginning to form.”

From the day he arrived in Israel as an adult, he “turned to God every day and asked him, ‘What is it you want from me? What do you want me to do?’”

All these signs left him with the impression that, “miles and miles beyond faith, without Torah and community, I cannot live and thrive. So the question actually flips on itself: It’s not me asking God what he wants from me; it’s God asking me what I want,” he explained.

Now, everything clicked into place, and the thirst William had to be part of the Jewish community as a 13-year-old came back full circle.

He continued, “My father taught me that when you need to make important decisions, you close your eyes and put the different choices in your hands: Christianity and everything I’ve known, in one hand, and Judaism, this new community and life that I was living, in the other. I closed my eyes. In one I felt emptiness, and in the other I felt and saw joy, truth, and growth.”

William was ready.

He went back to Birnbaum, settled on his decision, and the 10-month ulpan process began. William, with the institute’s guidance, tackled one hurdle after the next until the process was complete.

“Conversion is not just halachic,” Birnbaum explained. “It is psychological, sociological, theological, and emotional. Before he entered the halachic conversion, he effectively did it already on all these other levels.”

For William, while parting from a faith he’d known for 28 years came with its own heartbreak, he was ready because he was already somewhere else.

“In Christianity, at least the way I knew it, there is a split between the spiritual and physical world, between politics and religion. In Judaism, we believe that they are all one, that your faith influences your work, your family life, everything,” he said.

“Living a life where all those things are separated goes against the very nature of man, man, who thirsts for harmony.”

William's wedding

Dating is universally agreed upon as one of the more complicated life processes to go through, even for a non-convert. Once the conversion process was complete, William felt he was ready. He began to date, but felt like even though he matched with women on other levels, “the heart didn’t connect.”

About a year later, three different friends made the suggestion that he see the woman he ended up marrying. They met for the first time, and William felt “that I was willing to give her everything.” They met on Purim, and married July 16, 2024.

“I know there are so many singles; there is so much pressure, especially with time, to not miss out. But no one but the couple actually knows whether it is right, not just on paper but what feels right inside. Don’t give up; this person exists,” William shared.

Given the central spot that his community has taken up in his life, nearly all of Tekoa was at the wedding, which was “beautiful and emotional,” said Birnbaum. William’s mother was in attendance; they hadn’t seen each other in years.

William now works as a tour guide in the Judean Desert, near Tekoa and the Herodion site, and combines the tour experience with spiritual elements and artistic drawings.

“He has so much to give,” said Birnbaum. “He is a musician, a writer, an artist; a creative man.”

She added: “He taught me that in a postmodern world, a man can come with so much weight and not get buried under it, that the light finds a way to shine through.”