The first time I read a recent article in The New York Times about the rapper Shyne’s conversion to Orthodox Judaism I tried to perceive it as any ordinary non-Jew would: an interesting story about a Gangsta rapper who got in trouble and underwent a religious transformation in prison.
During the second reading, however, I sought to view it from the lens of the next generation of Orthodox Jewish children in America, and what they’ll be subjected to by the forces of religious propaganda in the Yeshiva system. Raised in this community, I can say with certainty that the conversion, or “giyur lechumra,” of Shyne—once a protégé of Puff Daddy who spent years in prison for firing gunshots in a club while in the company of his former mentor—now known as Moses Levi, will be presented as proof of the irresistible truth of the Torah. If someone, so far removed from Judaism, could “see the light,” the rabbis will say, there must be something to it.
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