JTA — Hours after emerging from a ritual bath marking her conversion to Judaism, Yona Speidel was leaving a celebratory dinner with her rabbi when a man across the street yelled “f–ck Jews.”

For Speidel, it was an unexpected welcome into the Jewish community.

“My rabbi looked at me and he goes, ‘Welcome,’” Speidel recalled. “And I was like, ‘Oh, great, I’m home.”

The conversion ceremony in Los Angeles in March marked the conclusion of a decade-long exploration of Judaism for Speidel, the prominent transgender Emmy-nominated television writer and producer formerly known as Our Lady J.

“Over a period of 12 years of casually dating Judaism, I eventually got engaged when I realized that Judaism holds so much space for all of me, and then some,” Speidel said.

Growing up in Central Southern Pennsylvania, where two of her great-grandparents had been Mennonites, Speidel said that she had little exposure to Jews. Still, she felt a pull toward Jewish culture from an early age.

“I don’t remember when I first became aware of Judaism as a culture,” Speidel said. “But I knew I loved New York City. Many years later, I look back, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I love Jews, I love Jewish culture, that’s what drew me to New York.’”

Speidel is believed to have become the first out trans writer to be hired in a television writers’ room when she joined the hit TV show “Transparent,” which follows the story of a Jewish family in Los Angeles with a parent who comes out as trans.

During the show’s third season, as she became immersed in researching Judaism for the show, Speidel said she began taking conversion classes but then put them on pause because she “wasn’t sure if there was space for me in Judaism.”

That all changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Speidel said she began opening up to faith and spirituality after becoming “burnt........

© The Times of Israel