Possibly an even better example than Robert Aumann is David Kazhdan. Unlike Aumann who attended a yeshiva as a child, Kazhdan grew up in the Soviet Union, and his parents were scholars. While it is hard to know inner workings of someone’s family, let alone mind, by all reports Kazhdan’s family was not at all religious, and he has become interested in Judaism as an adult. So even the “people had only until a certain age to reject their religious faith” argument doesn’t quite work here.
Obviously, there were good “reasons” for his conversion. Ethnic Jews leaving the Soviet Union were simultaneously experiencing liberation, and discovery of many aspects of their cultural identity. The immigration/assimilation process was often guided by local Jewish communities, and this spontaneous religiosity was not uncommon. But if this kind of logic can apply to somebody with Kazhdan’s level of intelligence then....Then a lot of things this article said a lot better than I possibly could
Possibly an even better example than Robert Aumann is David Kazhdan. Unlike Aumann who attended a yeshiva as a child, Kazhdan grew up in the Soviet Union, and his parents were scholars. While it is hard to know inner workings of someone’s family, let alone mind, by all reports Kazhdan’s family was not at all religious, and he has become interested in Judaism as an adult. So even the “people had only until a certain age to reject their religious faith” argument doesn’t quite work here.
Obviously, there were good “reasons” for his conversion. Ethnic Jews leaving the Soviet Union were simultaneously experiencing liberation, and discovery of many aspects of their cultural identity. The immigration/assimilation process was often guided by local Jewish communities, and this spontaneous religiosity was not uncommon. But if this kind of logic can apply to somebody with Kazhdan’s level of intelligence then....Then a lot of things this article said a lot better than I possibly could