The Rabbinical Association of Greater Kansas City’s yearly conversion class not only welcomes new converts into the Jewish community, it helps them build a community of their own.
For Simon Kass and Frank Tankard, what started out as a casual conversion class connection has turned into not only friendship but also leadership.
The pair first met through the 2017-18 conversion class. Tankard was taking the class as a conversion candidate. Kass, who was born Jewish and grew up in the Kansas City community, was taking the class with his wife, Amelia, who was converting.
The Kasses had started the conversion class the year prior, but they took time off when Amelia gave birth to their son. In that first class, there were a lot of people that Simon, who had grown up going to Kehilath Israel Synagogue, knew whose spouses were also converting.
The class turned out to be a great refresher for those who were already Jewish.
“You’re experiencing Judaism through new eyes through our significant others, and so there was an instant kind of connection through that,” Kass said.
It was Annette Fish, the Rabbinic Association’s administrator/program director and conversion class facilitator, who suggested the group form a havurah (small group). They already were friendly and soon developed a great rapport.
“I think that that certainly made me more interested in developing a community or being a part of a community,” Kass said.
The havurah took advantage of events and programs in the community, like Jewish Family Services’ annual trivia night fundraiser and Shabbat dinners hosted by TribeKC.
Although Tankard wasn’t a part of the original conversion class havurah, he got to know the Kasses. After he converted, he and his wife attended another synagogue for about a year before they decided to join K.I. Several other members of the conversion class had also joined K.I., and eventually the havurah morphed into K.I. Next, the young adults group that Kass and Tankard now chair.
The K.I. Next group has approximately 30 active members, several of which are from the original conversion class cohort. Kass and Tankard organize the official events and meetups but say that members of the group often hang out together outside of the shul on their own.
When COVID hit, it made getting together more difficult, but it didn’t stop them. They hosted a virtual wine tasting with a K.I. Next member who’s a sommelier, and a picnic catered by Steve Ellenberg on the patio of K.I. Kass said the synagogue – which has consistently remained open throughout the pandemic, with masks, social distancing and safety protocols in place – became their home base.
The group hosted a Nerf gun battle for the kids and are starting a monthly kids group. The women in K.I. Next have organized a Jewish astrology class and started a monthly well circle where they get together to talk about Judaism, spirituality, and life in general.
Plans for the dinner club Kass and Tankard were trying to get off the ground, which would have been open to the entire community, were quickly shuttered when the pandemic began, but the group has started a K.I. book club that meets quarterly. Tankard is planning the group’s first fundraiser, a web telethon.
They also do informal, unofficial things outside of K.I. Next. They celebrate holidays together, and when Tankard’s father-in-law recently passed away, the group provided an “outpouring of support,” along with meals.
Another layer of the community aspect that K.I. Next has is the unplanned, informal gatherings that happen. Tankard says that oftentimes, when he and other dads take their kids to religious school, they end up staying and talking or having coffee on the patio with Rabbi Moshe Grussgott rather than going back home.
“It’s important, that informal sort of community stuff where you just want to hang out, that I find the most gratifying,” Tankard said.
Kass said one of the great things about the conversion class is that conversion candidates get to know people and rabbis from all denominations and synagogues. Even if they join different synagogues after the class ends, they run into each other at community events.
“This is one of the things that keeps the community broadly together and not so fractured as it is maybe in bigger cities like Chicago or New York or L.A.,” Kass said.
Kass and Tankard give credit to Annette Fish, class coordinator Patty Kroll and Hebrew teacher Shelley Rissien for the work they put into the class. It’s an invaluable resource not only for the conversion candidates, but the community as a whole.
“That it's done through the Rabbinical Association is a really, really, really special thing,” Kass said, “and I think that and that's why it's so successful every year, because it draws everyone through the community.”
By Lacey Storer, Assistant Editor
