WASHINGTON, DC: Eleven years ago, I carried my infant daughter into a synagogue basement and plunged her tiny body, head to toe, underwater.

She emerged sputtering and coughing, then wailing, and the procedure, immersion in a Jewish ritual bath called mikvah, felt barbaric. But it was for an important reason: Her mother isn’t Jewish, and by Jewish custom -- and Israeli law -- the faith is passed on by matrilineal descent, so I converted my daughter. Making sure she is Jewish in the eyes of the Jewish state gives me peace of mind. If the Gestapo ever comes again, she and her descendants will have a place to go.

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