The Muslim sisters who found out they are Jewish

For most of their lives, Batyah* and Gila* understood themselves to be Muslim. Yet, woven through generations of their family was a Jewish identity they did not fully understand. 

The two sisters shared their story at Limmud Cape Town on Saturday in a session titled “Becoming Ourselves: Two Sisters and their Jewish Journey Home”. The talk drew such a large crowd that people sat on the floor after all the chairs were taken. It was repeated on Sunday because of the demand. 

The sisters were born in the late 1980s and grew up in a traditionally Muslim household. They attended madrasa, learnt to read Arabic, observed halal laws, and participated in Islamic religious practices. Their mother and grandmother also placed a strong emphasis on character, conduct, and religious understanding.  

But there were differences between their family and the wider Muslim community that they struggled to explain. Their grandmother spoke about generations of women before them, using names such as Rachel, Chava, and Chana. The sisters regarded these women as beloved ancestors whose opinions still carried weight within the family. 

They also followed the women’s traditions closely, even when they did not understand their origins. “I was one of those kids who always asked why,” Batyah said. 

She eventually discovered that the family’s connection to Judaism was more significant than she’d realised. In 2011, while studying religious studies at the University of Cape Town, a Jewish classmate asked about the maternal line of her Jewish ancestry. 

As Islam uses a system of patrilineal descent, and their father is Muslim, the sisters had never considered that they might be Jewish.  

The question changed her understanding of her family. “What if all those tensions had some sort of a name or relation?” Batyah recalled. “What if this meant more than what I thought it meant?” 

The sisters began researching Judaism and their ancestry from North Africa. Their maternal grandmother told them on her deathbed that they had female Jewish ancestors, which makes them halachically Jewish.  

They read Jewish literature, attended community events, listened to podcasts, and spoke to people around them. They encountered the writings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. They explored Jewish philosophy, storytelling, and Kabbalah. 

What they found was not simply a new religion. “Everything sounded familiar,” one sister said. “It was like accessing a memory that you didn’t even know you had.” The experience was particularly striking because many Jewish concepts resonated with ideas they’d encountered throughout their Muslim upbringing. 

They began attending Jewish events, including the Sinai Indaba and the Jewish Literary Festival. Hearing rabbis discuss ideas they had known throughout their lives, but in a different language, became an important part of their journey. “Every single time my heart would open,” Gila said. 

Their understanding of their ancestors also changed. The women they had known as wise and influential figures were now understood as people who had preserved aspects of a Jewish identity across generations. The sisters described this as a process of preservation that had continued despite isolation and difficult circumstances. 

They ultimately decided to embrace and observe Judaism formally in December 2020. The decision followed what they described as a 16-year process of questioning, research, experiences, and what they saw as repeated connections to Judaism. 

Their first year was spent largely learning privately and observing Jewish practices for themselves. Batyah chose separating milk and meat as an initial symbolic practice. They navigated Jewish festivals at home, often learning as they went. 

They gradually began engaging more deeply with the Jewish community. Limmud became part of that process, with the sisters attending last year as volunteers before returning this year. 

Their journey has not been without complications. They’ve had to navigate relationships with family members who reacted differently to their decision. They have also faced difficult conversations in their workplaces and communities. 

For the sisters, however, the journey is not simply about leaving one identity for another. It is about understanding what was already present. “We were already there,” one sister said of their eventual decision. “It was like a 16-year-long decision, and when you wake up one day, you’re there.” 

*Speakers have chosen to go by their Hebrew names for privacy reasons. 

• Hear them at Limmud JHB this weekend limmud.org.za