MSI Press Blog

  Book Excerpt from Since Sinai by Shannon Gonyou (currently in Amazon Top 100 Jewish biographies) Foreword This book is about my journey as a woman raised Catholic in a town with very little exposure to Jews and Jewish ideas who subsequently became Jewish. If you picked up this book, it could mean one of a few things. Maybe your family has been Jewish for generations, and you’re curious about why a total stranger to Judaism would want to join the community. Maybe you’re considering Judaism for yourself and are curious about what the process of conversion will look and feel like. Perhaps you’re a devoted Christian, curious about what would lead someone away from Christianity. This book will strive to provide a satisfactory answer to all of those questions. My high school English teacher told me that every piece of writing is a persuasion piece. I think that’s true, but this book is not here to persuade you that Christianity is “wrong” or that Judaism is “right.” I won’t even attem...

  Book Excerpt from  Since Sinai  by Shannon Gonyou (currently in Amazon Top 100 Jewish biographies) CHAPTER 1 “Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” — John C. Maxwell I told my husband that I wanted to convert to Judaism on Christmas Eve. We were sitting in our Chevy Impala in a grocery store parking lot in Ann Arbor, Michigan when I broached the topic [BL1]   . We were living in Chicago at the time, but we had traveled back to Michigan for the holidays. Christmas gifts for our family members were toppling over in the back seat, and a tin box of snowman-shaped Christmas cookies from my mother-in-law rested heavily on my lap. We had just picked up some ingredient that my mom had forgotten to buy for Christmas Eve dinner, and we were supposed to be making a quick trip back to our hotel room to change clothes before heading to the celebration. I decided that during this quick ten-minute jaunt from a grocery store to the Extended Stay Br...

  The following excerpt comes from Since Sinai by Shannon Gonyou. Foreword This book is about my journey as a woman raised Catholic in a town with very little exposure to Jews and Jewish ideas who subsequently became Jewish. If you picked up this book, it could mean one of a few things. Maybe your family has been Jewish for generations, and you’re curious about why a total stranger to Judaism would want to join the community. Maybe you’re considering Judaism for yourself and are curious about what the process of conversion will look and feel like. Perhaps you’re a devoted Christian, curious about what would lead someone away from Christianity. This book will strive to provide a satisfactory answer to all of those questions. My high school English teacher told me that every piece of writing is a persuasion piece. I think that’s true, but this book is not here to persuade you that Christianity is “wrong” or that Judaism is “right.” I won’t even attempt to persuade you that Juda...

  Book Excerpt from  Since Sinai  by Shannon Gonyou (currently in Amazon Top 100 Jewish biographies) CHAPTER 1 (continued from May 10, 2025) It felt like Catholicism had been arbitrarily assigned to me when I was born into a Catholic family and baptized before I could hold my own head up. Of the many places to find a connection to spirituality, Judaism was the one that consistently tugged at me. I insisted that if spirituality were an open field, Catholicism would reflect being forced to sit on the outskirts of the field in an uncomfortable lawn chair. I reminded Travis that the last time that we had attended a charismatic Catholic Church in search of a more upbeat service, the priest spent half an hour railing against gay marriage while Travis balled up his fists and turned red in the face. I appreciated that the Church was generally open to doubters and questioners, but it had moved beyond friendly disagreement. I had to leave, and I was going to leave for Judaism. “Plu...