She's wafted in and out of the liberal Jewish community in Edinburgh for the past few years, so my first encounter with her was actually not via the media or anything but rather as the new goth-looking girl I saw at one of the events. Her face did ring a bell though, and when I was looking at a copy of
The National a week later and saw her face on the strapline I realized who she was. I did wonder a bit at the time why she was there, but I figured she was maybe Jewish but didn't shout about it or getting married to someone and converting... while this sounds like a sexist assumption, the majority of converts to Judaism in liberal communities are women getting married. It's just a fact. Men are less common due to the fact that a certain famous Jewish operation is expected.
She did put in the occasional appearance at events I went to. I don't attend too often, but at a few times I was there and she was there, and then the whole Jewish thing appeared on social media.
She played Vashti, the first wife of King Ahaseureus in a
Purimshpiel, which is a play commemorating the Jewish festival of
Purim. I'm not going to go into the where and why of it all (hence the wiki links) but in the traditional story Vashti is banished for refusing to display herself for the King and his court's pleasure, and for this in Judaism is considered something of a feminist icon. She did indeed play Vashti in said play according to an email newsletter I got, but I didn't attend the purimshpiel. The "yeah Vashti is a feminist" could have happened, or couldn't have.
It depends on the community. The Orthodox community is much more tightly knit and doesn't have many (if any) members that aren't Jewish, but Vonny did befriend some people in the liberal community and thus was allowed to take part in the purimshpiel. Purimshpiels have a tradition of being a very silly and satirical play, so really it doesn't matter whether anyone is Jewish or not. What
is restricted is doing things during the service such as carrying the Torah or being called up to do the prayers before the Torah is read (called an
aliyah). I've seen her when I've gone to some services on and off over the past few years, but never ever being called up. These things are called
mitzvot and considered an honour in a Jewish community.
There are a fair few people I knew of converting in the liberal community, however of course none of them would ever be called. That's what I said about the "practising Judaism for herself" bit. She does have some Jewish communal involvement, but is
not Jewish. Someone in the process of converting can appear to be Jewish (i.e. reading Hebrew) but until they go through the final conversion rites isn't considered Jewish ritually by the community. And like I've said before, usually when a convert becomes officially Jewish it's celebrated by the community as a whole, but I can't recall any mention of it.
Like I've said: if she wants to practise Judaism as her religion quietly that's fine. But grandstanding "as a Jew" on social media? Not cool. Until she takes a dunk in the mikveh, as kosher as a pork sausage.
