Quoting from BeliefNet:

davidhoward
1/29/04 3:17 PM 9 out of 10

Why convert?

Why not just be Jewish and forget about the conversion racket?

Most Jews will take your assertion that you are Jewish at face value. There are no Jewish police checking passports or circumcisions. Rabbis have no magical status as "converters." Their conversion rules are mutually contradictory among the different denominations, and in the worst cases, they make up the rules as they go along.

Save yourself a lot of aggravation. Find fellow-Jews who are welcoming and inclusive. There are plenty of them. The rabbinical validation is a sham and often a scam.

David

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Indeed, from what I've read they (the Rabbis) don't have any authority to accept/deny converts. Exodus 12:61 (I *think*, I'd look it up but I'm on my lunch break and my chumash is at home) allows strangers who observe the passover to be with the Jews, and ruth certainly didn't ask 3 rabbis to join, she didn't even ask!

But it is kinda difficult, to just say starting today "I'm jewish now." Maybe I should see about making some ritual to help mark the changing point... Dunno. Guess I hafta think about it. No one really goes around checking that jews really are jews, and certainly I'd be put in a camp if I lived in germany around WW II.