The Non-Jewish Nanny is the Now-Jewish Nanny

Adriana Fernandez had a unique path to social media fame. For years, her almost-90,0000 followers online have enjoyed her posts, pictures, and videos reflecting her insights and experiences as a non-Jewish nanny working in observant Jewish homes. She even adopted and leaned into her moniker, “Non-Jewish Nanny.”

It all began when she was a student studying opera in college when she took a job on the side babysitting.  The first family that found her on the babysitting website was Jewish.  Adriana didn’t have Jewish friends growing up and knew little about the Jewish people’s practices and lifestyle.  As she began babysitting in observant Jewish homes, it quickly became much more than just a job or source of earning money.  She came to not only love the children she interacted with but the lifestyle they and their families were leading.

She began to share her “non-Jewish” perspective and thoughts on Orthodox Jewish laws, traditions, and rituals, and it went viral.  From insights and observations on modesty to kosher recipes and Jewish holidays, people were enamored by her energy, positivity, and capacity to pronounce the guttural “ch” sound.  As her following grew, kosher and Jewish businesses took notice, sending her clothing and other products to feature and promote.  All the while, she continued to serve as a nanny in Orthodox Jewish homes, developing meaningful relationships with the families she cared for, particularly the children.

Online, people saw her following and influence grow.  What they didn’t see was that offline, the influence of the families she was working for was growing on her.  Adriana wasn’t just curious and intrigued by the Torah way of life, she began to want it for herself.

Adriana approached a rabbi and rebbetzin in the neighborhood where she was working and they agreed to sponsor her in the conversion process. She took it seriously from the start, learning, reading, reviewing, studying the curriculum, attending davening and classes, and integrating among observant Jewish friends. (Every detail here is published with her permission.) When the Beis Din (Jewish court) became involved, being an “influencer” didn’t accelerate her process; if anything, it made it go slowly, methodically and in a way that would build confidence this interest was genuine and not a way to grow her following or any other motivation.

While the change in her dress and her life was noticeable, Adriana never discussed her journey and process with her followers. She never announced the program she was in or what she was working towards.  And finally, after a lot of work and patience, the day came.  She immersed as Adriana and emerged as Adina Shoshana. A few days after the birth of her new identity came the transformation of her online profile. The “Non-Jewish Nanny” became the “Now Jewish Nanny.”

Adina Shoshana should be admired for her journey and supported as she continues her next steps as a full-fledged, proud, and practicing Jew.  Her Rabbi and Rebbetzin deserve enormous credit for their guidance, care, and time teaching her how to live as a Jew.

And there are other, unseen people in this story who deserve great credit: the families for whom Adina worked. The way they live and interact inspired someone who was working for them and living with them to want to be like them – an observant Jew. That is extraordinary and a tremendous credit to them.  Adina shared that it was the children in particular—their sweetness, their patience in sharing their learning and lives with her, their joy in being and living Jewish—that most inspired her.

If someone worked in our home, lived with our family, was involved in our lives and lifestyle, would that draw them closer to Judaism or push them away? Would it inspire them or turn them off?

The Talmud (Bava Metzia 59b) stresses that the Torah obligates us to love the convert and to refrain from causing anguish or pain no less than 36 times.  But it isn’t only the convert we should treat well.  All who work in our homes, and in whose places of work we frequent, Jew and non-Jew alike, will be impacted by how we behave in general and by our attitude towards our Judaism in particular.

Every Jew is entrusted with this sacred mission. Not everyone we meet will go from Non-Jewish to Now Jewish, but if we live with positivity and joy, with honor and respect, they can go from “Never Liked Jews” to “Now Love Jews,” simply because of us.

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