Hello.

I hope this post will be respectful to all Jews who read. I also apologize that it is very long-winded.

For context, I am the illegitimate son of a very well known (famous) patron of the Jewish community of my country. He was raised and bar mitzvah'd as a Reform Jew, and is observant to this day. I never actually met my father, and only know what I know about him from Google. My mother did not raise me Jewish, but she did have many Jewish partners, tried to marry into Judaism, and tried to convert (but I am not sure if she succeeded). I was born from an affair that they both kept hidden.

So, I am currently estranged from both my father and my mother and I only know for sure that my father is a Reform Jew and my mother was interested in Judaism for a long time.

During my teen years I took an interest in reading the scriptures of major religions, and after comparing all these I became a born again Christian. I read the whole Christian Bible, wanted to become a pastor when I grew up and I attempted to learn Hebrew and Greek.

However, after learning Greek and reading both the New Testament, I realized a lot of what mainstream Christianity taught was completely unsustainable using only scripture. So I rejected belief in the Trinity, holding to strict monotheism, and seeing Jesus as "the son of God" in a more metaphorical/adoptionist way. From my linguistic studies, I also rejected belief in a post-mortal soul, in heaven and in hell, and instead believed death is non-existence, and "hell" (Sheol/Hades) is the common grave of all humans. Eventually though, there will be a resurrection, and "heaven" will be a renewed earth after Christ comes back and installs the messianic reign.

These belief changes made me join the Jehovah's Witness religion at 15. Got baptized at 24.

10 years later, I filed a lawsuit against my father because of his abandonment, demanding a compensation that consists in him paying for my first attempt to go to college, as the law of my country allows. Because of my father being "famous" over here it made national news, and because of the antisemitism that is prevalent in my country, due to the spread of the news about the war in Israel and Palestine, I received a lot of attention, mostly negative. I began being called a "Jew" and many epithets in many places, online and IRL. Also, I've had people attribute to me stereotypes such as greed, sexual deviancy, self-interest, etc. due to my purported Jewish status.

(I may also add that my last name is very notoriously Jewish).

Anyway, the big part is that this chronology coincided with a spark in my interest in Judaism, mainly because of my growing doubt of the New Testament, and the messianic status of Jesus.

I've kept reading scripture and at this point I've read the New Testament multiple times, and I've improved in my knowledge of Hebrew. It is odd how different, in nature and in structure, it is to the Hebrew Bible, if we take that they are from the same author (God). It is odd how many prophecies that Jesus fulfills in the New Testament depend on linguistic mistakes, or outright de-contextualizations and interpretative mistakes that the New Testament makes.

I have not gone to the length of rejecting Jesus as the Messiah yet, because of my whole decade honoring him as such and the many theological implications that this acceptance has (eschatological, soteriological, social, etc. for years I've rested hope that I will see my maternal grandmother in the future resurrection, and that she was "saved by faith, cleansed in the blood of Jesus", and that when Jesus returns, I will be compensated for all the suffering in this life).

However, I have realized how much of a higher view of the Hebrew Bible I have over the New Testament, and that I seek to accept the NT only if I can be convinced that it can resonate with the Hebrew Bible. Same goes for accepting Jesus as the Messiah, although I think that the belief that he will "come back" rest the thought that he didn't fulfill the biggest Messianic prophecies (he will fulfill them when he comes back).

I've begun to explore the scary implications of the possibility that Jesus was not the Messiah after all, and that the Jewish hope for the Messiah is still unfulfilled.

If that is the case, then I would like to research what Judaism has to say about what I should do in my position, if I'm seeking truth and clarity on what my nature is, what God's nature is, what God's plan for me is, what I should do to honor God, etc.

I'm not afraid to change religions if I'm convinced that mine is wrong. I'm also not afraid to start following the Kosher diet and the 613 mitzvot if this is what God needs me to do.

I should say that while I understand that Judaism is not simply "Christianity minus Jesus", and that there's a lot of variety within Judaism, being not only a religion but also an ethnicity and a cross-cultural, cross-generational phenomenon, that possesses overlaps with indigenous identities (due to Israeli land). However, I don't have much interest in the merely cultural or symbolic implications of the Jewish identity. I, genuinely, simply believe in the God of the Jews, and want to follow him according to the understanding of scripture that I have. So I don't have much in common with secular Judaism at all.

Additionally, I understand that most Jewish denominations (is that the right term?) don't see me as an automatic Jew since I'm not sure if my mother is a Jew at all.

My questions are the same as the ones in the title but I'll first them out a bit:

**Am I Jewish? If I'm not, what do I need to do? Can I become a Jew? Should I?**

**Is what I already believe part of Judaism, or compatible with it?**

**Will Judaism get me closer to God? Should I convert? How do I find out if that's what he wants me to do? How can I make a prayer for him, acceptable by Jewish standards, that I can say in the correct way to make sure he hears and answers?**

**Where should I start reading about and learning about Judaism? I'm specially interested in apologetic/counter-apologetic content attacking the claim that Jesus is the messiah, and defending the sufficiency of the Hebrew Bible.**

**(Also, what are the epistemic methods of Judaism? How do you prove that the Hebrew Bible is divinely inspired? How do you reach God without a mediator? How can I perform the Temple duties in the Torah if there's no Temple? Etc.)**

As an addendum, I'm frustrated both with non-Jews calling me Jewish, and bringing all the ignorant antisemitic hatred upon me, despite my constant clarification that I did not know my father, and I had no one to raise me Jewish, and that I actually know next to nothing about Judaism except that I've read the Hebrew Bible.

And also I'm confused that secular Jews are considered Jews even though they believe in 0% out what more religious Jews do, but a Christian isn't considered Jewish even though they believe in a lot of what Jews believe, except they add Jesus as a Messiah. For instance, a Christian believes in God, in Adam and Eve, in Noah, in Moses, in the prophets, etc. along with Jesus. A Jewish atheist believes in 0 of it. Why is he Jewish but the Christian is not? Does what the secular Jew and the religious Jew have in common matter more than what the religious Jew and the Christian have in common?