She may be an official Jewish Nanny now — but she’s no Fran Drescher.
A wildly popular social media personality went from the “Non-Jewish Nanny” to an official convert, claiming the Oct. 7 massacre only fueled her desire to be Jewish.
Adriana Fernandez, a Floridian who attended private Christian school growing up with almost no exposure to Judaism, became a de-facto social media star of David for her more than 100,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram when she started nannying for Orthodox families about four years ago.
She’s cultivated a devoted following with her cheery and earnest videos navigating her way learning the ropes in observant homes.
Exposed to the “beauty” of Judaism, the young bartender and budding opera singer became an official Jewess last month, after a years-long conversion process inspired by her young charges, who taught her about the faith.
While Fernandez said she’s “always had a relationship with G-d,” many of her Orthodox clients’ customs baffled her — like discovering that a religious mom wears a sheitel, or wig, for modesty and a mezuzah on the doorpost denotes a Jewish home, she said.
Soon, those customs stopped being mysterious and instead, became “powerful.”
One Friday afternoon Fernandez was leaving her charges as they prepared for their weekly Sabbath meal, while her plans involved “running to happy hour with friends to get drunk all weekend.”
“I want a life like that one day,” she recalled thinking.
“I wanted to be Jewish so bad,” she said from her home in Boca Raton.
The official frum fatale – whose sunny personality shines through in every post reveling in her new “chosen” path – is now ready for her first Passover as a Jew.
“Officially chose my outfit for my first Seder as a Jew,” Fernandez, whose Hebrew name is Adina Shoshana, wrote on Instagram this week to plaudits from supportive members of the tribe.
The classically trained singer and nanny said she “definitely would love to make Hebrew music covers” and of course write a children’s book.
As she prepared for Passover, she reflected on the holiday commemorating the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and the theme of liberation.
For Fernandez, the holiday known for its four cups of wine at the seder and a week of munching matzah, is what being Jewish is all about. “That’s when the Jewish nation was really born.”
But the path to Judaism wasn’t always easy for Fernandez.
Some derided her as “mashugana” — the Yiddish word for crazy — for becoming a Jew after Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis in a surprise assault on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Oct. 7 made me want to be Jewish more,” she said, noting her determination to convert to Judaism is a way to fight antisemitism.
With people pleading, “The whole world hates us,” Fernandez said she didn’t hesitate.
“These are my people too,” she thought. “I was already in the process of converting – but I could have stopped.”
“My first thought on Oct. 7 wasn’t, ‘How do I get out of this?’” she recalled. “I felt an even stronger connection to G-d.”
