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Comedian and three-time convert Yisrael Campbell performed at the Highland Park Conservative Temple-Congregation Anshe Emeth Men's Clubs annual event Dec. 24. Campbell's comedy act tells the story of his search for Judaism and his takes on the Jewish world as an outsider. The 45-year-old went through Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox conversions during his spiritual journey.

Campbell was born in Philadelphia to a "manic-depressive Italian woman and a pathologically silent Irishman. That makes me wildly emotional in a very quiet way," Campbell joked in his act. He was raised "Catholic enough to know I'm going to hell," he explained. "So I switched religions."

When he was 9 years old, Campbell was introduced to drinking and drugs. Although a negative experience, Campbell joked about the ordeal, saying that he would take estrogen amongst the cocktail of other prescription drugs he would smuggle from his mother. He attended his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting when he was 16. During that meeting, the group leader told him the first step of the program, accepting that there is a higher being. It didn't have to be God, the mediator told Campbell. So Campbell began his road to recovery with meditation.

"I lit a candle, I sat cross-legged in front of it, I put my head in my lap and closed my eyes," Campbell said. "Then I wondered why I lit the candle if I closed my eyes."

Campbell "took his retirement early" and moved to Florida when he was 18, five days after his high school graduation. While there, he met a girl who gave him books to read that introduced him to Judaism. One of those books was the novel "Exodus." That novel put Campbell on the path to becoming Jewish, first with a Reform conversion in Los Angeles in 1994.

Campbell recalled that the rabbi performing the conversion asked him five questions, one of them being if he was unaffiliated with religion outside of Judaism.

"Did I leave Catholicism? Well, I didn't write the Pope," Campbell said. "He knew."

Soon after, Campbell married an Egyptian woman.

"If I joined the three major religions in a calendar year, people are going to doubt my sincerity," Campbell joked.

However, Campbell's life still felt devoid of any spiritual meaning. Issues with acceptance of his conversion and his non-traditional marriage led to divorce and the continuation of the spiritual quest Campbell sought after years earlier.

Seeking ritual practices over theories and words, Campbell began to don phylacteries and attend a Conservative daily minyan. He attended morning services six days a week and drove to the Reform temple for Shabbat. However, one week, after being asked if he had a place for Shabbat by the Conservative temple, he joined the Shabbat table of a regular congregant.

"I started going there every Friday night, even if they invited me or not," Campbell said. "If I knew it was a mitzvah, I would have invited myself for lunch, too."

The difference, Campbell said, was the Shabbat atmosphere that this family upheld at their table. In Campbell's Reform community, there was oneg Shabbat, but in his Conservative community, there was Shabbat.

He then underwent a second conversion under the wing of the Conservative community.

After spending several years in the Conservative community, Campbell was faced with challenges with his conversion once again. While trying to kosher his kitchen, an Orthodox rabbi explained to him that there are those who would still not eat in his house because of his conversion. He advised Campbell to convert again under Orthodox guidance, which Campbell followed through on and converted for the third -- and final -- time.

Campbell decided to attend Pardes, a Jerusalem-based learning program that includes traditional learning in a non-traditional, co-ed atmosphere, soon after his Orthodox conversion. It was there Campbell met and married his second wife, his substitute Gemara teacher.

"Had I gone to the Mir and married my substitute Gemara teacher, I'd be marrying an 80-year-old chain-smoking rabbi," Campbell said.

Today, Campbell resides in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.

"I'm the only person I know who wore the same suit to his bris and to his bar mitzvah," Campbell joked.