I have a friend who is Jewish , much older than myself he ' s retired now , who converted to Christianity when he was a teenager so this was many years ago . He lives in Canada now but at the time he and his family lived in Europe . Anyway , upon learning of his conversion his parents not only kicked him out of the house , they considered him to have died . They held a funeral for him including burying a casket and placing a tombstone with his name on it in the family plot . They refused to speak to him or even acknowledge his existence until the day they died . Thankfully after a number of years he was eventually able to contact and have a relationship with a couple of his siblings , but his parents never spoke to him again .