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Consider someone who was born to a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother who then converted to Judaism with his mother. It seems pashut from the Shulchan Aruch that one who converts is considered a "tinok shnolad" and therefore has no obligation to mourn for their parents. Therefore it seems obvious to me that aninus is definitely not an issue. The question is that if a convert in that situation would wish to mourn could they mourn and to what extent. The Taz seems to indicated that one may willingly mourn for someone as long as they accept the mourning completely and do not transgress any negative commandments in the process. Does anyone have experience with this type of issue?

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    Jake, welcome to Mi Yodeya and thank you for your important question. I look forward to seeing you around!
    – Double AA ♦
    Sep 13, 2012 at 17:14
  • related judaism.stackexchange.com/q/3842/759
    – Double AA ♦
    Sep 13, 2012 at 17:15
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    While I sincerely hope that this is not a practical issue for you, your writing style makes me caution: CYLOR.
    – Seth J
    Sep 13, 2012 at 19:20
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    Bli Ayan Hara both of my parents are alive and well. Of course I would consult a posek before doing anything practically. I am just trying to gather information.
    – Jake
    Sep 13, 2012 at 20:45
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    I do not think so. when a ger is given an aliyah. they are called up as ben avraham. a ger's parents are avraham and sarah. another question related to this subject was whether a ger would say yizkor for avraham and sarah?
    – Dude
    Oct 7, 2014 at 15:49

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The mishnah in Sanhedrin (top of 46b) states that even the family of someone killed by Beis Din, for whom shiva is FORBIDDEN, may engage in anninus, since that is entirely internal. Halacha specifically recognizes internal emotion as a separate sphere or mourning and chooses not to regulate it in this case. It would seem that anninus would be entirely appropriate in your case, but you already knew that. :)

I had an unfortunate situation in a slightly different direction. The direction given us was that no minyan could be held, we could not call our open-house a "shiva," and there were no requirements of shiva placed upon the relatives. It was... okay, I guess. The guideline was passive behaviors were permitted, active ones were not.

HOWEVER, we could voluntarily chose to observe customs of shiva without a formal acceptance since that has no real halachic import. In our case, Kaddish could be said (one of the weird technicalities we dealt with).

But as always, CYLOR.

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