On a recent Friday night in Palo Alto, a special Shabbat dinner was in progress. The guests drank grape juice out of red plastic cups and ate challah. They recited the blessings in Hebrew and English, and only had to be prompted once to remember the next line. Then pizza was served.
The young celebrants ranged in age from 5-year-old Lindsay, with strikingly blond hair and blue eyes, to 10-year-old Ruthie, with dark hair and a cocoa complexion. Besides a love of pizza, these children share a common identity: They are Jewish by adoption, rather than by birth.
Their parents, who sat down to eggplant lasagna and real wine shortly afterward, are members of Stars of David, an international support group for Jewish adoptive parents and kids. In the Peninsula/South Bay chapter alone — one of two chapters in the Bay Area — there are about 50 participating families; group events include Shabbat dinner four times a year.
“It’s a chance to meet good friends and share good food,” says Dorothy Heller of Sunnyvale, Ruthie’s mom, who has been a member for seven years. “And it’s a way for the kids not to feel isolated — which is the worst thing in the world for a child.”
An estimated 120,000 couples in the United States opt for adoption each year, and Jewish couples adopt at a higher rate compared with others, according to Susan Katz, national director of Stars of David in Northbrook, Ill. She attributes this to the high value Judaism places on family and children.
“When you are married, you are commanded to ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ so you are charged with that from the get-go,” agrees Gail Bogetz-Gelb of Millbrae, Lindsay’s mother. “It’s not that important to have a biological child, but it might be said 100 times until you’re really ready to hear that.”
However, since the vast majority of babies put up for adoption are not born to Jewish birthmothers, it is also more difficult for Jewish couples who are trying to adopt.
“You are running up against a religious difference — why would [a birthmother] place with a Jewish couple?” says Katz.
Stars of David, which partners with local Jewish Family and Children Services organizations, steers prospective adoptive parents toward service providers that are “Jewish user-friendly,” she says.
After trying to conceive for a number of years, Bogetz-Gelb and her husband decided to adopt. They chose a program called Adoption Connection, offered by the S.F.-based JFCS. After two years, which is about the average length of time for a domestic adoption, they found Lindsay.
Depending on which source one consults, Judaism welcomes adoptees to varying degrees. On the one hand, the religion takes bloodlines very seriously and provides no formal procedure for adoption. However, the Bible and the Talmud are filled with “…sayings about people who raise children born to others,” writes Florida-based Rabbi Michael Gold, author of “And Hannah Wept: Infertility, Adoption and the Jewish Couple.”
For adopted children to become Jewish, they must go through a formal conversion. When Lindsay was 9 months old, she had a ritual immersion in a mikvah and a naming ceremony at Bogetz-Gelb’s Conservative synagogue. But since her conversion was conducted by Conservative rabbis, Lindsay is not considered Jewish according to Orthodox authorities. “We wanted her to be part of the community,” says Bogetz-Gelb, “but there was no sense in her being something that we weren’t.”
Becoming a mother has made it easier for Bogetz-Gelb to get involved with her synagogue. “Celebrating the holidays through the eyes of a child — it’s an experience that’s priceless,” she says. “I’ve always been very Jewish, whether it’s been religiously or culturally, and [having a child] has…added another dimension and made it that much more special.”
Interestingly, a large percentage of Jewish adoptions are between parents and children of different ethnicities. According to the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey, 25 percent of U.S. Jewish adoptions are transracial, compared with 8 percent of adoptions in the general U.S. population, according to the 1987 National Health Interview Survey.
The older age of many Jewish parents is a factor that often leads them to adopt interracial children abroad. When Heller and her husband were considering adoption, age restrictions against older couples made it difficult to adopt domestically. They also found overseas adoption appealing for other reasons, Heller says. Many of the children available for adoption are growing up in poverty or have a single mother who cannot raise a child alone, whereas domestically, many children become available because of substance abuse or illegal parental behavior
Heller and her husband found their daughter in Chile, and had just begun the paperwork when the Chilean court halted all adoptions. “After more than a year of prayers, phone calls and faxes, we finally received a letter that we had to be in Chile within three weeks,” Heller recalls. They returned with Ruthie.
Heller, who is fluent in Spanish, throws an occasional frase en español to encourage her daughter to learn her native language.
Heller has two biological sons and always planned to adopt. “My own family is so dysfunctional, I knew growing up that biology isn’t a requirement for love, harmony and happiness,” she says.
It’s a message that Katz would like more people to hear, after seeing many couples who go through years of unsuccessful infertility treatments. “A lot of people are absolutely devastated emotionally and financially by the time they get to us,” she says. “Adoption is a very positive choice for building a family, and people turn to it as a second choice because of negative attitudes about raising a child that is not of your blood. It’s too bad; there are people who are missing out on a lot of years of parenting and happiness.”