Recruits

It is a scene one can find in communities from Moscow to Minnesota, Jews gathering to light the menorah, connecting with Jews around the world and with generations past. There's a generous spread of latkes, and the children fidget with the customary anticipation of gifts to come. The songs and the blessings are the same too. But at this meeting of Stars of David, a support group for Jewish adoptive families, the uplifted faces of the children differ from those seen in most Jewish homes across America. These children are Asian, Hispanic, black, Native American and white. This gathering reflects a new reality in Jewish demographics: As couples have postponed childbearing over the years, infertility has risen, and a decline in healthy white newborns available for adoption means that, increasingly, the face of the Jewish family is not necessarily white. These interracial Jewish adoptive families must tangle with all the difficult issues of adoption, from legal concerns to a child's possible quest for its birth parents. But they must also grapple with a whole other set of troubling questions, from "How can we integrate a second culture into our lives?" to "will my child be accepted by the Jewish community, or will she remain forever outside the fold?" Not the least of these families' problems, according to Dr. Lucy Steinitz, executive director of Jewish Family Services (JFS) of Central Maryland, come from the Jewish community itself. "Much to my horror," she says, "I still see tremendous racism in the Jewish community, whether you're talking about interracial marriage or adoption." Steinitz, who is herself an adoptive parent of a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old from Guatemala, believes many Jews have yet to come to grips with the undeniable reality that conventional notions of family are changing. "It's really a family diversity issue," she contends. "We need to ask the Jewish community to recognize the diversity of Jewish family life out there." If we don't, she warns, these families may be lost to the community forever. Part of the problem, Steinitz and others say, stems simply from a failure to acknowledge the increasing number of Jews with adopted children. Although approximately one-third of Jewish family agencies in North America offer some kind of adoption-related services, the community has yet to fully integrate the notion of adoption into the mainstream, critics say. Gail Lipsitz, director of community relations at the Central Maryland JFS and the adoptive mother of an Indian child, believes Jewish leaders have a responsibility to educate the community about adoption. "I consider my son a tremendous asset to the Jewish community," she says. "The more Jewishly identified children we have, the better," and rabbis and other leaders can do more to send a "welcoming and affirming message" to these families, she says. "Jewish adoption is the stepchild of Jewish issues," says Susan Katz, national chapter coordinator of Stars of David. "Infertility was considered a shonda [shame] and was not openly discussed. Infertility and adoption need to come out of the closet and be seen as deserving of our concern and our financial resources." In fact, both infertility and adoption touch a great many Jews. The 1990 Council of Jewish Federations' National Jewish Population Survey reports that as many as one in five Jewish couples experiences infertility problems, a higher rate than in the general population. And, the survey indicates, a large number of these couples decide to build their families through adoption: There are approximately 60,000 adopted children in the Jewish population, and 13 percent of the respondents who were planning to have children said they would consider adopting. However, those who seek healthy white newborns in the United States face a number of obstacles, including long waiting periods. Adoption attorneys have cautioned couples that being Jewish can be a liability, since birth parents often choose families with religions similar to their own. In addition, recent well-publicized custody battles have made some people skittish about the risks of dealing with birth parents. A growing number of Jews, therefore, have opened their hearts and their homes to children of different races. "We're seeing a greatly increased interest in adopting from overseas," says Susan Katz of Stars of David, which, although it is open to all Jewish adoptive families, attracts many transracial families. In fact, according to the 1990 CJF study, perhaps as many as one-quarter of adopted children in the Jewish population were from overseas and, while not all overseas adoptions are transracial, many of these children were born in Asia and Latin America. The general U.S. population; has also seen a growth in overseas adoptions in recent years, reaching an eight-year high of nearly 9,700 in 1995, according to the U.S. Department of State. But infertility and the difficulty of finding white American babies are not the only factors in interracial, or as it is more commonly called, transracial Jewish adoption. For some parents, there is a sense that their adoptive children may lead better lives than they otherwise would. After Paddy and Colin Schapiro of Los Angeles went through the traumatic experience of a domestic adoption that didn't work out, they found a baby girl in China. Adopting a Chinese baby eliminated their worries about prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol, they say. And, like other Jews who adopt from China - where unwanted girls are sometimes mistreated or even killed - they also felt it was a mitzvah. "It was the right thing to do to save a life," says Paddy. As State Department figures indicate, an increasing number of would-be adoptive parents have been turning to China, which has gone from allowing only 157 adoptions five years ago to more than 2,000 last year, particularly of baby girls. Clearly, many of these families hope to do a mitzvah. But are they instead creating a mixed blessing for their adoptive children? Paddy Schapiro, who describes seven-month-old Chaya as her "Jewish-American-Chinese princess," plans to send her daughter to a Jewish day school in Los Angeles that has a reputation for being racially mixed. She says she's hopeful about Chaya's future, and believes that the community is increasingly accepting of difference. "Jewish people are [now] more open to letting in different races, and I think that will be good for her," she says. Joshua and Froma Fallik of Phoenix admit, however, that it has not been completely smooth sailing for their adopted children - two Korean daughters and a Native American-Hispanic Irish son. The youngsters attended Jewish day school in New Jersey, they explain, and had to cope with unwelcome questions and insensitive comments from other kids. "They quickly learned to make the distinction between those who were honestly curious and those who were being obnoxious," Froma recalls. And, although they weren't aware of it at the time, debate was raging around them about their decision to adopt the Korean girls: Members of the community expressed concern that no one would want to marry them. "The rabbi settled that one," Froma explains. "He said, `If someone didn't want to marry your daughter because she was Korean, would you want him to marry a non-Korean daughter?" When daughter Naomi was older, she overheard someone suggest that she wasn't really Jewish. Worried, she sought out the rabbi, who told her he would be happy to have her marry his son. "At least my kids have had conversions that modern Orthodoxy accepts," says Froma. "But I know that the extreme right will never accept my kids as Jews. There are always people who are uneasy about anyone who looks different." Still, the Falliks note that with time has come acceptance. Froma was surprised recently to hear someone say how much her ten-year-old Korean daughter looks like her. "People forgot their race after a while," she says. "They've come to accept that this is the way our family looks." But critics of transracial adoption argue that it is not so easy to forget the problems these children will face. "To parcel kids out randomly does violence to their being," insists Vicki Krausz, director of the Jewish Children's Adoption Network (JCAN) in Denver. Krausz objects to Jewish parents adopting non-Jewish children while there are Jewish children - although often seriously disabled ones - available for adoption. "Every child has a birthright, and I object to those who say this gift from God is not a factor," she says. The Network does all it can, therefore, to find Jewish homes for Jewish children. But nearly all of the 200 children referred to JCAN each year are either bi-racial or have disabilities or special needs, and placing them can be difficult. "We know there's a crowd of Jewish parents who won't find what they're looking for in the Jewish community," says Krausz, "but we're supposed to put kids' best interests first, not give everybody who's infertile a family. We're imposing a double minority status on a kid when we adopt a child of another heritage, and we should ask ourselves if the kid will really appreciate this later on." The National Association of Black Social Workers is also not favorably inclined toward transracial adoptions. "White people wanted babies and there were not enough white babies to go around," says Leora Neal, executive director of the organization's New York chapter and co-author of a book called Transracial Adoptive Parenting: A Black/ White Community Issue. Neal, who is an African-American Jew by choice, advocates family preservation to avoid adoption in the first place, then adoption by extended family members, next same-race placement, and finally, only as a last resort, transracial adoption. Do children of transracial adoptions in fact show signs of poor adjustment? Studies can be found to support differing points of view. One prominent survey by the authors of Growing Up Adopted reports that transracially adopted kids fare just as well as same-race adopted children on variables such as identity, attachment and psychological health. In addition, those who are transracially placed tend to be slightly more attached to both parents than same-race adoptees, the 1992-3 survey indicates, and express a higher perceived similarity with their parents' values, interests and personalities. But Joe Kroll of the North American Council on Adoptable Children thinks such studies may be biased, and insists there are great difficulties for children who are placed transracially. Kroll himself adopted transracially; his daughter now advocates against such adoptions. But parents with transracially adopted children point out that steps can be taken to help a child adjust and to enhance a sense of self-esteem and belonging. For one, parents should encourage their child's connection to his or her culture of origin, says Dr. Elias Lefferman of Vista Del Mar, a private Jewish social service agency in Los Angeles. "Parents who adopt from other countries have a great responsibility to incorporate aspects of that culture into the child's upbringing, says Lefferman, not only to foster a sense of pride but "so that the child will not have to choose to reject Judaism in order to embrace the other." Lefferman's agency runs pre- and post adoption workshops, which encourage parents to value their children's cultural origins and to weave that heritage into their upbringing as American Jews. The National Association of Black Social Workers also runs training sessions to help families expose kids to their cultural heritage. Moreover, the Association's Neal urges that only people who are open to exploring other cultures - and who receive thorough preparation first - should adopt transracially at all. For those who do choose to adopt transracially, support groups can be another way to ease the adjustment. Stressing Jewish community and identity gives children a sense of belonging. and there's also comfort in numbers, say those involved. "I wanted my two Korean Jewish-American daughters to know they weren't alone," explains Phyllis Nissen who, along with Rabbi Susan Abramson of Burlington, Massachusetts, founded Stars of David in 1984. The non-profit network, which serves some 800 families nationwide, often attracts transracial adoptive families, explains Susan Katz, because Caucasian adoptees can blend into the Jewish community more easily, and therefore are less likely to seek a support group. Other parents echo Nissen's sentiment, saying they want their children to see kids like them, kids who "don't look Jewish." Of course, groups like Stars of David may not work for all families. Some researchers point out that bringing these kids together may serve to isolate them from the wider community rather than to integrate them into it. "Creating a special group gives kids a sense of differentness," cautions psychologist Lynn Friedman Kessler of the Adoption Research Center in Los Angeles. "Kids want to be like everybody else." Karen Wagener, a former member of Stars of David in Dallas, says she found the connection with others in similar circumstances comforting, but notes that the group had the opposite effect on her adopted son. "He now tells me that being with other families like ours made him feel how separate he and his sister really were from other Jews," she says. Is the organized Jewish community doing enough to help these kids feel at home? Efforts to help transracial adoptive families vary from place to place. In some cities, the issues involved have been given a higher priority than in others. In Central Maryland, for example, the Jewish Family Services is embarking on a training program to increase awareness of family diversity - from multiracial to gay and lesbian families - for teachers in Jewish schools. The agency also offers a broad range of services and groups for those involved in all stages of the adoption drama. But, generally, the-community has not been as supportive as it might be, admits Bert Goldberg, executive vice president of the umbrella group AJFCA, the Association of Jewish Family and Children's Agencies. "There are some programs for transracial adoption and for transracial Jewish families," but, he says, the issue is often ignored. "I know the kids get adopted. We see them. I just don't know how much it gets talked about, except in Stars of David groups," many of which are associated with Jewish family service agencies. Stars of David's Susan Katz agrees with this assessment. "We are starting to see programs occasionally," she says. "For example, a group was recently established in Chicago for Jewish families adopting from China." Most often, though, "transracial adoption is not a real big topic. It'll become a bigger topic because more and more families are doing it," she says. "I believe Jewish family services are starting to pay more attention to the needs of these families. It's about time," she adds. "There are families where the kids are now teenagers, so this has been going on for a long time, and for a long time there has not been a lot of attention or services." "It's a question of funding," she notes. "I've had difficulty getting the powers-that-be to recognize that adoption needs attention, let alone transracial adoption." And, although more is being done, she says, "it's still not enough." Even if the community were to give more attention and resources to transracial adoptive families, it may be unrealistic to expect that their children will all embrace Judaism wholeheartedly, observers say. "We can't expect these kids to automatically choose Judaism when we don't even expect it from our own biological kids," says Krausz of Denver, pointing to the dismal figures on Jewish continuity in the National Jewish Population Survey. In trying to assess the Jewish identities of these children, much of the evidence is anecdotal. Some say they feel completely comfortable with their Jewish identity, while others feel alienated from it. Like other Jewish kids, factors from friends to family influence how they feel. "My kids are very Jewish because that's the environment they are being raised in," says Froma Fallik. "I can't imagine them not being Jewish." Naomi, 17, will be studying at a yeshiva in Israel next year. Kim Smith, an 18-year-old Korean, was raised in a secular environment by a Jewish mother and a Christian father. But most of her friends are Jewish, and she attends synagogue with them, even though her parents don't belong to one. "In sixth grade I developed a very strong interest in my Jewish heritage," she says. "I don't mind telling people I'm Jewish, even though sometimes they don't believe me. I kind of like it because it's different," she says.

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