Jews and adoption
Did you know that infertility is higher among Jews than it is among other religious groups? Apparently this is because many Jewish women have children later, at least that’s what this article says.
“As the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Study confirms, Jews marry later than other Americans, with the greatest disparities occurring in the age group between 25 and 34. For Jewish women in particular, late marriage means lower rates of fertility (the overall average is 1.86 children per Jewish woman), compared with other Caucasian women, who themselves are barely producing babies at replacement level (figured at 2.1 children),” Jack Wertheimer writes in Commentary Magazine, a publication of the American Jewish Committee.In general, observers cite college, graduate degrees and careers as factors that delay young Jews, more than their non-Jewish peers, along the road to marriage and children. When they do settle down, they are battling the biological clock.
Some Jewish voices urge adoption as one solution to the culture’s higher-than-average infertility rates. And while more Jewish couples are responding, the reason is often more personal than cultural.
I’m on a very quiet but occasionally flame-prone listserv for Jewish adoptive parents. I feel like a tourist in Judaism a lot of the time since I converted late and my Jewish father hasn’t shared much of his Judaism with me. I rarely participate on the list but I listen a lot. As a late convert in an interfaith family who belongs to a adoption-friendly Reform synagogue, there are a lot of issues in adoption and Judaism that I knew nothing about.
Here’s something that comes up on list a lot only it’s illustrated by an article about sperm donation:
he rabbinical courts insist they must be told the identities of previously anonymous sperm donors, so that the offspring of such unions may marry in the future. The Ministry of Health and hospitals operating the sperm banks absolutely oppose this demand since they have guaranteed the sperm donors complete confidentiality.The problem emerged two months ago when a woman who gave birth to a boy conceived by artificial insemination from an anonymous sperm donor petitioned a special panel of the Jerusalem District Rabbinical Court. She asked it to affirm that her son, a few months old, “was conceived from the sperm of a Jew and born to a single Jewish mother” and “is therefore a Jew permitted to join the community.” Such a declaration would allow him to marry in accordance with Halakha (Jewish law).
The panel was headed by rabbinical judge Rabbi Ezra Batzri. In the past, Batzri had given dispensation to individuals conceived from donated sperm to marry, but this was in cases where the donation was from a foreign sperm bank. Since the products of these unions involved the sperm of a non-Jew, Batzri had decided there was little concern this could lead to sexual relations between relations as proscribed by Torah. In this case, however, Batzri ruled that when the source of the sperm donation is in Israel, there is a possibility that the child could grow up and marry a close family relative from the father’s side. If the father was a cohen (Judaism’s priestly caste), there would be the additional chance of a cohen marrying a divorcee, also forbidden by Halakha.
See, in Orthodox Judaism, there are additional issues when you don’t know more about the child you are raising. Also, conversion can be problematic (I’m not Jewish except by Reform standards, which means that for some people I’m not Jewish at all. And that means Noah’s not Jewish — since he was converted by the same rabbi — and Madison won’t be Jewish. If either of them want to marry a more observant Jew, they will need to re-convert.) And if you adopt a child you know is Jewish, there are the issues raised in the passage above. Also, there is the problem of a Jewish child who is adopted by a Jewish family being a mamzer:
What is the legal definition of a “mamzer”?
A mamzer (a.k.a. bastard) is the product of incestuous relations or adultery. A child born out of wedlock is not a mamzer.Besides for the fact that a mamzer may only marry a spouse of the same ilk, a mamzer is a full-fledged Jew in all respects. In fact our sages tell us “A mamzer who is a Torah scholar takes precedence (in respect accorded, etc.) over an ignorant high-priest!”
InterfaithFamily.com has a whole issue devoted to be interfaith and adopting. Although if you’re interfaith you’re likely not going to run into the issues that a more observant person would.
I’ve got no point here. I just hadn’t realized how much more challenging infertility issues and adoption issues can be if you’re an observant Jew. I learned about family purity laws from hanging on the misc.kids.pregnancy bulletin boards while I was trying to conceive Noah. Then one of the Jewish infertility bloggers told me about the special challenges of determining whether or not a baby she might conceive through donor egg would be Jewish if the egg hadn’t been donated by a Jewish woman. Different rabbis had different answers for her.
It’s also another examle of how “just adopt” doesn’t really address the unique situation any infertile person finds him or herself in.
Here’s a related story for you: http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/26768/format/html/displaystory.html
(I always wondered how it was that Rabbi Kohn and his wife had Black kids…figured there had to be a story there. Had not expected to read it in the paper!)
My Muslim friends had a similar dilema. Apparently it is forbidden in Islam to give an adopted child the adoptive family’s surname. It is considered to be disrespectful to the birth parents and the original name is necessary to preserve a sense of the child’s biological heritage.
My friends believed it was required by law in the U.S. to give adopted children the adoptive parents’ name. They were really excited by the prospect that this isn’t true (maybe it is in some states, but certainly not all). It gave them hope for the infertile Muslim couples out there, since having and raising children is so valued in Islam.
Related:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Archive/DigitalArchive.aspx?panes=1&aid=12003041_1
http://www.mayimrabim.com
http://www.yoatzot.org
Dawn, would you mind telling me more about the listserv? As a Jewish, adoptive mom-to-be I’m always looking for resources.
a couple interesting points to add –
- in jewish rabbinic law, there is a debate about whether raising a child that you did not give birth to is a fulfillment of the biblical commandment to ‘be fruitful and multiply’. when i studied it, i was told that one rabbi who did not think that adoption was a way to fulfill that commandment would send people who came to him looking to adopt to another rabbi who thought that raising a child who was not your own biologically was a way to fulfill that commandment.
- an orthodox woman we know wrote a detailed article about the jewish legal aspects involved in artificial insemination through anonymous donor. she is now an (unmarried) mother of 3; several other women are doing the same.
people are finding creative ways to work within the system to serve their personal needs for family.