Just like a Jewish adoption agency, a Christian one has the right to sustain its religion.
What is wrong with this picture?
Shortly after the end of WW II, it was known that Jewish children were hidden in Catholic and other Christian orphanages. Some of these non-Jews saved Jewish children out of deep humanity, out of idealism. When the war ended, these Christian guardians returned these children to surviving relatives, or, if there were no surviving relatives, the Jewish children were returned to Jewish leaders in DP camps or other Jewish settings.
Other Christians saved Jewish children to “save souls” for Christianity, or to acquire a child. Jewish leaders scratched their heads as to how to identify these Jewish children and restore them to their people. It was especially difficult when heads of Christian orphanages denied that they had any Jewish children.
Israel’s Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog and other rabbis came up with an idea. They persuaded the very reluctant Christian heads of these orphanages to address all their children briefly.
It was brief indeed! A mere six-word address. The rabbis simply stood before the children and screamed out, “Shema Yisrael . . . !” The children who began to cry or came forward were obviously Jewish children. This one line they remembered from their Jewish homes.
The heads of these Christian orphanages could not deny that these children were Jewish.
They were extracted from these Christian settings and placed in Jewish settings.
What is wrong with this picture?
This is what is wrong with this picture: absolutely nothing.
Jewish children had an inherent right to be raised as Jews.
By the same token, children of other religions have an inherent right to be raised in their own religion. Parents who put a child up for adoption can have a say in what religion they want their child raised in (if any), and if a non-Jewish, biological parent is fine with his adopted child raised in Judaism, we support this. However, if a biological parent purposely chooses a Christian agency such as the Holston United Methodist Home for Children in Knoxville, Tennessee, we support the right of this agency to specify that such children who are adopted from its home, or who are placed in foster care from its home, be placed in Christian settings.
As reported in last week’s Intermountain Jewish News, a Jewish couple was recently turned down by this Methodist agency as prospective adoptive parents, inasmuch as the Jewish couple would raise the adopted child as a Jew.
If it is right for Jews to insist that Jewish children who have been orphaned, abandoned or otherwise separated from their parents (due to abuse, for example), be raised as Jews, it is equally right for Christians to insist that Christians children be raised as Christians. If Jews care about Jewish continuity, it should come naturally for Jews to respect that same caring in other religious communities.
The law in Tennessee allows adoption agencies to disqualify prospective parents based on their religious faith. The Jewish couple sued the Tennessee Dept. of Children’s Services to overturn the law. Such a lawsuit sends every wrong message:
• that a Christian agency’s right to sustain its religion into the next generation is inherently anti-Semitic. It is not.
• that a Jew’s right to raise a Christian as a Jew is a Jew’s right. It is not.
• that a Christian adoption agency — or a Jewish adoption agency — is discriminatory if it ensures that adoptive children be raised in their own religion. It is not.
There are secular adoption agencies. They will place any child with any qualified parents.
This is their right and indeed such agencies are valuable because it is not always easy to locate qualified adoptive parents. The litigious Jewish couple in Knoxville appears to have located such an agency and is now in the process of adopting a 14-year-old girl. We are pleased for this couple.
We are not pleased with this double standard: It is right to see to it that Jewish children be placed in Jewish homes, but it should be illegal for other religions to do the same.
Judaism is not a proselytizing religion. We welcome sincere converts, but we do not seek them out. True enough, when a Jewish couple seeks to adopt, it is primarily out of the deeply human desire to have a family, not to deny a non-Jewish child his religious identity (if any). But when there is a prior religious identity, the effect is the same.
Jews everywhere were deeply grateful to those heroic non-Jews who saved Jewish children out of idealistic reasons during the Holocaust. On this same plane of humanity, we should approve of non-Jewish adopted children being afforded any religious identity their biological parents choose, when suitable parents are available.
Copyright © 2022 by the Intermountain Jewish News
