By Cindy Mindell

Months after its publication, the Pew Research Center’s survey report, “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” continues to raise lively debate and discussion throughout the national Jewish community. Analyses abound, from the timeless “who is a Jew?” deliberation to the strength of Jewish continuity to the actual number of “Members of the Tribe.”

The study is fertile breeding ground for Jewish journalism, and the Ledger is no exception. Over the next few months, we will continue to explore the societal trends and topics shaping the Jewish community today.

Tallying the ranks has always been important to Jews, so significant that a good part of the book of Numbers is dedicated to a census of the Jewish people who left Egypt with Moses.

The count has fluctuated over the last 3,000 years, but the increases to our small people are what most captivate Jewish demographers. In their annual survey of American Jews, UConn sociologist Arnold Dashefsky and University of Miami human geographer Ira Sheskin numbered the population at 6.5 million, up 20 percent from the 2000 “National Jewish Population Survey,” sponsored by the Jewish Federations of North America.

Among the phenomena that add to our numbers is adoption. Some of our most revered leaders – Moses and Esther among them – were saved and raised by adoptive parents. Jewish scholars have long explored the notion that because an adopted individual is often exposed to and part of different communities and identities, he or she can cultivate deep empathy toward others – and toward “the other.”

“While there is not any halachic imperative to adopt, adoption surely qualifies as an act of profound kindness (chesed),” says Rabbi Yitzchok Adler of Beth David Synagogue in West Hartford. “In our local Orthodox community,

I am aware of several families where the decision was made to adopt. Our tradition suggests that saving a life is akin to creating a world, and in my mind, each of these families have saved lives and partnered with Heaven in creating worlds. Every family that welcomes a child by choice has entered into a profound and ultimate Divine partnership.”

Jewish Family Service of New Haven’s Stars of David program for Jewish families created through adoption.

An Act of Kindness

Adoption is considered so profound an act of kindness in Jewish life that it was long among the offerings of most Jewish Family Service agencies in Connecticut. Today, as the criteria and requirements around adoption have become more demanding, and as sources of available children have shut down, only two of those agencies still work with adoptive parents – Jewish Family Service of Connecticut in Fairfield (formerly Bridgeport), and Jewish Family Service of New Haven – both of which have offered adoption services since the ’30s and continue to facilitate both domestic and international adoptions.

Amy Rashba, LCSW, adoption coordinator of Jewish Family Service of New Haven, says that, while JFS serves both Jewish and non-Jewish clients, many Jewish families exploring adoption only want to work with a Jewish Family Service agency. “Our board is committed to maintaining our adoption program so that Jewish families always have a Jewish agency to come to,” she says.

JFS networks with the large national agencies, Spence-Chapin Adoption Services in New York and Children’s Home Society and Family Services in Minnesota. A prospective adoptive parent or couple must undergo a home study and an eight-hour adoption-education course.

Rashba says that she and her staff understand that the home-study process can be an especially intrusive one. “My job is to try to stretch people so that they can be prepared for all situations but not stretch them so much that they break,” she says. “With intercountry adoptions, there’s tons of bureaucratic nonsense, and with domestic adoptions, birth mothers can change their minds. We’re bound by the regulations of the state and we want to help our clients get through the process. I think we do a really nice job preparing people for all eventualities.”

Renee and Mike Hoyt of Hamden worked with Rashba for just over a year before they brought home Miles Benjamin from Winter Park, Fla.

They had one meeting with a different agency before speaking with Rashba. “Truthfully, Amy is the reason we went with JFS,” Renee says. “She made us feel immediately comfortable, was honest, direct in her communication style, and set expectations so we knew what was coming and how long things might take.”

After adopting their son, the Hoyts spent the first three weeks in Florida, where he had a joint brit milah-conversion ceremony.

There are many ways to approach the question of conversion when adopting a child. “If the birth mother was not Jewish, or if the religious identity of the birth mother is not known, the child would require halachic conversion to be considered Jewish,” says Rabbi Adler. “It is worth noting that Jewish adopting parents are not necessarily required to convert the child. Doing so would seem to make sense, but if there might be unique reasons why not converting the child would be preferable, then conversion is not imperative. Clearly, every decision should be based upon the best short- and long-term interests of the child. Adoption and conversion should always be first and foremost about the child.”

A Star of David Chanukah party in New Haven

Rabbi Hesch Sommer, director of the Jewish Wellness and Healing Center of Greater New Haven, works with Rashba in the Stars of David program. Taking an adopted child through a conversion process depends on which of the Jewish denominations the family feels most comfortable with, he says, as each movement has slightly different conversion requirements.

While parents might consider brit-milah or tipat dam (taking a symbolic drop of blood from an older male child), a pediatrician should always be consulted to make sure that the child is able to cope with the procedure. Most adoptive parents give their child a Hebrew name in a naming ceremony. “Part of the conversion process is a commitment on the parents’ part to see it as a stepping-stone to the child’s Jewish identity through education and participation in Jewish life,” he says.

“It has been a privilege I have been blessed to share with several families to partner in bringing adopted children into the Jewish faith,” says Adler. “It can – and should – be a profoundly sensitive and bonding experience for a rabbi to be included in the discussions and the process. Aside from the actual technicalities of the conversion, it is amazing to see a family use love to grow more complete through the gift of adoption. Every adoptive family has my life-long respect and admiration.”

Saving Lives Through Adoption

JFS also provides post-placement services, together with the University of Connecticut Health Center Adoption Assistance Program, as well as finalizing the adoption in probate court. In addition, JFS of New Haven provides post-adoption services, including Stars of David, a social group for Jewish families formed through adoption, who meet for Jewish holiday celebrations and socializing.

Perhaps one measure of the agency’s track record is that former clients stay in touch with JFS for years. “I get phone calls from 18-year-olds we placed, who want information about their birth mothers,” Rashba says. “I’ve had phone calls from 60-year-olds placed by us in the ’50s.”

Jewish Family Service of Connecticut can trace its adoption program to the Woodfield Orphanage in Fairfield because the agency has kept meticulous records since 1937.

Today, 30 percent of the agency’s clients are Jewish, says Barbara Paris, vice president and adoption coordinator of the Fairfield-based organization. Most calls she fields are from non-Jews asking for assistance, in spite of their religion. “While we serve everybody, we’re here to serve the Jewish population and we give priority to Jewish families,” Paris says. “Some Jewish clients call, thinking that they’re going to get a Jewish baby and the reality is that there are no Jewish babies available.”

Before Russia closed its doors to U.S. adoptions in 2012, there were some Jewish children available, Paris says, but the agency is now hard-pressed to find Jewish birth mothers with adoption plans, even in the U.S.

“Jewish law says that it’s better to adopt a non-Jewish child and convert him or her,” says Paris, who is studying to become a rabbi, and has been asked by the adoptive parents she helps to officiate at baby-namings and invited to brit-milah ceremonies. “It adds to the Jewish population.”

And in saving one life through adoption, one saves an entire world. “Adopting a child was the hardest and best thing I’ve ever done,” says Cantor

Sam Berman with his mother, Cantor Laura Berman

Laura Berman of The Conservative Synagogue in Westport, who adopted a son from Russia in 2012. “Because I adopted Sam, there’s one fewer kid in an institution, one fewer kid with no future.”

Anyone considering adoption should go through with it, Berman says, and even consider the option as a first course of action, rather than a last resort.

“People worry that they might not bond with the child, that it’s not ‘really’ their child,” she says. “I don’t feel at all like there’s a distinction between Sam and me because we don’t share DNA. There is the added layer of giving a home to a child who needs one, a wonderful thing to teach your family – to do mitzvoth, be good people, and be open to others.”

Renee, Miles Benjamin, and Michael Hoyt

The Hoyts echo Berman’s sentiment. “Every day since the moment we brought him home – even the trying times every parent has with their kids – reminds us of why we decided to complete our family this way,” says Renee. “Remembering what people said when the failed matches occurred – ‘Your child will find you’ – and, while we weren’t really ready to hear that during the failed match timeframe, meeting Miles reinforced the fact that he is genuinely and completely OUR CHILD.”