Raising an adopted child Jewish

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are Jewish and we have a biological child, age 3. After struggling with secondary infertility for 2 years it seems that we cannot have anymore children (I have uterus problems that cannot be treated). We would love to adopt but my concern is about raising a child in the Jewish faith who was not born Jewish. Namely, is it fair to the child to raise him/her Jewish when they were not born from Jewish birthparents? Would they always feel different/out of place in the family or feel that Judaism wasn't the right fit for them, since they wouldn't be choosing to convert? When you adopt from another country I know that it's important to introduce your child to the traditions/culture of her home country, so she doesn't lose that part of her heritage. Would the same be true of religion, and if so, how would we do this given that we do not feel comfortable celebrating non-Jewish holidays or attending church services?

We are not very religious (reform) but Judaism is very important to us and being a member of the Jewish community is central to our family life. Our child will go to Hebrew/Sunday school, have a B'nai Mitzvah, etc., and being involved in the synagogue is very important to us.

My husband, who is also Jewish, has an adopted sister from a South American country who as an adult no longer considers herself Jewish, married a non-Jewish man, and is raising her kids in the Christian faith. I have a first cousin who is adopted (family is Jewish), and he married a non-Jewish woman and considers himself to be Christian and is raising his kids Christian. I guess I look at these two family members who are adopted and who chose not to continue being Jewish and to raise their kids in their birth faith and I wonder if my child would feel similarly.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

How were those two treated by Jews? You might want to find out. I can say from experience marrying into a Jewish family that Jews can be very close minded, ignorant, and rude to "outsiders" and can have a real persecution/chosen ones complex. If I ever divorce DH, I will never again so much as date a Jew. We are raising our children Jewish, but I have no doubt that the ignorance of so many Jews will eventually alienate my kids from the religion and culture.

I'm married to a Jewish man and also raising our children Jewish. My experience has been exactly the opposite. I'm sorry you married into such an unwelcoming family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Indoctrinating your child in any faith is wrong, adopted are not.

Naah, you really do get to indoctrinate your child into your faith. Yes, that is the idea....you get to raise your kids.

What you do not get to to is ridicule or denigrate them as they get older and do not follow it the way you thought it should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Indoctrinating your child in any faith is wrong, adopted are not.

So, everyone should raise their child as atheist or agnostic, regardless of the family traditions that are important to them? I'm a liberal Reform Jew (I'm the NP a few posts above), and my DH is an atheist--raised atheist, by two parents who were raised Methodist. It's absolutely 100% fine with us if our DS, whom we're raising Jewish, ends up as an atheist, agnostic, or humanist, because that means he's taking a critical, educated look at the world and making choices for himself. But we're raising him with the traditions (religious and non- ) that are important to us and our families. No one is giving up any cultural celebrations because we don't want to "indoctrinate" our child--and that means we celebrate the Jewish holy days in a religious way, though with an eye on humanism, and Christmas and Easter in a secular American cultural way. It's all good.

If the mythology you are teaching your son cannot withstand a critical, educated look, then you shouldn't be teaching it as fact. Teach it as tradition or one perspective among others, then it's all good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Indoctrinating your child in any faith is wrong, adopted are not.

So, everyone should raise their child as atheist or agnostic, regardless of the family traditions that are important to them? I'm a liberal Reform Jew (I'm the NP a few posts above), and my DH is an atheist--raised atheist, by two parents who were raised Methodist. It's absolutely 100% fine with us if our DS, whom we're raising Jewish, ends up as an atheist, agnostic, or humanist, because that means he's taking a critical, educated look at the world and making choices for himself. But we're raising him with the traditions (religious and non- ) that are important to us and our families. No one is giving up any cultural celebrations because we don't want to "indoctrinate" our child--and that means we celebrate the Jewish holy days in a religious way, though with an eye on humanism, and Christmas and Easter in a secular American cultural way. It's all good.

If the mythology you are teaching your son cannot withstand a critical, educated look, then you shouldn't be teaching it as fact. Teach it as tradition or one perspective among others, then it's all good.

PP you quoted. That's actually the point. Judaism prizes education because it forces people to take a critical look at the world. There are whole books in Judaic study dedicated to recording rabbis' aeguments about the stories and commandments. Certainly, different branches of Judaism look upon this differently, but we're of the sort that teaches that the Torah stories are just that: fables and myths written to teach lessons. That doesn't take anything away from the culture or traditions.

[Anonymous]

If you do not have the bloodlines, perhaps you are not jewish or meant to be jewish
Why join a club where you are not welcome, do not belong?

I understand marriage because of the pressure to please, but if that is not the reason, then why?

God on purpose creates people without Jewish bloodlines, and this is not because those creatures are less in His sight. So why go to a place where you are seen as less than

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it will be any issue. Conversion of infants/toddlers is really no big deal, and you will raise the child as your own Jewish child. They will not know any different. At our synagogue there are children who are Asian, Hispanic, and Black. No one bats an eye. Adoption is quite common here nowadays.

Plenty of born Jews ha astray of Judaism once they get older for a variety of reasons. It's an issue in Judaism as a whole because it's such a small community.
I wouldn't let this Dowcourage you from adopting. It's not like your kid won't know they are adopted.

Agree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are Jewish and we have a biological child, age 3. After struggling with secondary infertility for 2 years it seems that we cannot have anymore children (I have uterus problems that cannot be treated). We would love to adopt but my concern is about raising a child in the Jewish faith who was not born Jewish. Namely, is it fair to the child to raise him/her Jewish when they were not born from Jewish birthparents? Would they always feel different/out of place in the family or feel that Judaism wasn't the right fit for them, since they wouldn't be choosing to convert? When you adopt from another country I know that it's important to introduce your child to the traditions/culture of her home country, so she doesn't lose that part of her heritage. Would the same be true of religion, and if so, how would we do this given that we do not feel comfortable celebrating non-Jewish holidays or attending church services?

We are not very religious (reform) but Judaism is very important to us and being a member of the Jewish community is central to our family life. Our child will go to Hebrew/Sunday school, have a B'nai Mitzvah, etc., and being involved in the synagogue is very important to us.

My husband, who is also Jewish, has an adopted sister from a South American country who as an adult no longer considers herself Jewish, married a non-Jewish man, and is raising her kids in the Christian faith. I have a first cousin who is adopted (family is Jewish), and he married a non-Jewish woman and considers himself to be Christian and is raising his kids Christian. I guess I look at these two family members who are adopted and who chose not to continue being Jewish and to raise their kids in their birth faith and I wonder if my child would feel similarly.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

How were those two treated by Jews? You might want to find out. I can say from experience marrying into a Jewish family that Jews can be very close minded, ignorant, and rude to "outsiders" and can have a real persecution/chosen ones complex. If I ever divorce DH, I will never again so much as date a Jew. We are raising our children Jewish, but I have no doubt that the ignorance of so many Jews will eventually alienate my kids from the religion and culture.

I'm married to a Jewish man and also raising our children Jewish. My experience has been exactly the opposite. I'm sorry you married into such an unwelcoming family.

I'm sorry you're not smart enough to figure out that your experience has no bearing on PP's.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Your child can equally grow up to become an Atheist. You have no control over his/her belief as an adult. All you can do is raise your child the best you can in the Jewish faith and hope for the best outcome. I was raised in a christian home, while I still belief in God I question most of the religious practices. I don't attend church as much as an adult. My mom is not happy about this but she can't really do anything about it.

You are missing the point of Judaism. I am Jewish. I will always be Jewish by culture and heritage. I do not practice the religion and am atheist in beliefs, but Judaism in in my bloodlines.

Well, if you're obsessed with bloodlines, then you will be very disappointed with adoption...

We successfully adopted. There are many disappointments, none directly related to our child and our child is an joy. You missed the point.

Your point is incredibly unclear
-NP

You obviously aren't Jewish.

What's your point? You are having a discussion with Jewish and non Jewish people alike. It is weird to accuse people of missing the point when by your own admission they shouldn't be able to understand your point anyway.

Also, just FYI, responding to every comment with "you obviously aren't Jewish" is both unhelpful and rude. You sound like you need some therapy for your dep-seated anger issues.

Judaism is viewed very differently than Christianity and the customs and many other beliefs are very different, including blood lines If it is not something you are a part of directly or indirectly, you have no bearing on this conversation.

Then you should pick another forum. And also try not to be such an unwelcoming jerk - it reflects badly on you and Jews in geeneral.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you do not have the bloodlines, perhaps you are not jewish or meant to be jewish
Why join a club where you are not welcome, do not belong?

I understand marriage because of the pressure to please, but if that is not the reason, then why?

God on purpose creates people without Jewish bloodlines, and this is not because those creatures are less in His sight. So why go to a place where you are seen as less than

You do realize many people are descended from Jewish bloodlines way back when. Yes, there are many religions that it isn't true, but there are many "Christians" who for what ever reason converted or were forced to convert.

[Anonymous]

We adopted from Latin America and our DS celebrated his Bar Mitzvah this past summer. He has attended Jewish overnight camps and continues to go to religious school. Whether he will identify as Jewish when he's an adult is ultimately his decision. This is not an issue only for adopted kids -- in the US, lots of people leave (and also enter) Judaism at various stages of their life. All we can do as parents - adoptive or otherwise - is teach our children about religion and our values.

Becoming a Bar Mitzvah was a meaningful experience for our son.

We also embrace his culture of origin and integrate, in our case, aspects of Latino identity/foods into our Jewish life -- this is easy to do because there are, in fact, Jewish communities throughout Latin America.

Finally, Jews come in all colors in the US (and in Israel) these days.

Good luck, OP!