Featured Resource
12 Things Jewish Adoptees and Their Families Wish Their Communities Knew
We don’t arrive in our families as “blank slates”; we come from someone and somewhere. Our identities are multi-faceted and evolve over time.
We each have a background, a past, and another family – all often quite different from those of our adoptive families ..
In Our Voices
“Maybe my neshama [soul], my spiritual history, is Jewish, but my blood, my ancestry, is tied to the Americas.”(Latina/indigenous, transracial adoptee from Honduras)
“Even with an Orthodox conversion & countless hours of learning a third language, Hebrew, people still questioned if I was Jewish enough.”(White, same-race adoptee from Russia)
“My identity often exists in the intersections. I’m very aware I’m often the only one who contains all these identities in one person.”(black, transracial domestic adoptee)
“Someone in my Birthright group told me I was not a real Jew because I was adopted, and Orthodox Jews would never recognize me as being Jewish.”(white, same-race adoptee)
“Miami International Airport was my Ellis Island. People don’t think of me as an immigrant, but I am.“(Transnational, transracial adoptee from Honduras)
“As I fostered an identity as a woman of color, I often felt torn between worlds.”(Transnational, transracial adoptee from Thailand)
“I’m very much on the new horizon of Jewish identity. It’s a constant evolution, and I feel empowered that I’m part of creating that identity.”(Domestic, transracial adoptee)
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