Suddenly Goyish, Suddenly Bastard

Suddenly Goyish, Suddenly Bastard:

3 books on confused identity, split loyalty and the Jewish mystique

Reviewed by Damsel Plum

Suddenly Jewish: Jews Raised as Gentiles Discover their Jewish Roots

By Barbara Kessel

Brandeis University Press, 2000

Hidden Children: Forgotten Survivors of the Holocaust

By Andre Stein

Penguin Books, 1994

Half-Jewish: A Celebration

By Daniel Klein and Freke Vuijst

Villard Books, 2000

"I am, perhaps, becoming a Jew, with the essential help of my wife and my son, and what I increasingly believe to be common sense: that one derives strength from being one's self, and that one's self is rooted, among other things, in one's heritage and one's history. When you erase your heritage, you rob your children of self-knowledge. Heritage is self-knowledge…The beliefs of your ancestors are part of you. They shaped you. To not know what shaped you is to be weakened."

- Pierre Sauvage, a man who discovered as an adult that he is Jewish, and the child of Holocaust survivors, in Suddenly Jewish, by Barbara Kessel

The desire to access one's ancestry has been a driving force behind the adoptee search and rights movements. Confused identity and split loyalties are recurring themes in the adoptee experience. Adoptees may experience confusion when their ancestry is made inaccessible to them and when they do not physically resemble their parents. If they do search and find, the discovery of a new heritage may further contribute to identity confusion, as well as to possible feelings of split loyalty between the two heritages, or even families. People who discover they are Jewish after a period of being raised as non-Jews have similar experiences. Adoptees who discover they are part Jewish by birth and adoptees raised Jewish who discover non-Jewish ancestry, will both be interested in these three books, as will parents raising adopted children in a faith other than that of the child's biological family.

In Suddenly Jewish, Barbara Kessel interviewed a range of people whose Jewish identity had been hidden and rediscovered at some point in their lives. More than half the book is devoted to children of the Holocaust, the hidden children and the children of survivors who denied their Jewish identity. The horrifying and traumatic reality of genocide contributed to many of these people firmly embracing, if not the Jewish religion, certainly Jewish identity, and in most cases, Zionism. For the rest of the people in the book, as for adoptees, there is a much less clear-cut outcome in terms of ultimate identification.

Late-discovery adoptees may feel a commonality with the hidden children and children of Holocaust survivors who discover they are Jewish after being raised Christian. Andre Stein's Hidden Children: Forgotten Survivors of the Holocaust recounts the experiences of eleven Jews who were raised as Christians. Several tell of having always felt different, of suspecting they might be Jewish, of wondering why they look so different from their parents. This mirrors the experiences of many late-discovery adoptees. Just as many late-discovery adoptees become dedicated adoptee-rights activists, many former hidden children became dedicated Jews and Jewish activists. Kessel notes in the beginning of her chapter on hidden children that Moses himself was a hidden child. He was certainly the first great Jewish political activist.

The remaining chapters of Kessel's Suddenly Jewish deal with "crypto-Jews" and adoptees. Crypto-Jews are those who discover Jewish ancestry which existed before conversion to Christianity. Examples include the "Marranos" of Spain who converted to Catholicism under duress during the Spanish Inquisition, as well as other ancestors of converts, many of whom are partially Jewish. Both crypto-Jews and adoptees exhibited varying degrees of allegiance to Jewish identity, and a considerably wider range of identity confusion. Children of the Holocaust often retained vestiges of their early Catholic exposure (e.g. impulses to kneel and pray at images of mother figures, fear of Hell and Purgatory), but all who discovered a Jewish past fully embraced their Jewish identities. Crypto-Jews disregarded, embraced, or simply wondered about their Jewish heritage.

Adoptees are the last group discussed in Kessel's book, and this chapter is the shortest. When I first heard about Suddenly Jewish, I was under the impression that Kessel had found a group of adoptees raised non-Jewish who discovered they were Jewish after searching. The dictates of demographics have rendered the supply of Jewish-born babies available for adoption even scantier than the supply of generic healthy white infants. There are a significant number of adoptees raised Jewish who subsequently discover their non-Jewish ancestry, while I have yet to encounter an adoptee raised Gentile who later learned that he or she was born a Jew.

True to my expectation, Kessel found no Gentile-raised adoptees who discovered full Jewish heritage. Of the six adoptees interviewed, four had 1/4 or less Jewish blood. Here the question of what actually constitutes "legitimate" Jewishness must be raised. According to traditional Jewish law, Jewishness is transmitted only along the maternal line. Both of the males who discovered Jewish heritage (one on the maternal side, the other, paternal) shrugged off the revelation and remained Christian. Of the remaining females interviewed, the one who ended up strongly identifying with Judaism was a convert from Mormonism who discovered a Jewish maternal grandmother. The one adoptee who was raised Jewish, upon discovering not only that she is 0% Jewish by blood, but that she is half-Palestinian, concluded that she no longer felt comfortable in any Jewish congregation.

Unfortunately, no more was written about the very many adoptees raised Jewish who are not at all Jewish by blood. This would be a less complex issue if Judaism were simply a creed or simply a tribal affiliation. At its core it is necessarily both, although various factions may claim one or the other aspect to be the most essential. Among the adoptees I know who were raised Jewish, most retained their Jewish identity even after discovering non-Jewish roots, while a few rejected their Jewish upbringing. A more in-depth long-range study of this demographic could prove helpful to the growing number of observant Jews adopting non-Jewish children.

There is much in Judaism itself that attracts adoptees. I've known more than a few adoptees who were convinced they were Jewish by birth although they either refused to search or had been told otherwise by birthparents. What is it that attracts so many adoptees to Judaism? Is it the familiarly complex nature of Jewish identity (is it culture, is it ritual, belief or blood?), or a sympathy with its fragility in the world (the threat of near-extermination, the danger or allure of cross-breeding)? My guess is that it is first and foremost the exalted alienation of being "the chosen people." After all, we too are the Chosen Ones, and we have our own set of holy books, starting with "The Chosen Baby," to prove it. Furthermore, the continuity of Judaism is compelling for those who are living examples of a seemingly irreparable break with the past. The Jews are people of memory, of protecting ancient traditions, and many in their alienation have reflected ardently on the nature of identity and our place in the Universe. The Jewish mystique is understandably appealing to many adoptees.

Jesus was only half-Jewish - but the good news is it was on his mother's side.

- Joke circulating at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, quoted in Half-Jewish: A Celebration

Whether you are an adoptee Hebreophile or one who suspects or is dealing with partial Jewish heritage, Half-Jewish: A Celebration, should tickle your fancy. This book, written by an interfaith couple on behalf of their half-Jewish daughter, is full of the kind of irreverent pride that Bastard Nationals appreciate.

The authors and their subjects bridle at the fact that their legitimacy as Jews is questioned when only the father is Jewish or when one chooses to identify himself as only half-Jewish. There is much discussion of having a double identity, as would be expected of any book dealing with transracial or transcultural people. By the very nature of their double heritage, all adoptees are in a way transcultural. People who grow up experiencing only one side of their dual heritage may feel unbalanced, and this is used to argue that celebrating both sides is preferable, as well as more culturally enriching. The adoptee's quest for "wholeness" in search is not unlike that of the half-Jew raised with only one side of her identity, who subsequently opts to explore the other side. The difference is that the adoptee is often stymied by local governments (rather than just parents or relatives) in her quest for personal information.

It is unfortunate to note that certain high-profile conservative members of the Jewish community have come out against adoptee rights. Mona Charen in The Jewish World Review (Feb. 23, 2000) calls Bastard Nation an "adoption opponent" for advocating for openness and against legalized anonymous abandonment. Laura Schlessinger, a vocal Orthodox Jew, has repeatedly used her nationally syndicated radio program to attack adoptees who search, and she recently lied about the content of California Open 2001's adoptee rights bill AB 1349 (Apr. 13, 2001).

A growing number of Jews are adopting children not born of Jewish mothers and are raising the children Jewish. Many of these parents recognize their children's right to self-knowledge and some are active proponents of openness in adoption. When one considers the validity of reclaiming Jewish identity for Jews raised Christian, when one considers that Moses himself was a late-discovery adoptee, does it not seem hypocritical to deny adoptees access to their heritage? Are the objections of Mona Charen and Laura Schlessinger run-of-the-mill expressions of insecurity in the face of a perceived threat to an adopted child's (or an adopted adult's!) filial allegiance? Or do they fear that these adoptees will reject their Jewish identities if they discover non-Jewish ancestry? Perhaps they seek to avoid the cultural ambivalence that can arise in people of dual heritage.

"Often I feel detached from both sides, not fully committed to either. And then I very much envy people who are One Thing, a person who knows precisely who he is and where he is from. "

- Daniel Menaker, half-Jewish writer, in Half-Jewish

Again, a study of Jewish-raised adoptees who search or are found may help clarify these issues.

My personal feeling about all this is that we are all many things in one person and the more we can appreciate and empathize, the better. Hopefully the people and lawmakers of our lands will empathize with us as adoptees and human beings when we bring our cases before them. Until then, and in preparation for that time, it's the duty of all conscientious adoptees to work to open the doors of understanding and equality for adopted citizens. Just think if Moses had kept silent and comfy after learning of his shameful, slave-caste origins? Why should he make his life difficult? Why open a can of worms? Why fight injustice? You know the answer.

Damsel Plum is a co-founder of Bastard Nation. She lives with her husband, children and animals in Marin County, California.

********************************************************

(This feature appeared in the Spring 2001 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)