As a whole, Judaism is changing, albeit more slowly than the general society - and I think that's fine. Something that has always kept me grounded was my religion - I like to think of it as a 'backbone' of sorts.

Anyway - I came across this article, from which I'll share a brief excerpt. You can read the article from The Jewish Week in it's entirety here, although be forewarned the author is writing about choosing a name for her unborn child. Here's the bit:

I wonder what it will be like for my children to be raised Jewish — indeed, in many ways far more Jewish than I was raised — but not to have the Jewish last name or the undiluted Ashkenazi looks. My husband and daughter are not exactly Aryan-looking and their last name (which I’m withholding to maintain a modicum of privacy as I reveal our family’s intimate details!), while hardly Jewish isn’t glaringly goyishe. But, save for her Hebrew first name, no stranger will immediately pick out Ellie as Jewish.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Conversion, interracial adoption and growing numbers of intermarried households mean being Jewish is different than it once was and that we can no longer make the same superficial and predominantly ethnic assumptions we once could. There are Protestant Goldsteins nowadays and perhaps even some Jewish O’Sullivans. A good friend of mine who for professional reasons asked not to be identified in this column, has an Indian last name and a Hindu father, but reports that because she was raised Jewish she never felt anything but Jewish and was not bothered by having a different-sounding name.

“Jews are not a monolithic people,” she says, adding that “there are some advantages to not being a Goldberg.” On the other hand, my friend Amy Sara Clark has two Jewish parents but a WASPy name, and to compensate, she often wears Star of David pendants and for awhile even considered using her mother’s maiden name, Weinberg, as a middle name so that people would know she was Jewish.

The irony is that the children of intermarriage with the Jewish last names — and thus with Jewish fathers — are actually the ones who are not recognized as Jewish by the more traditional members of the community.

The two topics I wanted to pull out here are 1) the changing face of Judaism and 2) the issue of names.

I always like to see it when non-adoptive families recognize us adoptive folk. Granted, I don't know this woman's story, but it's still nice to see even a mention of the fact that we are recognized. And our children should easily be included because there are many, many faces of Judaism.

With regards to names, I think as a Jew that's an important issue - perhaps even more so as an adoptive parent. When we adopted Anna (not her real name) it was important to us to keep her name to show that no matter what, we were accepting of her history and her biological heritage. But we also gave her a Hebrew name - it is what we do - it's part of our traditions - and this too is part of her identity.