What is meant by the term "Jewish Adoption?" It is, after all, the title of this blog. Jewish Adoption - in my humble opinion - refers to the adoption of a child by a Jewish couple [Edited to add: or single adult] with the intent that the child will be raised Jewish regardless of his or her religion at birth.

Adoptionblogs.com has a nice variety of blogs on different types and aspects of Adoption - which makes sense. Especially when you are first starting out and are looking for information on the different types of adoption, what your options really are and when you are looking to hear from "been there done that" parents, it's nice to see that there are lots of people out there to share their expertise.

But you'll notice that Adoptionblogs.com also has a few religious blogs on their site... and you may wonder at the need for these blogs. The answer is this - if religion is part of who you are, part of how you would define yourself, and part of your life, then it will follow you through the adoption process and your journey as a parent. This is true no matter how involved you are with Judaism (or any religion for that matter, but I'm talking from the Jewish perspective of course).

Describing your level of religious affiliation is not the most comfortable subject for everyone to get into a discussion about, especially when they themselves are not sure where they stand. Indeed, it is often only when a couple is about to become parents that they actually address the issue of where they want to be religiously. If the couple is intermarried and has pushed off dealing with how to deal with the many, many issues involved, now is often the time that these topics - and often arguments surface.

And so, we have a Jewish adoption blog. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm happy to entertain your questions or topics you'd like to see discussed. The boards (Jewish Adoption and Jewish Adoptive Parents) are often sleepy here, so please feel free to email me or leave comments as you come up with issues along the way.