From Chinese Orphan to New York Jew
The New York Times ran a piece Thursday about a Chinese orphan, one of the first babies to be adopted when China first began allowing international adoptions in the early 1990s. Now, the babies of the 90s, mostly all of whom are girls, are becoming the teens of this decade. And for some who were adopted to Jewish families, many of these Chinese babies are becoming Jewish adults. The girl pictured left, Cece Nealon-Shapiro (formerly Fu Qian) was born in Jiangxi province in 1994 and was abandoned by parents who had violated the one-child policy. Cece was adopted by a lesbian couple in New York City and had her Bat Mitzvah on February 17th at the historic Rodeph Sholom synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. As the Times piece points out, there are no official statistics on how many Chinese babies are placed in Jewish households but there were nearly 20,000 Chinese babies adopted into American homes in the 90s, and one can only assume that a considerable amount of these are Jewish homes. Furthermore, Cece told the Times, “most of my Chinese friends are Jewish.” Most of my Chinese friends aren’t. At Cece’s Bat Mitzvah, there were yin yang yarmulkes, dragon kiddush cups and kosher Chinese food at the reception. Cece chose to have a casino theme for her party and she and her friends played cards and gambled away fake money. The gambling theme is just an interesting fact, not part of the China motif of the Bat Mitzvah. Because that would be in poor taste. Six of the girls from Cece’s orphanage flew to New York for Cece’s ceremony. As Cece said in her speech to the congregation, “Just like Jews were once strangers in the land of Egypt, we have all been, or will be strangers at some point in our lives.” Amen.
•NYT: Chinese Orphan’s Journey to Jewish Rite of Passage