Second Nurture expands Jewish support for foster-adoption in Los Angeles
When Chai Ben-Ami Solomon began the foster/adoption process in Los Angeles, she never imagined she would adopt four girls from the same Jewish birth mother. She and her husband were able to adopt their first daughter at 13 months old. The adoption agency also informed them the same birth mother was about to have a second child who she wished to place for adoption. The Solomons adopted both girls at the same time. They would eventually adopt two more girls from the same birth mother.
Today, the Solomon girls children are 12, 10, 7 and 2. In 2014, Solomon and her husband divorced, but continue to co-parent. Solomon said she realized that as a single mother, she lacked a strong support system. “In the last two years … I hadn’t been working because of the pandemic,” she said. “Child support wasn’t enough. Adoption (assistance subsidy) money wasn’t enough.”
Then Solomon spoke to an organizer from the nonprofit iCare Foundation, who introduced her to Talia Green, director of programs at Second Nurture. Founded in 2017 by Rabbi Susan Silverman, Second Nurture is a Jewish nonprofit dedicated to matching Jewish and non-Jewish parents with foster children and offering support via groups of locally invested people.
Second Nurture provided Solomon with lists of childcare services and grants to help pay for school, together with a community of neighbors who delivered groceries and school supplies, and introduced Solomon to other parents who fostered and adopted. “The support was incredible,” Solomon said. “I would have drowned if I didn’t have this help.”
According to the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, there are currently more than 60,000 children in the state’s foster care system. Silverman, who was raised in New Hampshire but now lives in Israel with her husband and their five biological and adopted children, said many parents considering fostering or adopting don’t follow through because they don’t feel they have the emotional or physical support system in place. Enter Second Nurture, which creates these supportive communities called cohorts.
“It’s not just about one kid. It’s about taking responsibility for our community. It’s so woven into the fabric of who we are as a Jewish people.” — Rabbi Susan Goldberg
Silverman’s desire to create Second Nurture was spurred by her childhood experience, because her parents took in foster children. “I realized very early on we had layers of family and community and [having a supportive community to help raise kids] doesn’t just have to be luck. We can create [support].”
Silverman promoted the concept of Second Nurture to various rabbis across the country during her 2016 U.S. tour for her book “Casting Lots, ” about her own adoption experiences. Her friends and family, including her sisters — comedians Sarah and Laura Silverman — connected her with community members in Los Angeles. Her first L.A. partnership was with Wilshire Boulevard Temple and IKAR in 2017, that allowed interested families in the two communities to explore the foster/adoption process. Second Nurture has since expanded and partnered with other Los Angeles-area synagogues including Nefesh, Stephen Wise Temple, Temple Isaiah, Valley Beth Shalom and Shomrei Torah Synagogue. They also partner with local social services and adoption groups such as the Children’s Bureau, Extraordinary Families, UCLA TIES and Kidsave.
Silverman said Second Nurture is necessary in Los Angeles County, in particular because of the number of children in foster care here. She said faith leaders play an important role in ensuring families can follow through with fostering and adopting because they provide insight, action and support to their congregants on a daily basis.
“Moses, Esther and Ruth [were] all leaders of the Jewish people,” she said, and “they were all adopted. Our partner communities are social justice heroes. They [take on] homelessness and mass incarceration and human trafficking. But there’s one main feeder to all of those things and that’s foster care. Let’s go upstream and pull kids into families so we can divert them from these things.”
Rabbi Susan Silverman speaking about Second Nurture in Los Angeles earlier this month.
Each of Second Nurture’s synagogue partners hosts a group of congregants who meet regularly to help those who might be interested in the foster/adoption process or are already going through it. Sometimes these groups have one family or up to 16 families show up. The important thing, Silverman said, is that synagogues and Jewish organizations create weekly spaces and support for potential foster/adopt parents. “As long as we hold the space, they will come,” she said.
Second Nurture continues to seek out families that need support. Local partners remain in touch with the cohorts and make efforts to expand the network. They also continue to provide support to the families, whether it’s food, diapers, baby clothes and strollers, or introducing their foster kids to other foster kids in their neighborhood.
Nefesh Rabbi Susan Goldberg was one of the first rabbis to connect with Silverman when she came to Los Angeles in 2016. At the time, Goldberg was working at Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Goldberg had followed her sister’s journey to adopt and said she realized how important it was that the Jewish community step up. “The head of the adoption agency looked into my eyes and said, ‘If every faith community in Los Angeles could take in kids from the foster care system, there would be no kids in the foster care system.’
“In order to help these kids, we need the whole community involved,” Goldberg added. “It might be you have a kid in your home. It might be you help someone who [fosters a child], or does tutoring, or sends groceries.”
Both Silverman and Goldberg said they believe clergy need to incorporate foster/adopt language in Hebrew schools, sermons and events, so it becomes part of the regular congregational culture and also welcomes and embraces diversity for non-Jewish foster kids feel supported in the Jewish community.
Since stories of welcoming the stranger, widening the tent, and nontraditional family units are deeply ingrained in Jewish tradition and scripture, Goldberg said she doesn’t understand why more Jewish families don’t foster or adopt. “It’s not just about one kid,” she said. “It’s about taking responsibility for our community. It’s so woven into the fabric of who we are as a Jewish people.”
She also noted that Jewish families often step in to adopt when they hear it is a Jewish child who needs help but that all children, regardless of religion or background, need a safe home. Silverman added that many parents want to adopt only babies or young children.
However, Colin Campbell and Gail Lerner wanted to adopt teenagers because they had been raising them. They began the foster/adoption process in 2019, three months after their only children, 17-year-old daughter, Ruby, and 14-year-old son, Hart, were killed in a car crash by a drunk driver.
Foster agencies Extraordinary Families and KidSave told the couple to wait a year. They spent a year taking certification classes during the pandemic and met with different teens via Zoom. They matched with a 14-year-old girl who started living with them in December 2020, and are currently in the process of adopting her.
“Our future had just gotten stolen from us,” Campbell said, regarding the loss of their children. “We loved being parents. We loved being a family. The thought that we could still have a family — a different family — helped sustain us.”
He added that although some people are “scared of teenagers in general, and teenagers in the foster system have endured a lot of trauma … it’s wonderful. You get someone who you can have real conversations with. … It feels like we are on a journey together.”
The girl they plan to adopt identifies as Christian and they respect her cultural practices, including celebrating Christmas with her. However, they also introduced her to some Jewish practices including observing Shabbat. In September, she joined Lerner and Campbell for Yom Kippur Kol Nidre services at IKAR.
Before connecting with Second Nurture, Campbell said he knew only two people who had fostered/adopted. That number grew after they spoke openly about their journey within IKAR’s cohort.
“Talking about it helps normalize it,” he said. “There’s all the trauma and you have to be considerate, but it’s also parenting. Parenting has challenges and amazing rewards and you get to have a whole lot of fun. After what happened to us, even though it caused and still causes unimaginable pain, we want to parent.”