[Lilifyre]

Pardon me if I do a double take here. I'm sure things are quite different in Israel than in the US, but I experienced exactly the same fears when I adopted my son 18 yrs ago.

My (then) husband and I are Jews who are accepted as "looking" Jewish in middle America. We are of European ancestry, fair skin, hair and eyes. We adopted our son from India. He is brown skinned with black hair and eyes so dark brown they look black. Being from Inida, he has thick, straight black hair and strongly chisled features.

We had our son converted by an Orthodox Bet Din at the age of 15 months. We raised him in a Jewish home and sent him to an Orthodox Jewish Day School through 8th grade. As a teen, he was active in NCSY (the Orthodox youth group in the US).

When he graduated from high school last year, he decided he did not want to go to college but chose instead to join the US Army. He identifies as Jewish. He knows no other religion.

We did experience some problems just prior to his Bar Mitzvah. The local Chief Orthodox Rabbi (very European in appearance and origianlly from either Poland or Russia himself) decided to question my son's conversion. I'm not sure what motivated him but it could have been my son's skin color, the fact that my husband was totally non-observant by this time and I tended toward a more liberal practice of Judaism, that my son would celebrate his Bar Mitzvah in a Conservative (and not Orthodox) synagogue, that he was adopted, or any combination of those. The man caused my son a great deal of stress. But looking back, this made my son's Bar Mitzvah a true "Rite of Passage". He proved to HIMSELF that he was indeed a Jew. Essentially, the Chief Rabbi used his positon in the Orthodox community to attempt to force my son out. He did not succeed. Our Conservative congregation fully embraced my son and let him know that his status as a Jew was NEVER in question with them. My son learned a valuable (although painful) lesson about bigotry. Yes, I would have preferred to spare him that lesson, especially at that time of life, but he became a stronger person because of it.

About 5 yrs later, my son finally got closure on this matter. He was on his way to a Shabbaton in another city. One of the chaperones (a young Orthodox Rabbi) came up to my son and told him he had personally sought out a difinitive answer, once and for all, about my son's status as a Jew. He had spoken with several very highly respected Orthodox authorities both in Israel and the US. They declared that once a child is converted through Orthodox conversion it is as if the child were born a Jew. The degree to which the child and/or his parents practice their Judaism has NO bearing on the child's Jewishness. The Chief Rabbi had been totally out of line in questioning my son's Jewishness.

So, if the Rabbinic authorities declare your child a Jew through conversion, and you raise her as a Jew (however YOU define that), SHE IS A JEW!

Oh, one last thing, my son has NEVER had any problems being the only dark-skinned Jew in the community. He has dated several of the girls he grew up with and went to school with...all of them white and of European ancestry. So I'm sure your daughter will have no problem finding a Jewish mate of ANY color when the time comes.

Mazel Tov!!!!

Lili