Sam A. Sutton
When my wife Nancy and I were still raising our young family, we watched a documentary about Denmark during the Holocaust depicting ordinary families who risked everything, their homes, their lives, and their children’s lives, to hide Jewish families and smuggle them to freedom. One story has never left me: a young Gentile man in the resistance accidentally discovering that his own father was secretly doing the same dangerous work. Neither had told the other. Each was willing to die rather than let fear stop them from saving a Jewish stranger’s child.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Around that same time, we learned something that stung – Jewish children right here in New York were being removed from their homes by a New York City agency, sometimes in the middle of the night, to be placed in foster homes. If Ohel (Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services) could not find a Jewish home, children were placed anywhere. No one to say the Shema with them. No kosher food. No one who understood their fear.
Around that time, Nancy and I lost a dear friend, Joseph D. Beyda. We didn’t want to honor him with a sueda or book in his memory. We wanted to honor him with our lives. We thought about those non-Jewish Danish families who risked everything for us. If they could risk their lives for our children, shouldn’t we try to help as well?
In tribute to our dear late friend, and with the inspiration of the Jewish Danish resistance, we committed to be foster parents. Ohel screened us, trained us, and prepared us as best anyone could be prepared for what was coming. By 1998, we were certified foster parents.
Sarah
She was nine years old when she walked through our door. At dinner that first night, she began stuffing handfuls of dressed salad into her pockets. Later, she picked up a bookend and threw it at our dog. We sat there, stunned, trying not to react, trying to understand.
Then we learned why.
Sarah* owned nothing. Not a single toy. Not a book. Not one thing in the world that belonged only to her other than five well-worn outfits crammed into a small suitcase. She had special needs, a nine year old who functioned at a level of a five year old. Sarah was one of six children, four with special needs, born to parents who couldn’t care for themselves, let alone their children. A seven-year-old sister had been mothering the rest. When the state finally intervened, Sarah didn’t know one could feel secure. Stuffing food into her pockets wasn’t bad behavior. It was a nine year old remembering hunger.
We told Ohel that we couldn’t handle what Sarah needed. She was placed with another family. Two weeks later, the phone rang again. Her foster parents would be away for a week. Could we care for Sarah until they returned?
Sure – one week, no problem. That week became a month, then six months, then eighteen.
Our Daughter
Sarah became family in every way. She stood beside our other children in the photos at my daughter Esther’s wedding. Nancy did homework with her. Evenings, if she saw me walking down the block, she ran to me the way a daughter runs to her father, arms out, face lit up, like I was the best part of her day. Summers and vacations together. Family.
I remember Nancy buying Sarah a Hello Kitty lunchbox once. Nothing special, a few dollars at most. Sarah held it like it was made of gold. It was the first thing, in nine years of life, that had ever truly belonged to her. I will never forget her face.
Eighteen months later the call came. The city was reuniting her with her birth family. Then came words that cut like a knife, “You must sever all contact. No calls. No visits. She has to forget this life.” We had become her parents in every way but on paper. And then, in an instant, we were told to disappear. We subsequently fostered another 13 children for a few days, weeks or months, but we never forgot Sarah.
Why I’m Asking You
I’ve committed $2 million of public resources to Ohel, because they do Gd’s work. Ohel will utilize these funds to improve their infrastructure, an essential component in operating a successful organization. In addition to Ohel’s foster program, the only New York City agency licensed to place Jewish children in Jewish homes, Ohel does so much more. Respite for families who have children with special needs. Social workers to visit isolated Holocaust survivors. The only Jewish residences for people with mental illness. And their amazing Camp Kaylie.
It is Ohel’s foster program that touches my heart. My wife and I will never forget the impact Sarah had on our family. To be able to feed a hungry child, to comfort her when she cries, to hand her a lunchbox and watch her whole face light up, to be the first arms she has ever trusted is priceless.
And only a family can provide those things. We grew more from the experience than we could ever have imagined.
Break out of your comfort zone! Right now, somewhere out there, is a Jewish child who needs exactly what Nancy and I found we had to give: a loving family, a warm smile, a pair of arms to hug a child. It’s not easy. It is hard and your heart might be broken at the end like ours was. But it might touch your neshama like nothing else you ever did.
Please, consider becoming a foster parent. There is a child waiting right now for a hug that only you can provide.
* Sarah is a pseudonym. Her name and identifying details have been changed to protect her privacy.