When we hear of kids being removed from their homes, instead of asking, “Why is this happening?” we should be asking, “What can we do to help?”
My family moved to the US in 1988, when I was eight, and we integrated in the Jewish community of Los Angeles.
I met my husband, Bijan Refael Zangan, when I was 24, and after our wedding we moved to Israel, where he learned in kollel and I studied for my master’s in psychology while working for Efrat, an organization that encourages women not to terminate their pregnancies. Unlike almost all the young couples around us, however, we did not effortlessly move on to the next stage, parenting. Rather than mope about my own childlessness, I tried to occupy myself productively by getting involved with local seminaries and volunteering to help busy mothers by watching their children while they were out working.
When my husband received a job offer from Touro College in Los Angeles, three years after we had gotten married, I told him that it was too hard for me to continue living in a community of young families and working with women who didn’t want their unborn babies. So he accepted the offer.
Upon returning to Los Angeles, I began to work as a therapist while pursuing a doctorate in psychology. One day, when I walked into one of my classes, the non-Jewish professor asked me if I belonged to the Orthodox Jewish community. When I said yes, she asked me if I knew about a Jewish friend of hers who had been murdered by her husband. “Why wasn’t the community there for her?” my professor demanded.
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