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Los Angeles Needs Safe Spaces for Jewish Foster Children 

So many Jewish parents who face crises worry about losing their kids to the government foster care system, so they stay silent. We really wanted to help.
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July 15, 2020
Photo by Getty Images.

The following notice circulated on Facebook groups on July 7: “URGENT! Four Jewish children urgently need FOSTER CARE, ages 1, 3, 5 and 8 and shomer kosher/Shabbat — within California. Ideally to remain together, otherwise at risk of separation into culturally/religiously foster/adoptive care and separation.”

We currently are going through incredibly difficult times. Most of us aren’t thinking about foster children but at a time when we’re supposed to move beyond what are seen as divisive and exclusionary religious, ethnic and cultural barriers, a notice like this one comes along to remind us that there’s a real pain to being exposed to the culturally and religiously unknown when you’re already traumatized.

Jewish children are sometimes temporarily placed with non-Jewish foster parents in local neighborhoods. Some might think of this as an opportunity for learning and multicultural appreciation, but despite the kindness offered by many foster parents, a non-Jewish setting might add more stress for some children.

Some people may wonder why Jewish kids need to be temporarily separated from parents because there is a myth that traditionally Jewish Persian parents could never be negligent or substance abusers, just as there is a myth that no domestic violence could occur in an Orthodox home where, every week, the Shabbat table is set like a Norman Rockwell painting.

A decade ago, Los Angeles-based psychologist Natalie Zangan and her husband, Rabbi Bijan Refael Zangan (no relation to the writer), began advocating for Los Angeles-area Jewish children, regardless of their families’ religious observance, so they could be placed with Jewish foster parents.

While in her 20s, Natalie Zangan learned about the 1993 murder of Rita Parizer, a 36-year-old Hancock Park Orthodox wife and mother whose strangled body was found in a garage owned by her husband, Shalom. (In 1994, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.) Zangan learned that before her death, Parizer  reportedly declined to press rape charges against her husband because she feared her children would be placed in non-Jewish foster homes.

“So many Jewish parents who face crises worry about losing their kids to the government foster care system, so they stay silent. We really wanted to help,” Natalie Zangan told me.

Several years ago, the Zangans heard about a local Persian Jewish family whose children were detained by Child Protective Services. Despite having 4-year-old twins of their own, the couple applied to be foster parents. Although they found themselves suddenly having to care for five kids, they felt grateful to be able to provide a Jewish setting for the children.

“Fostering those children in a home with values that were familiar to them was extremely life-changing for us. We realized how much there is a need for this in the community,” she said.

In 2019, the Zangans founded the nonprofit Children’s Village Advocacy, a volunteer organization that works with government agencies including the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to help place Jewish children with Jewish foster families.

While working with DCFS, the Zangans said they heard stories about many Jewish children in non-Jewish foster homes being hungry but not wanting to eat the nonkosher food that a foster parent unknowingly served, wondering why no one was lighting Shabbat candles on Friday nights and not having anyone help them say the Shema at bedtime.

Natalie said most parents who reach out to her and her husband aren’t Orthodox. Some practice very few Jewish customs at homes, but it’s that one practice — whether making a grandmother’s chicken soup with their kids or lighting a menorah during Hanukkah — that they desperately want to retain for their kids, even in a foster home.

Natalie cited the story of visiting an 8-year-old Jewish girl at a DCFS office and offering her a bag of Bamba (the kosher Israeli peanut butter snack). “She recognized me as a Jewish mother, much like her own or her friends’ mommies. I could immediately see I had brought her some comfort,” she said.

Children’s Village Advocacy is desperate to find Jewish certified foster parents, she said.

The Zangans run WhatsApp groups to offer support to families. Parents also can request that DCFS officers reach out to Children’s Village Advocacy. To date, the couple has helped children from nearly 30 families be placed into Jewish foster homes.

“We believe that as important as it is to have a synagogue, a Jewish school or a mikveh in a Jewish community, it’s also extremely important to have a Jewish safe home,” Natalie  said. “In Los Angeles, the community has programs for seniors or kids with disabilities and helps support vulnerable Jews. It’s time for an organized and community-funded system for kids that need temporary Jewish care.”

I, too, think it’s time for a Jewish safe home. Maybe one day, an abused mother will be able to walk into a safe space where she can have access to kosher food and recite Shema to her kids in their temporary bunk beds. How amazing it would be if atop the building were the words, “Rita Parizer Memorial Jewish Safe Home.”

For more information, visit jewishfamilyhelp.com, email childrenvillage26@gmail.com or call the resource line at (818) 527-2434.


Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer, speaker and activist. 

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