Israel is looking into the possibility of adopting orphaned Haitian children.
Israeli Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog Herzog has asked Israel’s envoy to the Dominican Republic, Amos Radian, who is also the consular official for Haiti, to submit an official request regarding the adoptions, Ha’aretz reported.
Herzog said, “We are proud that Israel aided the horrible distress in Haiti and we have a moral obligation, as human beings, to aid these children,” Herzog told Israel Radio last weekend.
However, Ynetnews.com reported that Israeli aid organizations said that despite the important moral gesture, there was a need first to find a solution to the thousands of foreign workers’ children who already are living in Israel without a regulated status, and with constant fear of deportation.
“We laud the moral decision to adopt Haitian children, but call on Israel’s government to show the same compassion and humanity toward the 1,200 immigrant workers who live in Israel,” Rotem Ilan, founder of Israeli Children Organization, told Ynet.
Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, director of the Israel National Council for the Child, warned that extracting children that have gone through major trauma to a far-away country where they will be detached from their culture and extended families is a dire mistake.
The adoption of children from Haiti, if indeed carried out, is dependent on the approval of UNICEF. Israel helps prospective adoptive families by subsidizing the cost of international adoptions. The children are converted to Judaism upon arrival. — jta