12/13/2006

Story about the Kidnapped Baby

There’s a story going around about a 50-year-old guy from Canada who found out from his mother’s will that he was adopted from a Chassidishe family in Bnei Brak. Link.

Now let me make this perfectly clear. I don’t believe this story. Not for a minute. There may have been some Chassidishe couple with lingering doubts about the circumstances of the death of their child. There may have been a Christian Canadian couple who adopted a Chassidishe kid from Bnei Brak.

But there is absolutely no way in hell that some kid was stolen and sold to a Christian family. That’s just ludicrous. I can see that this adopted fellow wanted to do some research, and someone told him about a family that lost a kid under suspicious circumstances. Bingo! What a story! Hey, they even look like they could be brothers!

What probably happened was that some Chassidishe maidele was knocked up by her father/uncle/boyfriend and they had to get the kid as far away as possible. Whether they intended for the child to wind up in Christian hands is another matter, but this family had to do some sweeping under the rug, and they had to do it fast.

Until we see the will, dates, hospital records, and DNA evidence, I am sticking to my guns that this is a composite of two different stories (call them J and E, if you will) that, when combined, play really well into the Satmar narrative.

And since this will be mevurar through DNA testing, beyond the shadow of a doubt, there is absolutely no to'eles in propagating it now. It's not like having this guy on the street is endangering anyone.

Now hear this: if you take this story at face value, but express a ‘healthy skepticism’ about women getting beaten on majority chareidi busses or the existence of pedophiles in your kid’s school, then you are aiding and abetting the reinforcement of destructive stereotypes, be it that ‘frum folks are good’ or ‘frei folks are bad’.

I’m done ranting. That took a lot out of me. Gotta go back to bed. CMV stinks.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So was he better off being raised as a Canadian goy, or would he have been happier as a Satmarer?