This piece is part of our Wit­ness­ing series, which shares pieces from Israeli authors and authors in Israel, as well as the expe­ri­ences of Jew­ish writ­ers around the globe in the after­math of Octo­ber 7th.

It is crit­i­cal to under­stand his­to­ry not just through the books that will be writ­ten lat­er, but also through the first-hand tes­ti­monies and real-time account­ing of events as they occur. At Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, we under­stand the val­ue of these writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als and of shar­ing these indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. It’s more impor­tant now than ever to give space to these voic­es and narratives.

“Stop the pod­cast, please!” I said. The host looked at me and paused our inter­view about my mem­oir, Rais­ing Jess: A Sto­ry of Hope. Thank­ful­ly, the dis­cus­sion was not live. I was sud­den­ly ques­tion­ing a phrase that I fre­quent­ly use to describe our daugh­ter’s home for indi­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties: a Jew­ish group home. Was I putting our daugh­ter and her house­mates at risk by iden­ti­fy­ing their home as Jewish?

Feel­ing unset­tled, I explained to the host that I could no longer refer to our daugh­ter’s home that way. I sub­sti­tut­ed a gener­ic term, and we resumed the inter­view. The expe­ri­ence left me reflect­ing deeply on how much life has changed for my peo­ple since Octo­ber 7. The fear of anti­semitism is real.

Our eldest daugh­ter, Jes­si­ca, taught me to be a mom. At age forty-two, Jess can­not walk or speak words, yet she enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly com­mu­ni­cates with facial expres­sions and hugs. Diag­nosed at age twen­ty-one with a rare chro­mo­some dele­tion (1Q43-44), Jes­si­ca needs assis­tance with all dai­ly life skills — sim­i­lar to a par­en­t’s sup­port for an infant or tod­dler, but your child is chrono­log­i­cal­ly an adult. With love and ded­i­ca­tion, my hus­band Mitch and I cared for Jes­si­ca’s phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, med­ical, and mobil­i­ty needs for twen­ty-five years.

So, how did we make the dif­fi­cult choice about a group home?

First, a bit of fam­i­ly his­to­ry. The deci­sion to choose a group home for your loved one is mon­u­men­tal. Select­ing a res­i­den­tial option out­side of our home feels like giv­ing up. We are her lov­ing par­ents! Were we no longer will­ing or able to pro­vide the dai­ly phys­i­cal care for our daugh­ter? Were we mak­ing the right decision?

Jes­si­ca was approach­ing age twen­ty-five, and my hus­band Mitch and I had to face the fact that we were also aging. As her mom and dad, we thought we would always be around to pro­vide her with the intense care she required. The hard real­i­ty hit us as she, and we, aged. Mitch and I need­ed to make this deci­sion when we were clear-head­ed. We knew that mov­ing Jes­si­ca into a Jew­ish home in our com­mu­ni­ty, with the prop­er sup­port, was vital to her future and ours.

Find­ing the right home for Jess was cru­cial for all future plan­ning. Oth­er­wise, what choice did we have? Were we to wait until we were so frail that an emer­gency place­ment in a ran­dom facil­i­ty was the only remain­ing option? Does­n’t Jess deserve the priv­i­lege to leave her par­ents’ house and live with peers, as inde­pen­dent­ly as possible? 

We want­ed Jes­si­ca to con­tin­ue liv­ing a hap­py life, which includ­ed cel­e­brat­ing reli­gious hol­i­days and attend­ing tem­ple. We thought she should have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to hon­or her tra­di­tions, which are famil­iar and cherished. 

So, how does a fam­i­ly take the leap of faith to trust oth­ers with the life of their loved one? For us, it was a gen­tle stroll toward the inevitable. It was a slow tran­si­tion that coin­cid­ed with our abil­i­ty to accept the next phase of par­ent­ing Jess.

2004

Some­time around 2004, a local rab­bi and tem­ple mem­ber ini­ti­at­ed the Jew­ish Group Home (JGH) Com­mit­tee. My hus­band and I joined this group, still think­ing that we were not ready for the move, but that I could lend my spe­cial edu­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty resource exper­tise from my work con­nec­tions. Time passed, and we formed a sub­com­mit­tee of fam­i­lies ready to start the first JGH togeth­er. OK, I joined this group, but Mitch and I were not ready; at least, we were not pre­pared to admit we were ready!

Our sub­com­mit­tee met for three years, and we grad­u­al­ly became each oth­er’s extend­ed fam­i­ly. The time it took to bond and trust our fel­low group home fam­i­lies helped ease our tran­si­tion to a new real­i­ty. We were ready. 

2007

Fast-for­ward to May 2007, when the first Jew­ish group home was com­plet­ed. Our hope and dream for sup­port from the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty became a real­i­ty. The women are cher­ished guests at local tem­ple gath­er­ings. One tem­ple pro­vides month­ly, one-to-one reli­gious edu­ca­tion geared toward the indi­vid­u­al’s abil­i­ty. The Jew­ish Fed­er­a­tion cre­ates fun events each month at the Wom­en’s Home. As a writer, I often devel­op essays about our com­mu­ni­ty’s gen­eros­i­ty and the girls’ abil­i­ty to feel part of the larg­er Jew­ish community.

2024

One of our pri­ma­ry con­cerns is Jes­si­ca’s safe­ty. She is vul­ner­a­ble and defense­less. Jess is unable to defend her­self against phys­i­cal or ver­bal assaults. She is help­less when it comes to big­otry and hatred.

And now, in 2024, I need to add anti­semitism to the long list of secu­ri­ty con­cerns for our daugh­ter. When I speak pub­licly about Jes­si­ca, I am fear­ful to say the words ​“Jew­ish” group home. Wide­spread anti­semitism and fear for our daugh­ter and her house­mates’ safe­ty are promi­nent concerns. 

The human ser­vice agency that man­ages Jes­si­ca’s house cre­at­ed spe­cif­ic secu­ri­ty train­ing for staff, focus­ing on iden­ti­fy­ing and react­ing to tar­get­ed threats. The fam­i­lies appre­ci­ate the extra effort; how­ev­er, staff turnover is fre­quent, and we hope the infor­ma­tion is shared accu­rate­ly with new employ­ees. And we hope the staff is unbi­ased. And we hope, and we hope … 

Where­as the house was con­ceived as a meet­ing place for reli­gious activ­i­ties pro­mot­ed in local newslet­ters, we now list the house as a Wom­en’s Home or some oth­er term. This change is not just a shift in ter­mi­nol­o­gy; it rep­re­sents a loss of iden­ti­ty and a reminder of poten­tial dan­ger. It is a sad new real­i­ty for our daugh­ters, com­mu­ni­ty, and globe.

I am proud of our Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty’s involve­ment and their kind­ness to our daugh­ter and her cho­sen fam­i­ly. The desire to scream it from the rooftops or, at a min­i­mum, from my blog page and pod­cast micro­phone is ever-present. But I will talk in gener­ic terms, not because I am a cow­ard or lack pride in our her­itage, but because my daugh­ter’s safe­ty super­sedes all else. I am fore­most a mom, and that does not change when your child moves into a group home. 

As Jews, we need to remain vig­i­lant, aware, and proud of our her­itage. It’s a respon­si­bil­i­ty we all share, and it’s what keeps our com­mu­ni­ty strong. Jess will con­tin­ue to go to the tem­ple and engage in oth­er reli­gious activities.

One day, I hope to pub­licly dis­cuss again the spec­tac­u­lar Jew­ish group home we envi­sioned and built for our daugh­ter. This hope keeps me going … 

The views and opin­ions expressed above are those of the author, based on their obser­va­tions and experiences.

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