Foster caring fosters rivalry

WHAT should have been an expedited search to find a home for two displaced Jewish children has instead ignited a longstanding feud between Jewish House and JewishCare.

Hostilities flared last week when the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) removed two children under the age of two from their mother’s care and Jewish House immediately tried to find a suitable foster family.

With the approval of the children’s mother, Jewish House engaged online Jewish news portal J-Wire to find a home for the children, drawing the ire of JewishCare, which sought to have the article removed and complained to FaCS.

JewishCare spokesperson Warren Hurst described the article as “sensationalist” and said his organisation’s protest was in the best interest of the children.

“Members of the community contacted JewishCare as they were concerned to see an article on J-Wire that suggested that children at-risk would be placed with any person who volunteered to take them,” Hurst told The AJN.

“The size of the Jewish community and the sensitivity of the issue of children at-risk requires that these matters be handled professionally rather than a reactive sensationalising of the issue as reporting in the J-Wire article.”

But Henry Benjamin from J-Wire said that Hurst seemed more interested in telling people that JewishCare should be the point of call for prospective foster parents, not Jewish House.

“Warren called me to indicate that the correct procedure for someone is to communicate with JewishCare because they had set up the machinery to deal with kids for whom Jewish homes were wanted,” Benjamin said. “I said that I did not see this as my concern. I just thought there were two babies looking for a home and I told him that perhaps the correct person for him to be speaking to is Rabbi [Mendel] Kastel from Jewish House.

“He expressed his disdain that it was on J-Wire and that Jewish House was involved,” Benjamin added.

“I resent that. It has been described as sensationalist because we were just concerned about the care of the babies.”

Rabbi Kastel eventually asked for the article to be removed from the site after FaCS expressed concerns because it had not seen, or approved, the article. “I originally asked Henry [Benjamin] for the article to go online because it is a priority that Jewish children are placed within the Jewish community, particularly when it is the wish of the family and they are obviously going through a difficult time already,” he said.

According to Rabbi Kastel, after the article appeared online, a suitable Jewish household was found for the two children.

JOSHUA LEVI