By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent
Families happen in all sorts of ways. People marry and have babies as they always have; “blended families,” bring together children in second marriages. In some cases people resort to modern science to help have children when the old-fashioned ways fail.
For Steven and Rachely Hemmet, rounding out their family took them to a baby home in the Russian town of Cherepanovo, about 80 miles south of the city of Novsibirsk, in Siberia.
Steve is an attorney and Rachely a teacher (though for now she is a stay-at-home mom) living in the Leschi neighborhood in south Seattle. Their first son, Amir, was born more than 10 years ago, but when they found they could not have another child naturally, they decided to try to adopt. Steve said they wanted to find a boy up to two years old and a girl up to 15-months old — almost the exact ages of Lior and Zohar at the time they brought them home.
Now, several months after returning to Seattle with the toddlers, Rachely said she cannot really remember what went into their decision to go to Russia to find them. Although they initially considered Latvia, the Hemmets were moved by the magnitude of the need for adoptive parents in Russia. Steve said there are an estimated 700,000 Russian children of different ages waiting for new families.
“Children are not put (up) for foreign adoption until they are five months old, at a minimum,” Steve said. “Their prospects for a future are pretty bleak after they are not adopted by a certain age. People, for the most part, want pretty young children.” He said that, in addition to the scope of the need they found there, he feels the number of Russian speakers in their synagogue and community, and the fact that they have a Russian sister-in-law in Israel, all contributed to the choice.
They contacted a local agency that handles foreign adoptions in April. For the next three months they filled out forms for U.S. agencies, then compiled a dossier including pictures of their family and home, which were sent to Russia. In October, the family heard from Russia with information, including medical histories, and videotapes of the two children destined to become their son and daughter.
Shortly after Thanksgiving, the Hemmets took an Aeroflot jet from SeaTac Airport to Moscow. As Orthodox Jews, the family does not travel during Shabbat, so, given the airline’s schedule, they had to wait in Moscow from their arrival on Monday until the following Saturday night before proceeding on to Novosibirsk.
“At that time, they were only flying on Mondays and Fridays, and because we don’t travel on Shabbat we left on a Monday and stayed several days until Saturday night,” Steve explained. Once in Novosibirsk, a city of approximately 1.5-million, they met the local Chief Rabbi, Zaklos Zelman, who had recently moved there from Israel.
“Our adoption agency was aware that we observed Shabbat and ate kosher food,” Steve said. “They went out of their way to make arrangements with the local rabbi of the community there to have us come for lunch and establish a connection with them.” By coincidence, Rabbi Zelman comes from Kiryat Malachai, an Israeli town with a sister-city relationship to Seattle. Since the Hemmets are co-chairs of that committee, it gave them one more topic for conversation.
“All together, they were incredibly nice to us. We had dinner at their house. They brought food for us for our first Shabbat together as a family in he hotel, because we couldn’t go out or prepare meals for us in the hotel,” said Steve. “He was very kind to us and helped us out quite a bit. We’ve stayed in touch with them, and in fact, I just got an e-mail from his father in Israel.”
Both Steve and Rachely said they did not feel any sense of discomfort or face any problems as Jews in Russia. During Hanukkah Novosibirsk celebrated with a giant menorah displayed prominently in the town. Steve said the local Jewish agency estimated that there are 10,000 in the Jewish community in Novosibirsk, but Rabbi Zelman put the number closer to 25,000. Rachely said when Rabbi Zelman started the Jewish school in Novosibirsk, they received 1,000 applicants and had to find a way to weed out the non-Jews, since they could only take about 150 students.
While they were there they also got to know Eric Shogren, “an American entrepreneur of Jewish background.”
“He owns several businesses including this place called New York Pizza and a coffee place like Starbucks that we enjoyed while we were in Novosibirsk. He also runs a nonprofit agency that helps distribute food to baby homes and old-age homes,” Steve said. “Quite an amazing person — probably 35-40 years old, married a Russian woman and has apparently made it very well for himself in Russia.”
To finalize the adoption, they had to make an appearance in the highest court in the region, the equivalent, Steve said, of going to the state Supreme Court here. Although the final court date is largely a formality, the Hemmets were advised by their translator not to “emphasize” their religion during the proceedings, just in case.
“One evening before [the court appearance] the translator said, ‘I think we came to the conclusion that it’s better that you don’t talk about your religion,” Rachely said. “Say that we take them to church.” Rachely said the people helping them were sure the judge would not hold it against them but they were less familiar with the prosecutor’s views.
Everything worked out quickly. On Dec. 5, the adoptions became official and they were granted immediate custody of the children.
“We then went to pick them up that evening and it as almost like a movie,” Steve said. “You go there in the dark, it’s 7:30 or 8 o’clock at night, with the snow coming down. They don’t take any clothes from the baby home, we brought clothes and diapers for them with us.”
“It was amazing,” said Rachely, “because Lior, our son, was afraid of water, of grass, just walking on the street — of people, dogs, anything. Everything was very strange to him.”
Since returning to Seattle, the children have adapted quickly to the new surroundings. They have undergone the ritual Orthodox conversion to Judaism and are being raised tri-lingually. Rachely said she speaks to the children exclusively in Hebrew, their babysitter talks to them in English, and they have a number of friends who continue to talk to them in Russian. Rachely said Lior and Zohar respond in both English and Hebrew.