Jewish Multiracial Families Grow

Jewish multiracial families grow in numbers and commitment By Electa Draper The Denver Post Three Denver mothers heading multiracial families are seeking to build on what it means to live in Jewish community. The community is changing. It's perhaps a surprising slice of demography that shows that 16 percent of metro Denver Jewish households headed by people ages 39 and younger are multiracial.Among all age groups, 9 percent are multiracial, according to the 2007 Metro Denver/Boulder Jewish Community Study. National organizations note that the trend is increasing through conversion, marriage and adoption. Last December, Jennifer Kraft adopted Tali Bamlak Kraft, from Ethiopia. Tali is almost 14 months old. "She's my gift, by the grace of God," Kraft said, explaining her daughter's name — a Hebrew word, Tali, for dew drops, and Bamlak, a name given her at an Ethiopian orphanage. It's an expression in the Amharic language of that country: "by the grace of God."Jennifer Kraft lived with her daughter in an Ethiopian hotel for three months waiting for the adoption process to be complete.  "It was important to me — intellectually — that she grow up with her Ethiopian identity and this whole other Jewish identity I would instill," Kraft said. "After being there with her, it also became viscerally important to me that she have both." Source: DenverPost.com Read more: Jewish multiracial families grow in numbers and commitment - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_21622879?source=commented-#ixzz27WJSz4qd