When Haredi mothers give up their Down syndrome babies

23.07.2013                      16.Aw.5773

Jüdisches Feature:

When Haredi mothers give up their Down syndrome babies

Having a child with Down syndrome comes with enormous challenges. For ultra-Orthodox Israeli women, there are at least two ways to get rid of such a 'burden’.

When Shmuel, my sixth child, arrived with Down syndrome, I cried bitterly as I imagined myself dead and him homeless; I played hostess to numerous other fantasies, my own and those of other women, who came to cry by my childbed….