Unwanted Children and Invented Families in Early Modern Jewish Communities

Abstract

The issue of children lacking familial resources for care reached a crisis point in the early modern period. This article explores how Jewish communities in Western Europe addressed this challenge, as well as the new anxieties that it generated. Focusing on children born to unmarried mothers (illegitimate children), orphans who had lost one or both parents, and foundlings of unknown parentage, we examine some of the piecemeal solutions that Jewish communities devised to care for vulnerable or unwanted children. These included facilitating the adoption of illegitimate children and establishing charitable societies to provide for orphans, mechanisms that functioned as a form of what we call “adoptive reproduction.” Drawing upon sources such as Jewish communal registers, printed takkanot, rabbinic responsa, midwives’ delivery registers, and a rare adoption contract, we show how Jewish communities participated in the creation—or invention—of families that were not based on biological parent-child kinship but were nevertheless common across Europe. Communities sought solutions that were both financially viable and practically feasible. At the same time, the rehabilitation of illegitimate children into Jewish communities brought with it a fear that individuals of indecorous pedigree would be incorporated into the fold, their lineage all but forgotten.