Jewish Social Studies
Volume 24, Issue 3, 2019, Pages 80-123

The "kidnapping" of hildy mccoy: Child adoption and religious conflict in the shadow of the holocaust (Review)

Glenn S.A.*
  • a University of Washington, United States

Abstract

Much of what we know about Jewish-Catholic relations in postwar America comes from the scholarship on litigation over school prayer, released time for children's worship, and clashes over public expressions of religion. This article uses the Hildy McCoy adoption case the most controversial and mass-mediated adoption struggle of the 1950s as a lens for exploring another divisive issue that has received almost no attention in the literature on postwar religious conflict in the United States: The permanent transfer of children from one religious group to another. The Hildy McCoy case, which has largely been ignored by historians, reveals how debates between Jews and Catholics about the preservation of children's religious heritage that had been raging across the Atlantic in post-Holocaust Europe were transplanted to American soil in the 1950s and how those debates could also take decidedly different trajectories in the turbulent religious environment of the United States. Copyright © 2019 The Trustees of Indiana University.

Author Keywords

Finaly affair Jewish-Christian relations Hildy McCoy Child adoption

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85068123419&doi=10.2979%2fjewisocistud.24.3.04&partnerID=40&md5=1f3464af0ed17cb2d840bf19d4912ca8

DOI: 10.2979/jewisocistud.24.3.04
ISSN: 00216704
Original Language: English