Alan Kadzin, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Yale University, said that a child adapting to a new home would be dependent on different factors.

“It depends on the temperament of the child,” Kadzin said. “Is it possible to recover? Yes. It is possible to be traumatic? Yes. It depends on the environment they are placed into.”

Kadzin also stressed the importance of placing the children together. “That sibling is going to be the buffer relationship for life,” he said. “They may go through death and to have your main sibling plucked from you, I would go for that more than compatibility in beliefs.”

David Mandel, the CEO of Ohel, the largest Jewish social service agency was not surprised by the case. “We’re constantly disappointed when we hear such stories,” he said.“

While he said he couldn’t offer a comment on this particular case, Mandel said that the case highlights the need for more Jewish foster families.

“That they may not be separated since they have a bond, only makes the story more compelling for all the rest of the time that a child is moved into foster care and needs a Jewish home,” Mandel said. “And there will be a next time.”

To Rabbi Biser, the case is a simple one.

“There were children in the Holocaust who were put in non-Jewish homes,” Biser said. “Would anyone say that after the war that when the parents went to the family, the family could say ‘Well the kids have bonded and we’re raising them as Catholics.’ What would we say? It’s the same thing over here. There are Jewish children and they belong in Jewish homes.”