Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Triplets Separated At Birth For Experiment Seek Compensation From Jewish Group

(JTA) — Triplet siblings who were separated at birth and given up for adoption as part of an experiment are demanding compensation from the Jewish organization they say is responsible for it.

Bobby Shafran, Eddy Galland and David Kellman were in 1961 separated at birth in New York and adopted by three different families with varying financial means for a controversial experiment that sought to determine to what degree personalities are shaped by external circumstances.

They were placed in foster care by the now-defunct Louise Wise Agency as part of a study by the Manhattan Child Development Center, which would later merge into the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

The triplets were brought in for evaluations periodically by Dr. Peter Neubauer, a psychoanalyst with the Manhattan Child Development Center, according to the report.

“It was cruel; it was wrong,” Kellman told the Post, which recounted the triplets’ story in writing about a new documentary about them, “Three Identical Strangers.” Featured at the Sundance Film Festival last month, it was celebrated as one of the event’s most memorable works.

Galland committed suicide in the 1990s. Now Kelklman and Shafran are demanding compensation, an apology and additional details about their case from the Jewish Board.

The boys never knew of one another’s existence until they were 19, when a coincidence at a college in rural Sullivan County reunited Galland and Shafran. Kellman was reconnected with them soon after when he and his adoptive mother saw news coverage and realized that he was their identical sibling.

Neubauer’s sealed study, which has long been housed at Yale University, was not released, and requests over the years by its subjects to unseal it were rebuffed.

In a statement to the Post, the Jewish Board distanced itself from the study.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.