“Conceiving God’s Children”: Toward a Flexible Model of Reproductive Decision-Making

ABSTRACT

Drawing on an ethnographic study of reproduction in Israel, in this article I demonstrate how Orthodox Jews delineate borders between the godly and the human in their daily reproductive practices. Exploring the multiple ways access to technology affects religious belief and observance, I describe three approaches to marital birth control, two of which are antithetical: steadfast resistance to and general acceptance of “calculated family planning.” Seeking a middle road, the third model, “flexible decision-making,” reveals how couples push off and welcome pregnancies simultaneously. Unravelling the illusion of a binary model of planned/unplanned parenthood, I call for nuanced models of reproductive decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Israel
• contraception
• decision-making
• Judaism
• religion
• reproduction

Acknowledgments

This research was approved by the ethics committee at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I thank Nurit Stadler, Orit Avishai, Sarah Franklin, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. I also wish to thank my colleagues at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Woolf Institute and the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc) at the University of Cambridge for their ongoing support.

Notes

1. All participant names have been changed for confidentiality.

2. The term Orthodox refers to couples from modern Orthodox, Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox, or national Haredi communities. As discussed in the methodology section, through fieldwork conducted in the Israeli Orthodox reproductive landscape, I found that religious couples from different backgrounds attend non-sectorial settings to share everyday difficulties and debates regarding reproduction. Following this empirical set-up, this study included Orthodox couples from varied backgrounds, yet Hassidic Jews were not included as they did not attend these gatherings.

3. As geographical and cultural boundaries between communities become more porous and less clear, the literature is re-evaluating the distinctions between groups (Leon 2009; Salmon, Ravitsky and Ferziger 2006). Also, each group includes many distinct sub-parts that are differentiated by rabbinic leaders, customs, and origin, primarily Mizrahi or Ashkenazi.

4. Roughly 40 percent of the participants came from ultra-Orthodox backgrounds, an additional 40 percent were affiliated with the modern-Orthodox community, and 20 percent were associated with nationalist Haredi communities.

5. Most classes were intended for women or couples. Due to strict gender separation, I was unable to participate in male-only lectures (rare as they were).

6. Even though modesty norms vary between communities (and can be viewed as hallmarks of each group), in all Orthodox communities, the realm of sexuality is governed by strict rules and intensive monitoring; boys and girls are segregated from a young age; and sartorial modesty is tightly enforced (Engelberg 2013; Stadler and Taragin-Zeller 2017; Taragin-Zeller 2014).

7. Among Orthodox Jews, there is an elaborate menstruation defilement and purification system called the laws of niddah which organizes marital sexuality through a recurring cycle of purity and impurity (Avishai 2008; Hartman and Marmon 2004). In accordance with these laws, married women self-regulate their bodies as bleeding, spotting, or other irregularities demarcate a woman as a niddah, a time in which sexual intercourse and any other physical contact is prohibited between a married couple until immersion in a mikvah. While purity laws have been a locus of struggles throughout generations, they have also served as a creative and concealed type of contraception (of sort). Namely, by pushing off the time of immersion, sexual relations may be pushed off until the fertility window has passed.

8. While informal chats about forbidden subjects exist, systematic sex education is fully addressed during marriage preparation. In a series of classes, that range in length and price (typically four to ten hourly meetings at around 100 shekels per class, roughly US $30), brides are taught the laws of niddah and offered basic sex education.

9. The requirement to reproduce appears in the Bible as a blessing given to man and woman: “God blessed them and God said to them, ‘Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it…’” (Genesis,1:28). While Talmudic rabbis constructed procreation as an important religious imperative, they also limited the number of children one must have. To fulfil this obligation, the Jerusalem Talmud requires one child (JT Yebamot 6:6) and the Babylonian Talmud says that one or two children are necessary (BT Yebamot 61b-62b). Rabbi Joshua asserts that one must never stop procreating (BT Yevamot 62b). Some authorities interpreted this as a rabbinic (Derabanan) determination meant to annul the limitation on the number of children required (Rif, Ba’al Hamaor, Rosh) while others understood it as a suggestion (Ramban, Rambam). An entire system of individual concerns may also be taken into consideration, such as: physical and mental health, financial issues, and child welfare. Contraception is permitted, depending on method (Irshai 2012).

10. Ba’al teshuva literally means “master of repentance”. This term refers to a worldwide phenomenon in which Jews who grew up among non-observant families choose to lead observant lives as adults.

11. See Taragin-Zeller 2017 for a detailed account of religious consultation and reproductive decision-making.

Additional information

Funding

I am grateful to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israeli Democracy Institute for funding this research.

Notes on contributors

Lea Taragin-Zeller

Lea Taragin-Zeller, PhD, is a research fellow at the Woolf Institute and an affiliated researcher at the Reproductive Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc), University of Cambridge. Her research interests lie at the intersection of medical anthropology, gender, body, ethics, and religion.