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.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 370-383 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Medical Anthropology: Cross Cultural Studies in Health and Illness |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 19 May 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:I am grateful to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israeli Democracy Institute for funding this research. 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.
Funding Information:
I am grateful to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israeli Democracy Institute for funding this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Keywords
- Israel
- Judaism
- contraception
- decision-making
- religion
- reproduction