Undiminished Sense of Family

Naked light bulbs, hanging low over marble tables, are all the rage in the restaurants of the Ramat Hachayal high-tech neighborhood. This where Chagit Rotshtein – in her early 40s and employed as legal counsel at a large holding company – likes to go for lunch and thinks with longing about her children ranging from ages two to twelve. The balancing act between profession and family has never been easy. Nevertheless, neither she nor her husband had any doubts when she gave birth to her fourth child. Chagit is therefore completely in line with the current trend. According to statistics, the number of families with three or four children has increased in recent years. Israel generally has the highest birth rate in the Western hemisphere with 2.7 children per woman. This does not just refer to the five percent of ultra-orthodox Jews who frequently have more than ten children solely for religious reasons or the traditionally large families in the “Arabic sector,” but to the secular Jewish majority that – despite all of the social upheaval that we are familiar with in Europe – displays quite a constant desire to have children. For the first time, the economic argument surfaced during the social protests of last summer that people simply could not afford additional children, but this has not (yet?) changed anything with regard to the fundamental desire of having children.
Having children is such a natural part of life that women without children over the age of 30 frequently complain about the pressure to which they are exposed in their environment. Author Tamar Hager – who just recently published her book A Bad Mother (in Hebrew) – remembers the time when her twins had not yet been born: “Everyone told me that motherhood is the most wonderful thing. If I didn’t do it, I would miss out. There were bizarre situations: Taxi drivers would ask me why I didn’t have children. So would my greengrocer and my cosmetician. At a certain point I lied and said I had children. In our reality it’s easier to be a single mother than not to have children.”



A Matter of Course
But what stands behind this apparently undiminished sense of family? The answer is complex because it has been a blend of Jewish family tradition and the ambition to strengthen national demographics since the founding of the state. Sociologist Jackie Feldman of the Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva responds that “The question should rather be what makes other people not have children?” He considers it to be a sign of normality that starting a family with multiple children is seen as a matter of course in Israel. He finds it rather strange when childlessness in other places is explained by the completely sufficient fulfillment of life through work or hobbies.
In his opinion, one reason for the undiminished desire to have children in his home country is deeply rooted in Judaism because the family has always played a central role. Being alone is pitied at best, but never idealized. There is no solitary existence as monks or nuns – and no unmarried rabbis. In the Thora, Rachel, the sister of Leah (who already has five children), pleads to her husband Jacob: “Give me children, otherwise I am dead.” Feldman believes that most people certainly would not utter these words, but this is definitely similar to how the situation is perceived in society. Having children is considered fulfillment because something can be passed on to the next generation. “Such patterns of Jewish tradition also take hold of people who define themselves as secular. Furthermore, an orientation toward family and children is part of the economy and society. The structures for having children have been in place for a long time; they ensure that even carefree Tel Aviv yuppies absolutely want children.”

Active Support
If someone asks Chagit Rotshtein why she wanted an additional child, her explanation would just be emotional at first.
“It was more of a gut feeling. And the little ones grow up so fast.” However, she does not deny that the unpleasant thought of the necessary «replacement» has crossed her mind once before in this threatened country where being a soldier is just as much a part of life as kindergarten and a school education. She comes from a family with a military background. Both of her parents were professional soldiers. Her mother gave up her career and dedicated herself to a life as a housewife when Chagit was born. She later recommended the opposite to her daughter, which meant combining children and a professional career so that something very personal remains once the nest has emptied.
But according to widespread opinion, people who have children should later also feel responsible for the grandchildren. The fact that Chagit lives in Herzlia to the north of Tel Aviv is related to the closeness of her mother’s home. She helps out when the extensive support network of caregivers, kindergartens, school, and leisure activities falls short. Without the active support of the grandparents – logistically and also financially - the balancing act of many women between professional and family life would often hardly be possible. Having children is also expensive in Israel. The parents receive just over $300 per month from the government for four children.
After Chagit gave birth to her fourth child, she was at least entitled to a larger company car at the same level of co-payment. This is the bonus that her employer promises its employees – both men and women – for their fourth child. A Mazda minivan is the reward for many children. The family policy of the management appears so natural to everyone that the responsible person in the human resources department – who is a mother herself – initially does not even understand the question about the motives. “After all, they need a bigger car now,” she says pragmatically and tells us about her numerous colleagues who just recently ordered the new model. Only then does she remember that it is important to support the demographics in this small country that is surrounded by enemies.

Responsibility for the Country
Israelis not only want to demonstrate strength to the outside in this regard but also convince the country’s Jewish majority that it could be threatened in the long term by the faster growing Arab-Israeli population – which accounts for about 20 percent. Numbers have always played a major role in the Zionist endeavor. Even before the founding of the state, a large accumulation of immigrants suggested an ability to survive that could be used to court the investors. At the end of 1949, one-and-a-half years after the proclamation of independence, the Jewish population reached one million and the poet Nathan Alterman celebrated this euphorically with a poem: “It is good to be a million. You look at the number and your eyes get moist. Tears gleam. But why? Because we have told you, brother – Statistics are not always that dry...”
Demographics symbolize strength more intensely in Israel than any other country. People in Germany or elsewhere have never known the feeling that their country could possibly disappear if they stopped having children, according to sociologist Jackie Feldman. “We bear the responsibility for the survival of the Jewish people on our shoulders.” The fear of the future – with which many Europeans justify their childlessness – causes the exact opposite response in Israel: Because it feels threatened – historically and currently – they want to produce offspring. Behind this desire is also the effort to offset the loss of life during the Holocaust, even if this is just to a small degree. For many Israelis who were forced to grow up without their (murdered) grandparents, children are always also a gift to their own parents. In turn, they are now allowed to be normal grandmothers and grandfathers.
Although the state does not necessarily help with educational costs, it ensures that each woman can afford expensive treatments in order to have medical assistance in becoming pregnant. Israel has the highest per capita concentration of fertility clinics, and every Israeli woman is entitled to two children via  in vitro fertilization – free of charge – and, if necessary, even with the help of an egg donation. Nowhere else do women undergo so many treatment cycles as in Israel. There is probably no other country that is as open to reproductive medicine as Israel; not even the religious side has rigid reservations. The Bible already says to “be fruitful and multiply,” quotes Avraham Steinberg, who teaches Bioethics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This combination of religious ideology that encourages having children and regards it as a blessing with a philosophy of survival leads to governmental subsidization of fertility. “I think that couples who have a chance at having children should also receive this opportunity. This is worth it.”

Children Even without Marriage
More and more single women or lesbian couples are now taking advantage of the opportunity to have their own child with the help of sperm banks, which have already existed for the past 20 years. According to the National Council for the Child, the number of children living with unmarried single mothers increased from 23,800 in 2000 to 36,000 within ten years – which is more than 50 percent. Women in Israel may be willing to forgo the institution of marriage, but not having children. This also applies to homosexual men. In March 2012, a total of 4,000 same sex couples raised one or more children in their care in Israel. 400 children were born abroad with the help of a surrogate mother. In a groundbreaking judgment of the family court in Ramat Gan, both members of a lesbian couple were recently accepted as the biological mother of their child after one of them carried out the pregnancy with a fertilized egg from the other woman.
This pronounced sense of family might also be influenced by the fact that the Zionist project was designed as a community project. The Israelis founded not only the Kibbutzim and fought side by side in the army, but also enjoy gathering in other groups to this day and meet regularly within the larger family circle. As once intended by the socialist founding fathers, this collective existence has already faced an individualization process over a longer period of time, but it was not spoiled for people by the Fuehrer’s propaganda – as it has been in so many European countries where they are now paying for their fascist past with a diminished desire to have children.
However, the border between inner desire and outer pressure is sometimes rather fluid. “A woman is considered incomplete without children,” says psychologist Ora Bechor. And the weekend family gatherings including the offspring create sufficient pressure on young couples to adapt to the norm. Because there will always “an ideal of a large family,” many parents who decide upon adoption would never think of just raising one child.●

Gisela Dachs is an Israel correspondent for the Zeit newspaper and lives in Tel Aviv.