Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel
There are more fertility clinics per capita in Israel than in any other country in the world and Israel has the world's highest per capita rate of in-vitro fertilization procedures. Fertility treatments are fully subsidized by Israeli national health insurance and are available to all Israelis, regardless of religion or marital status. These phenomena are not the result of unusually high rates of infertility in Israel but reflect the centrality of reproduction in Judaism and Jewish culture.\...
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Explores the debates about new reproductive technologies in Israel and how they fit with Orthodox Jewish laws concerning parentage and Jewish identity.
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction11"The time arrived but the father didn't": A New Continuum of Israeli Conception92Not Mamzers: The Legislation of Reproduction and the "Issue" of Unmarried Women643Jewish and Gentile Sperm: Rabbinic Discourse on Sperm and Paternal Relatedness874Eggs and Wombs: The Origins of Jewishness1125Multiple Mothers: Surrogacy and the Location of Maternity1406Consequences for Kinship159Conclusion: Reproducing Jews and Beyond172Appendixes176Notes197Bibliography217Index223
\ From the Publisher“This is a deeply compelling and timely book situating Israeli debates about the use of reproductive technology within the context of kinship theory.”—Sarah Franklin, author of Embodied Progress: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception\ "Susan Kahn has given us a first class example of how contemporary ethnography can illuminate the cultural dimensions of the brave new world of new reproductive technologies. Reproducing Jews offers a very different way of conceiving of the relationship between technological change and social life. Sophisticated and well-written, it will be welcomed not only by scholars in a number of fields—anthropology, sociology, feminist studies, Jewish studies, medical anthropology, bioethics—but by those who are curious as to how science, religion, and the desire for children intersect within a particular context."—Faye Ginsburg, New York University\ \ \
