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In other news, I’ve switched A Mother in Israel over to a new theme (design). Let me know if you find it user-friendly.
Happy reading!
The phenomenon of Orthodox single women who choose to have babies on their own has been around for a while. Gilit Chomski of Ynet interviews some of the mothers, as well as rabbis who have ruled on the subject. A few passages in the long article that stood out for me.
First, there was this:
[When] the eldest and beautiful daughter of a religious family with an aristocratic rabbinical background in a city in northern Israel . . . realized that her time was running out and [she] couldn’t find a match, she waited for her last sister to get married so as not to ruin her matchmaking, and took action. She looked for a dance club in the city and went out there once or twice, until she met a good-looking secular man. She waited seven clean days, went to the mikveh, and got pregnant once or twice later. When the guy accused her of deceiving him, she admitted that she simply wanted a child. Today that child is married with children and is a prominent figure in the sector.
When I first read it, I found the idea astounding: A woman who has been raised her whole life to be celibate and not even touch a man before marriage, meets a man in a dance hall for the purpose of getting pregnant, then returns to a celibate life (presumably). But if the child is already grown this happened a while ago and is probably more common than I realized.
Chomski also brings up the psychological health of children raised by single mothers:
The child’s welfare may not be the banner the objectors seek to raise. A study published by the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners in Britain showed, for example, that the most successful children – both intellectually and psychologically – were raised by two mothers. Moreover, there are children who have already grown up and live among us, and we could just ask them. S., who is married to a man who was raised by a single mother, says frankly, “Naturally, I thank God for his birth, but it’s apparent that he was not raised in a regular family. He’s hurt. He doesn’t have intuitions which come naturally for others. He doesn’t really know what a man does. “When we had a child, things were very difficult for me after the birth. The burden was not shared between us naturally. He wanted to do everything that I did, and it suddenly occurred to me that he sees his fatherhood as motherhood.”
Finally, there is the question of whether a halachic ruling allowing women to conceive without getting married should have been publicized. Some rabbis criticize Rabbi Yuval Cherlow for publicizing his lenient ruling, instead of permitting single motherhood privately on a case-by-case basis.
Perhaps it’s easier to allow it in utmost discretion, without requiring a declaration which undermines the values of the traditional family.
[Rabbi Cherlow responds] “If this is Halacha, why hide it? A halachic debate must be public. The burden of proof lies on those seeking to hide. Beyond that, lack of publicity gives the Rabbinate a great amount of power. This is not a desired situation. The right situation is an open debate, while dealing with the questions being raised. In addition, the absence of a clear statement sometimes generates urban legends, which have nothing to do with reality.”
According to Rabbi Cherlow, the connection between Halacha and science must be public as well. “There is a rabbi who offers women an alternative in the form of freezing eggs until they reach an old age. I find this outrageous. First of all, it’s an illusion. The chance that 10 eggs would be removed from a 37-year-old woman’s body and that one of them would conceive a child is zero. Second, it puts the woman in danger. We are talking about very unpleasant months for the woman, to say the least, under general anesthesia and a life-threatening situation, not to mention the immodesty in the entire process.”
What about the child’s benefit? There are those who say this is cruel.
“I find this argument invalid. The child’s benefit is a modern-Western argument, which does not exist in Judaism and doesn’t hold water. There’s no doubt that the best thing for a child is to grow up in a regular family with a father and mother, and there is no argument about that. But can anyone guarantee anything to a child born to a regular family? I can give you 10 types of normative families, which could have allegedly been forbidden to have a child because it’s not in his benefit.
Related Posts:
Abortion in the Religious Zionist Community
Genetic Testing in the Religious Zionist Community
The court had required a compromise by August 25. I didn’t believe it would happen. But the educational ministry has ruled that the Bet Yaakov Hasidi, the girls’ school in Emanuel that refused to admit a group of children of sephardi background, will retain its license but lose all government funding. After one year, requests for funding will be considered.
Representatives of both sides, interviewed by Haaretz, are happy with the decision. But an article I read in Hashavua, a haredi newspaper, warned that the decision sets a dangerous precedent for all the schools in the chinuch atzmai system. If the government can stop financial support for one school, they can stop it for others as well.
Rosh Hashanah is coming! Are you ready?
There are a lot of things I’d rather be writing about today, but I can’t avoid the subject any longer. I’m talking about Rosh Hashanah, less than three weeks away beginning Wednesday evening, September 9. Not only is the two-day holiday followed immediately by Shabbat, making it a “three-day Yom Tov” even for those of us in Israel—it’s early and if the last few weeks are anything to go by, it’s likely to be exceedingly hot as well. Of course it rained last year, so one can hope.
Having reached the limits of my refrigerator’s capacity for withstanding the heat just with regular Shabbat cooking at the height of the summer, I am wary. I can’t possibly see cooking food for Shabbat on Wednesday and having it last until Shabbat. And how could I cook it all on Wednesday even if I wanted to? Well I probably could, but it wouldn’t be wise.
(For readers unfamiliar with Jewish law, one may cook on Rosh Hashanah itself with few restrictions, namely no electric appliance unless it is for cooking and can be set up in advance with or without a timer. One can only cook for the meals of that day, i.e. no preparation for the Thursday night meal until after dark. So it’s best to prepare as much as possible before the holiday. One can cook and heat up food for Shabbat (beginning Friday evening), if one has made an eruv tavshilin (Google it). No cooking is permitted on Shabbat. I’m leaving out a lot of detail.)
Here are some of the ideas I’m playing with:
What creative ideas can you suggest? We need input from the “chutznikim” for whom a 3-day yom tov is a regular occurrence.
Note: My other site CookingManager.Com is intended for a general audience. I’ll be posting some Rosh Hashanah recipes but I don’t plan to go into halacha (Jewish law) over there.
Related:
More recipes:
You may also enjoy my article about Rosh Hashanah cooking for Food.com (formerly Recipezaar)
Hadassah over at In the Pink is asking for advice on organizing her headgear. Curious, I added up the items she listed and counted about 75 bandannas, berets, scarves and the like. She wears one (or two?) every time she goes out, so I gather she needs an assortment for different outfits and situations. I also cover my hair outside and while I can’t imagine owning so many, I certainly understand why it’s hard for her to keep them from taking over the bedroom.
Her post got me curious about my own supply. I counted 15, not including a few that have been put away for the winter. My collection ranges from inexpensive scarves to dressy hats for weddings. Among the15 are a few I rarely wear, and wouldn’t miss much if they disappeared. I buy mainly neutral colors, and get rid of what I don’t like fairly quickly. The mystery is that despite having so many fewer than Hadasah, mine also seem to take over my bedroom.
Hadassah, I don’t begrudge you your scarf assortment. Fashion isn’t that important to me, I guess, and I’d rather manage with less than sort through mounds of clothes. But during an unfrugal month for my family, you helped me feel a lot better about that dressy summer hat I paid full price for a couple of weeks ago. 
So are there hair-covering female readers who can claim the dubious honor of owning more head-coverings than Hadassah, or fewer than me? Don’t be shy.
Related:
Recently, a baby from Missouri was was taken away from her parents and only returned after 57 days. A hospital nurse had decided that the parents, who were blind, could not care for their baby appropriately.
[My father is legally blind. While that affected me in many ways, my mother was in charge of daily care.]
Blind parents have special challenges when caring for their children. The website Parenting without Sight reassures both parents and skeptical professionals, giving practical tips [...] Continue Reading…
The yeshiva high school system* in Israel is elitist. To get in you need a good report card, high test scores, financial means, and, often, “protekzia.” There are alternatives—private programs for kids who don’t fit in to the yeshiva high school system, and public religious high schools. But those alternatives may have something of a stigma attached.
The admissions process until now didn’t help matters. Each yeshiva high school or ulpana test for a fee. If you did well, [...] Continue Reading…
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