Motherhood in general and Jewish- Israeli

The ability to give birth entails an entire role – that of motherhood - that has become one identifying women and even replacing female identity since women = mother, even if in reality they are not mothers. Seeing the Bible as a sort of cultural-value base of monotheistic religious, large parts of the attitude to women- mothers can be found there starting with the story of Adam and Eve that accompanies us and western culture till today. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" (work) (Genesis 3:19) of men and of women, "In pain shalt thou bring forth children"

(Genesis 3: 16) (give birth). The importance of the female–motherly role, giving birth, is a thread that runs through all the biblical stories of barrenness, that characterize two of the biblical mothers³⁷; Sarah and Rachel stress the importance of giving birth without which women do not fulfill their role and position her at an inferior status in the family hierarchy. Female barrenness is still considered a cause for justified divorce according to Jewish religious law.

Giving birth is a sacred commandment. "Be fruitful and multiply" affords a conceptual infrastructure for giving birth. The concept of having many children stemmed from God's promise to Abraham to make him as fruitful as "The sand which is upon the sea-shore" (Genesis 22:17) so that the Jewish people "…would become a great nation…"(Genesis 46:4) The scale of values of Jewish society, with the full agreement of women (Grossman, 2001) relate supreme value to having children and fortifying the Jewish family, an attitude that penetrated Jewish-Israeli society too.

Marriage is connected to the commandment to be fruitful and multiply, to which end one is expected to marry. Only in this framework can one have children (Yalom, 2001/2005). The institution of marriage in Judaism is a central and sacred value; marriage is both a commandment and a commitment, but the Jewish religion views married women as the property of the husband and not an independent equal entity (Grossman, 2001).

37 The issues of barrenness and motherhood are mentioned in many chapters of the Bible.

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Zionism developed the concept of "Family-Religion" (Bial, 1994) on the basis of the concept of the "Jewish mother", that became a synonym for sacrifice and concern, for warmth and love, endless devotion, her whole life revolving around her children and only for whom she sometimes lives and exists (Alvarez, 1972). Women with a name and curriculum vitae are replaced by a vague female image of a mother. On this basis, the role of the 'Zionist mother' developed as a pivotal value in Zionism

Motherhood entails several aspects:

1. Continuing the human race or motherhood as a resource: As Napoleon and many men before and after him (Barun McBride, 1978) saw the ability to give birth as a means of replicating themselves, their power, or resources that they posses – labor force, security force and survival hence the power to influence and control, and known, caustically as "a baby-making machine".

This attitude is manifested by the idea that Israeli women are supposed to give birth – the more the better³⁸. According to the Israeli agenda, they should have at least four children³⁹. The State encourages giving birth through brainwashing alongside financial benefits.⁴⁰. Statistics show that western women have approximately one child per family while Jewish–Israeli families have three children on average (Kaddari-Halperin and Karo, 2005).

2. Educational and social value – In his book 'Emil' Rousseau (1897) describes the male and the female ideal that will be achieved through education, in other words, education constructs the gender role.

Young girls must learn art, literature, poetry, handicrafts and home economics. This will develop sensitivity and aesthetics that will help her to be a good wife and mother. The concept of 'mother' becomes a lofty and holy/sacrosanct concept, so that it makes demands from the perspective of expectations and behaviors, but does not afford independence and realizing the rights of women-mothers. Vis-à-vis this sacrosanct perception are real women who have been forgotten on the way.

Jewish-Israeli motherhood is perceived as both a right and an obligation, as the uninterrupted continuation of the role fulfilled by women for decades, assuring the education and the transmission of social values to the next generation. "Motherhood is the pivotal

38 The approach that sees giving birth as a tool against extinction is now also adopted by the Palestinians. It is mentioned repeatedly as long as countries are in conflict..

39 As David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister said, "Women's special role, the role of motherhood, there is no greater role in life."

40 The maternity grant, reduced taxation for mothers (the more children, the greater the sum), child allowances for each child - here too the sum increased with the number of children, although recently was changed and reduced

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obligation and privilege of Jewish women. It makes them heroes and provides the entry ticket to the Israeli collective…" (Berkovitz, 2001:206,7). The national and civil entrance ticket they had to pay was coping with the death, mainly of their sons, a repeated type of the biblical binding of Isaac, beside of continuing the 'process' of giving birth to more soldiers and educating them.

3. Motherhood as self-realization: The statement that a child is a woman's supreme objective, as de Beauvoir (1949) averred, exposed the myth that determined that women have no right of existence without being mothers. Christianity even found a solution as the 'spiritual mother' for women who did not give birth but served as a model and symbol (Cnaan-Kedar, 1998).

Yearning for a child is manifested in the number of fertility treatments conducted in Israel is amongst the highest in the western world (Kaddari-Halperin, 2004). The inability to give birth pushes women to an endless battle against barrenness, even if at a heavy personal price. In the absence of success, women turn to other alternatives such as adoption and surrogate motherhood, as long as they have children.

4. Motherhood as social realization –manifested in respect (de Beauvoir, 1949) and in positive social positioning enjoyed by mothers, especially the mothers of sons (Thompson 1971;Yalom, 2001) because they are the continuous of their father and family.

In some ethnic groups of Israeli society giving birth to sons still affords honor; death in battle affords respect. The descriptions of the bereaved mother or widowed wife in endless stories and poems amounting to the Zionist mythology that has become Israeli mythology, sets both as loftier than other people, while providing real social or perceived rights.⁴¹

Mothers as single parents, as a social phenomenon, have also entered Israeli conservative society. These mothers account for most of the families of such status and benefit from special rights.

5. Motherhood as strength: The ability to give birth holds tremendous power since the future of human society is held by women.

Feminists like Ema Goldman (1897) saw motherhood in contrast as - physical, mental and functional weakness, as reducing their freedom of choice and as a kind of 'punishment' that creates a situation of inferiority between men and women.⁴² A complete set of taboos and

41Receiving allowances and other financial benefits from the State for widowhood or as a bereaved mother.

42 This feeling is the result of dependency relationships created due to caring for children that necessitates a different lifestyle and also inhibits women's personal development. Their femininity makes them more vulnerable

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prohibitions with heavy punishment has been built around the role, controlling her body and decisions regarding pregnancy and birth.⁴³ But this potential was not exploited properly by the women themselves systematically and consistently.

Women in Israel generally remained conformist to society's demands. Exceptions included employing the role of motherhood as a legitimate role appreciated by society as a means of opposing war and conquest.⁴⁴

6. Motherhood as a collective spirit: The image of a woman as a mother symbolizes the collective spirit in different cultures as

"mother earth", "Mother Russia" (Yuval-Davis, 1977) and so on.

The main component of the ideal Zionist woman is the role of motherhood – the mother of the family in the personal private space and the mother of the nation in the public space (Elboim-Dror, 2001).

Zionism spoke of the establishment of a new society. In order to launch a new social structure the basic cell comprising society, the family unit, must be modified. Such change is change in the status of women in society. Female participation as an equal member of developing society demands uniting the family space with the public, professional and political space. This was achieved by removing the home functions from female hands and creating a cooperative community that would provide shared services (Elboim-Dror, 1992).

Thus Zionism envisioned the establishment of kibbutzim as cooperative communities. However, they were not the asset of the population at large, so that two models of motherhood developed in the same society:

1. The collective kibbutz model: The biological mother shared child care with the instrumental (care-giver) mother and with the spiritual mother – homeroom teachers who personified the ideology

2. The traditional, individual model: The biological mother fulfilled all the functions but competed with a strong ideology that demanded the children's, mainly the sons, belonging to nationalism and the homeland through being drafted to the army and in their readiness to sacrifice their lives for the State.

In both cases, motherhood is in conflict with nationalism, a conflict that joined that of femininity and nationalism, as a wife of soldiers no less than as the mother of the soldiers and a soldier herself.

43 Laws against abortions, supervision of births etc

44 The "Four Mothers" movement took on the motherhood role and their social right as mothers of soldiers in active service or as a metaphor, to oppose men - the generals – and to demand the end to war and killing. The same element was employed, but in the reverse direction.

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An additional conflict to which collective motherhood gave birth is the damage to the feminine image in which the Jewish woman grew and was educated for generations. Her main existence and respect for her revolved around the children who have now been taken from her, and even this still in the name of her 'freedom'.

The alternative motherhood roles in the kibbutz were filled by other women, thus the basic caring and educational roles were not expropriated from women, but just crudely transferred from the birth mother to women who fulfilled social functions. The feminine identity of kibbutz women took a hard knock and did not afford them any opportunity to express themselves or to object.

The feminist struggle split into two, but remained within the Zionist social structuring:

1. Feminism that believed in equal opportunities for men and women – the workers and pioneers who fought to work like men and established training courses for women, participated in the defense forces and demanded to be included amongst policy makers.

2. Feminism that saw motherhood as the main way to contribute to the collective effort, demanding equality based on difference, and therefore exacted adapting conditions to the situation in which they were both mothers and workers (Kamir, 2004a).

The role of motherhood has many myths and superlatives that developed an entire world of concepts. The biological ability to give birth is accompanied by instinctive actions to protect their offspring to keep them warm, and to feed them, created the concept of "motherly instinct" that was raised to the status of a sacred institution.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead (1954) reinforced this concept when she found in her research that motherly practice and ways of raising children are universal and similarities exist amongst mothers in the ways they handle and care for their children. She theorized that it is inborn amongst all women but that men lack this attribute. Moreover it is considered a universal instinct for all women whether they have children of not. Thus this created the unenviable linkage between the concept that women's unique role to nurture, to educate and to care for all the baby's needs. Another myth is that motherhood is perceived as something pure and hence, all women (since all women for this purpose, are current and potential mothers) must be modest and pure.

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In the absence of any statement by women regarding their feelings as mothers, another myth managed to be preserved for many years – women are pleased with their ability to give birth and enjoy their role. Feminism exposed the dissatisfaction with this role, women's many frustrations and the physical difficulties that occurred during the pregnancy, birth and thereafter while raising the children

The discourse this researcher has encountered in her work proves that the concept of 'mother' and 'wife' have enjoyed consensus in Israeli society till now. The two roles are well imprinted in the female Israeli identity, to the point that there is hardly a woman who does not mention these facts when she is asked to talk about herself. Women are proud of being mothers, satisfied with their achievements and thus represent themselves through being mothers.

The responsibility accompanying the role of motherhood is transferred later when the woman becomes a grandmother, and continues to see herself as closely committed to children and grandchildren and lacking compromise