Israel today is navigating internal struggles over what kind of Jewish state it wants to be—a debate that is playing out through tensions over reproduction. As demographic forecasts show that by 2065 Haredim will constitute a third of Israel’s Jewish population, Israeli policy makers have attempted to manage the rapid increase through steep cutbacks in child benefits. Lea Taragin-Zeller of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem offers an overview of these Jewish ‘womb-wars’ while providing an ethnographic account of Orthodox reproduction today, in the face of vast policy changes. In conversation with author Sally Berkovic.
