Rabbis: Get out of my uterus
Props to Hannah Farber over at jspot (Jewish Funds for Justice’s blog) for her short, pithy piece entitled “I’m Going to Count to Three, and Then All Rabbis Need To Get Out Of My Uterus” on the hysteria (pun intended) about Jewish women reproducing, as the RA explains it to make up for the Holocaust.
Since I began working in the Jewish community, I’ve heard this advice again and again, and it never fails to get my ovaries in a twist, not least because of the implied (or explicit) criticism of professional women (never of professional men) who postpone childrearing to accommodate their career goals. I say: if the rabbis are so committed to making this a communal issue, the rabbis should raise the children. In fact, given their comfortable salaries and high communal status, they have no excuse: they should be adopting and converting children by the dozen.
Also contains links to good refutations.
To the extent the criticism of non child bearing is pointed only to women, it’s unfair. To the extent both sexes should be critiqued for not having more Jewish children, please look at the numbers – if we want Jews/Judaism to survive, we’ll need to have a lot more Jewish babies. (Actually, the real criticism should be pointed to women for not having more children, since they are more the decision makers in this area; and to men who don’t get married or who get married to non Jews, thus preventing Jewish women who want to marry Jewish men the opportunity to have the families they would prefer – there’s plenty of blame to go around).
Since when do Rabbis have high salaries? There are about 20 Orthodox and 20 Non-Orthodox rabbis in my county and none of them have high salaries. The Orthodox rabbis have especially low salaries. There may be Rabbis who run large organizations and have good salaries but they are far and few between.
Becoming a Rabbi is a huge sacrifice taken in order to help the Jewish people. The least Jewish Men and Women can do is produce children so there will be a Jewish future.
Yes, more children. OK, find me a nice Jewish 20+ish woman with a college education that would like me to be a good house father and I am willing to have five or more children!
I really don’t know where “comfortable” salaries meet up with the career of rabbi except in the most well-heeled and upscale urban congregations–a setting that is usually none too conducive to politically incorrect talk about having children in the first place. Anyway it’s a little silly to demand that women take control over reproduction and then complain because everybody assumes that women control reproduction. Huh??! If you want the power then take responsibility for it.
(And let’s get real–if a woman complains to her local intelligent rabbi that she wants to have children but her husband keeps postponing for his own career reasons, it’s quite obvious whose position 95% of rabbis are going to sympathize with in 95% of such cases.)
For a picture of what a society starts to look like when childbearing loses its value check out Japan, Italy, Russia or any other one of a dozen European nations. All are in population decline with no visible path out of the spiral. No people = no culture = no national future. It’s unhappily mathematical but that’s the real world.
if we want Jews/Judaism to survive, we’ll need to have a lot more Jewish babies
If we want Jews/Judaism to survive, we need to make the forms of Judaism that most Jews experience worthy of survival. Jews are leaving Judaism because what they experience tends to lack spiritual meaning, intellectual depth, and a feeling of real community. More Jewish babies born into this kind of Judaism are just more Jewish babies who are likely to disengage.
Since when do Rabbis have high salaries? [snip] There may be Rabbis who run large organizations and have good salaries but they are far and few between.
Simply not true these days, at least concerning liberal rabbis. Starting salaries for both Conservative and Reform rabbis straight out of rabbinical school are in the (very) upper five figures, sometimes hitting $100,000 in larger congregations. Orthodox rabbis, however, are generally paid much, much less.
No people = no culture = no national future.
This is fear-mongering. Trying to say that Japan and Italy have lost (or will lose) all their national culture because of a declining birthrate is a bit over the top. I’m willing to bet that even if there were just two Italians left standing in the world they’d refuse to drink their espresso at a McDonalds.
In conclusion, I too would appreciate it if all the rabbis would get out of my womb and start focusing on their jobs.
Rooftopper Rav: You’re underestimating how powerful birthrate and also the age you choose to have your children has on population.
There are 2 families, A and B. A has 2 children at age 20 and their children do the same and so on. Family B has 2 children at age 30 and so on.
By year 180, family A is 512 people while family B is 64. This is what happens when Jews choose to wait until they are old to have kids. Imagine if I had made the birthrates different. There is bound to be dropout in any community. No matter how you market Judaism this will be true. It always has been.
No matter how you market Judaism this will be true. It always has been.
I believe the Rooftopper Rav was talking about substance, not marketing.
Rooftopper–all of the countries I mentioned are in a state of ongoing depopulation because people don’t want to have children.
Even some EU governments have recognized the decidedly non-“progressive” need for people to start reproducing earlier if there is to be a future for their countries. Nearly every western European country’s birthrate has fallen below the 2.1 children per woman needed for simple population replacement. The situation in Japan is even more dire and it’s not at all clear that that country will ever be able to emerge from depopulation….and the unavoidable national decline that must come from that.
If your vision of a sustainable, vibrant culture is of two octogenarian Italians refusing to drink McDonalds….well I guess we just have different perspectives on what it takes to sustain a nation. (Shall the last Italian be prime minister and their spouse be vice president?) In any event the Italian government (whose nation and culture it is after all) is a little less calm about the situation. A Guinness Book of World Records entry for being the only people left drinking Espresso in 2047 isn’t really the most inspiring cultural directive to leave for….the children who won’t be around to read it.
…and then, let’s say, all the young Jewish fertile women start having babies upon babies, pleasing all those baby-wanting rabbis … about 5 years later, we can all smack our heads into the next vexing problem: how to pay for all those babies to get Jewish-educated?!!