ISRAEL’S BABY BOOM 2024 – CHILDREN ARE A JOY
"ילדים הם שמחה" (yeldim hem simcha).
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"ילדים הם שמחה" (yeldim hem simcha). The Hebrew phrase for "children are a joy" is "ילדים הם שמחה" (yeldim hem simcha). "ילדים" (yeldim) means "children", and "שמחה" (simcha) means "joy" or "gladness". A man carries a child as ultra-Orthodox Jewish men gather for a protest over the military draft in Jerusalem’s Mea Sharim district on June 30, 2024. Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images [PHOTO SOURCE: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/05/14/birthrates-israel-demographics-religion-nationalism-world-population/] |
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INSIDE THE HOME OF AN ORTHODOX JEWISH FAMILY - HANGING WITH HASIDICS II: WELCOME TO THE FAMILY [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1311NIaY2k] |
The Hebrew phrase for "children are a joy" is "ילדים הם שמחה" (yeldim hem simcha). "ילדים" (yeldim) means "children", and "שמחה" (simcha) means "joy" or "gladness". Israel is the only OECD countries that have the highest fertility rate of 2.91 per woman.
The world is currently facing a global fertility collapse. Many countries around the world have a fertility rate below replacement level (less than 2.1 fertility rate), which will affect their country’s population and economy in the future. No population means no country.
However, these countries/continents have high fertility rates and will probably outgrow those others with low fertility. They are Sub-Sahara Africa, Israel, Faroe Islands, Mongolia (in 2023 – there were 4 births for every 1 death), and Tibet and last, last but not least…. the Amish and other Plain People Groups like Beachy Amish Mennonites, Conservative Mennonites, Hutterites and the haredi jews.
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Left Amish family (Credit: Andrea Izzotti/iStock) Right: Haredi family (Credit: Masha Zolotukhina/iStock) |
I notice a similar culture between the Haredi Jews and the Plain Anabaptist (Amish, Mennonites and Hutterites) – they both have very strong family values, that is why they have an average of more than 5 children per family. As a proponent of family and community values, I love to put up photos of both Plain Anabaptist and Israeli families, which symbolizes big family and community.
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The Hebrew phrase for "children are a joy" is "ילדים הם שמחה" (yeldim hem simcha). "ילדים" (yeldim) means "children", and "שמחה" (simcha) means "joy" or "gladness". [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.doritjudaica.co.il/product-page/%D7%A7%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%95%D7%90%D7%A1-%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%93%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%96%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%94] https://images.app.goo.gl/E9oj3q5gYYrhurGJ8] https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2025/02/grand-friends-program-are-awesome.html |
I will start by showing the number of babies born in Israel from September 2023 to September 2024 from a video. I will post two articles on why Israel has a high fertility rate, before posting photos of Amish Mennonites and Israeli families with their children with different sayings about children.
From September 2023 to September 2024, about 183,000 babies were born in Israel, meaning that more than 400 babies were born per day. There was a similar case in 2022, in its annual Amish population study, the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College estimates that 1,450 Amish babies were born in Lancaster County last year. Only 145 Amish of all ages died. That population increase of 1,305 brought the total number of Amish living here to 44,315. There were more Amish births than deaths in that state.
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183,000 babies were born in Israel between September 2023 to September 2024. [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrC7r5oYdgE] |
Israeli families defy war with steady birthrate
Nov 22, 2024
Would you have babies in the middle of a war? Israelis are choosing to bring in new life at a steady rate despite the raging war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrC7r5oYdgE
Israel booms with babies as developed world’s birth rates plummet. Here’s why.
· By Dina Kraft Correspondent
Updated Jan. 03, 2019, 12:32 p.m. ET | TEL AVIV
At the entrance of an event called BabyLand, expectant mothers and their partners – along with tired-looking, newly minted parents – lined up to receive bulging bags of free baby products.
Over the course of the three-day event, 50,000 people paraded through the balloon-festooned convention center, some pushing strollers occupied by two or three young children.
Religious, secular, Arab, and Jewish, they were on a mission: shopping for discounted diapers and baby formula and perusing stalls offering the latest versions of snack containers and sheets for bed-wetters.
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Current and expectant parents attend BabyLand, a recent event held in Tel Aviv that offered discount for babies and young children. Israel has the highest per capita rate of population growth in the developed world. 2018 Photo [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2018/1214/Israel-booms-with-babies-as-developed-world-s-birth-rates-plummet.-Here-s-why] |
Why We Wrote This
Israel is not the only developed county to subsidize parenthood, so why is its birthrate an outlier? The centrality of the family is one reason, as are tribalism, nationalism, and the fulfillment of a historic imperative.
Pro-natalist Israel is having a sustained baby boom, and now has the highest per capita rate of population growth in the developed world, experts say.
Families here have an average of 3.1 children, compared with 1.7 in other developed countries. At this rate Israel’s population, which currently numbers 8.7 million, could soar to 15 million by 2050.
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The Hebrew phrase for "children are a joy" is "ילדים הם שמחה" (yeldim hem simcha). "ילדים" (yeldim) means "children", and "שמחה" (simcha) means "joy" or "gladness". [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1790176331168380&set=a.249751315210897] https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2025/02/grand-friends-program-are-awesome.html |
The importance of having children is a focus in Israel as it is in most parts of the world, but what makes the attitude distinctive in the country’s Jewish sector is a unique combination of societal messages and policies. Foremost is a lingering post-Holocaust imperative to replace the 6 million who were murdered, but the list also includes fears of Arab demographic dominance and of the next impending war, and economic incentives from the government that include bankrolling fertility treatments, even in-vitro fertilization.
Driving this focus, argues Orna Donath, a sociologist who researches motherhood, “is the collective fear of annihilation. It continues to haunt us, and children are seen as symbolizing a continuance of life, of survival.”
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The collective fear of annihilation. It continues to haunt us, and children are seen as symbolizing a continuance of life, of survival. – Orna Donath [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCmJNuHRbe8&t=3s&pp=0gcJCX4JAYcqIYzv] |
Birthrates have long been especially high among ultra-Orthodox Jews, a small if highly visible minority in Israel, with the average family having close to seven children, although that number has begun to drop slightly in the past decade.
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Haredi Jewish women and girls in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem, 2013 |
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“Mothers write on the hearts of their children, what the world’s rough hand cannot erase.” – Amish Proverb A mother is a gardener of God, tending to the hearts of her children ~ Amish Proverb An Amish woman's role in the family [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.ohiosamishcountry.com/articles/an-amish-womans-role-in-the-family] BLOG: https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/10/amish-baby-boom-part-1-proverbs-about.html BLOG: https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/12/israels-baby-boom-2024-children-are-joy.html |
But even among secular Jews, three children is the norm. Families with one and even two children are often looked upon with pity. People often assume the parent or parents must have fertility issues or are “selfish,” says Daphna Birenbaum Carmeli, a sociologist at Haifa University who researches Israel’s pro-natalist policies.
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Amish Mennonite Youth sing from the Christian Hymnary in an impromptu chorus during the Anabaptist Identity Conference. — Patrick Matthews [PHOTO SOURCE: https://anabaptistworld.org/plain-groups-gather-to-arrest-the-alarming-desertion-of-our-people/] |
Societal message
It’s the intensity of this fixation on family that makes Israel different from its counterparts in Europe and the United States, argues Elly Teman, a medical anthropologist and senior lecturer at Ruppin College, in central Israel.
“In America you are an individual who is not necessarily going to live close to your parents. But in Israel the whole basis of society is familial,” Dr. Teman says. “The metaphors used describing the nation as one body, one family, is an example of this. It often comes out when we are having a security crisis. The idea of family as the basic unit of Jewish society adds to this narrative: This is how Jews have always survived.”
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Hasidic Family in Street - Borough Park - Hasidic District - Brooklyn - New York. (2013) |
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An Evangelical Reorientation: The Contribution of Beachy Amish-Mennonite Mothers Research Points · When an ethnic sectarian group experiences theological shifts, such as the Beachy Amish-Mennonite gravitation toward evangelical Christianity, gender roles and women’s responsibilities are reorganized in consequential ways. · Both the Old Amish and Beachy Amish-Mennonite wife/mother role is responsible for organizing the domestic environment and addressing family members’ physical and emotional needs. · While domestic success reflects religious devotion, rapid religious/social changes in Beachy churches have strained the relationship between home and church. The church is more likely seen as competing with the family for time and energy rather than integrating with it, as is more common among Old Amish. · Given rapid church changes, Beachy mothers may be socializing children toward an uncertain future rather than mere reproduction of the present church’s practice and organization, as more likely with Old Amish. This severs childrearing from church integration, disrupting intergenerational continuity. · Compared to the patriarchal organization of Old Amish, Beachys’ evangelicalism has expanded women’s formal religious responsibilities (e.g. teaching Sunday School) but also introduced more individualism, fragmenting community identity and heightening women’s isolation from role- based support networks. · Some women seek to slow the pace of change and maintain community-based stability, while others accept greater individual autonomy. [PHOTO SOURCE: https://coryanderson.org/an-evangelical-reorientation-the-contribution-of-beachy-amish-mennonite-mothers/ BLOG: https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/10/amish-baby-boom-part-1-proverbs-about.html BLOG: https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/12/israels-baby-boom-2024-children-are-joy.html |
The Jewish state also has a sizeable Arab minority that makes up some 20 percent of the population. But with the exception of the semi-nomadic Bedouin, who tend to be poorer than other Arabs and have a birthrate of 5.5 children, the birthrate among other Arab families has been dropping as more have joined the middle class. Today the rate stands at 3.1 children per family, the same overall rate as Israeli Jews.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, meanwhile, even when it is on a low-intensity flame, still places Israel in the category of what experts call a “war society.”
Mix that with being a small country and, “We hear that if we don’t have enough citizens, we don’t have enough soldiers. And people are acting on those messages [whether] they are aware they are or not,” says Teman, referring to the Jewish sector.
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“We hear that if we don’t have enough citizens, we don’t have enough soldiers. And people are acting on those messages [whether] they are aware they are or not.” – Elly Teman [QUOTE SOURCE: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2018/1214/Israel-booms-with-babies-as-developed-world-s-birth-rates-plummet.-Here-s-why] [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCmJNuHRbe8&t=3s&pp=0gcJCX4JAYcqIYzv] |
The Israeli attitude toward children and families affects immigrants, as well, Teman says. She points to the example of the wave of immigrants who came to Israel from the former Soviet Union. Those who came as adults usually had one child. By contrast, those who came as teenagers and absorbed the societal message have – for the most part – gone on to have two to three children.
“There is pressure on people here, a message that the only way to be included in society is through having children,” says Teman.
There has also been a baby boom among members of Israel’s gay community, who, through having children, have found social acceptance that had eluded them before.
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You never soar so high as when you stoop down to help a child or an animal. – Jewish Proverb [PHOTO SOURCE: https://quotes.land/you-never-soar-so-high/] |
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ultra-Orthodox Jewish man carries his son [PHOTO SOURCE: https://medium.com/@drichakadizes/the-haredi-jews-and-their-offensive-behavior-aed5b722a400] BLOG: https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/10/amish-baby-boom-part-1-proverbs-about.html BLOG: https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/12/israels-baby-boom-2024-children-are-joy.html |
State support
In Israel women typically return to work after a paid 14-week maternity leave covered by the government. Those who opt to stay home longer have their jobs guaranteed for a year.
Still, in many European countries with low birthrates, there is comparatively even more state support for women and families who have children. That can make a real difference when the cost of living is high. And the cost of living in Israel, like its birthrate, is among the highest in the Western world.
But while elsewhere in the West, middle-class families might limit the number of children they have because of the cost of raising them, in Israel that rationale is heard less frequently.
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MAKE MEN MASCULINE AGAIN MAKE WOMEN FEMILINE AGAIN MAKE CHILDREN INNOCENT AGAIN The family that works together, eats together, and prays together, stays together. – Amish Proverb [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122242731656224894&set=a.122158739276224894] |
Ron Ganot, who was selling collapsible, lightweight wagons for children at the BabyLand event, says he and his wife are expecting their third child. Family is central to his life, he says, and he gets together every week with relatives.
“We definitely need more money, and we have rising expenses,” he says, “but I want a large family and the cost of living won’t stop us.”
In addition to receiving maternity leave and job protection, any Israeli woman of child-bearing age who is struggling to conceive, Arab or Jew, is eligible for nearly full state funding of in-vitro fertilization treatment (IVF) until she has two children. And despite its expense, there is hardly any criticism of this policy, says Dr. Birenbaum Carmeli, the Haifa University sociologist.
Some women have had as many as 25 attempts at IVF, and she says she came across two women in her research who had 37 attempts.
“When we ask women how many cycles are they willing to go through, their reply is the same: ‘As much as is takes,’” she says.
Conversely, she observes, the state does very little to encourage or facilitate adoption, which in most cases requires an international search.
“My own theory is that Israel cultivates this notion of a tribe, of bio-connectivity,” she says, to cement the Jewish people to their return to this, their ancient homeland. That’s why, she argues, “The whole issue of fertility and infertility is connected with nationalism.”
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A Traditional Orthodox Judaic Family With The Child On The Mea Shearin Street In Jerusalem, Israel [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.niussp.org/fertility-and-reproduction/fertility-and-nuptiality-of-ultra-orthodox-jews-in-the-united-states/] |
Counter arguments?
Alon Tal, a professor of public policy at Tel Aviv University, has been among the lone voices in Israel sounding a warning about Israel’s exponential population growth, which he says has already made it the most crowded country in the developed world.
“We have a narrative that has not told people of the terrible end results,” he says. He cites the state’s own estimates that in just over 20 years there may be five million more citizens living here, with all that implies for rising housing prices, ballooning traffic, jobs, mounting greenhouse emissions, and the education system.
Dr. Tal, author of the book, “The Land is Full: Addressing Overpopulation in Israel,” calls for an end to government subsidies provided to families with children, including preferential rights for public housing and child allowances.
Most importantly, he adds; “Empower women, empower women. All the rest is commentary.”
Dr. Donath, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, is the author of a book “Regretting Motherhood,” which has now been translated into 11 languages and was based on her research on Israeli Jewish women. Her findings, she says, reflect the voice of backlash, among a small number of women, against societal pressure that assumes all women want to be mothers.
“They saw it (motherhood) as a heavy responsibility, a loss of time, their private lives. Even though all of them said they loved their children, they also said they hated being mothers,” says Donath of the women she interviewed for the book.
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The Hebrew phrase for "children are a joy" is "ילדים הם שמחה" (yeldim hem simcha). "ילדים" (yeldim) means "children", and "שמחה" (simcha) means "joy" or "gladness". [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=482615823868698&set=a.458414572955490] https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2025/02/grand-friends-program-are-awesome.html |
At the BabyLand event, Galia Sharabi, a teacher and Orthodox Jewish mother of five, says having children was a priority. Pushing her stroller through the exhibits, she says she does not see family size as a decision to be determined by economics or population trends.
“A family brings happiness,” she says.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2018/1214/Israel-booms-with-babies-as-developed-world-s-birth-rates-plummet.-Here-s-why
Having kids to enhance the people of Israel - vpro Metropolis 2014
238K subscribers
VPRO is a Dutch public broadcast service.
226,359 views Oct 3, 2014
The Israelian Etiya has no less than 9 children. And that’s of great importance. Because the more children, the better, according to the mother: ‘ Every child is a Mitzva. Every extra child makes the people of Israel bigger.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYUQ7K_-Dss
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The Israelian Etiya has no less than 9 children. And that’s of great importance. Because the more children, the better, according to the mother: ‘ Every child is a Mitzva. Every extra child makes the people of Israel bigger.’ [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYUQ7K_-Dss] https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/12/israels-baby-boom-2024-children-are-joy.html |
What can we learn from Israel’s exceptional fertility?
Daniel Kane
September 19, 2024 5 Mins Read
Among Israeli parents, there is a popular lullaby drawn from the words of Jacob’s blessing to his sons, Ephraim and Menasseh, in the Book of Genesis. In translation, its words are:
The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the youth.Through them, may my name be remembered, And the names of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, And may they be a teeming multitude within the Land.
Since our first child, Chana, was born eight months ago in Jerusalem, I’ve had the pleasure of hearing my wife sing these words almost every night as we put our daughter to bed. (Because my wife grew up in Israel and I only immigrated from the United States three years ago, I generally leave the Hebrew singing to her). The melody of the lullaby is gentle but powerful, and as I listen, I am often reminded of the quietly miraculous character of our new, often exhausting lives as parents: we are participating in the realisation of Jacob’s ancient blessing.
And we are hardly alone. As countless political scientists, economists, and sociologists have pointed out, Israel is unusually fecund. Even as birthrates in every other developed country have plummeted to well below replacement levels in recent decades, Israel’s population growth has remained remarkably robust.
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Ultra-Orthodox men dance with their children during a special celebration marking the end of Hanukkah, in Meron, northern Israel, on January 2, 2025. (David Cohen/Flash90) [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.timesofisrael.com/haredi-mens-employment-growth-stalls-income-gap-with-mainstream-israel-widens-study/] https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/12/israels-baby-boom-2024-children-are-joy.html |
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“A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them a fortune.” ~ Amish Proverb [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1150556350406655&set=a.538291671633129] https://www.anotherlifeispossible.com/ https://www.amishfurniturefactory.com/amishblog/the-ordnung-and-its-importance-to-the-amish-2/ https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/11/plain-people-and-mutual-aid-why-we-live.html https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/12/israels-baby-boom-2024-children-are-joy.html |
Currently, Israel is the only OECD country with a naturally growing population. Its birthrate — which, since 1980, has consistently hovered around three births per woman — is roughly double the still-declining OECD average and exceeds that of nearly every country outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Though demographers might not use the phrase, the Jews certainly have become “a teeming multitude within the Land.”
Beyond the data, the abundance of children is one of the most striking features of modern Israeli society. For better and for worse, there are unattended children everywhere here: running through the streets, singing together on buses, and rioting through any store that dares to sell toys or candy. This presence undoubtedly contributes to the prevailing sense of total chaos that reigns over every Israeli park and mall, but it is also, I suspect, the reason for the undeniable feeling of vibrancy that characterises Israeli society in general.
With birthrates continuing to fall around the world, this vitality only stands out more and more. Faced with unprecedented population declines, rapidly aging societies, and looming public pension crises, panicked policymakers are increasingly looking to Israel for solutions. “What,” they wonder, “makes Israel different?”
As someone who has watched friends and family members become parents in both the US and Israel, and has himself recently become a parent, I think I might be able to point to three features of Israeli life that foster our booming birth rate.
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An ultra-Orthodox family celebrating Purim in Jerusalem, 2012. [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.britannica.com/topic/ultra-Orthodox-Judaism] |
Family-friendly public policy
The easiest place to look for explanations of Israel’s unusually healthy birth rates is public policy. Certainly, for an American like me, this is where the differences between Israel and the US are most immediately clear.
The first major benefit expecting Israeli parents can rely on comes in the form of taxpayer-funded healthcare. By law, all Israelis are required to join one of four heavily subsidised national insurance groups, which are prohibited from denying coverage to anyone because of pre-existing conditions. As a result, almost no expectant mothers in Israel begin their pregnancies without full coverage of all the associated medical costs.
In fact, when it came to the delivery itself, my wife and I actually made money. This is because of an Israeli policy that provides every family the equivalent of about $600 upon the arrival of their first child. The only time finances were discussed during our forty-eight hours in the hospital was when an orderly asked us for the details of the bank account into which we would like to have that money deposited. In contrast, according to a 2020 report from the Health Care Cost Institute, the average delivery in America costs families just under $2,000 in out-of-pocket expenses.
Israel’s generous maternity leave laws offer even more substantial support. After giving birth, Israeli mothers are universally entitled to fifteen weeks of paid leave. Taxpayers, rather than employers, are responsible for providing this payment, which is helpfully delivered to parents as one lump sum in the days after their child is born. Israeli mothers are further entitled to an additional period of unpaid leave equal to one-fourth of the total length of their employment (up to a maximum of one year of total time off).
American federal law, in contrast, guarantees only twelve weeks of unpaid leave for mothers. Though state laws vary, and employer-sponsored leave has become more common in recent years, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that only 27 percent of American workers are currently eligible for any amount of paid family leave.
Finally, and most significantly, the Israeli government supports families through direct financial aid. This aid comes, first, in the form of tax breaks of between the equivalent of $1,650 (for children over age five) and $3,700 (for toddlers) per child per year. In addition, the government provides a universal monthly “child allowance” to families based on their number of children.
Under this policy, the equivalent of roughly $50 is automatically deposited into each family’s bank account per month for the first eighteen years of their first child’s life. About $60 per month is added for second, third, and fourth children, while the figure falls back to $50 for fifth and subsequent births. Through this program, and in addition to the money saved through tax relief, an Israeli couple with four kids can expect to collect about $49,500 from the state over the course of their children’s infancy and adolescence.
In my conversations on the topic with young American couples, what stands out to me most is the amount of planning that, by necessity, goes into their decisions about whether and when to have children. Everything, it seems, must be in perfect order — in terms of employment, benefits, housing, savings, etc. — before they feel confident “taking the jump.” I’ve even heard of would-be American parents actively avoiding summer or fall pregnancies so as to save themselves the cost of two years’ worth of health insurance deductibles.
All of this, to my Israeli friends and family, sounds like madness. Though, of course, Israeli family policy does not and could not eliminate all the financial risks of starting or growing a family, it does meaningfully mitigate them. Compared to the US, parenthood in Israel is simply less financially onerous, less financially risky, and is ultimately, for those reasons, more enticing.
But before pro-natalist readers get too excited, it is worth noting that the existing evidence suggests that public policy alone is insufficient to ensure natural population growth. Over the last several decades, many nations have tried to promote childbearing by replicating Israeli levels of financial support for families, and none has succeeded. In fact, spending on family benefits in most OECD countries exceeds that of Israel (as a percentage of GDP) without having prevented those nations’ downward fertility spirals.
There are, it should be noted, a few important exceptions to that trend: Hungary, Sweden, and France, for example, have all meaningfully increased their national birthrates through aggressive and expensive pro-family policies. Nevertheless, to date, no amount of government spending anywhere in the world has successfully restored sub-replacement birthrates to replacement levels.
Thus, while Israel’s pro-family policies probably positively influence Israel’s exceptional birthrate, there is good reason to think that public policy is merely one among a constellation of even more significant factors that encourage Israeli couples to have children.
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An Ultra-orthodox Jewish woman holds a chicken over her daughter's head during the Kaparot ceremony in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, August 16, 2010. Kaparot is a Jewish ritual performed before Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, that is suppose to transfer the sins of the past year to the chicken. Yom Kippur begins at sunset on Friday. UPI/Debbie Hill |
Culture and religion
That brings us to our second factor: when comparing fertility rates between different cultures, one of the most important variables to consider is religiosity. Throughout the Western world, higher levels of religiosity are strongly correlated with pro-family attitudes and larger family sizes, and in this regard, Israel is no exception. Jewish Israelis who describe themselves as either “religious” or “Ultra-Orthodox”, and who together make up just under 25 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, have birthrates significantly higher than the rest of the population.
According to the Jerusalem-based Taub Center for Social Policy Studies, the total fertility rate (TFR) for these two groups currently stands at 3.77 and 6.38 births per woman respectively compared to an overall Jewish-Israeli TFR of 3.03.
Anyone who knows anything about the Jewish religious tradition will not be surprised by this difference. The first of God’s commandments in the Hebrew Bible is to “be fruitful and multiply,” which rabbinic sages have long maintained obligates every Jew to have at least one son and one daughter. Even beyond that legal minimum, the traditional Jewish attitude toward children is that they are fundamentally good.
“He did not create the world in vain,” the prophet Isaiah tells us, “but created it in order that it would be inhabited.” In contrast to Christianity, there is no Jewish tradition of celibacy or monasticism; home and family life are the universally mandated avenues for the expression of piety and devotional sacrifice.
What makes Israeli fertility truly remarkable among developed nations, however, is the fact that elevated fertility rates are not limited to its devout religious minority. According to the Taub Center’s data, the overall TFR among the more than 75 percent of Jewish Israelis who do not identify as either “religious” or “Ultra-Orthodox” currently rests above the minimum level required for population stability. In other words, even if you excluded its Orthodox Jewish population, the Jewish-Israeli birthrate would still be substantially higher than the overall birthrates of the US, Canada, or any country in Europe.
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Anna Stoltzfus, left, talks with her husband, Matthew Stolzfus, in front of a portrait of the late Lubavitcher Rabbi Menachem Schneerson while taking a tour with John Lapp, center, his son, Jonathon, 6, and wife, Priscilla, at a museum Tuesday in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. The city's ultra-Orthodox Jews took a group of Pennsylvania Amish on a walking tour of their world Tuesday. The Amish shown in these images agreed to be photographed, according to the Associated Press. (Julie Jacobson / Associated Press) Julie Jacobson [PHOTO SOURCE: https://lancasteronline.com/news/nyc-orthodox-jews-give-amish-a-tour/image_633432d5-45f2-52b2-913b-465624f159ec.html] |
Given this remarkable fertility across Israel’s religious spectrum, it is tempting to conclude that religion is playing only a marginal role in fueling the country’s fertility. But that, I believe, would be a mistake. This is because, as Israeli scholar and historian Ofir Haivry recently explained in Mosaic, religion plays a much larger role in Israeli society and culture than Israelis’ self-reported levels of religiosity would suggest:
[I]n Israel the vast majority of the population, including most “secular” Jews, observe numerous religious practices, which in turn shape their values and family lives. Upwards of 90 percent of Israeli Jews attend Passover seders ... and circumcise their sons. ... About 30 percent of “secular” Jews in Israel keep kosher homes, about 50 percent regularly light Hanukkah candles, and the same proportion testify to lighting Sabbath candles occasionally or even regularly. (Compared to about two-thirds of Jewish Israelis overall.) Thus, ironically, many more “secular” Israelis engage more regularly in religious practices than their “religious” European or American counterparts.
In my own experience as an immigrant to Israel, the ubiquity of such religious traditionalism is one of the most puzzling features of life in the supposedly hyper-modern “start-up nation.” Even among my Israeli friends and acquaintances who do not aspire to anything close to full religious observance, it is not remotely uncommon to hear them express genuine affection, respect, and even reverence for religious Jewish values and rituals — both of which powerfully and regularly orient them toward the participation in and celebration of family life.
The most striking example of this phenomenon is Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath, which lasts from sunset every Friday until nightfall the following day. Traditionally, Shabbat is a day of rest and prayer, a commemoration of God’s rest on the seventh day of creation and his eternal sovereignty over all he created. But even among religious Jews, the locus of Shabbat observance is as much the home as the synagogue: it is a day without work, without TV and internet, when families gather, bless their children, and spend undistracted time singing, eating, and talking together.
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Father & sons. [PHOTO SOURE: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1088288759999966&set=a.613847060777474] BLOG: https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/10/amish-baby-boom-part-1-proverbs-about.html BLOG: https://blackforestproject421.blogspot.com/2024/12/israels-baby-boom-2024-children-are-joy.html |
Astoundingly, more than 70 percent of Israeli Jews report celebrating Shabbat with a Friday evening meal each week. Most include at least one element of traditional religious observance as part of the meal: the parents’ blessing of the children, the mothers’ lighting of the “Shabbat candles”, or the fathers’ blessing over the wine. Just as importantly, the general expectation is that unmarried adult children return home for Shabbat to be with their parents and siblings. As my American-born in-laws like to say, “Every week is Thanksgiving in Israel.”
In this respect, and despite the secularism they so often proudly profess, Jewish Israelis’ religious behaviour is more similar to that of the Mormons than that of any other religious group in the Western world. Like Jewish Israelis, religious Mormons dedicate one evening a week to undistracted family time. They refer to this ritual, which is usually observed on Monday nights, as “Family Home Evening.” Notably, as with Israeli Jews, this regularly observed celebration of the family life is associated with larger family sizes: In 2021, the TFR among American Mormons was 2.8 births per woman, almost as high as the Jewish-Israeli TFR and far exceeding the overall American TFR of 1.63.
Because so much of the Jewish population remains rooted in an intensely pro-family religious tradition, family figures prominently in Israeli society. Family life is not just a priority here, but something closer to an assumption — one that, like romance, is baked into the culture as an expected, essential, and, at least potentially wonderful part of life. To a degree that simply did not exist in the America I grew up in, family is the celebrated and, literally, regularly sanctified institution around which the rest of Israeli culture revolves.
On one hand, then, the solution to falling birthrates appears straightforward: embrace religious traditionalism! If other nations want to restore their birth rates, they should follow Israel’s lead in recommitting to rituals and ways of life that prioritise, preserve, and strengthen the family as the central institution in society — ideally through religious observance.
And yet, in many ways, the example of Israeli pro-family traditionalism raises more questions than it answers. Why, for example, does Israeli-Jewish religious behaviour resemble that of American Mormons despite Israeli Jews reporting levels of secularism higher than what one finds in America? What does such religious traditionalism even mean in the absence of orthodox belief, and how is it sustained? What, in other words, has allowed Israel to retain its traditional, religiously inflected, pro-family culture while also embracing the modernism that has eroded similar cultures in most of the developed world?
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What does 1 Samuel 2:21 mean? "And the LORD visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters. And the child Samuel grew before the LORD." - 1 Samuel 2:21 The verse 1 Samuel 2:21 in the King James Version of the Bible states, "And the Lord visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters. And the child Samuel grew before the Lord." This verse comes from a larger passage that tells the story of Hannah, a woman who was barren and greatly distressed because she was unable to conceive a child. She prayed fervently to the Lord, and her prayers were answered when she gave birth to a son, Samuel. The context of this verse is set in the time of the Judges, a tumultuous period in Israel's history. Hannah's story takes place in the town of Ramathaim-Zophim, where she is one of two wives of a man named Elkanah. The other wife, Peninnah, had children, which caused Hannah great anguish. However, despite her pain and longing for a child, she continued to pray to the Lord and express her faithfulness. In this verse, we see the fulfillment of the Lord's promise to Hannah. After years of anguish and prayer, the Lord "visited" her, which can be understood as God showing favor and granting her the desires of her heart. This visitation resulted in Hannah conceiving and bearing five children, three sons, and two daughters. This demonstrates the abundant blessings that the Lord can bestow upon those who are faithful and seek Him with all their hearts. The verse also highlights the growth of Samuel, who would go on to become a significant figure in Israel's history. It is noteworthy that the child Samuel is described as growing "before the Lord." This suggests that he was being raised in a manner that was pleasing to God, and that he was being prepared for a special purpose in the service of the Lord. The themes present in 1 Samuel 2:21 include the faithfulness of God, the power of prayer, and the fulfillment of promises. Hannah's story is a testament to the fact that God hears the cries of His people and is able to intervene in their lives in miraculous ways. It also emphasizes the importance of remaining faithful and steadfast, even in the face of great hardship and despair. Symbolically, Hannah's story can be seen as a representation of the hope and restoration that God can bring into the lives of those who trust in Him. The fact that Hannah's barrenness was reversed and that she was blessed with five children serves as a powerful symbol of God's ability to bring new life and abundance where there was once emptiness and lack. Furthermore, the birth of Samuel holds great significance as he becomes a powerful prophet, priest, and judge in Israel, playing a crucial role in the transition from the period of the Judges to the establishment of the monarchy under King Saul and King David. As such, Samuel's growth "before the Lord" can be seen as a symbol of his dedication and commitment to serving God, as well as the divine guidance and protection that he would receive throughout his life. In conclusion, 1 Samuel 2:21 is a verse that holds deep meaning and significance within the larger narrative of the Bible. It serves as a powerful testament to the faithfulness of God, the transformative power of prayer, and the fulfillment of His promises. The story of Hannah and Samuel continues to inspire and encourage believers to trust in God's timing and to remain steadfast in their faith, knowing that He is able to bring new life and blessings beyond measure. [PHOTO SOURCE: https://bible.art/meaning/1-samuel-2%3A21] |
Nationalism, memory, and continuity
To make sense of Israel’s puzzling blend of secularism and religious traditionalism, we should turn our attention to another widely observed Jewish ritual: the Passover Seder. Passover is the annual week-long celebration of the Exodus from Egypt, when God took the Jewish people into the wilderness and formed a covenant with them at Mount Sinai. It is also one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays in Israel. Each year, surveys tell us, between 93 and 97 percent of Jewish Israelis gather with their families on the first night of Passover and celebrate the Seder, a festive meal during which we recount the story of our redemption from slavery.
Traditionally, the Seder is regarded as a fulfilment of the commandment described in the Book of Exodus: “And you shall tell [the story of the Exodus] to your son on that day.” Yet, the Seder is as much a reliving of the events of that story as it is a retelling, featuring a wide array of rituals, foods, and songs designed to capture and recreate the experiences of the Jewish people’s deliverance from bondage.
“In every generation,” we read during the Seder, “a person must regard himself as though he personally had gone out of Egypt, as it said [in the Bible]: ‘And you shall tell your son on that day, saying: This is because of what God did for me when I came out of Egypt.”
The example of the Seder matters, first of all, because it points to the intense blurring of the lines between religious and national identity in the Jewish tradition. As the story we tell during the Seder makes clear, the Jews are both a people — the actual descendants of real, shared ancestors — and a nation defined by our covenant with God. One consequence of this uncommon self-conception is that orthodox belief is not a prerequisite to living a committed, traditional Jewish life. Unlike in, for instance, Mormonism, it is possible to be deeply devoted to Jewish tradition and ritual on purely secular grounds.
Though, in practice, I suspect very few Jewish Israelis are really committed to the Jewish tradition on purely secular grounds, the availability of nationalism as an alternative source for traditionalist commitment goes a long way to explaining the exceptional robustness of “secular” Israel’s deeply traditional, religiously rooted, family-oriented culture.
In addition to nourishing Israel’s pro-family traditionalism, such nationalism strengthens pro-natalist impulses in a more abstract but even more important way: it creates a shared sense of identity across time. In this regard as well, the Seder is arguably the most powerful example of what this looks and feels like in practice.
The first time a young child hears his father explain the Seder as a celebration of “what God did for me when I came out of Egypt,” he probably accepts the statement at face value. When he gets older, he will probably object. He now knows it cannot be literally true. But there is a powerful moment in the life of every Jewish child when, upon hearing it, he stops trying to imagine his father leaving Egypt and starts imagining him as a child, listening to his own father make the same puzzling claim.
Each generation that came before him, he realises, was taught what his father is teaching him now. Each one made the conscious decision to preserve that teaching, to identify with his forefathers, and to repeat the story to his own children. In this way, the Seder teaches him not only to recall and identify with his most ancient ancestors, but with the countless intervening generations of fathers and sons in whose footsteps he is now walking.
Among many other similarly oriented Jewish rituals, the Seder both powerfully reflects and reinforces an awareness that to be Jewish is to be the inheritor of an intergenerational project — a national story that precedes each one of us by centuries and will outlive us by many more. And the pervasiveness of this self-understanding among Jewish Israelis is, I believe, among the least discussed and most important drivers of Israel’s exceptional fertility.
Because their individual identities are deeply rooted in a transtemporal sense of national belonging, Jewish Israelis feel remarkably connected to their collective past and invested in their shared future. Though, I’m sure, very few have read any Edmund Burke, they broadly and instinctively share his understanding of the nation as “a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born.”
While it’s admittedly difficult, if not impossible, to measure its influence, my own experience suggests that this aspect of Jewish Israeli identity has an enormous impact on attitudes toward childbearing here. In my conversations with Israelis on the subject, they do not speak of having children as merely a lifestyle choice or a question of personal preference.
Though such considerations obviously play a major role in their thinking, there is also an unmistakable sense that having children is about something bigger than each of them individually. The choice to have children is an affirmation of the national story they have collectively inherited and spent much of their lives celebrating. In this way, shared memory leads to shared identity across time and produces, in turn, genuine excitement about and investment in the future — an excitement and investment expressed, concretely, in the decision to have children.
In some sense, then, the secret to Israel’s remarkable fertility may ultimately lie in the Biblical blessing with which this essay began. For in his blessing to his sons and their future descendants, Jacob begins with their ancestors and heritage. “Through them,” he says of Ephraim and Manasseh, “may my name and the names of my fathers be remembered.” Only then does he proceed to offer his blessing that they might become “a teeming multitude within the Land.”
Though, at first glance, the two sections of the blessing seem unrelated, my own experience of modern Israel suggests that Jacob’s preface is indispensable: the enduring source of the Children of Israel’s exceptional, future-oriented natalism is their intense, equally exceptional rootedness in their shared past.
Do you think Israel's demographic success can be replicated elsewhere? Comment below.
Daniel Kane is the associate director of curriculum development at the Lobel Center for Jewish Classical Education.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.mercatornet.com/israel_exceptional_fertility
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11 And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.” – I Samuel 1:11 (ESV) [PHOTO SOURCE: https://images.app.goo.gl/zX5j8Rx4WWTq2WJE9] |
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Hundreds of Amish Pick Up & “Walk” A Barn (21
Images & Video) ~ Geauga County, Ohio. Image: Joe Brilla Jr./YT [PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1086697646825744&set=a.613847060777474] |
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