Reproductive Technologies and Observant Judaism

Research Abstract

(ISF grant)

The main objective of my research was to explore reproductive politics in religious communities in Israel and its repercussions beyond observant Judaism by examining the case study of PUAH. This is a Jerusalem-based institute for ‘Fertility and Medicine according to Halacha’ that offers halachic consultation to religiously observant Jewish couples undergoing fertility treatments, and on a range of dilemmas pertaining to reproduction and reproductive technologies more broadly.

PUAH employs two systems of authoritative knowledge: biomedicine and rabbinic law. I was interested in finding out what kind of hierarchies are created between the system of halachic expertise and biomedical knowledge when rabbis engage in learning biomedicine and when fertility experts engage in learning Rabbinic laws.

I was also interested in how religious couples that seek PUAH's services position biomedicine and Rabbinic law in relation to each other, and to examine the ways women navigate between biomedical and Rabbinic authorities to achieve their pragmatic goals

My ethnography revealed that rabbis' involvement in fertility care introduces not only belief systems or halachic restrictions into clinical practice. Rabbinic interventions transform the dyadic doctor–patient relations into triadic rabbi–doctor–patient relations and introduce a network of power relations into clinical practice, at times empowering and at times disempowering patients. These interventions give rise to a local mode of medical care that I call “kosher medicine” with differential consequences for patients’ agency and health. The koshering of medical care goes hand in hand with a medicalization of rabbinic law (halacha)—a growing tendency to think of medical interventions as imperative for observing God’s commandments.

The PUAH institute marks a new form of rabbinic authority that relies on expertise in disciplinary domains beyond halacha and is trans-sectarian in its reach. It thrives on the democratization of access to expert knowledge (both medical and halachic) as well as the privatization of reproductive responsibilities and the moral lacunas in biomedical authority. PUAH's system of navigating halacha seems to widen the scope of religious Judaism's public visibility and relevance in Israel. Far from religion adapting to biomedical options, PUAH's is a case of biomedicine inspiring a new powerful form of religious leadership: one that offers to save people (lay and professional) from the excruciating moral quandaries of (reproductive) decision making.

Publications

• Ivry, T. (2010). Kosher medicine and medicalized halacha: An exploration of triadic relations among Israeli rabbis, doctors, and infertility patients. American Ethnologist, 37(4), 662-680.
• Ivry, T. (2013). Halachic infertility: rabbis, doctors, and the struggle over professional boundaries. Medical anthropology, 32(3), 208-226.
• Ivry, T. (2015). The Predicaments of Koshering Prenatal Diagnosis and the Rise of a New Rabbinic Leadership. Ethnologie française, 45(2), 281-292. PDF