letter from Israel
rogate for same-sex couples. Then Israeli same-sex couples turned to Thailand, but a recently introduced Thai law automatically grants citizenship and full custody to the babies to their birth mothers, and any attempts to take a Thai baby out of the country can be construed as kidnapping. Although there is an Israeli consulate in Thailand, the Israeli government has been warning gay couples to avoid surrogacy in Thailand, given the inherently complicated diplomatic procedures there. While there have been a series of political issues of late for Israeli gay couples having surrogate children in Thailand, it’s still overwhelmingly acceptable for same-sex partners to have families in Israel; in fact, it’s expected. Irit Rozenblum, the founder of New Family, a leading family rights organization in Israel, commented that Israel is fairly advanced when it comes to rights for LGBT families. “Israeli society is particularly family-friendly, whatever the sex of the parents,” said Rozenblum. “One can even say that the perception toward gays is changing in their favor when they choose to grow and multiply.” Among gay couples, it’s common to use money set aside for mortgages in order to pay the tens, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars necessary to afford surrogate pregnancies, said Avi Rose, an informal Jewish educator in Jerusalem who, with his partner, has 2-year-old boy-and-girl twins born in India. And despite “changing the rules of the game,” said Rose, who has mostly positive things to say about the governmental intervention in their surrogacy experience, he finds that his kids sometimes
68
INSIDE SPRING & SUMMER 2014
call him “Ima,” the Hebrew word for Mommy, when they’re upset. “It’s such a mother culture here,” he said. At the same time, even here, in the “startup nation,” where most families include two working parents, it’s rare to come across a family where both parents don’t show up for their kids’ preschool birthday party (or the Rosh Hashanah/Chanukah/Shavuot celebration), and fathers pick up kids from school almost as regularly as do mothers. A Tel Aviv University study comparing family policy and public attitudes in Germany and Israel looked at other societal factors that have affected Israel’s family-friendly structure. There was the large 1950s immigration from traditional societies in North Africa, bringing their dominant family structure, religious observance and high fertility rates. While that population has clearly Westernized in the ensuing decades, their concept of extended family wrought a significant effect on Israeli society. So while most families may not eat dinner together every night of the week — the main meal of the day is often lunch, whether it’s the schnitzel and ptitim (known elsewhere as orzo) served at school, or rice and meat patties made at home by Mom or Grandma — they certainly gather every Friday night for Shabbat dinner, even if it’s a staunchly secular family that often includes not just parents and kids, but grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It’s also not surprising to find kids, even toddlers and preschoolers, accompanying Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa for an evening jaunt to the mall, the movies or a late-night snack at the local cafe. A friend and his family told of visiting a vegan bar in