In Israel, personal status is regulated through religious law. This gives Orthodox rabbis the state-sanctioned power to define who is Jewish and to enable and recognize marriage. The impediments that religious law poses to same-sex couples and their children are serious: same-sex couples are excluded from marriage, and their children's religious status is at risk. In this article, I contrast these rabbinic exclusions with the ways that same-sex couples, both religious and non-religious, use Jewish traditions to establish social legitimacy and belonging for themselves and their children. Based on ethnographic findings, the article suggests that the Jewish ritual of circumcision for boys and childbirth celebrations for girls are moments in which relationships are reaffirmed. Even more so, the social networks displayed at these events and the participation of religious specialists (mohalim) performing the circumcision carry a clear message: these families are authentically a part of the Jewish-Israeli collective despite rabbinic opposition.
In the spring of 2013, I had the opportunity to accompany a group of Israeli gay couples to Mumbai to conduct ethnographic research on their experiences with transnational surrogacy. Based on this study, the article discusses their encounters with the Indian and Israeli bureaucracy establishing legal parenthood and citizenship to their children. The involved procedures seldom worked out smoothly, and brought about many moments of standstill. I suggest that these moments constituted crises of citizenship, in which the intended parents’ experiences clashed with their expectations towards the state and their place in the world. As both countries had no written policies with regards to transnational surrogacy, the protocols and requirements were in flux and left them with constant anxiety from the unknown and with the feeling that many of the requirements were arbitrary, even exploitative or spiteful. The very same moments also unveiled my interlocutors’ power, as agents and brokers—and at times even their social network back home—assisted them in the maze of bureaucracy and intervened on their behalf. Yet, their reliance on intermediators turned out to be a double-edged sword: The intended parents often felt that the middle men themselves were not engaged enough, overcharged them, or tricked them into additional payments. Vulnerability and privilege go here hand in hand, thus allowing for an understanding of intended parents that does not view them as either successful neoliberal citizens or vulnerable victims of the state.
In Israel, the Orthodox rabbinate has considerable influence on the legal definitions of marriage, parenthood and the Jewish collective in general. This article explores how same-sex couples, faced with rabbinic disapproval of their relationships and parenthood, assert the legitimacy of their families in Jewish Israeli society. While many lesbian women and gay men relate to Judaism as a tradition and national identity rather than as a religion, they do not reject religious practices and definitions altogether. I show through the prism of conversion practices and childbirth celebrations that – in close dialogue with their social environment – they carefully carve out a Judaism that embraces their children and families.
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