KAMPEN FOR OVERLEVELSE: Demografisk bevidsthed og forestillinger om forbundethed i den israelsk-jødiske

Resumé

To “be fruitful and multiply” is an imperative in Jewish law. Procreation has, therefore,

a central place in Jewish religion and Jewish life. Since the state’s founding in 1948

the Israeli government has conducted a pronatalist policy to increase the Jewish

population by encouraging Jewish childbirth and immigration to Israel. The country

leads the world with the number of fertility clinics per capita, and treatments are heavily

subsidized by the national health insurance. The explanation that is given for the scale

of fertility clinics and the progressive fertility legislation national rests on the fear of

losing the Jewish majority. The article problematizes this argument by exploring how

demographic consciousness in Israel not only includes knowledge of the country’s

demographic composition, but also collective memory of hardship, struggle and of

origin. These issues answer the question as to who can be included in the national

family. Central to demographic consciousness is kinship and gender, nationhood,

Jewishness and citizenship. These notions of relatedness are made explicit and mobilized

differently in changing situations of fertility treatments. The goal of the article is to

show that insight into demographic consciousness is necessary to elucidate the complex

context of fertility treatments in Israel.