Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel

by Susan Martha Kahn

Book Overview

There are more fertility clinics per capita in Israel than in any other country in the world and Israel has the world's highest per capita rate of in-vitro fertilization procedures. Fertility treatments are fully subsidized by Israeli national health insurance and are available to all Israelis, regardless of religion or marital status. These phenomena are not the result of unusually high rates of infertility in Israel but reflect the centrality of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822325985
• ISBN13: 9780822325987
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Superb, important book

This is an outstanding, fascinating book. It's no wonder it has won several awards. Anyone with an interest in fertility and infertility, Jewish culture and/or tradition, anthropology, and/or reproductive technologies should absolutely read it. Very well done, informative, provocative.

Enlightening

Great topic, well researched and well written. Sometimes funny. I learned a great deal about the details of the topic. Moreover, the book informs the political issues and climate of statehood for a fledgling nation at the most personal and intimate levels. I've read the other reader's review and can't imagine that the vituperative commentary is in any way suggested by the topic or the book itself. Perhaps a little New Haven vs. Cambridge rivalry. Hey, grow up! If you are a reader with an interest in how Jewish motherhood and Jewish statehood relate, read the book. If you are a kvetch, have some chicken soup and you'll feel better in the morning.

Passionate Scholarship and Fluent Writing

It's no wonder that this book won the National Jewish Book Award this year. Kahn zeroes in on a much neglected area -- the lives of women in Israel-- and a subject -- infertility policy -- of interest not only to medical anthropologists and other scholarly researchers but to interested would-be parents and their friends and families around the world. In exploring Israel's public policy on reproduction and the way Israeli women go about utilizing it, Kahn has written a fascinating, provocative, and rewarding book.

Wonderful!

This is a brilliant book, eloquent, incisive, original. It is just the sort of work to attract first rate minds like Jodi Foster's.