RESEARCH
AREAS OF RESEARCH
Nurit Kirsh & Yael Hashiloni-Dolev
Abstract
Until recently, in rabbinic discourse as well as Israeli state policy, Jewish identity was not reckoned via genetics. While academic studies looked for genetic similarities among Jewish communities, these similarities did not determine Jewishness or state policy. This article is the first study spotlighting the novel use of mtDNA testing in order to determine the Jewishness of Israeli citizens who immigrated to Israel from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) 1990 onward. These tests offered by the Israeli State Rabbinate are accompanied by heated political and religious wrangles, in particular between leaders of the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and the political party claiming to represent immigrants from the FSU. We aim to understand this current debate on determining Jewishness by mtDNA. We examine the reciprocal relationship between science, religion, communal identity and state policy, and question the possible social implications. In contrast to claims that the change in Jewish’ definition is guided by science and technology, we argue that this change is dictated primarily by specific historical and socio-political circumstances. Furthermore, enthusiasm or rejection of the use of mtDNA for Jewish recognition depends on inclusive or exclusive ideologies, not on the indecisive content of science or religion themselves.
Yael Hashiloni-Dolev, Zvi Triger
Abstract
Parents in various countries have contemplated having grandchildren from their deceased sons’ sperm; however, posthumous grandparenthood (PHG) has been permitted as a matter of policy only in Israel, leading to a significant body of litigation. Using document analysis of all published court cases involving PHG in Israel, this article is the first to explore this turbulent sociolegal debate, framing the rulings within family theory. In this context, we introduce a new notion, the ‘extended family of choice,’ created by parents after the death of a son in order to have grandchildren. We argue that PHG disrupts existing theoretical notions of the family, which are based largely on three continuums: traditional/postmodern; collective/individual; and nuclear/extended. Our findings demonstrate that Israeli courts have permitted parents to be extremely proactive and creative in pursuing PHG, the only limitations being an objection by the surviving partner, or the absence of one living biological parent.
Yael Hashiloni-Dolev, Tamar Nov-Klaiman, Aviad Raz
Abstract
Objectives
We delineate in this article a shift from the “traditional” technologies of karyotyping in PND to the current phase of advanced genetic technologies including noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA), and whole-exome sequencing (WES) with their higher detection rate and related abundance of uncertain data.
Methods
Conceptual analysis based on seminal works that shaped the socioethical discourse surrounding the experiences of parents as well as professionals with prenatal diagnosis in the last 30 years.
Results
We consider the implications of this new era of PND for patients and health professionals by drawing on previous studies documenting how probability and uncertainty affect informed consent/choice, health risks communication, customer satisfaction and decision making, and parent-child bonding.
Conclusions
We argue that these changes move us beyond the idioms and realities of the tentative pregnancy and moral pioneering, to uncertainty, probability-based counseling, and moral/translational gambling. We conclude by discussing what is needed to maintain hope in the era of Pandora's pregnancy.
https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pd.5495
Natural Grief: Novelty, Tradition and Naturalization in Israeli Discourse on Posthumous Reproduction
Ori Katz, Yael Hashiloni-Dolev
Abstract
This article examines Israeli discourse on posthumous reproduction (PR) and the related cultural construction of “(un)natural” grief. Based mainly on an analysis of in-depth interviews with family members who submitted a request for PR, we examine the regimes of justification used by supporters and opponents of this technology. With both sides using the notion of “nature” to support their claim, the dispute centers on whether PR constructs a new social expression of grief (and hence should be seen as unnatural) or is only a reflection of an age-old grieving process (and is thus natural). We argue that by employing a twofold, novel/traditional justification, PR supporters aim to go one step further, from a symbolic continuity of the dead to a so-called real one. This progression highlights the flexibility of the natural category at the intersection of technology and culture and the abandonment of such binary distinctions as life/death and nature/culture.
Yael Hashiloni-Dolev Amit Kaplan Caroline A.W.Rasmussen Charlotte Kroløkke
Abstract
Research question
What do Danish and Israeli students of both sexes know about age in relation to fertility and gamete preservation, and what are their concerns and intentions for the future in this regard?
Design
A cross-sectional comparative study of male and female Danish and Israeli students was conducted between November 2018 and April 2019. A total of 1010 students, 508 from Denmark and 502 from Israel, completed questionnaires assessing knowledge, perceptions and intentions regarding gamete preservation.
Results
More than 70% of both genders in Israel thought that women start experiencing fertility decline at age 35 and up. A total of 60% of Danish women and 51% of Danish men chose 29–34 as the time where fertility decline starts. Some 95% of Danish students chose 20–29 as the best age for egg freezing, while the corresponding number in Israel was 85%, regardless of gender. In total, 51% of Israeli women said they are extremely or very worried about future infertility, compared with 31% of Danish women, 26% of Israeli men and 12% of Danish men. Regarding preservation intentions, no gender differences were found. Some 3% of Israeli students said they would consider gamete preservation, as compared with 14% of Danish students.
Conclusions
These findings suggest a widespread worry among Danish and Israeli women about their future fertility. Danish students report more awareness of age-related fertility decline. Unique to this study is the inclusion of male students. The preliminary findings reveal that men are less worried about their reproductive future.
In Bioethics in Israel: Socio-Legal, Political and Empirical Analysis, edited by Boas, H., Hashiloni-Dolev, Y., Davidovitch, N., Filc, D. and Lavi, S. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Hashiloni-Dolev, Yael
Chapter Summary
Despite a common technological background, there is great diversity regarding the regulation and use of new reproductive technologies around the world. In this chapter, I have demonstrated how Israeli society localizes challenges posed by ART in the context of its family ideology. My thesis is that, in addition to other theories that have aimed to explain Israeli exceptionalismin this area, another important factor is the study of how the individual and the family are viewed in Israeli Jewish culture, and consequently, how ART is regulated by the state and its policies. I suggest that observing the fields of prenatal diagnosis, posthumous reproduction (including posthumous grandparenthood), and preimplantation genetic diagnosis for sibling donation in Israel yields an additional perspective, which is centered on the belief systems regarding family ties and obligations that underlie Israel’s reproductive policies. My argument is that the Israeli family has not fully experienced the process of modernization and individualization, since it is ideologically more closely knit than the typical/ideal Western family. In all three case studies, I have shown that the fetus, the sibling donor, and the deceased sperm donor are enmeshed with their families in such a way that they are expected to fulfill the wishes or interests of the families, and that their possible individual interests are overlooked. The imagined will of the not-yet-born, or the already-dead, is understood as matching current family wishes and needs; thus obligations between generations and siblings outweigh individual interests as well as the wishes of married/chosen partners. This reduced emphasis on individual autonomy lies at the heart of Israel’s comparatively permissive reproductive policies, which embody a mixture of tradition and modernity. Yet Israeli modernism is ultimately not identical to that of Western liberal societies due to the country’s particular family ideology. Bioethical reasoning in Israel and elsewhere should therefore be understood in light of the family ideology that shapes its assumptions, no less than its philosophical heritage, religious traditions, and political legacy.