Reproducing Jews - A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel

"Susan Kahn has given us a first class example of how contemporary ethnography can illuminate the cultural dimensions of the brave new world of new reproductive technologies. "Reproducing Jews" offers a very different way of conceiving of the relationship between technological change and social life. Sophisticated and well-written, it will be welcomed not only by scholars in a number of fields--anthropology, sociology, feminist studies, Jewish studies, medical anthropology, bioethics--but by those who are curious as to how science, religion, and the desire for children intersect within a particular context."--Faye Ginsburg, New York University

List of contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

1 "The time arrived but the father didn't": A New Continuum of Israeli Conception 9

2 Not Mamzers: The Legislation of Reproduction and the "Issue" of Unmarried Women 64

3 Jewish and Gentile Sperm: Rabbinic Discourse on Sperm and Paternal Relatedness 87

4 Eggs and Wombs: The Origins of jewishness 112

5 Multiple Mothers: Surrogacy and the Location of Maternity 140

6 Consequences for Kinship 159

Conclusion: Reproducing Jews and Beyond 172

Appendixes 176

Notes 197

Bibliography 217

Index 223

About the author

Susan Martha Kahn is Associate Director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law at Harvard Law School.

Product details

• Authors: Susan Martha Kahn
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 19.10.2000
• EAN: 9780822325987
• ISBN: 978-0-8223-2598-7
• No. of pages: 240
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 228 mm x 19 mm
• Weight: 395 g
• Series: Body, Commodity, Text: Studies; Body, Commodity, Text; Body, Commodity, Text: Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Judaism; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories