Jewish Continuity and Destiny: It’s Not Just About You

The widely documented and sad phenomenon of plummeting birth rates among non-Orthodox Jews has given rise to a range of responses. Some seek to reverse this phenomenon. Others see no particular reason for alarm. Mijal Bitton's article explores the potential tension between prioritizing Jewish continuity and disenfranchising women, who after all bear a disproportionate burden of childbearing and even childrearing, especially in a child's early years. This is compounded by a secondary concern: the well-known advocates for "pro-natalism" in the liberal Jewish world are usually men, some of whom have been accused of inappropriate conduct towards women. Bitton capably resolves this latter issue. As she points out, every field has its bad actors and this alone is no reason to discredit all of their ideals and values, which in this case are incidentally shared by the majority of Jewish women themselves.