Israeli Jewish Women Research Articles

Health may be compromised by social interactions depending on culture among postpartum Arab and Jewish Israeli women

BackgroundSocial support is generally perceived to facilitate health in postpartum women; however, previous research shows that this is not always true. Social interactions intended to provide support can be perceived as negative and in turn, may have negative impacts on maternal health. The purpose of the present study was to asses if social support and negative interactions at one month after childbirth can predict maternal health four months after childbirth, and if this relationship is influenced by culture.MethodsThis prospective longitudinal cohort study included randomly selected Arab (n = 203) and Jewish (n = 202) women who attended Mother and Child Health Clinics in Northern Israel one month after giving birth. The women were interviewed at one and four months after childbirth using a questionnaire including measures of health (self-reported health (SRH) and health problems), socioeconomic and demographic status, obstetric characteristics, social support, negative social interactions and perceptions of customs and traditions intended to help the mother cope after childbirth. Multivariable regressions were run to identify the variables predicting health four months after childbirth.ResultsThe response rate for both interviews was 90%. Negative social interactions one month after childbirth significantly predicted health problems in Arab and Jewish women (Beta 0.20 and 0.37 respectively) and SRH among Arab women only (odds ratio (OR) 0.32, confidence interval (CI) 0.19–0.54) four months after childbirth. Social support at one month after childbirth significantly predicted better SRH in both Jewish and Arab women four months after childbirth (OR 2.33, CI 1.38–3.93 and 1.59, CI 1.01–2.46 respectively) and fewer health problems only among Jewish women (Beta − 0.37).ConclusionsSocial support and negative social interactions appear to be predictive of health in postpartum women. Associations varied between Arabs and Jews, indicating that social support may be more important for predicting health among Jewish women and negative interactions may be more important among Arab women. Healthcare practitioners should be aware of the cultural context and social circumstances of postpartum women to ensure they receive the social support and care they need.

Distress and anxiety associated with COVID-19 among Jewish and Arab pregnant women in Israel

ABSTRACT Introduction The fact that little is yet known about the possible implications of COVID-19 for pregnancy, puts pregnant women at greater risk of heightened anxiety and psychological distress. In this study, we sought to explore the psychological distress and COVID-19-related anxiety of pregnant women during the crisis. Methods Israeli Jewish and Arab pregnant women (n = 336) aged 20–47 completed a set of questionnaires during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Results The levels of all COVID-19-related anxieties were quite high (much or very much), with the highest regarding public places and transportation (87.5%, 70%, respectively), followed by concerns over the possible infection of other family members and the health of the foetus (71.7%, 70%, respectively), going for pregnancy check-ups (68.7%,), being infected themselves, and the delivery (59.2%, 55.4%, respectively). Although COVID-19-related anxieties were shared by pregnant women characterised by diverse sociodemographic variables, with very small nuances, Arab women were more anxious about each of the issues than Jewish women. Discussion Our findings highlight the importance of assessing anxiety and distress in pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the need to be attentive to the double stress of pregnant women in times of crisis and to the potential vulnerability of subgroups, such as cultural minorities.

Keeping mum: The mediation of military conflict in the everyday mothering of middle-class Israeli Palestinian and Jewish women

The article examines how Israeli Palestinian and Jewish middle-class mothers mediate military conflict to young children, through silence and talk. This mediation is underpinned by dissonance between the mandate to protect children from the adult world and to ready them for it, and between the idea of children as individuals and conflict as collective engagement. The article explores the discourses and practices used for managing this twofold dissonance, including differences in the privilege of silence for Palestinian and Jewish mothers.

Religion and appearance investment: the mediating role of internalisation of socio-cultural pressures, in Jewish Israeli women

ABSTRACT Jewish Israeli women from three denominations: Ultra-orthodox, modern-orthodox, and secular (N = 483), completed an online survey measuring levels of internalisation of thin-ideal, socio-cultural pressures, and appearance investment. Findings showed that the secular group was higher in internalisation than both religious groups, and higher in appearance investment compared to the Ultra-orthodox group. Moreover, media pressures had the largest influence over the secular group. In a further examination of the role of internalisation as a mediator in the relationship between socio-cultural pressures and appearance investment, different patterns were found for the different denominations. Taken together, our findings demonstrate the possible protective power of religion, while indicating the media as the main culprit negatively influencing body image dissatisfaction.

The First Female Qadi in Israel's Shari'a (Muslim) Courts: Nomos and Narrative

Given the multifaceted obstacles facing Palestinian Muslim women in Israel, this article aims to understand what enabled the impressive sea change marked by the 2017 appointment of a Palestinian Muslim woman to the position of qadi (judge in a Muslim Shari'a court of law). The article describes some of the events leading up to this historic moment and analyzes what led to this shift in policy. The 2017 appointment is a groundbreaking achievement for the feminist struggle of Palestinian women in Israel, which primarily affects the status of Muslim women, yet it also impacted Jewish Israeli women. As understood all too well by ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) elements who hold sway in Israeli politics and strongly objected to the move, allowing Muslim women to serve in this role threatens male hegemony within the state-run rabbinic courts as well, where Jewish women are currently barred from serving as judges [dayanot]. This article analyzes the legal struggles of Muslim and Jewish feminists in Israel via Robert Cover's theoretical perspective of nomos and narrative, which explores links between sociocultural and legal transformation. Applying Irshai and Zion-Waldoks's concept of a narrative ripeness test, our analysis sheds light on complex processes involved in struggles for Palestinian women's rights in Israel who, as a minority within a minority, must overcome multiple intersecting layers of discrimination. The article argues Jewish and Muslim cases interconnect—to women's detriment or benefit—yet when women achieve rights for themselves, the principle of gender equality can potentially be expanded to benefit others as well.

Introduction

Introduction Vanessa Ochs (bio) No so long ago, I would meet Jewish Studies scholars working on feminist projects face to face in such settings as the Association for Jewish Studies annual conference, the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton and the Oxford Seminars in Advanced Jewish Studies. We shared ideas not just on panels where papers were formally presented, but in hallway conversations, over rushed meals and on stolen walks. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic shifting our lives to Zoom, I replay those treasured encounters, the formal and informal ones, especially those that jump-started precious "long-distance" relationships that merged personal and intellectual selves, with colleagues, junior and senior, from all over the world. In the past few years, I was particularly interested to hear many colleagues—often ones I had just met—describing ethnographic or autoethnographic projects that considered matters of Jewish women's lives and gender from decidedly feminist perspectives. I could see lines of connection between their projects across diverse fields, including anthropology, sociology, folklore, religious studies and other related disciplines. The gracious invitation extended to me to serve as Consulting Editor of this issue of Nashim offered an opportunity to gather exemplars of the new work I had been hearing about, and to ask the authors to specify how they understood the impact of "feminist sensibilities" (a term I take from Michal Kravel-Tovi's article herein) in their choices of topics, research methodologies, modes of interacting with informants, or genres of writing. As you will see, the authors whose work is collected in this issue (which is by no means intended as a representative sampling of the much larger variety of work being done in the field) describe methodologies that are particular to their disciplinary or interdisciplinary training, their topics and their frames of reference. No one single style or even definition of "new Jewish feminist ethnography" emerges, but there are indeed significant overlaps in their work, all of which, by the way, eschew gender essentialism, especially in comparison with much second-wave Jewish feminist scholarship. I do draw your attention to one robust connector: the presence of pressing feminist agendas, expressed in attention, for example, to intersectionality in women's lives, systemic inequalities of power, and the movement from marginalization to empowerment. [End Page 7] In-person fieldwork, long a hallmark of ethnographic research technique, characterizes four of the articles. In "The 'Vulnerable Hero' and His Wife: PTSD and Shifting Dynamics of Gender and Care in Contemporary Israel," Keren Friedman-Peleg chronicles her research as a participant-observer in a support group for Jewish-Israeli women whose husbands had been diagnosed with security-related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Friedman-Peleg discovers that the women's therapists, there in principle to help them, unwittingly turn out to be agents of the state, by enforcing the national expectation that women must care for their husbands who have suffered security-related traumas. But Friedman-Peled discovers a twist—the women use the psychological tools they have learned in the group sessions to analyze their own emotions, to resist gendered national and cultural expectations of caregiving, and even to consider leaving stressed marriages. Complicating her analysis further, Friedman-Peleg examines the taken-for-granted gendered moral/ethical implications of caregiving for victims of trauma. Further still: She brings our attention to political ramifications. As she writes: "The biomedical label of PTSD has been utilized not only as an ideological means to emphasize Jewish-Israeli suffering, while portraying the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories as perpetrators of terror, but also as a tool to valorize sufferers of mental injuries as a result of their active participation in the conflict." Amy K. Milligan draws upon feminist folkloristics in "Creating Jewish Mothers: A Feminist Ethnographic Investigation of the Mothers Circle of Coastal Virginia and the Interfaith Parents Circle." Milligan observed the mutual support generated in peer-facilitated educational groups of non-Jews and Jews-by-choice raising Jewish children in a community in the American South. By focusing her gaze and empathetic listening upon mothers who are transmitting "Jewish identity in ways that...

Barriers and facilitators of health behavior engagement in ultra-Orthodox Jewish women in Israel

Abstract Background The ultra-Orthodox Jewish (UOJ) community is a primarily low socio-economic, culturally insular minority sub-sect in Israel. Compared with the general population, UOJ women report higher rates of diabetes and overweight, lower physical activity rates, and have lower breast cancer survival rates. Research in this sub-sect is limited. Identifying the facilitators and barriers to health behavior engagement would facilitate public health intervention design in this population. Methods This study describes UOJ women’s barriers and facilitators to engagement in targeted health behaviors (i.e. health nutrition, physical activity), identified through mixed methods analysis. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of interviews (N = 5), focus groups (5, including 35 women), and questionnaires (N = 239) identified barriers to engaging in preventive health behaviors and intervention preferences. Results Most of the barriers identified (financial and time limitations, personal preferences, lack of education/awareness, and family-related obstacles) are similar to those reported by women from the general population. Cultural aspects such as women’s role in the home, religious restrictions, and modesty were also identified as barriers to health behavior engagement, comparable to women from other insular communities. Conclusions Utilizing a mixed methods approach in identifying barriers and facilitators informed intervention development and improved cultural tailoring, potentially serving as a model for intervention design with additional UOJ communities as well as other difficult to access, low socio-economic, culturally insular populations. Key messages This is the first study identifying facilitators and barriers to UOJ women’s health behavior engagement. Findings can inform intervention design in difficult to access, culturally insular populations.

Determinants of intention to use social media for health purposes among Jewish women in Israel: A cross-sectional study

Women use the Internet more for health purposes than men, probably due to their gender socialization as caregivers. Indeed, women’s use of social media for health is not a one-time occurrence but is expected to continue for a long time to come. Hence, it is important to understand women’s future intention to use social media for health purposes. This study integrated health empowerment, health beliefs and digital inequality perspectives to explain this intention among Jewish female social media users (N = 94). The data were collected through a telephone survey. The results indicated that searching for health information on social media and cues to action are consistent predictors of women’s intention to use social media for health purposes. With the exception of marital status, no effect of socio-demographic variables was found. Health empowerment approach and health belief model are, therefore, the best predictors of future intention to use social media for health. Women should be encouraged by their communities to expand their experience with social media, since it may serve as a source of health empowerment. In addition, they must be encouraged to be more attentive to internal or external stimuli in maintaining or changing their health behavior.

The Focality of Sexual Trauma and Its Effects on Women’s Symptoms and Self-Perceptions

Sexual trauma is associated with particularly harmful consequences in comparison to other types of trauma. Studies investigating differences between trauma-types usually focus on the most distressing (i.e., main) trauma of each participant and do not consider the cumulative effects of multiple traumas, which many individuals experience. We sought to fill this gap by examining the effects of trauma-type (sexual vs. nonsexual), as well as the focality assigned to the sexual trauma (whether it was perceived as a main vs. background trauma), on symptoms and self-perceptions. Our sample comprised 231 Jewish-Israeli women: 96 with a single trauma-type and 135 with multiple (two to three) trauma-types. Women completed online measures of trauma history, symptoms, and self-perceptions. Women who were exposed to sexual trauma reported greater symptom severity and self-perception impairments than women with a history of nonsexual trauma-type(s). Among women with multiple trauma-types, those with a main sexual trauma reported greater symptom severity and self-perception impairments than women with a background sexual trauma. When controlling for levels of posttraumatic symptoms, differences in self-perceptions ceased to be significant. Our findings highlight the importance of collecting a detailed trauma history, with attention to trauma-centrality, and of addressing various symptoms and self-perceptions among sexual trauma survivors.

“A better human being:” Diaspora images of the New Israeli Woman

ABSTRACTThis article explores Western Jews’ admiration for the new State of Israel on the basis of women’s representation. Pamphlets, biographies, and whole series of fundraiser films, produced by Zionist women’s organizations, depicted Jewish-Israeli women as carriers of democratic values, caring mothers for all of Israel’s population, and courageous fighters for their people’s survival. The Jewish-Israeli woman’s image as “a better human being” served as an intriguing symbol through which Diaspora Jews could identify with the Jewish state and overcome feelings of impotence after the Holocaust in Europe. The idealized representation of Jewish-Israeli women primarily suited Western Jewry’s need for Jewish empowerment.

The Varieties of Religious Significance: An Idiographic Approach to Study Religion's Role in Adolescent Development.

We present a rationale and method for taking an idiographic approach to study the role religion plays in adolescent development. We theorize that adolescents harness qualitatively different aspects of religion to address idiosyncratic developmental needs. Therefore, analyzing religion's role in adolescent development necessitates a case-by-case holistic analysis. We introduce a systematic method using narratives to identify the personal ways that individuals attribute meaning in general and regarding religion in particular. We present three detailed case studies from a sample of 20 religious Israeli Jewish Orthodox emerging-adult women who provided retrospective narrative accounts of their general and religious development through adolescence. Systematic analysis reveals that religion was significant to these women in diverse and personal ways, addressing markedly different adolescent developmental needs.

Debating Natalism: Israeli One-Woman Shows on Experiencing Childlessness

Natalism constitutes one of the main values of Israeli society, to the extent that the state’s explicit policy is to encourage and heavily finance childbearing. Whatever the reasons for this pronatalist ideology may be – religious, cultural, or politico-demographic – the fact is that, in twenty-first century Israel, motherhood is still considered a biological imperative; and a Jewish-Israeli woman’s reproductive body is implicitly mobilized for national needs. Against the backdrop of this persistent pro-birth agenda, in this study Dror Harari and Gillit Kroul discuss a noteworthy number of recently staged one-woman shows that critically debate the Israeli ‘fertility religion’ and the physical and emotional distress that it causes for the infertile and childfree woman. These autobiographical performances of infertility are seen as a sub-genre of Israeli critical disability performance, in that they manifest the idea that what defines the infertile as disabled is not (only) the woman’s biological deficiency but, rather, her inability to fulfil her national gendered role. Dror Harari is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Theatre Arts, Tel Aviv University. His Self-Performance: Performance Art and the Representation of Self was published in Hebrew by Resling Publications (2014), and his current research, funded by the Israel Science Foundation, focuses on the historiography of performance art in Israel from its origins in the 1960s and through the 1970s. Gillit Kroul has an MA in Theatre Studies from Tel Aviv University. Her book of poetry When the Sea Seeds its Hopes is published by Sa’ar Publications, and her short semi-autobiographical play in Hebrew Shnayim (Two), based on her experience of fertility treatment, is available at <http://pregbirthanthology.wixsite.com/anthology>.

Validation of the Hebrew Birth Satisfaction Scale – Revised (BSS-R) and its relationship to perceived traumatic labour

ABSTRACTObjective and background: The Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS-R) is a multi-dimensional measure which is recommended by international clinical guidelines for global use as the birth satisfaction outcome measure of choice. The current investigation sought to develop a Hebrew version of the BSS-R for use in the Jewish–Israeli context and examine the relationship between BSS-R domains and the perception of the experience of labour as traumatic.Methods: Following review, translation, and back-translation for linguistic equivalence, a Hebrew version of the BSS-R (H-BSS-R) was prepared and psychometrically evaluated using key indices of validity and reliability. Complete multivariate normal data from 288 first-time Jewish Israeli mothers within two years after childbirth was entered into the analysis.Results: The H-BSS-R was found to have a good fit to the BSS-R tridimensional measurement model, excellent internal consistency, divergent and known-group discriminant validity. Moreover, women who experienced their labour as traumatic had significantly lower H-BSS-R subscale scores than women who reported that their birth experience was non-traumatic.Conclusion: The H-BSS-R is a robust and valid measure suitable for use with Jewish–Israeli women, as well as for investigating the relationship between traumatic labour and birth satisfaction.

Reproducing the national family: kinship claims, development discourse and migrant caregivers in Palestine/Israel

This article probes the politics of the migrant caregiver/citizen-employer relationship in Palestine/Israel as it unfolds within the Jewish-Israeli home. Based on interviews with migrants from the Philippines, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka and their Jewish-Israeli employers, I examine how Israel’s ethno-racially hierarchical citizenship regime and the transnational gendering and racialisation of carework manifest in this relationship. I begin by situating migrant women working as caregivers within the legal and political context of Palestine/Israel, delineating how gendered constructions of the Jewish-Israeli woman uphold the borders of the nation and paint non-Jewish migrant women as reproductively threatening. I then analyse two common tropes among citizen-employers in describing migrant caregivers. The first, what I term the ‘kinship trope’, characterizes them as ‘one of the family’, obscuring the ethno-racial basis of the state. I show how this trope contrasts sharply with Zionist settler colonial rhetoric portraying Jewish-Israelis as ‘one big family’. The second trope represents migrant women as individual agents of economic development and Israel as a market-driven, neoliberal society that is equally a state for all its citizens. By depicting Israel as a ‘modern’, ‘progressive’ state that is an exemplar of gender equality, this trope again masks the ethno-racial basis of citizenship, as well as gender disparities. Finally, I argue for a feminist approach to migrant carework that accounts for the ways neoliberal labour formations are mediated by gendered racisms specific to a particular state’s racial nation-building project.

Postpartum depression among Arab and Jewish women in Israel: Ethnic inequalities and risk factors

ObjectiveThe aim of the current study was to compare the prevalence of, and risk factors for postpartum depression (PPD) among Jewish and Arab women in Israel. DesignData were obtained from a study on 'Family Relations and Violence' conducted in Israel in 2014–2015 using a multilayered nationwide representative sample of mothers who were interviewed face to face using a structured questionnaire in each woman's native language (Arabic / Hebrew) 6 weeks to 6 months postpartum. Setting63 Maternal and Child Health (MCH) clinics from five geographical districts. ParticipantsJewish (N = 853) and Arab (N = 275) women aged 16–48 who were 6 weeks to 6 months postpartum. MeasurementsPPD was measured by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale with a cutoff of ≥10. We examined a range of risk factors using multivariate logistic regression analysis and Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) for the total sample, then separately for each ethnic group. ResultsFor the total sample (n = 1128). Prevalence of PPD was 10.3%. Prevalence among Arab women was significantly higher compared to Jewish women (20.8% vs 7%, respectively). In the multivariable analysis, chronic stress, low social support, and unwanted pregnancy were major risk factors for PPD for Arab women. Among Jewish women the risk factors for PPD included chronic stress, low level of education, and intimate partner violence. ConclusionsOur findings indicate ethnic inequalities in the prevalence of, and risk factors for PPD in Israel that should be considered in health planning and policymaking. Implications for practiceMaternal health care nurses and other professionals should be aware of these inequalities and provide culturally sensitive health care services and programs to protect women in these population groups from PPD.

Uterine cancer in Jewish Israeli BRCA1/2 mutation carriers.

BRCA1/2 mutation carriers have an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer, leading to the recommendation of risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy (RRSO) at 35-40 years of age. The role, if any, that BRCA mutations play in conferring uterine cancer risk, is unresolved. Jewish Israeli women, carriers of one of the predominant Jewish mutations in BRCA1/2 from 1998 to 2016, were recruited. Cancer diagnoses were determined through the Israeli National Cancer Registry. Uterine cancer risk was assessed by computing the standardized incidence ratio of observed-to-expected number of cases, using the exact 2-sided P value of Poisson count. Overall, 2627 eligible mutation carriers were recruited from 1998 to 2016, 2312 (88%) of whom were Ashkenazi Jews (1463 BRCA1, 1154 BRCA2 mutation carriers, 10 double mutation carriers). Among these participants, 1310 underwent RRSO without hysterectomy at a mean (± standard deviation) age of 43.6 years (± 4.4 years). During 32,774 women-years of follow up, 14 women developed uterine cancer, and the observed-to-expected rate of all histological subtypes was 3.98 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.17-6.67; P < .001). For serous papillary (n = 5), the observed-to-expected ratio was 14.29 (95% CI, 4.64-33.34; P < .001), and for sarcoma (n = 4) it was 37.74 (95% CI, 10.28-96.62). These rates were also higher than those detected in a group of 1844 age- and ethnicity-matched women (53% with breast cancer). Israeli BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers are at an increased risk for developing uterine cancer, especially serous papillary and sarcoma. These elevated risks of uterine cancer should be discussed with BRCA carriers.

Level of religiosity and non-performance of mammography among Arab and Jewish women in Israel

Level of religiosity and non-performance of mammography among Arab and Jewish women in Israel

Level of religiosity and non-performance of mammography among Arab and Jewish women in Israel

Level of religiosity and non-performance of mammography among Arab and Jewish women in Israel

Costly superstitious beliefs: Experimental evidence

Expectant parents experience a variety of emotions, including joy, anticipation as well as anxiety and fear related to the health of the fetus, the delivery and the newborn. These sources of uncertainty and stress render expectant mothers susceptible to the influence of popular beliefs. We design an experiment to evaluate the widespread Israeli belief that a baby’s room should remain unfurnished until after the baby is born. We test the impact of this belief on the economic decisions of pregnant Jewish women in Israel. Our findings show that many pregnant women, especially in the second half of pregnancy, prefer to avoid challenging popular beliefs – even at a financial cost. The negative affective consequences of “tempting fate” lead to a preference for a small monetary amount over new furniture for the newborn. The strength of popular beliefs and its influence on individual choice vary in accordance with ethnicity and degree of religiosity.

A comparison of the effects of selected mono-ethnic urban environments on the autonomic functions of Muslim and Jewish women in Israel.

Few previous studies evaluated ethnic differences in the effects of urban environments on the autonomic balance in intra-ethnic environments and the mediation effects of environmental exposures (air pollution, noise, and thermal load). In a field experimental study, we exposed 48 Muslim and 24 Jewish women to park, town center, and residential street in Israeli mono-ethnic small towns. Heart rate variability (HRV), noise, thermal load, and carbon monoxide (CO) were measured by portable devices while visiting the environments and were analyzed using mixed models. The results highlight the restorative effect of parks on both ethnic groups with stronger effect for Jewish women compared to Muslim women (β coefficient (95% confidence interval (CI)): - 6.45(- 6.70, - 6.20); - 4.99 (- 5.15, - 4.83), respectively). However, significant differences were recorded in Muslim and Jewish coping with the environments and the environmental exposures as measured by HRV.