sk,
Ragen wondered about the price.
"How much work went into it? How
many loads of laundry did she have to
do that day?" she asked.
In Kiryat Sefer, an Orthodox
mother of five said child-rearing was a
matter of "quality, not quantity," that
people in all societies adjust to their
circumstances, and that mothers of
large families, on the whole, were
coping as cheerfully as mothers of
smaller families.
"This is the party line," Ragen
maintained. Between themselves,
many Orthodox women complain
bitterly about the expectations that
they bear and raise child after child,
she said.
.•••••
•
Profits From Babies?
Criticizing the way Israel's stipend sys-
tem is skewed in favor of large fami-
lies, Beilin stopped just short of saying
the Orthodox fertility rate is driven
partly by economics.
"I would not want financial consid-
erations to play any role in the deci-
sion to have more children," he said.
Friedman, however, said economics
really is one of the reasons why the
fervently Orthodox have so many kids
— but only an auxiliary reason.
"It's not that they make a crude
calculation that if they have another
child they'll be able to get a few hun-
dred extra shekels a month. They want
children for their own sake, and
because large families have great pres-
tige in the community — and in addi-
tion to all this they know that the state
will help them out financially," he said.
Besides citing the Torah injunction
to "be fruitful and multiply," commu-
nity elders call on women to have as
many children as possible to make up
for the 6 million Jews killed by the
Nazis, Friedman said.
In Kiryat Sefer, the yeshiva student
and his wife both cited the so-called
"Arab demographic threat" as another
good reason to have large families.
"The Arabs want to kill us, and they
keep spreading, and if we don't
increase the Jewish population they'll
take over," said the wife.
Orthodox families typically had
many children in Eastern Europe prior
to the Holocaust, but not so many as
they do in Israel, Friedman continued.
"One reason is that children fre-
quently died in Eastern Europe, while
in Israel they survive because of the
much improved medicine and
hygiene. The other reason," he said,
"is the economic support that Israel
provides." ❑
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