NOUVEAUTE

,v4irituar
6xp erience

How to give pregnancy and birth a Jewish twist.

BARBARA PAS H
Special to the Jewish News

hana Weisberg had no idea
ow popular her book would
u rn out to be.
0
After all, it took several years to
write it, her original publisher
went bankrupt and she created
her own Web site to publicize it.
But since the international release
of Expecting Miracles: Finding

Meaning and Spirituality in Pregnancy
Through Judaism last August, the
publisher, Urim Publications, in
Jerusalem and New York, has put out
a second printing and Weisberg has
signed a contract to write a sequel.
"Not to get mystical on you, but
I feel this book was meant to be,"
said Weisberg from her home in
Jerusalem.
For the 352-page hardcover
book (sellina b for $29.95),
Weisberg interviewed 30 women
in the religious Jewish community
of Jerusalem about childbirth —
24 mothers, two midwives and
four female teachers.
Interspersed among the inter-
views are kabbalistic birthing med-
itations, birth teachings from the
Breslov Chasidic tradition and
other resources.
"I talked to experienced mothers
about how Judaism enriched their
experiences. You get their voices in
the book. It ended up being not
only about their pregnancies but
about their lives as women and
mothers," said Weisberg.
Weisberg grew up in Baltimore
and was a Russian major at Bowdoin
College in Maine. She intended to
spend her junior year in Russia but,
because of the instability in that
country at the time, she opted
instead to go to Israel and work with
Russian immigrants.
It was her first visit to Israel and
she was impressed. After college,
she made aliyah, and met her hus-
band, Joshua, an Orthodox rabbi
from Canada who teaches at a

women's yeshivah.
Weisberg earned a master's degree
in social work from Hebrew
University but motherhood inter-
vened. The family now includes
three daughters, ages 6, 4, and 2.
Weisberg says that during her sec-
ond pregnancy, the idea for the book
came to her "in a flash." Like many
pregnant women, she was fixated on
her condition. There was a lot of
information about the physical
aspects, but as a religious woman,
she wanted to make it a religious
experience, too.
"There is almost nothing written
in the traditional text about pregnan-

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Orici yo vVe. t.::,be re

cy, so I decided to write a book,"
said Weisberg, who found herself
waking up at 3 a.m. and reviewing
the order of the chapters. "I felt I
was inspired by God."
Before the book was published,
Weisberg decided to publicize it her-
self by creating a Web site called
Jewishpregnancy.org. The site was
launched in 2001 and, much to her

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES on page 64

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