Person-Shaped Holes: Childfree Jews, Jewish Ethics, and Communal Continuity
While much Jewish thought, culture, and professional ethics increasingly accommodate a range of gender roles and expressions, sexualities, and family structures, they also remain deeply pronatalist. This overwhelmingly frames reproduction as a core Jewish value and the choice not to bear or raise ch...
| Published in: | Journal of religious ethics |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2021
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| In: |
Journal of religious ethics
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| Further subjects: | B
reproductive ethics
B childfree B Feminist ethics B natalism B Jewish ethics |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | While much Jewish thought, culture, and professional ethics increasingly accommodate a range of gender roles and expressions, sexualities, and family structures, they also remain deeply pronatalist. This overwhelmingly frames reproduction as a core Jewish value and the choice not to bear or raise children as contrary to Jewish values. I argue that Jewish pronatalism masks the true extent to which the whole community must support the care and formation of all its generations. Through a counter-reading of a passage from the Babylonian Talmud in which three sages neglect their wives and children in various ways that allow a careful reader to notice “person-shaped holes”—narrative features whose presence implies various people’s nonparental labor—I argue that multiple people in multiple roles within a community make it possible to sustain its continuity in a robust and all-encompassing way. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-9795 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/jore.12349 |