D Birenbaum-Carmeli
Biographic Data
| ID | 3540 |
|---|---|
| NAME | D Birenbaum-Carmeli |
| GIVEN NAMES | D |
| FAMILY NAME | Birenbaum-Carmeli |
| SIGNATURE | BIRENBAUM-CARMELI D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Haifa |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0186-6001 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 325 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Families and Choice
With the proliferation of same-sex families, same-sex separation has expanded, creating diverse parenthood-related issues. Yet, little is known about how these family dissolutions are perceived and enacted by parents and children. This article reports on a descriptive qualitative study under the constructive phenomenological approach conducted in Israel that explores the disassembling of families of choice and its impact on involved parties. The …
Induced Abortion as a Declaration of Bodily Autonomy of Arab Muslim Women in Israel
Introduction Research has documented the motivations for abortion across different cultures and examined the sociopolitical position of Arab minorities in Israel. Understanding how Arab Muslim women make abortion decisions amid religious prohibitions, family authority, and the politicized context of Arab fertility in Israel is limited. This study examines the factors shaping these decisions and uses abortion to explore their social, religious, an…
Too much equity – is there such a thing? The public discourse surrounding elective egg freezing subsidy in Israel
The invocation of equity by Israeli users of EEF, clinicians and some policy makers as grounds for a call to fund a treatment that serves a well-established subpopulation seeking to relieve a social rather than a medical problem, illustrates the profound context-embeddedness of notions of health equity. More generally, it may suggest that using an inclusive language in a discourse of equity may potentially be invoked so as to promote the interest…
Genetic identity as a regime of truth
Through examining cases of cross-border surrogacy in Israel and the United States, we offer the concept of genetic kinning defined as the narratives deployed by individuals that give prominence to genetic relatedness between offspring and parents to highlight immutable similarities between parents, and by extension, grandparents and ancestors. The deployment of genetic kinning narratives does not happen in a vacuum; instead, nation-state bodies e…
Egg Freezing at the End of Romance
The newest innovation in assisted reproduction is oocyte cryopreservation, more commonly known as egg freezing, which has been developed as a method of fertility preservation. Studies emerging from around the world show that highly educated professional women are turning to egg freezing in their late thirties to early forties, because they are still searching for a male partner with whom to have children. For these women, egg freezing may be a ne…
Health and socio-demographic implications of the Covid-19 second pandemic wave in Israel, compared with the first wave
The second wave of Covid-19 in Israel has profoundly affected marginalized communities characterized by high residential density, low SES and minority status. Other marginalized and disempowered communities have also been badly hit. While acknowledging the potential contribution of various possible causes, we highlight the policy response of Israel's government during the early weeks of the second Covid-19 outbreak, suggesting that the severe sec…
Transgender men’s fertility preservation
Transgender people assigned female at birth may undergo fertility preservation by egg or embryo freezing, usually prior to gender affirming treatment. In this binational ethnographic study, four transgender men were included as part of a larger comparative project on fertility preservation. In-depth ethnographic interviews allowed informants to talk freely about their fertility preservation experiences, and the circumstances that had enabled them…
Israeli demography
With a fertility rate twice higher than the OECD average, Israel is a world outlier in terms of fertility. This article puts together a composite portrait of this exceptional reproductive landscape. Within a comparative framework, it offers context-specific illustrations showing that considered vis-à-vis women in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and Jewish FSU immigrants to the U.S., FSU immigrants to Israel had higher fertility. Inside Israel, all …
Cryopreserving Jewish Motherhood
Oocyte cryopreservation (i.e., egg freezing) is one of the newest forms of assisted reproduction and is increasingly being used primarily by two groups of women: (1) young cancer patients at risk of losing their fertility through cytotoxic chemotherapy (i.e., medical egg freezing); and (2) single professionals in their late 30s who are facing age-related fertility decline in the absence of reproductive partners (i.e., elective egg freezing). Base…
Negotiating Kinship
Same-sex families are distinct: at least one parent is not genetically related to each child and external state regulation of coupling and separation processes is scarce. The disassembling of such families therefore offers a singular setting to explore nontraditional perceptions and enactments of family and kinship. Tracing separation processes and custody agreements of same-sex couples with children, this paper suggests that at the family format…
Covid-19 in Israel
We attribute the low morbidity rates in communities with relatively small elderly populations to the exceptionally high fertility rates in ultra-orthodox communities that sustained increased rates of morbidity; the lower morbidity in Arab communities is attributed to several factors, including the spatial Jewish-Arab segregation
Abrahamic traditions and egg freezing
The impact of adolescents' racial and ethnic self-identity on hope
The two components of hope (i.e., hope-agency defined as the ability to envision and believe in one's ability to achieve goals; hope-pathway defined as belief in one's ability to devise strategies to achieve one's goals) propel adolescents toward well-being, academic achievement and personal fulfillment. This study compares levels of hope and its components, for different groups of immigrant and ethnic non-immigrant youths, while adjusting for an…
Assisted Reproductive Technologies
In 1978 in vitro fertilization (IVF) was introduced in England to overcome the problem of infertility. In the nearly four decades since then, many other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have been developed. Some are simple variants of IVF, while others are complex innovations, involving related fields such as human genetics. As ARTs have evolved over time, they have also traveled widely, leading to the birth of 5 million babies around th…
Medical egg freezing
Assisted reproduction and Middle East kinship
Medical egg freezing and cancer patients' hopes
Thirty-five years of assisted reproductive technologies in Israel
A qualitative study assessing cardiovascular risk factors
Immigrant youth of Ethiopian descent face an accumulation of conflicting social support, psychosocial factors, and stressors, including: living in low-income, high-crime areas; encountering pervasive discrimination; acclimating to a new and industrialized culture; and navigating within an often unhospitable society. Contributing to these factors are changes in health behaviors such as adding processed foods and sugary drinks to the diet, increasi…
Health journalism in the service of power
The power of health news as a vehicle in the production of meaning in the service of power is the core of this article. Tracking the media coverage of a medical service, it shows how a routine practice can be invoked at a time of armed conflict so as to enhance a benevolent state image. The case at hand is the medical treatment of Gaza children in Israeli hospitals. A series of Internet searches revealed a group of publications on the subject in …
Genetic relatedness and family formation in Israel
Israel's reproductive policy stands out in the discrepancy it creates between genetic and non-genetic modes of kinship. Whereas fertility treatments receive almost unrestricted state funding, adoption entails severe applicant screening and long years of waiting, or else, if conducted abroad, high private expenditure and intricate bureaucracy. In the present paper this policy is the framework for an exploration of the perceptions of women who unde…
Masculinity and Marginality
Male infertility, which contributes to roughly 60–70% of infertility cases in the Middle East, is especially agonizing in this region, where fatherhood is crucial to achieving masculine adulthood and community standing. In this paper, we compare the infertility experience of two groups of Palestinian men, one living in Israel and the other in Lebanon. The study is based on ethnographic interviews conducted with 24 men between 2003 and 2007. The f…
The politics of 'The Natural Family' in Israel
Researching sensitive fields
Purpose – Research fields that may imperil one's privacy and dignity present particular methodological challenges to researchers. Gaining a closer look into such fields therefore requires a subtle research design. The present study aims to look at the research of donor insemination (DI) in Israel in order to show the methodological variety required for the study of diverse aspects of this sensitive field of practice
Your faith or mine
Ultra-orthodox (haredi) Jews in Israel have an exceptionally high fertility rate of 7.7. As most fathers spend their days studying the Bible, the women struggle to support their large families under severe economic pressures. Some women experience maternal exhaustion coping with this life situation. Contraception for pregnancy spacing raises myriad dilemmas in the haredi community, however, many of which apply to promoting family planning in reli…
Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Culture Change
In 1978, the world's first "test-tube" baby was born via in vitro fertilization (IVF). The past 30 years have seen the rapid evolution of many other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs)-some are simple variants of IVF, whereas others bridge the fields of assisted reproduction and human genomics. As ARTs have evolved over time, so have social, cultural, legal, and ethical responses to them. Indeed, ARTs are a key symbol of our times, represen…
Cheaper than a newcomer
This paper explores the shaping of health policy in terms of power relations and group interests, as enacted in Israel's IVF policy. A comparison with the principles of IVF provision in other countries (UK, Canada, USA) shows Israel's policy to be substantially more 'liberal'. In order to explain this exception, the policy is initially located within the context of the state's pro-natalist reproductive policy, women's impaired equality and a comp…
The politics of 'The Natural Family' in Israel
The predicament of masculinity
Thirty-five years of assisted reproductive technologies in Israel
Ritualizing the 'Natural Family
Physiognomy, familism and consumerism
Assisted reproduction and Middle East kinship
Medical egg freezing and cancer patients' hopes
Reproductive policy in context
Israel’s reproductive policy has always aimed at raising fertility rates within the country’s Jewish population. The present paper traces this policy and its implications on various population sectors from the mid-1940s to the present, as situated within a web of political, economic and religious interests. It reviews main changes in reproductive policy throughout the state’s history and then addresses three related dilemmas, which are of particu…
Between individualism and collectivism
Cites collectivism as an element within Israeli culture from its inception. Explores the intricate mosaic of individualism/collectivism as expressed in a middle class Tel‐Aviv neighbourhood. Uses a three years of fieldwork and a neighbourhood survey to describe the residents as active individuals, aiming to advance their private interests and eager to interact with each other and participate in organized local activities. Shows how some modes of …
Secrecy Among Israeli Recipients of Donor Insemination
Patterns of discretion and disclosure of fertility-related information among Israeli recipients of donor insemination (DI) are explored. Based on questionnaires completed by recipients in four sperm banks, we studied differences between married women and men. We found that most Israeli recipients conceal the treatment from their friends and relatives. Women and men, however, differ in their disclosure patterns: women are somewhat more open about …
Parents Who Get What They Want
This paper addresses the issue of parent involvement in school life in the newly emerging realm of commodified education. It explores the limits of empowerment and its context-dependent nature. The case under scrutiny is that of parent organising in an established Tel Aviv area, who demanded a share in the shaping of their children's education. These demands were couched in a hierarchy of moderate-status teachers and prestigious parents and backe…
Pioneering procreation
Your faith or mine
Ultra-orthodox (haredi) Jews in Israel have an exceptionally high fertility rate of 7.7. As most fathers spend their days studying the Bible, the women struggle to support their large families under severe economic pressures. Some women experience maternal exhaustion coping with this life situation. Contraception for pregnancy spacing raises myriad dilemmas in the haredi community, however, many of which apply to promoting family planning in reli…
In Vitro Fertilisation Policy in Israel and Women's Perspectives
Israel offers nearly full funding for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to any Israeli woman irrespective of her marital status or sexual orientation, until she has two children with her current partner. Consequently, Israeli women are the world’s most intensive consumers of IVF. This 2006 study explored the perceptions of Israeli IVF patients about the treatment and their experiences, probing possible links between state policy and women’s choices an…
Hegemony and Homogeneity
This article explores the relevance of hegemony theory to choices of sperm donors made by Jewish Israeli recipients of donor insemination (DI). The context is the objectification of 'the Natural' through hegemonic images of mass consumption. The study, which was conducted in a major Israeli hospital, examined physiological features (height, eye colour, skin colour) of the most popular donors. In the highly familistic society of Israel, recipients…
What Makes Women Sick
What Makes Women Sick: Maternity, Modesty and Militarism in Israeli Society. Susan Sered. Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 2000. + 194 pp
Abrahamic traditions and egg freezing
Medical egg freezing
All in the family
Our first “IVF baby”
Provides a comparison of the press coverage of the introduction of IVF in different contexts, giving a vantage point for examining the variability and the context‐dependence of the issue. Sheds some light on the cultural‐political‐social problems that the new technology entails. Contrasts the differences between Canada and Israel, showing that both countries endorse modern technology in the field of medidine: in both countries, IVF was imported a…
Masculinity and Marginality
Male infertility, which contributes to roughly 60–70% of infertility cases in the Middle East, is especially agonizing in this region, where fatherhood is crucial to achieving masculine adulthood and community standing. In this paper, we compare the infertility experience of two groups of Palestinian men, one living in Israel and the other in Lebanon. The study is based on ethnographic interviews conducted with 24 men between 2003 and 2007. The f…
Genetic identity as a regime of truth
Through examining cases of cross-border surrogacy in Israel and the United States, we offer the concept of genetic kinning defined as the narratives deployed by individuals that give prominence to genetic relatedness between offspring and parents to highlight immutable similarities between parents, and by extension, grandparents and ancestors. The deployment of genetic kinning narratives does not happen in a vacuum; instead, nation-state bodies e…
Egg Freezing at the End of Romance
The newest innovation in assisted reproduction is oocyte cryopreservation, more commonly known as egg freezing, which has been developed as a method of fertility preservation. Studies emerging from around the world show that highly educated professional women are turning to egg freezing in their late thirties to early forties, because they are still searching for a male partner with whom to have children. For these women, egg freezing may be a ne…
Helpless and Omnipotent
During the last decades the socio‐political status of children in Western societies has become a focus of interest for researchers from various disciplines. As part of the more general trend of struggles for the human rights of specific sectors of society (e.g. African Americans, women, homosexuals) proponents established the “Children's Rights Movement” which has fought on behalf of the younger members of society, trying to secure them certain s…
The predicament of masculinity
Maternal smoking during pregnancy
The social, medical, and legal aspects of maternal smoking during pregnancy are examined. Increasing social awareness of the fetus as a human being is described as emanating largely from modern prenatal screening technologies. Medical findings concerning the harms of maternal smoking to the fetus and developing child are then reviewed. The legal literature is considered within the context of women's rights. Two major trends are identified. The fi…
Smoking During Pregnancy
Western countries have invested considerable resources in efforts aimed at reducing the amount of cigarette smoking in their countries, along with its accompanying hazards. Canada is no exception to this challenge and takes pride in its participation in the global quest
Patients Who Get What They Want
This article examines a request for amniocentesis, a prenatal screening test, for a middle-class, professional couple in a a major city in Ontario, Canada. The unfolding of this case over time permits analysis of some practices employed in the Canadian and in the U.S. health care systems, especially insofar as these practices can be influenced by participants' technical knowledge, social networks, and willingness to persevere in the face of burea…
"Unit Pride"
Pioneering procreation
Residential integration and its constructed reflection
The paper presents a socially mixed neighborhood in Tel Aviv, Israel. Despite its heterogeneity, the neighborhood, which started out with unpretenteous public housing, became a prestigious area and eventually the epitome of success and prosperity. The paper describes the development of the neighborhood and the strategies adopted by the residents of lesser means in order not to be excluded from the emerging local world. The main strategies were a …
Love Thy Neighbor
The paper explores the tense dynamics among neighbors in a mixed middle-class neighborhood in Tel Aviv, based on three years of fieldwork (1988-1991) and a local survey. Considered within the context of the general community question, three case studies are presented as illsutrations of local relationships, their ambiguities and limitations: relations shifted from daily encounters to absolute disconnection; people concealed major life plans from …
Parents Who Get What They Want
This paper addresses the issue of parent involvement in school life in the newly emerging realm of commodified education. It explores the limits of empowerment and its context-dependent nature. The case under scrutiny is that of parent organising in an established Tel Aviv area, who demanded a share in the shaping of their children's education. These demands were couched in a hierarchy of moderate-status teachers and prestigious parents and backe…
Ritualizing the 'Natural Family
Secrecy Among Israeli Recipients of Donor Insemination
Patterns of discretion and disclosure of fertility-related information among Israeli recipients of donor insemination (DI) are explored. Based on questionnaires completed by recipients in four sperm banks, we studied differences between married women and men. We found that most Israeli recipients conceal the treatment from their friends and relatives. Women and men, however, differ in their disclosure patterns: women are somewhat more open about …
Our first “IVF baby”
Provides a comparison of the press coverage of the introduction of IVF in different contexts, giving a vantage point for examining the variability and the context‐dependence of the issue. Sheds some light on the cultural‐political‐social problems that the new technology entails. Contrasts the differences between Canada and Israel, showing that both countries endorse modern technology in the field of medidine: in both countries, IVF was imported a…
Donor Insemination in Israel
The paper describes the sociodemography of donor insemination recipients in Israel. Arab recipients are very few. Among the Jews, married recipients are generally younger than their single counterparts, and they are somewhat less educated and more religious. Ethnically, the percentage of Orientals among the married recipients is relatively higher; among the single women, Orientals are under-represented. On the whole, however, donor insemination s…
Between individualism and collectivism
Cites collectivism as an element within Israeli culture from its inception. Explores the intricate mosaic of individualism/collectivism as expressed in a middle class Tel‐Aviv neighbourhood. Uses a three years of fieldwork and a neighbourhood survey to describe the residents as active individuals, aiming to advance their private interests and eager to interact with each other and participate in organized local activities. Shows how some modes of …
What Makes Women Sick
What Makes Women Sick: Maternity, Modesty and Militarism in Israeli Society. Susan Sered. Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 2000. + 194 pp
Physiognomy, familism and consumerism
Manmade Breast Cancers
Manmade Breast Cancers. Zillah Eisenstein. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. 189 pp
Hegemony and Homogeneity
This article explores the relevance of hegemony theory to choices of sperm donors made by Jewish Israeli recipients of donor insemination (DI). The context is the objectification of 'the Natural' through hegemonic images of mass consumption. The study, which was conducted in a major Israeli hospital, examined physiological features (height, eye colour, skin colour) of the most popular donors. In the highly familistic society of Israel, recipients…
Reproductive policy in context
Israel’s reproductive policy has always aimed at raising fertility rates within the country’s Jewish population. The present paper traces this policy and its implications on various population sectors from the mid-1940s to the present, as situated within a web of political, economic and religious interests. It reviews main changes in reproductive policy throughout the state’s history and then addresses three related dilemmas, which are of particu…
On the prevalence of population groups in the human-genetics research literature
Study-population selection may in some cases be explained by, or may complicate, political predicament
Cheaper than a newcomer
This paper explores the shaping of health policy in terms of power relations and group interests, as enacted in Israel's IVF policy. A comparison with the principles of IVF provision in other countries (UK, Canada, USA) shows Israel's policy to be substantially more 'liberal'. In order to explain this exception, the policy is initially located within the context of the state's pro-natalist reproductive policy, women's impaired equality and a comp…
All in the family
Contested Surrogacy and the Gender Order
Contested Surrogacy and the Gender Order
Though greatly routinized over the past two decades, assisted reproductive technologies still invoke an occasional public debate around a dilemma that is constituted as unprecedented. This paper examines one such case that took place in Israel—that of a legal dispute between estranged partners over the right to have their fertilized eggs implanted in a surrogate mother's womb. The paper probes the political repercussions of the case in terms of t…
Sociology (42 works) · Political science (36 works) · Law (30 works) · Reproductive Health and Technologies (30 works) · Law (25 works) · Psychology (22 works) · Medicine (20 works) · Gender Studies (18 works) · Demography (16 works) · Population (16 works)