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The State of Desire: Religion and Reproductive Politics in the Promised Land
An intimate account of Orthodox family planning amid shifting state policies in Israel
In recent years, Israeli state policies have attempted to dissuade Orthodox Jews from creating large families, an objective that flies in the face of traditional practices in their community. As state desires to cultivate a high-income, tech-centered nation come into greater conflict with common Orthodox familial practices, Jewish couples are finding it increasingly difficult to actualize their reproductive aims and communal expectations.
In The State of Desire , Lea Taragin-Zeller provides an intimate examination of the often devastating effects of Israel’s steep cutbacks in child benefits, which are aimed at limiting the rapid increase in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. Taragin-Zeller takes the reader beyond Orthodox taboos, capturing how cracks in religious convictions engender a painful process of re-orientating desires to reproduce amidst shrinking public support, feminism, and new ideals of romance, intimacy and parenting. Paying close attention to ethical dilemmas, the book explores not just pro-ceptive but also contraceptive desires around family when to have children, how many, and at what cost.
The volume offers a rare look at issues of contraception in the Orthodox context, and notably includes interviews with men, making the case that we cannot continue to study reproductive choice solely through the perspectives of women. The State of Desire is a groundbreaking anthropological approach to the study of religion and reproduction, and a remarkably intimate account of the delicate balance between personal desires and those of the state.
In recent years, Israeli state policies have attempted to dissuade Orthodox Jews from creating large families, an objective that flies in the face of traditional practices in their community. As state desires to cultivate a high-income, tech-centered nation come into greater conflict with common Orthodox familial practices, Jewish couples are finding it increasingly difficult to actualize their reproductive aims and communal expectations.
In The State of Desire , Lea Taragin-Zeller provides an intimate examination of the often devastating effects of Israel’s steep cutbacks in child benefits, which are aimed at limiting the rapid increase in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. Taragin-Zeller takes the reader beyond Orthodox taboos, capturing how cracks in religious convictions engender a painful process of re-orientating desires to reproduce amidst shrinking public support, feminism, and new ideals of romance, intimacy and parenting. Paying close attention to ethical dilemmas, the book explores not just pro-ceptive but also contraceptive desires around family when to have children, how many, and at what cost.
The volume offers a rare look at issues of contraception in the Orthodox context, and notably includes interviews with men, making the case that we cannot continue to study reproductive choice solely through the perspectives of women. The State of Desire is a groundbreaking anthropological approach to the study of religion and reproduction, and a remarkably intimate account of the delicate balance between personal desires and those of the state.
200 pages, Hardcover
Published August 8, 2023
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November 11, 2024Review to come!
For now,
PhD Adventuring
- I'm incredibly early in this process. I look ahead and see, quite vividly, months of interviews and applications and emails and visas and advisors and papers. I know that this is a journey and it is one that will take time. I realize it, embrace it. Own it.
- And this, right now, this is the beginning. My list is becoming tangible, entering my details into dozens of entry apps. I'm slowly telling people about my applications, with shaking hands and embarrassed laughter. Yeah, I'm applying to PhDs.
- It says something about me that i'm most scared of admitting to others that I've failed. i'm not scared of not getting accepted- i know i'll find some sort of job regardless and if academia is my path, i'll find my way to it later- but oh god, looking at everyone who believed in me and needing to say a million times, "no, i'm not going abroad, yes, i have a collection of rejection letters instead of a degree".
- It takes a special kind of arrogance to look at 100 years of scholarship on Israel and Palestine and go, "I can add something, move aside and give me some space". It takes endless amount of belief in one's self to apply to the top universities, to believe that I can conduct research in Oxford. But fuck it, 14 year old me had dreams and applying matters. I need to believe that there is value in trying, no matter the results. It's okay if I get a million rejections, as long as there's one "yes".
- Right now, all the concepts I'm interested in blur in my mind. My advisor told me to think of who I want to speak to and man, it's the peacebuilding community and it's democracy and polarization people and it's identity and discourse studies and it's doing ethnography and grounded work and it's IR. This won't do. I'm drawn to the intersection of peoplehood and politics, of nationalism, of the words we use to tell our stories, of the tensions between different groups, of narratives. It's all so connected in my mind but I realize that this journey requires clarification and I need to embrace that I won't fulfill every academic curiosity in one project.
- or, today i thought about how cool it would be to research genocidal humor (Israeli and Palestinian) and the relationship to core narratives or how I'd love to work on the intersection of concepts across disciplines or analyze the mentions of the two state solution across old UN speeches to see growth and it's okay if this happens way way later.
- and I would be lying if I didn't admit that this is, in part, a desire to run away. I just need to get the fuck out of Israel (for a while). This place breaks my heart, crushes my soul, destroys my hopes for a better life. I don't have any illusions about life outside. I expect cruelty when I share my nationality, I know that antisemitism hurts me more than missile sirens. I know that this conflict will live in my brain regardless of where I sleep. Yet the distance between me and other Israelis is growing and I feel like I can't breathe. The moral weight chokes me and I'm just so disappointed in Israelis and Palestinians, this land consumes humanity. Fuck our leaders, fuck our nonchalance, fuck being trapped in our national narratives. I can't stay here now.
- And this acknowledgement also makes me hesitant about doing research about here. I don't want to frame this as cowardice- I have wanted to do a PhD abroad before October 7th- but I also realize that living abroad and doing research about home is not my way. I won't sit abroad and pretend to understand what people here feel.
- This all fills me up with so much anxiety. What if no supervisor likes me? what if my proposal sucks and no one will tell me because everyone is too nice so i'll only know due to the rejections? what if i make the wrong decision? But I am trying to take it step by step. I started this process late because of my deliberating fears, insecurities and doubts. I'm done with that. This is about acting, doing, no more questioning.
For now,
PhD Adventuring
- I'm incredibly early in this process. I look ahead and see, quite vividly, months of interviews and applications and emails and visas and advisors and papers. I know that this is a journey and it is one that will take time. I realize it, embrace it. Own it.
- And this, right now, this is the beginning. My list is becoming tangible, entering my details into dozens of entry apps. I'm slowly telling people about my applications, with shaking hands and embarrassed laughter. Yeah, I'm applying to PhDs.
- It says something about me that i'm most scared of admitting to others that I've failed. i'm not scared of not getting accepted- i know i'll find some sort of job regardless and if academia is my path, i'll find my way to it later- but oh god, looking at everyone who believed in me and needing to say a million times, "no, i'm not going abroad, yes, i have a collection of rejection letters instead of a degree".
- It takes a special kind of arrogance to look at 100 years of scholarship on Israel and Palestine and go, "I can add something, move aside and give me some space". It takes endless amount of belief in one's self to apply to the top universities, to believe that I can conduct research in Oxford. But fuck it, 14 year old me had dreams and applying matters. I need to believe that there is value in trying, no matter the results. It's okay if I get a million rejections, as long as there's one "yes".
- Right now, all the concepts I'm interested in blur in my mind. My advisor told me to think of who I want to speak to and man, it's the peacebuilding community and it's democracy and polarization people and it's identity and discourse studies and it's doing ethnography and grounded work and it's IR. This won't do. I'm drawn to the intersection of peoplehood and politics, of nationalism, of the words we use to tell our stories, of the tensions between different groups, of narratives. It's all so connected in my mind but I realize that this journey requires clarification and I need to embrace that I won't fulfill every academic curiosity in one project.
- or, today i thought about how cool it would be to research genocidal humor (Israeli and Palestinian) and the relationship to core narratives or how I'd love to work on the intersection of concepts across disciplines or analyze the mentions of the two state solution across old UN speeches to see growth and it's okay if this happens way way later.
- and I would be lying if I didn't admit that this is, in part, a desire to run away. I just need to get the fuck out of Israel (for a while). This place breaks my heart, crushes my soul, destroys my hopes for a better life. I don't have any illusions about life outside. I expect cruelty when I share my nationality, I know that antisemitism hurts me more than missile sirens. I know that this conflict will live in my brain regardless of where I sleep. Yet the distance between me and other Israelis is growing and I feel like I can't breathe. The moral weight chokes me and I'm just so disappointed in Israelis and Palestinians, this land consumes humanity. Fuck our leaders, fuck our nonchalance, fuck being trapped in our national narratives. I can't stay here now.
- And this acknowledgement also makes me hesitant about doing research about here. I don't want to frame this as cowardice- I have wanted to do a PhD abroad before October 7th- but I also realize that living abroad and doing research about home is not my way. I won't sit abroad and pretend to understand what people here feel.
- This all fills me up with so much anxiety. What if no supervisor likes me? what if my proposal sucks and no one will tell me because everyone is too nice so i'll only know due to the rejections? what if i make the wrong decision? But I am trying to take it step by step. I started this process late because of my deliberating fears, insecurities and doubts. I'm done with that. This is about acting, doing, no more questioning.
Displaying 1 of 1 review