Conceiving Agency: Reproductive Authority among Haredi Women by Michal S. Raucher (review)

Michal Raucher is a religiously observant (dati) Jew. Given the Haredi norm of modesty, however, as a non-Haredi female the author was not able to interview any Haredi males—husbands or rabbis. In view of her feminist perspective, it is noteworthy that she had a liberal upbringing. The author challenged what David Ellenson called "halakhic formalism" (18), the prevailing practice of textual analysis of the scripture for discovering Jewish ethical principles.

The main argument of the book is that the "embodied experience" (110) of pregnancy, which connects women to God in being conferred by God, facilitates Haredi women making reproductive decisions "without" (3) rabbinic authorities, husbands, and medical professionals. Thus, the Haredi women—who are not countercultural and do not refer to themselves as autonomous or as having agency—challenged the Haredi patriarchal hierarchical structure. Consequently, the author holds that the normative gap between textual morality and lived experience must be bridged for Jewish ethics. Along with an introduction and conclusion, the work is organized into five chapters: medicine, books, pregnancy, theology, and abortion.

In applying an ethnographic methodology with snowball sampling, Raucher interviewed twenty-three Haredi women between 2009 and 2011. Also, she interviewed about twenty-five medical professionals, including thirteen doctors and nurses along with eleven doulas. Furthermore, she was a participant-observer with EFRAT, the largest anti-abortion organization in Israel. (EFRAT activism through financial help is examined in chapter 5.)

Rabbis play a gatekeeper role for the Haredi laity. This includes ritual contamination prevention of the kinship line when undergoing fertility treatments. Given the financial risk of losing their religious clientele, including a hospitalization grant for each hospital birth from the National Insurance Institute of Israel, doctors accept involvement of rabbis, nurses, and midwives in birth-control measures, menstruation, and prenatal testing (e.g., fetal ultrasound).

Given the gendered spheres of Haredi life, men stay busy with religious books and learning while women take care of the home and children. Thus, both books and babies provide status in the Haredi community. Raucher cautions that in spite of displaying pregnancy books at home the Haredi women disavow using such books for their reproductive knowledge. Nevertheless, the author notes two themes through an examination of two books. B'Shaah Tovah: Madrich Refui Hilchati Lherayon v'Leida (In a good time: A medical and halachic guide for pregnancy and labor), coauthored by a nurse–midwife and her rabbi husband, integrates medical and religious knowledge during pregnancy. In addition to ascribing an integral role of God for fetal development, the religious teaching includes three commandments for women during labor: niddah, challah, and Sabbath lights. In contrast, many of the contributors in Hachana Ruchanit L'Leida (Spiritual preparation for labor) are emphatic about women having a say in their medical care during pregnancy.

Rituals in dress, eating, language, sexuality, and behavior distinguish the Haredi women from the out-group in cultivating a spiritual relationship with God. The tradition of gender-segregated upbringing and arranged marriage engenders silence about pregnancy even among family and friends. Also, there is a lack of communication regarding pregnancy among young couples. Furthermore, a Haredi wife will not approach her rabbi without the intermediary of her husband. All these societal practices leave Haredi women room to make reproductive decisions for themselves. Raucher finds that it is during the third pregnancy that Haredi women assert their autonomy in challenging advice from doctors and rabbis.

Moving from distinguishing rituals to the unique (female only) embodied experience of pregnancy endows the Haredi women with divine authority, argues the author. This is because the act of creation takes place through the woman's body—a kli, a vessel for God in generating a new life. Metaphorically, labor is messianic redemption. In a rejoinder to rabbinic reproductive theology stressing fetus as God's creation, Raucher is emphatic that her Haredi women interviewees held their kli role as both "fundamental and significant" (122).

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