Kathy wrote, <>

About ten or twelve years ago when I lived in Israel there was an interesting
article in one of the papers there about changes in the haredi
(ultra-orthodox) family.

The articles's point was that, even though in the 1950s and 1960s it was
considered desirable for the men to study Torah full time, few scholarships
were available.  So most men studied for a year or so when first married,
then reluctantly quit to get jobs and support their families.   Wives mostly
worked a bit here and there but were home a lot with their kids, and families
averaged 8 or 9 children at completion.

Then, in the 1970s and 80s, the governement increased subsidies to kolels,
schools where ultraorthodox married men could learn full time.  But the
subsidies were not enough to raise families on, and the men were no longer
working.  So the mothers weaned earlier and went to work full time even when
their babies were very young (still no contraception), with the predictable
but still amazing increase in typical family size to about 15 children.

The haredi community was presented as being mostly happy about that -- more
Torah and more children, both good -- except that they had many more kids
with birth defects, and that other taxpayers, who were increasingly
subsidizing those huge families, were increasingly irate about the whole
thing (not just b/c of family size, there were a lot of other issues, but
that was one complicating factor).

Lactnetters who work in the Haredi community, in the US or Israel, does this
look like how it is to you?

Elisheva Urbas, NYC

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