6. Reasons For The Reality Gap
3. The Centrality Of The Family In Israeli Culture
Israel is an extremely family oriented society and sees the family as its
basic unit. This derives largely from Jewish tradition, but is reinforced
by the geography of the conservative societies around the Mediterranean (Italy,
Greece) and the Middle East. Another factor that has reinforced this is the
consciousness of Israeli Jews that the Jewish State is demographically threatened
and that one important task of the society is to decrease the demographic
threat by having many children. At one point there was a government department
that was responsible for the promotion of large families. In such a situation,
it is clear that the idea of the Mother as the glue around which the family
coalesces, will be a central ideal of the society. Women who do not accept
that model are often seen as failing their natural role as a woman and their
national role as an Israeli. Unmarried women will tend to feel great pressure
to marry, and the traditional Jewish role will be correspondingly difficult
to break away from.
Without getting into the rights and wrongs of the issue, objectively it can
be said that for those who desire to break away from the traditional role
of mother, it is more difficult in Israel than in many other societies. When
talking about the experience of the chalutzot in the early workers settlement
and kibbutzim, we mentioned that the issue of motherhood, however positively
it might be seen, in and of itself, became a retarding factor for the women
who wished to be involved in more productive labour. Similarly, it is possible
to make the case that the associations of womanhood and motherhood and the
attendant social pressures have had a similar effect within the society as
whole.
Nevertheless, it should be repeated here that there has been a fair amount
of social legislation that has attempted to make it easy for mothers to enter
the work-place. Working mothers definitely have rights in Israel. Apart from
the factors already mentioned, there is a large amount of quality daycare
available.