Dana Kaplan is doing her doctorate on sex. And having more fun. But in Jerusalem, where the high birth rate testifies that women are certainly having sex, the question is open: Are they enjoying it more, or less? And: Is there anything special about the sexual experiences of women in the Holy City?
This group includes gynecologists, sex educators and counselors, psychiatric social workers, an anthropologist, a nurse-midwife, public health activists, and others. For a while, an ultra-Orthodox doctor with 12 children, married to a rabbi, also attended regularly, as did a Ph. The 13 core members are now mostly in their 50s or 60s, except for one ish suburbanite who sells sex toys on the web.
They share their findings through private practice and public lectures. But this past year its members have begun speaking among themselves about their personal lives and experiences. Experts in their respective specialties, they were all non-native Israelis who hailed primarily from North America.
The most blatant differences among Israeli bedroom practices would appear to lie in the great divide between secular and religious or ultra-religious populations. Other differences, however, may be significantly more subtle.
Judaism, the historic common denominator of Israeli culture, has long grappled with questions of sexuality. Orthodox researcher and spiritual leader Dr. Both married and single women up to the age of 45 are eligible for state-subsidized fertility treatments for their first or second child. Single women who choose to have children usually do so with the blessing of their friends, employers and health funds. So, in this presumably modern, liberal, Jewish democracy, what does the school system teach impressionable young Israeli minds about sexuality?
