LiminalSpaces

Hagar Goren
The True Victory
My name is Hagar Goren. I am 38, a single woman living in Jerusalem.
My desire to become a mother, to have a child without establishing a
normative family,  has led me to confront questions concerning what is
“natural,” social norms, the Zionist ethos of settling the land and questions
of ethnic identity; it has also introduced me to the economic system that
governs the sperm banks.
This project began when my personal wish to become a mother evolved
into a study of the society I live in. In this work, I present part of the
process of looking into, learning about and examining the tension
between personal, individual desire and social demands.
***
The encouragement of a high birth rate is a state policy in Israel; it involves
legislation in favor of increasing the birth rate in the Jewish population,
and the allocation of funds for facilitating the enlargement of Jewish
families. In Israeli social discourse, both security concerns and the thesis
concerning the unique religious, ethnic and demographic character of
Israel are employed in order to legitimize the encouragement of high
birth rates and to blur the political character of Israeli fertility policies.
Even within one’s local community, on the level of grocery-store
encounters… If you’ve reached a certain age and you don’t have a child,
“something must be wrong with you.”
One of the tools for implementing the high birth rate policy was the
creation of the Council for Demography. The Council was founded in
1967  in order to “ensure the preservation of the State of Israel’s character
as a Jewish state.” The fact that the Council’s aim is to encourage birth
rates in the Jewish sector alone, and not in the Muslim or Christian
sectors, raises questions concerning the nature of democracy in Israel.
The term “demography” in Israel is a charged and sensitive term. It is
usually paired with the words: demographic threat, demographic demon,
demographic disaster, demographic problem or demographic war.
Countless statistical estimates concerning the time frame within which
there will be an Arab majority in Israel have been published in recent
years. The policy of encouraging a high Jewish birth rate has existed since
the foundation of the state, and has been paralleled by a policy of reducing
the size of the Palestinian population; this later policy is implemented
through the legislation aimed at impeding the unification of Palestinian
families, and through the creation of conditions that encourage the
emigration of Palestinians living in Israel.
The creation of local sperm banks began in the aftermath of the Yom
Kippur war, due to the requests of numerous widows who wanted to give
birth without remarrying. The flourishing of these banks began over the
last decade, due to the growing legitimacy for the creation of single-
parent or single-sex families in the country’s gay community. There are
currently seven sperm banks in Israel, and the state partially subsidizes
the sperm donation process. Approximately 1000 women visit local
sperm banks every year.
***

I want to be a mother. It did not happen by chance, and will not happen
by chance. The possibility of becoming a single mother by means of a
sperm bank donation causes me to pause, to stop for a moment and to
look into things, to ask questions and try to understand the direct and
indirect ramifications of such a decision: what effect will this decision
have, in what ways does it feel uncomfortable, and why? … And if it does
indeed have an effect, then why has it become a matter that some think
should remain secluded behind the sperm bank walls?
Paradox: on the one hand, this is the most intimate decision possible. On
the other hand, it is being dealt with on the level of the state. I feel
uncomfortable, so I stop. The clock is ticking and putting on pressure,and
I stop abruptly or channel things to a place in which I will be able to
understand what is going on here, why I am shocked by the possibility of
choosing between a dark-skinned and a light-skinned donor. How does it
happen that a secretary at the health clinic who has never seen me before
writes me a note saying: You must have a child.
A moment before I enter the current, I feel I must look into things, question
them, take them to either extreme, share them.

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Hagar Goren
Born 1968, Jerusalem, Israel. Lives and works in Jerusalem. She works in
various mediums (video, sound & sculpture), in collaboration with
others. Her installation art explores the appropriation of language. She
documents Physicians for Human Rights activities and co-founded
Parrhesia, a group of artists, designers and education professionals
aiming to develop a new civil communication language.
hagargoren@gmail.com