• Piety and the Pill:American Orthodox Judaism and the Contraception Debate in the Postwar Era
• Zev Eleff (bio)

In 1952, the Orthodox Union published a heated exchange. The topic was Judaism's attitude toward birth control. In the first installment, an Orthodox Jewish physician penned an essay on a "major problem of today from a Torah viewpoint." For this writer, contraceptives were indeed a considerable conundrum. The Bible, after all, explained Dr. Willy Hofmann, charges mankind to "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28). The author allowed that there might be special dispensation for dire health needs. Yet based on "quotations and explanations from the Talmud and Scriptures," Hofmann asserted, "it is quite obvious that Jewish tradition and viewpoint cannot consider planned parenthood for social or economic reasons."¹ His forceful conclusion fit the expectations of tradition-bound faith leaders in the United States who feared the impact of this new contraception.²

Others disagreed. An Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn contended that Hofmann's approach was misguided and failed to understand the religious significance of modern scientific innovation. Alluding to widening fears of global overpopulation, the letter writer, perhaps aware of similar views among Protestant theologians, suggested that God had provided more reliable forms of contraception because "He now finds it necessary to reduce a number of His children through Birth Control."³ Yet another writer, Rabbi Ephraim Sturm of the National Council of Young Israel, sided with Hofmann on birth control and condemned his interlocutor for "spreading atheistic thought."⁴ Sturm's censure was freighted with "anti-secularist" and "pro-family" language that would have resonated with Orthodox elites and other religious leaders of American tradition-bound [End Page 533] faiths. He demanded that the Orthodox Union resist the "democratic talk about tolerance"—the only rationale he could think of that would have justified publication of the letter—and prevent birth control supporters from bringing "idols into my temple."⁵

Two components of this correspondence stand out. First, in regular Talmudic jurisprudence, rabbinical scholars marshal dozens of citations and analysis of those texts to prove their position. This is the stuff of an elite literary genre: scholarly, sober and as dispassionate as possible. But this exchange on birth control, with its references to American pluralism, secularization, and overcrowding, was anchored in sociological and political terms rather than typical rabbinical rhetoric. Despite Willy Hofmann's insistence that his position was backed by citations from the Bible and the Talmud, he did not include prooftexts or offer religious "explanations." Hofmann, instead, cited likeminded leaders within the Catholic Church! The other letter writers also steered away from engaging in careful reading of traditional Jewish sources. To be sure, sociological factors have always, to some degree or another, influenced Jewish legal decision making, known as Halakhah.⁶ Yet, these forces usually hover in the background; explicit use of this form of argument around birth control in the Orthodox Union publication, in lieu of traditional Jewish sources, was striking.

Second, and perhaps even more surprising, the debate excluded female voices. Their absence was noticeable; women had regularly contributed to this Orthodox magazine since its formation in the 1940s. The silence among Orthodox women contrasts with female peers from other religious communities who played a prominent role in public discourse on contraception. For American Christians, the birth control debate was wrapped up in critical questions of religious authority and modern sensibilities, often obscuring other important questions about women's bodies and rights. The reticence of Orthodox Jewish women, though, was probably not the result of pious modesty. Nor did it reflect agreement with the rabbinate's generally negative view on contraceptive use. Orthodox women spoke up, for instance, to challenge the rabbinical establishment on the place of women in the workplace.⁷ The available sociological data suggests that Orthodox women used contraceptives, ignoring the positions taken by their religious leaders. Catholic and [End Page 534] Protestant women wrote articles and published letters—oftentimes under pseudonyms to avoid shaming—about the religious propriety of birth control, its impact on their lives and bodies, as well as the awkwardness, in the case of Catholics, of an all-male celibate priestship making religious decisions that had the greatest...

• 虔诚与药丸：战后时代的美国东正教犹太教与避孕辩论
• Zev Eleff（生物）

1952年，东正教联盟发表了激烈的交流。主题是犹太教对节育的态度。在第一部分中，一名东正教犹太医生撰写了一篇有关“从摩西五经的角度来看今天存在的主要问题”的文章。对于这位作家来说，避孕药确实是一个很大的难题。毕竟，圣经解释了威利·霍夫曼博士（Willy Hofmann），他指责人类“富有成果并繁衍”（创世记1：28）。作者允许针对严重的健康需要提供特殊的分配。霍夫曼断言，根据“塔木德和圣经的引文和解释”，“很明显，犹太人的传统和观点出于社会或经济原因不能考虑计划生育。” ^1个他的有力结论符合美国传统信仰领袖的期望，他们担心这种新避孕方法的影响。^2个

其他人则不同意。布鲁克林的一个东正教犹太人辩称，霍夫曼的方法被误导了，无法理解现代科学创新的宗教意义。这封信作者暗示着上帝对新教神学家的类似看法，暗示着上帝提供了更可靠的避孕方式，因为“他现在发现有必要通过节育来减少一些孩子的数量”，这暗示着人们对全球人口过剩的担忧日益增加。^[3]另一位作家，年轻以色列全国委员会的拉比·伊法莱姆·斯特姆（Rabbi Ephraim Sturm）与霍夫曼站在节育方面，并谴责他的对话者“传播无神论思想”。⁴斯特姆的谴责充满了“反世俗主义者”和“亲家庭”的语言，这会引起东正教精英和其他受美国传统束缚的宗教领袖的共鸣[End Page 533]。他要求东正教联合会抵制“关于宽容的民主讨论”，这是他能想到的唯一理由，该合理性足以使这封信得以发表，并阻止节育支持者将“偶像带入我的殿堂”。⁵

这种对应关系的两个组成部分十分突出。首先，在常规的塔尔木德法学中，拉比主义学者封送了数十篇引文，并对这些文本进行了分析，以证明其立场。这就是精英文学体裁的内容：学术性，清醒性和尽可能的热情。但是，这种关于节育的交流涉及美国的多元化，世俗化和人满为患，是基于社会学和政治学的术语，而不是典型的阿拉伯语修辞。尽管威利·霍夫曼（Willy Hofmann）坚持认为自己的立场得到了圣经和塔木德圣经的支持，但他并未提供证据或提供宗教上的“解释”。霍夫曼却引述了天主教教会内志同道合的领导人！其他来信的作者也避免了认真阅读传统的犹太资源。⁶然而，这些力量通常在背景中徘徊。在东正教联盟出版物中代替传统的犹太资源，在节育方面明确使用这种形式的论点是令人震惊的。

第二，也许甚至更令人惊讶，辩论排除了女性的声音。他们的缺席很明显。自1940年代成立以来，妇女就定期为这本《东正教》杂志捐款。东正教妇女的沉默与其他宗教团体的女性同龄人形成对比，她们在有关避孕的公共讨论中发挥了重要作用。对于美国基督徒来说，关于节育的辩论被包裹在宗教权威和现代感性的关键问题上，这些问题常常掩盖了其他有关妇女的身体和权利的重要问题。但是，东正教犹太妇女的沉默可能不是虔诚谦虚的结果。它也没有反映出阿拉伯联合酋长国对避孕药具的普遍负面看法。例如，东正教妇女大声疾呼，⁷现有的社会学数据表明，东正教妇女使用避孕药具而忽略了其宗教领袖的立场。天主教徒和[结束第534页]新教妇女写文章和发表信件-通常以化名避免羞辱-有关节育的宗教礼节，对生育和身体的影响以及对天主教徒的尴尬，全男性独身神职人员的宗教决定，具有最大的...