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I am invited to go clubbing in Tel Aviv by two Israeli women
in their mid-thirties. They tell me they’re not ‘heading out’ until 11 pm or
so. Before then, one has an errand to run and a friend to see, another who is a
blogger, has work to do and then may grab drinks with friends before we meet at
the club.
They love the club energy in Tel Aviv – what’s not to love?
The restaurants and clubs are diverse and things stay open late – New York style, unlike
the majority of American cities that close early and have strict alcohol laws.
Yet, they’re ready to start families and like many driven
American females I know who are CEOs of companies or professors at
universities, hours are long and demands are high.
I learn about the single scene through their eyes, a few
male Israelis, also in their mid-thirties, and a 39 year old going through a
divorce. A mutual friend of this soon to be divorcee, doesn’t have any divorced
friends. She’s a Berkeley graduate who has spent
most of her life in Israel,
has two children, is a Director at a technology company and lives a modern
family life.
A few other married friends inside and outside the
technology world say the same thing. My 43 year old friend who spent six months
in my home town nearly 25 years ago is married with two kids. He met his wife
at the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem
where he majored in history and she was ploughed through language studies.
They too have no divorced friends, although they both agree
that ‘times are a’ changing’ and not only are they witnessing others outside
their circles facing separation but also single women in their late thirties
and early forties who are going to sperm banks.
In a country that honors family more than it does work, many
of these women have extended families who can help raise their children in a
nurturing environment, a blessing that many single American women don’t have.
That said, everyone I met and talked to – single and married
– felt that ‘working it out’ whether that be through counseling or moving
through it, was preferred over throwing it all away. They’re not as quick to
sign those divorce papers because of the fact that family is so central to the
core values of Israeli life.
Says one friend who spent all of his life in Israel except for a five year stint in a South
African middle school in his teens, “It is extremely hard to live in Israel
without family. Family is at the heart of everything we do.
“It’s hard to imagine being single now without family –
everything revolves around family on weekends, holidays, even on weekday
evenings. My wife and I both work and she is more driven than I am. At the end
of the day, something has to give if we don’t have enough time with our
children and it must be our work. What’s more important than our children?”
Part of this commitment to family comes from a long history
of struggles and cultural and religious beliefs. Part of comes from Israeli’s
love of children. There’s that old Genesis 1:28 reference: “sweeter than honey
is a house filled with children.” This belief seems to carry a lot of weight in
the Israel
I experienced whether the family is religious or not.
I spent time talking to numerous Israelis in their thirties
and forties. One 31 technology entrepreneur who exudes independence says, “I
don’t want to be too old to raise my children. I’m on my second start-up, so I haven’t had time
to dedicate to relationships or made family a top priority but that needs to
change very soon.”
“What about the start-up I ask. “I’ll have to offload some
of it,” he says with ‘internal conflict’ in his voice. “Family is more
important.”
I had another conversation with a Lebanese Christian journalist
who is married to a German woman in her late twenties. He left Lebanon after
the war when he was not quite 19 and only just returned about a year ago.
Living in Israel for him is
about as foreign as it was during his four year college stint in London.
While his parents now live in Israel too, he doesn’t feel like he
belongs here. As a Christian among largely Jewish friends and colleagues, he
doesn’t fit into any of the traditional buckets that have become the melting
pot of this country: Russians, Orthodox, Mizrahim, Ethiopian immigrants,
Haradim, Ashkenazim, the Bedouins or the eastern European Zionists who moved
here for a better life in the 40s and 50s.
Israel
is a land of diversity, each immigrant confronting their original
