(59) Orthodox Jewish Fertility and Family Size … with Viva Hammer

Viva Hammer is a fifth generation Australian who moved to New York after finishing law school. She served as a lawyer in the private sector and then at the US Treasury and in the US Congress. She is a partner in a DC law firm and holds academic positions at Brandeis University and the Australian National University.

She has been interviewing Orthodox parents of large families for 20 years in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and Israel and has published and spoken all over the world on her findings.

In this episode we discuss a wide range of related issues, including the average number of children in the Orthodox community; how and why this figure has dramatically changed in the last 50 years; how the changing nature of what it means to be Orthodox has contributed to the change in fertility measures; the growing incidence of family planning, use of birth control and halachic views relating to birth control, including its growing permissibility; how Orthodox Jewish family growth had become so vastly different from what is seen in fertility rates worldwide; whether and how marriage issues could affect Orthodoxy as a high-fertility society; and more.

Viva's website – http://vivahammer.com – has many of her publications, speeches, and news articles, and provides for much fascinating reading. In addition, her recent writings include:

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/why-do-orthodox-families-have-so-many-children/

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9xk346gj