Families and (Post) Modernism: Jewish Families in Israel

For more than three decades, scholars point to the fact that, in postindustrial societies, the process of individualization, which puts the individual at the center of the family, is changing that institution beyond recognition. They argue that the individualization process is transforming family frameworks which, in the past, were institutionalized to serve the interests of society, into frameworks in which the individual’s desires and needs are their very raison d’être. Nonetheless, it is also claimed that pre-existing social structures such as gender, class, religion, race, or ethnicity continue to shape that process while traditional institutions and long-established practices still serve as guidelines for individual choices. In other words, it appears that the individualization process in the family is experienced differently, often with great limitations, in different social groups within the same society or in different parts of the world—an evolution recently referred to as “differentiated individualization” (Rasborg, 2017; Fogiel – Bijaoui 2020) As Israel is a post-industrial society, in this paper, we refer to the “differentiated individualization” approach in order to analyze Jewish families in that country. On the basis of most recent official data, we first describe the individualization process and its limits among Jewish families. We then map the family individualization process among different groups that are the fabric of the Jewish society in Israel by referring to the intersections of gender, religiosity, class and ethnicity. In the third part of this paper, we explain this evolution by pointing to the institutionalization of religious family laws and of a neo-liberal welfare state in Israel. The conclusion addresses the need for further comparative research on family differentiated individualization, religion and welfare regimes.