Filial piety in Israel: between the law in the books and the law in action

• Author: Filial piety in Israel: between the law in the books and the law in action
• Pages: 145-163

FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA

VOL. 14 JUNE 2019 NO. 2

DOI 10.3868/s050-008-019-0009-6

FOCUS

AGING POPULATION AND THE LAW: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH

FILIAL PIETY IN ISRAEL: BETWEEN THE LAW IN THE BOOKS AND THE

LAW I N ACTION

Daphna Hacker*

Abstract This paper explores the main legal aspects of filial piety in Israel. Based on a

socio-legal study, it traces a significant gap between the law in the books, which

mandates that children support their parents financially if the latter cannot support

themselves, and the law in action, which narrows this obligation to cases in which the

parents must be cared for in a State nursing home. The study also highlights the

relevance of religious and cultural norms in shaping filial piety in multicultural countries

and thus points to the urgent need to tailor filial piety legal policies according to socially

constructed, actual, and diverse filial piety perceptions and practices.

Keywords filial piety, Israel, Jewish law, Sharia (Islamic law), multiculturalism, the Family

Law (Maintenance) Amendment Law of 1959, Welfare Services Law of 1958

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 145

I. METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................... 148

II. CURRENT ISRAELI LAW IN THE BOOKS AND ITS RELIGIOUS ORIGIN ...................... 149

III. CURRENT ISRAELI LAW IN ACTION ....................................................................... 153

IV. FUTURE ISRAELI LAW IN THE BOOKS.................................................................... 160

CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................ 163

INTRODUCTION

Israel is a relatively young and small country. Established just over seventy years ago,

in 1948, its population size of 8,780,000 inhabitants1 is comparable to that of a major city

* Daphna Hacker, Ph.D. in Sociology, Sociology and Anthropology Department, Tel Aviv University, Tel

Aviv, Israel; Head of the Women and Gender Studies Program and Member of the Law Faculty, Tel Aviv

University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel. Contact: dafna@tauex.tau.ac.il

The empirical research reported in this paper was supported by The Israel Science Foundation (Grant No.

138/14), for which I am grateful.

1 Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, Year Bo ok, at 19, (2019), available at https://www.cbs.gov.il/

he/publications/DocLib/2018/shnaton69/shnaton69.pdf (last visited Jul. 4, 2019).

146 FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA [Vol. 14: 145

in China, such as Wuhan or Dongguan.2 Israel is also among the smallest countries in the

world geographically, at just 20,770 km3 (compared to the municipality of Beijing, for

example, at about 16,800 km2).4

Yet, despite its small scale, Israel is fascinating in its extraordinary social diversity

and hybrid identity. Among the population, 75% are Jewish, but 18% are Arab-Muslims,

and the rest are Christians or have no religious affiliation.5 45% of Israeli Jews define

themselves as secular, while the rest are traditional (25%), religious (16%), or

ultra-religious (14%). Among the Arabs, rates of religiosity are even higher, with only

11% defining themselves as secular.6 While most Israelis are native-born, there are two

large ethnic groups among the Jewish majority, which are based on the country of origin

of the many Jews who emigrated to Israel before and since its establishment. “Eastern

Jews” originate from Asia (especially Iraq and Iran) and Africa (especially Morocco and

Tunis); and “Western Jews” originate from North America and Europe (in both cases,

including later generations of the first immigrants). The “Eastern Jews,” who are, by and

large, more traditional than the “Western Jews,”7 suffer ongoing marginalization,

especially in higher education, and from overrepresentation in the economic and

geographic periphery.8 In the 1990s, about one million immigrants from the Soviet Union

joined the Israeli mosaic. While they might be seen as “Western Jews,” as they emigrated

from Europe, studies show that they are a distinct social and cultural group.9

As a whole, Israel is a hybrid society, which means that some of its most fundamental

cultural and national markers combine modernism and traditionalism, democracy and

anti-liberalism. For example, it combines economic and technological characteristics that

2 See Population of Cities in China (2019), available at http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/

china-population/cities/ (last visited Jul. 4, 2019).

3 See Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, fn. 1 at 7.

4 See Beijing: Population & Density by District and County, available at http://demographia.com/

db-beijing-ward.htm (last visited Jul. 4, 2019).

5 Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, Media Release, (2019), available at http://www.cbs.gov.il/he/

mediarelease/DocLib/2018/195/32_18_195b.pdf (last visited Feb. 10, 2019).

6 Id.

7 “Traditional” is a unique Israeli−Jewish social category that includes people who respect religious

traditions and most likely believe in God, yet neither observe all religious commandments nor shape their life

choices according to Rabbinical guidance. Yaacov Yadgar, Secularism and Religion in Jewish

−

Israeli Politics

:

Traditionists and Modernity, Routledge (London & New York), (2011).

8 Tamar Lerenthal & Moshe Semyonov, Country of Origin, Gender, and the Attainment of Socioeconomic

Status: A Study of Stratification in the Jewish Population of Israel, 34(4) Megamot, 582 (1993); Yinon Cohen,

Noah Lewin-Epstein & Amit Lazarus, Mizrahi-Ashkenazi Educational Gaps in the Third Generation, 59

Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 25 (2019).

9 Elazar Leshem, FSU Immigrants in Israel between “Integration” and “Segregation,” in Avi Bareli,

Tuvia Friling & Dani Gutwein eds. The Economy and Sociology in Israel: Historical and Contemporary

Aspects, Ben Gurion University Press (Beer Sheva), at 542–543 (2005).