Contents*

• Demographics and a Brief Historical Perspective 581

1. Basic Sexological Premises 582
2. Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Factors Affecting Sexuality 584
3. Knowledge and Education about Sexuality 587
4. Autoerotic Behaviors and Patterns 589
5. Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors 589
6. Homoerotic, Homosexual, and Bisexual Behaviors 595
7. Gender Diversity and Transgender Issues 596
8. Significant Unconventional Sexual Behaviors 596
9. Contraception, Abortion, and Population Planning 599
10. Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS 604
11. Sexual Dysfunctions, Counseling, and Therapies 607
12. Sex Research and Advanced Professional Education 608
13. National, Religious, and Ethnic Minorities 609
14. Glossary 618
15. References and Suggested Readings 618

*A Note for Researchers:  The numbers included in the section titles in the Contents above refer to the page numbers in the print edition of the CCIES. For the convenience of researchers, an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file of this chapter is available for download above (click the PDF icon), which reflects the actual pagination of the book. This will allow scholarly writers to cite actual page numbers in the printed book for quoted material, as well as its availability on the Web and the URL if desired. See also How to Use This Encyclopedia.

Chapter URL:  http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/ccies/il.php    Retrieved: 

[Note from the CCIES Website Editor:  Please send any additions, corrections, or updated information to:  Raymond J. Noonan, Ph.D.]

Demographics and a Brief Historical Perspective

ROBERT T. FRANCOEUR

A. Demographics

At the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, in the Middle East, Israel is a small nation, long and narrow in shape, about the size of the state of New Jersey. Its western border is the Mediterranean Sea. On all other sides are Arabic, predominantly Muslim, nations—Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, most of which are in a state of war with Israel since its declaration as a Jewish state in 1948. Israel’s 7,847 square miles (20,324 km²) include a western fertile coastal plain, a well-watered central Judean Plateau, and the arid Negev desert in the south. The climate is temperate, but hot and dry in the southern and eastern desert areas.

In July 2002, Israel had an estimated population of 6.02 million. (All data are from The World Factbook 2002 (CIA 2002) unless otherwise stated.) The 6.02 million population includes about 182,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, about 20,000 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, fewer than 7,000 in the Gaza Strip, and about 176,000 in East Jerusalem (August 2001 estimates).

Israel is the only country where the society is predominantly Jewish and the Jewish culture dominates. This is a source of difficulty in understanding sexuality in Israel. First, Western cultures do not always appreciate the extent to which Christian teachings differ from Jewish teachings in matters relating to sex and sexuality. (Outside of Israel, large Jewish communities living within dominant Christian cultures have acquired some of the host culture constructs.) This problem is aggravated by a methodological difficulty: Some of the common analytical tools and theoretical frames of reference used to explain sexual issues, especially gender ones, are somewhat lacking, because they are anchored in alien, mainly English-speaking, cultures.

B. A Brief Historical Perspective

In the southwest corner of the Middle East’s ancient Fertile Crescent, the land of Israel contains some of the oldest evidence we have of agriculture and the earliest town life. By the 3rd millennium before the Common Era, civilization had made significant advances in the area. The Hebrew people probably arrived sometime during the 2nd millennium B.C.E. Judaism and the land of Judea prospered under King David and his successors between 1000 and 600 B.C.E. After being conquered by the Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks, Judea again became an independent kingdom in 168 B.C.E. However, within a century, the land was occupied by the Romans. Rome suppressed revolts in 70 and 135 of the Common Era, and renamed Judea Palestine, after the Philistines who had inhabited the coastal land before the Hebrews arrived.

Arab invaders conquered the land in 636. Within a few centuries, Islam and the Arabic language became dominant, and the Jewish community was reduced to a minority. During the 11th to 13th centuries, the country became a part of the Seljuk, Mamluk, and Ottoman empires, although the Christian Crusades provided some temporary relief from Islamic culture between 1098 and 1291.

During four centuries of Ottoman rule, the Jewish population declined to about a third of a million people in 1785. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed in World War I, Britain took over control of the land in 1917; the Balfour Declaration pledged support for a Jewish national homeland there as anticipated by the Zionists. In 1922, the land east of the Jordan River was detached.

Jewish immigration, which began in the late 19th century, swelled in the 1930s as Jews fled the rising tide of Nazi persecutions. At the same time, Arab immigration from Syria and Lebanon also increased. Arab opposition to Jewish immigration erupted in violence in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936. After the turmoil of World War II, the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. In 1948, Britain withdrew from the country and Israel declared itself an independent state. The Arab world rejected the new state, and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia invaded, but were defeated by Israel, which incorporated new territories. In separate armistices signed with the Arab nations in 1949, Jordan occupied the Left Bank of the Jordan, and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip in the south, although neither granted Palestinian autonomy.

An uneasy truce prevailed until the Six Day War of 1967 erupted when Egypt tried to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. The war ended with Israel taking the Gaza Strip and occupying the Sinai Peninsula to the Suez Canal, and capturing East Jerusalem, Syria’s Golan Heights, and Jordan’s West Bank.

Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur of 1973. Israel drove the Syrians back and crossed the Suez Canal into Egypt. In the disengagement agreement of 1974, Israel withdrew from the Canal’s West Bank. A second withdrawal followed in 1976, and Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1982. In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty, ending 30 years of war. A 1978 terrorist attack from southern Lebanon led to an Israeli invasion. The violence and terrorism has continued, with Israel responding to the 1982 wounding of its ambassador to Great Britain by surrounding and entering West Beirut, and a military occupation by Israel of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Civilian unrest and military conflict has intensified in recent years marked by two Palestinian uprisings, called intifadas (literally, the shaking off). The First Intifada, 1987 to 1991, was followed by a period of relative quiet and reconciliation from the early to mid-1990s, with hope for a settlement to all Israeli-Palestinian hostilities. In September 1993, the Oslo Agreement was seen by many as groundbreaking and a first step to a firm and lasting peace. But after the 1996 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a fundamentalist Jew opposed to Israel giving up any of its occupied territory, the peace process slowed down to a grinding halt. The Palestinians living in the occupied territories did not see their living conditions improve. Additionally, Israel did not begin to withdraw from settlements in the occupied territories, which the Palestinians viewed as one of the largest obstacles for peace. Instead, their population almost doubled in the West Bank, even though few new settlements were constructed. This, along with sporadic attacks from Palestinian militant groups and the retribution from the Israelis, made the situation untenable.

The second intifada, the “al-Aqsa Intifada,” began in 2000 with the death of the Oslo Agreement and the failure of a summit between U.S. President Bill Clinton, PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In the wake of the controversial visit of Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount, renewed violence erupted with a new wave of suicide bombers, and many more deaths among the Palestinians than among the Israelis, as the Israeli army reoccupied the West Bank enforcing strict military law, sealing off the Gaza Strip, and imposing economic and travel restrictions on the Palestinians. The Israeli security forces instituted targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants, and destroyed the homes of suicide bombers’ families. With Mr. Arafat isolated by the Israelis, a new Palestinian prime minister was chosen. In mid-2003, with a new “road map” for peace, U.S. President Bush applied very strong pressure on Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, even as Palestinian opposition to Mr. Abbas increased and the prospects of peace appeared increasingly remote. At this writing, a new truce seemed at risk over the conflicting need for Israeli security and Palestinian demands for troop withdrawals and the return of prisoners.

1. Basic Sexological Premises

A. Character of Gender Roles

Judaism paints an ambivalent attitudinal picture in regard to women. It is certainly patriarchal in nature. The prayer a man recites three times a day includes a blessing for not being made a woman. On the other hand, the Shabbat blessing includes a praise glorifying the woman of valor. She is described in a traditional role of wife, mother, and homemaker. When a person is commanded to honor his parents, mother and father are mentioned explicitly and not the general form or the masculine one. A man is ordered to leave his mother and father and literally “stick” to his wife, while she is never ordered to leave her parents.

Gender and gender roles are viewed in a more traditional manner in Israeli sociocultural reality than elsewhere in Europe or North America. Already mentioned are several unique conditions that contribute not only to the perception of gender roles and the division of labor that are the public domain of family life, but also to concepts of intimacy and roles in sexual relations.

Service in the army reserves also contributes to the fixation of traditional roles of men and women beyond the military service at young adulthood. Men serve in the reserve forces a significant part of their adult life, typically 7 to 8%, but some as much as 25% of their time, annually, until they reach the age of 45 to 50. This fact has to be coped with within the family, and essentially exerts its influence on the balance of family life emotionally, as well as on the division of labor within the family balance of power, and the burden of physical and emotional responsibility of women to the children. Many children grow up with the ongoing worry about the danger to the life of the father, but also with stories that include macho and aggressive overtones. The exemption of women from reserve service on their first pregnancy, understandable as it is, only stresses the role division (see also Section 5C, Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors, Young Adults).

B. Sociolegal Status of Males and Females

Children

Legally, the rights of male and female children are fully equal. They inherit equally, are viewed with no distinction in terms of rights for protection by state authorities, and have the same rights for education and welfare in case of need.

Another law that has a bearing on sexual and familial issues is the prevailing legal situation (both in civil code and religious law), that there is no flaw in the legal status of a child born out of wedlock. This is sometimes used by religious authorities as an additional argument against granting abortions for unmarried women.

The only gender difference in the legal status of children is part of the religious family law that favors giving custody over girls to the mothers, while favoring fathers in the case of boys over the age of 6.

Adolescents

During adolescence, the legal status of boys and girls becomes somewhat different, mainly in regard to age of consent for sexual intercourse and the legal age of marriage, while their basic sociolegal rights remain equal.

The differences are in statutory rape laws—a concept that does not exist for boys. This creates an anomalous situation when a boy, who is more than two to three years younger than a girl of 14 or 15, has intercourse with her, opening him to the charge of rape in strict legal terms.

Despite this, the law does not distinguish between minors when it comes to sexual intercourse or molestation by authority figures, such as parents, caretakers, and professionals like teachers, psychologists, or physicians. Both males and females are considered under the protection of the law until age 21.

Another difference is the explicit permission needed to grant a minor girl an abortion without the knowledge and consent of her parents (see Section 9C, Contraception, Abortion, and Fertility Planning, Abortion). The practice is an extension of the rule that allows physicians to give minor girls treatment for preventing abortions, i.e., contraceptives, without the consent of their parents. This widespread interpretation of the law is never challenged in the courts.

Adults

The situation becomes more complicated when females and males reach adulthood. In addition to the complications of family law and the interaction between a predominantly nonobservant population with state-enacted and enforced orthodox laws and legal system mentioned above, there are several other issues of personal standing in which the issues of gender arise.

Only a few years ago, the income tax laws were changed so that the designation of “head of family” was struck and married women acquired independent standing. Prior to that, women’s earnings were treated as a joint income of the family. The term “head of family” was applied to the husband, unless it was a one-parent family headed by a woman.

An increased percentage of women participate in the labor force. While in 1967, only about 25% of the women worked outside their household, their number passed 40% in 1980 and reached 49% in 1992. Despite their increasing numbers in many economic branches, and higher positions, women still suffer from lower wages for equivalent work, and from lower chances for advancement within a specific area.

The equal opportunity law does not permit discrimination on the basis of gender, and even demands that advertisements for work be directed toward both genders.

There is a public campaign now for corrective or compensatory discrimination. Many men and women object to this proposal because they believe that women in Israel do have some offsetting advantage because they do not serve in the reserves, a fact that many employers appreciate.

Another point is the fact that several of the labor laws, especially those dealing with maternal leave, shorter working hours for mothers of small children, and the inability to fire pregnant women burden employers with additional expenses and restrict their ability to compete in an open market. This seems to be a case where what was perceived to be an advanced social law less than 30 years ago may be inappropriate in the new political climate.

Another economic burden and female advantage that both employers and politicians cite is the differences in the pension laws and regulations. Women, whose life expectancy at birth is 79, 3.6 years longer than men (75.4), retire five years earlier than men at age 60. In the public campaign to change the rules, women won the right to choose their age of retirement, but men still have to work until age 65 in order to earn their pensions. Thus, the time that pension funds expect to pay most women is almost nine years longer.

This condition is aggravated by the fact that pension rights to which the surviving member of a couple is entitled are strongly in favor of women, who can receive up to 40% of their partner’s salary, while in the rarer cases of a man surviving his wife, he can receive about 15% of hers. Several advocates of labor reform claim that any such changes will need to deal at the same time with all the structural differences between men and women, otherwise the system will not be able to carry the economic burden, and will also move from one form of discrimination to another, instead of toward egalitarianism.

[Issues of Sexual Rights

[Update 2002: The national elections of May 1999 and early 2001 illustrated a social phenomenon that has been emerging for a few years, a sectorial fragmentation of the Israeli society and the loss of power of a unifying common core. This is expressed in the political arena by the ideological parties losing their power. About 40% of the seats in the Parliament are held by sectorial parties acting as three large sectorial blocks: Arabs, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and the religious party of Jews of Middle Eastern origin. On one hand, this has heightened the political power of organized religion; on the other, it has made the secular sector more militant. Nonorthodox religious movements embedded in the U.S.A., namely the reform and conservative movements, are gaining popularity and power and are using the Supreme Court to force some issues around marriage-divorce laws. This weakens the traditional ties between church and state. On the other hand, the public discourse is currently characterized not only by the intensity of the differences, but by exaggerations and sensationalism in their expression.

[Israel’s Supreme Court is also the focus of change around other issues of sexual rights. The most recent case concerning the rights of homosexuals, decided in May 2000, was the registration of a child born to a lesbian woman as the adopted son of her female partner. The boy is now being raised by two official mothers, one biological and one adoptive. In the last two years, the Supreme Court also ordered the military to accept women into some of the most exclusive courses: flight and flight navigation training and navy ensigns. In 1999, two women graduated from flight school and one of them was already flying combat missions early in 2000. On the basis of that decision, a few women applied to be trained in the air force rescue team and to other combat units. This is a conceptual revolution in the military, which since the end of the war of liberation in 1949 excluded women from combat units. Three women are now one-star generals. A retired head of the women’s corps was recently appointed to head the prison service. In the civilian domain, the court ordered affirmative action in appointing women as directors to companies which are fully or partially owned by the central and local governments until an equal number of men and women serve as government representatives on the boards of directors. Capitalizing on this decision, several institutions offered courses to train women to serve on boards of industrial, commercial, and public-service companies.

[Another factor in this changing scene is the increasing commercialization of the media and no-holds-barred wars held over ratings in both the printed and electronic media. In a long process, the media, which were mainly ideologically affiliated, are becoming increasingly commercialized. Cable TV was introduced into Israel in the 1990s and, only somewhat prior to that, a second television broadcasting network. Political, social, and, of course, sexual sensationalism are rising in a process that reminds one of the noise level in a restaurant. If the noise level rises beyond a certain point, people who want to talk to each other must raise their voices, which contributes to further increasing of the noise and so on. Thus, issues of rape, harassment, and incest are among the issues discussed and portrayed in minute and hyper-realistic detail in the media. (End of update by R. A. Shtarkshall and M. Zemach)]

2. Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Factors Affecting Sexuality

A. Source and Character of Religious Values

The term “secular Jew” embodies the problematics and the uniqueness of the Israeli situation. One part of it—Jew—defines the national sociocultural and historical identity. The second part—secular—defines a relationship to Judaism as a religion and religious lifestyle, and the choice of a humanistic or secular democratic frame of reference over a religious one. These two parts can be naturally linked together only within Israel, the Jews’ national home.

Only about 30% of the Jews living in Israel define themselves as religious. Most of the other 70% define themselves as secular, while about 17% to 23% define themselves as traditional. The latter observe a few selected rules of observance, mainly ritualistic ones, while living most of their lives according to a secular lifestyle. Despite that, the culture is strongly influenced by traditional Jewish religious values.

Three examples—1. Jewish thought and its vehicle, the Hebrew language; 2. the role of religious values in a predominantly secular society; and 3. religious politics—will illustrate the extent in which Jewish culture influences sexual constructs.

The Hebrew Language and Jewish Thought

Language is the vehicle of abstract and analytical thought and therefore plays an important role in our psychosocial phenomena. Hebrew, the language of Jewish thought, exerts a very strong influence on Israeli Jewish thinking about sex and gender. The first expression of the place and meaning of sex in the world appears in the first chapters of the Old Testament, in a way diametrically divergent from Christian thought. In Genesis, the first time intercourse is mentioned in Jewish literature, the root of the verb used has multiple meanings: knowledge, consciousness, and intercourse. As far as is known, Hebrew is unique in using one root, and thus overlapping meanings, for sexual intercourse: knowledge and consciousness. The common root for knowledge, consciousness, and the verb for sexual intercourse indicates that sex is highly prominent in Jewish thought, and not necessarily in a negative way, especially when one recalls that Jews are known as the “people of the book.”

This influence is apparent despite the fact that other layers were added over the biblical language and, until the 20th century, Hebrew was only intermittently used as a spoken language for secular, nonritual, or nonreligious studies. In modern, largely secular, albeit Hebrew-speaking Israel, very few people use the biblical term for intercourse in daily life. Current terminology ranges from the intimate (make love) through the neutral (to perform sex or sexual relations, to lie with) to the aggressive equivalents of fuck, screw, shaft, and so on.

Thus, unlike many Christian approaches, traditional Jewish thought views sex as intrinsically neutral. It is a human characteristic with an extremely strong potential (like knowledge and consciousness), which can be turned into either good or evil by three humanly determined acts of choice: the meaning one gives to sex (an act of piety), the context within which it is practiced (marriage), and the way one practices it (rules of conduct, including purity laws). In itself, sex—and the pleasure of sex—is not a sin. The harmony of flesh and spirit, an important tenet of Jewish culture, is expressed in married heterosexual relations. Its consummation on a regular basis, not necessarily for procreation, is a mitzvah—a combination of an obligation and a privilege—and pleasure is an important part of it. Those who abstain in marriage run the risk of religious sanctions. As role models, community leaders are to be married with numerous children. There is no monasticism, and abstinence is frowned upon.

Despite this, one can also find strong ambivalence about sex and the expression of sexuality in Jewish thought throughout the ages. Its instinctual nature and extremely high potential for evil needs to be guarded and curbed at all times. Some strong Christian influences are also apparent, especially among the Jews living in Europe for the last two millennia.

Another example of the role of the historical language’s influencing modern sexual constructs is the fact that Hebrew is almost a totally gendered language. All the forms of speech—nouns, pronouns, verbs in all tenses, adjectives, and adverbs—take a gendered form. In contrast, English, the language of international research, is neutral, except for a few nouns describing animate objects. A comparative study among children of three different countries found that the gender prominence and dichotomization were ordinal according to the gender differentiation within the language, Hebrew-speaking children having the highest gender awareness. Thus, Jewish children learn with their first abstractions how important it is to identify the gender of each object/entity and to look for the characteristics that distinguish one gender from the other.

The Power of Religious Values in a Secular Society

The Judaic nature of the society is demonstrated by the role that even secular people ascribe to Judaism in the life of Israel. While most Jews are nonobservant in terms of Jewish orthodoxy, many of them define themselves as traditional. Debates on the relations between state and religion are a constant issue in Israeli politics and public life. Issues, like the definition of the Jew in the law of returning, the opening of public places, or the operation of public transportation on Shabbat (Saturday), support for religious educational systems, and the exemption of women and men studying in religious seminaries from army service, are argued regularly.

In many such debates, many secular people defer to religious demands, not as a surrender to their power politics, but because they view Judaism as having a special role in the life of the state. One of the basic tenets of Judaism is that it is a national religion with a role in both public and private life, with a unique historical role in preserving the Jews as a cohesive people. Sometimes, there is a feeling that in relating to religious demands in public life, secular people place themselves in an inferior position. This closely relates to this topic because marital and gender issues are an important part of the discourse and the complex relationship between state and religion.

The Political Power of Religious Parties

The influence of Judaism on family, gender, and sexual issues is exerted not only through the subtler cultural and indirect sociocultural forces, but also through the political, social, and economic power of the religious minority of the population. While the political platforms of the religious parties are varied, they are united in their determination to preserve the power and lifestyle of Jewish orthodoxy in the public life of Israel. Their political leverage is far greater than their actual electoral power. While the left- and right-wing parties alternated as dominant political powers and formers of governments, religious elements have held the balance of power in all coalition governments because of a proportional electoral system.

In return for support on issues of defense, foreign affairs, and the economy, the secular parties give in to the demands of the religious parties on issues of secondary importance to them in many social areas, including those relating to family, sex, and gender. Thus, the judicial system that determines family matters is religious, although some aspects can be dealt with also in civil court. The religious influence is obvious in the reform of laws regarding abortion, homosexuality, and censorship of pornography.

The combination of religious Halachic canons with a public that is largely secular creates a conflicted situation. The reason for this conflict lies in several religious laws that impose great hardship on men and women, especially on those who do not adhere to the religious lifestyle. These include the law that forbids men who are descendants of the priesthood families of the temple from marrying a divorcée or a widow; a law forbidding an adulterous woman from marrying her partner in sin, even after she is granted a divorce from the husband; and similar laws.

These situations cause hardship also for religious people, but they suffer them because they adhere to the basic religious tenets. For the secular majority who encounter them, they are an imposition. This is one of the reasons for the strong tensions between the religious and the secular sectors, but the fear of schism is so intense that most people will look for compromise solutions instead of cultural war.

Nevertheless, while the secular and the religious parties have officially agreed to a token truce—the preservation of an ill-defined status quo—in reality, there is a constant political war fought in separate skirmishes on different fronts: in Parliament, the courts of law (especially the Supreme Court of Justice), local governments, and economic pressures. While many secular people feel that religion is gaining ground in public life, most of the religious sector feels on the defensive within the paradox of a secular Jewish state.

B. Source and Character of Ethnic Values

An Immigrant Society with Unifying Forces

Israel is an immigrant society with a common historical background and a melting-pot ethos acting as cohesive forces. The absorption of repeating masses of immigrants since the early 1950s has had a considerable impact on sexual behavior, sexual health, and public involvement in sexual issues. In 1990 and 1991, 400,000 people, 10% of the total Jewish population of Israel, immigrated from the former Soviet Union. Issues of increased rates of induced abortions, relatively low numbers of children, one-parent families, an alleged combination of alcohol consumption and sex, and a seemingly instrumental view of intercourse, quickly surfaced.

Also in 1991, 15,000 Jews immigrated from Ethiopia over one weekend, confronting Israel with issues of traditional medical practices, ritual isolation of menstruating women, and increased incidence of infectious diseases, including STDs and AIDS.

Unlike other societies where immigration leads mainly to social fragmentation, indications suggest that social cohesiveness forces within Israeli society also act in the opposite direction: as integrating agents even within the span of one generation (see below in marriage and fertility patterns). The melting-pot ideology is not just a whim. There are some strong basic and structural needs that contributed to its development: a belief in the continuity and unity of the Jewish people; a sense of threat of either political or physical annihilation or both; and, a sense of revival and modernization of an old culture that was suppressed or dormant by external conditions. Although many people perceive the melting-pot society not as a domination of one group over others, but as a continuous process of the evolvement in a new culture, others espouse a more pluralistic approach, advocating the preservation and even the development of ethnic characteristics.

In reality, one can see that many factors relating to dyadic relations and sexual behavior, fertility and fertility regulation, and other characteristics change in a relatively short time, and different studies show the emergence of common phenomena.

Israel’s Political Situation

Israel’s political situation has a strong impact on sexuality and sexual issues. This small country, with a total population less than that of New York City, has been surrounded by enemy states and hostile populations since its founding. Until the 1979 treaty with Egypt, there was no land border that an Israeli Jew could legally cross. Even in mid-1994 when ongoing political processes set the stage for reducing the siege, Israel required a military service for all citizens that influenced sexual and related issues beyond that requirement.

Siege feelings and the need to keep national unity make many people accept compromises in striving for change, or at least lower the tone. This often changes the perspectives about priorities and leads to personal inner conflict between personal aspirations and internalized collective ones.

The influence of wars and physical danger on the sexual behavior of people, their marriages, and their fertility patterns are understudied. It is proposed here that, in critically dangerous situations, sex—which is biopsychosocially still connected to reproduction—may serve as a means to symbolically negate personal death. Such a hypothesis was used in attempts to explain diverse phenomena, like the frequently discussed increase in reproduction following military engagement, and the divergence from normative sexual behavior during times of active warfare.

Recent analysis demonstrates that the first phenomenon is only a rumor based on impressions and does not exist in reality. As appealing as the symbolic explanation is, the anecdotally reported departure from normative behavior during times of peace could alternatively be explained by feelings of disintegration during wars and irrelevance of social norms in those times. However, if this explanation were true, one would also expect widespread occurrence of phenomena like rape of the conquered population, which did not materialize in the wars in which Israel conquered land and assumed rule over large Arab populations.

Military Service

Several characteristics of the general military service, which is dictated by the political realities, can affect, directly or indirectly, the nature of Israeli sexual constructs. The role of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), both as an institution and as a life event for Israeli youth and adults, is larger than in other Western societies. Most people would view it as essential to both their physical and national existence. It is an existential event in the life of most Israelites, and most families are immediately involved with its realities and dangers.

1. Gender Roles and the Status of Women. Military service in Israel is general and compulsory for both men and women at the age of 18. Exemptions are granted for physical and mental health reasons, low educational level, criminal record, and religious reasons, but rarely for conscientious objections. However, men serve for three years and continue to serve in the reserves for 25 to 80 days annually until they are 50 years old. Women serve for approximately two years and are retired from reserve service when they bear their first child. This, in itself, is both a reflection and an enhancer of the more traditional role still ascribed to women in Israel (discussed in greater detail below). Other characteristics of the military service tend to accentuate the traditional gender roles.

Despite compulsory service, there is a strong element of volunteering in the army, as youth compete, sometimes fiercely, for service in elite units or prestigious tasks. This entails additional physical and mental hardship during compulsory service and, in many cases, an obligation to serve as many as six additional years. There is a strong element of macho psychology involved here, with both male status and preference by the young women at stake.

Women do not serve in combat, and their choice of professions is not only smaller, but also limited to the less prestigious tasks within the army. Being out of combat service also blocks them from advancing in the army to the higher levels of general staff commands.

As the IDF retires its generals at between the ages of 45 and 53, exemplary service in the army and a top-echelon position is one of the stepping stones to the higher levels of civil service, business, and political careers. This avenue for advancement is closed to women.

The hardships of service, especially in combat units, promote strong male camaraderie and individual friendships; annual service in the reserves to age 45 to 50 tends to reinforce them. These almost-exclusively male interactions can be transferred to civilian life in the form of enhanced networking and alliances.

It seems that the realities of the military can foster traditional gender roles in the minds of both men and women, and also influence their social positions. Other issues discussed below point in the same directions.

2. Social Mobilization and Meeting Ground. Sociologists have noted the IDF’s role as a unifying factor and as contributing to the relative high mobilization within the Israeli society.

The IDF is involved in absorbing immigrants and in educational projects for women and men who otherwise would be unfit to serve. It also serves as a common meeting ground for people from different ethnic groups, allowing them to mix socially, and in many cases sexually. Many marriages can be traced to relationships formed in the army.

All IDF officers start as rank and file. There is a strong emphasis on advancement based on merit and achievement, and excellence is measured by a combination of mental, physical, and social characteristics. A meritorious service record is viewed as a strong character reference; in civilian life, young men from less-privileged strata have another chance for mobility.

3. Rite of Passage or Moratorium? It is hard to appreciate the influence of the IDF on sexual and family issues if one does not understand the role it plays in the general individual psychosocial development of Israeli youth, and its centrality in the life of many individuals. Most Israeli youth leave direct parental control to go into the army. This is only one factor that ties army service strongly to sexarche, choice of mates, and other sexual issues (see Section 5C, Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors, Young Adults). Developmentally, IDF service has some definite elements of a rite of passage—the physical and mental tests, the demand for initiative and resourcefulness judged by peers and veterans, the formation of group cohesion and social responsibility, the ability to deal with moral dilemmas in extreme conditions—and these serve to separate childhood from adulthood.

While not disputing the rite-of-passage elements in IDF service, or its positive effects, it was recently suggested that, at the same time, the nature of IDF service may also cause a long moratorium on the tasks of real life, and can even be viewed as causing some elements of infantile regression. These may have effects on dyadic relationships and gender roles within them (see below).

4. Internal Conflicts, Trauma, and Violence. A possible negative aspect of the military service that may have a bearing on sexuality and family life involves the nature of military engagement in the civilian uprising in the disputed occupied territories during the last six years. This forced the soldiers to confront civilians, rather than enemy soldiers, in a manner previously not experienced. These high-risk confrontations with civilians tend to create strong inner and normative conflicts. Those who raised the issue hypothesized long-lasting effects, among them proneness to violence (including domestic violence) and posttraumatic stress disorders. Claims had been made that, in such discussions, it is difficult to distinguish between political stands and professional opinions.

The possible contribution of these issues on the actual shaping of sexual and dyadic constructs will be discussed in several instances.

3. Knowledge and Education about Sexuality

A. Government Policies and Sex Education Programs

The educational system in Israel is divided between the general educational system and religious ones. This necessitates separate discussion of the situation in the different sectors. Most of this discussion will be devoted to the secular educational sector.

The Early Years (1930s and 1940s)

Early attempts at sex education, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, were based on local initiatives. Although coming from two different directions, they converged around the dominant psychoeducational ideology of that period—Freudian psychoanalytical thought. The theoretical concepts, which had little direct field application, were largely that of mental health hygiene of a “preventive” nature, and were concentrated around the Psychoanalytical Institute of Jerusalem and the Public Health Services of a voluntary health service of the Jewish community (Hadassah).

At the same time, attempts were made to develop sex education programs at the educational institutions of the left-wing kibbutz movement “Hashomer Hatzair.” The atmosphere in these institutions was highly experimental, and the issues of sex, sexuality, gender equality, and the control of individual urges and wishes—not only sexual ones—as part of socializing ethos, were central to the life of the movement at that time. For example, not only was the system coeducational, but boys and girls slept together in the same room, four to a room, until age 18, and bathed together until age 12 to 14. Contrary to the expected, this was a society with highly puritan values, at least when it came to youth, and the key concept of sex education and youth sexuality was borrowed from psychoanalytical literature—sublimation. There was high social control over behavior: purity and self-control were expected, not only in the area of sexuality, but also in areas like smoking and drinking. It is interesting to note that these two behaviors are clustered with precocious initiation of intercourse as “problem behaviors” in the modern research literature.

The 1960s

A revival of interest in sex education came in the early and mid-1960s, when several sex-education “guidebooks” were published by concerned professionals. These were not as yet part of an organized sex-education drive, but their almost simultaneous publication is significant, as was the foundation of the Israeli Family Planning Association in 1966. It seems that the main concerns during that period were the apparent increase of sexual behavior among youth and the alleged contribution of large families to low socioeconomic status (SES) prospects and crime among young immigrants from Middle Eastern countries.

The 1970s and 1980s

The big organizational change happened in the early 1970s. Dominant among the incentives was the increase in the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among youth, following a wave of youth tourism to Israel after the 1967 war. This also coincided with some changes in the general ethos of the country from communal to individual, which may be attributed to filtration of the youth movements of the 1960s in Europe and North America, and with a relative economic boom following four years of recession.

A national study about sexual knowledge, attitudes, and practices was mandated and carried out in the early 1970s. The outcome of the deliberations of a multisectorial committee was an outline for a comprehensive general curriculum arranged chronologically by content areas and skill formation, and the formation of a Unit of Family Life and Sex Education at the Ministry of Education.

The original conceptual framework for this experimental unit was a mixture of preventive health (implying a high potential for adverse effects of sexual behavior), a developmental outlook, and normative boundaries. Its mandate was very wide and flexible and included the development of educational programs, the training of sex educators, and the implementation of non-mandatory sex education within the school system.

Two parallel units were formed, one to deal with the issues within the national-religious sector (which dropped the sex education out of its name) and the other one to deal with the same issue within the general (secular) national educational system.

The National (Secular) Sex Education Approach. The efforts concerning sex education in the secular (general) system developed in three main parallel directions: 1. the development of programs and educational materials for different content areas, ages, and skills; 2. training sex educators/facilitators; and 3. creating the infrastructure for the implementation of the programs within schools. The development of the programs and the training of sex educators was influenced by the humanistic approach to sex education of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), and Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS). Professionals from the United States of America, most notably Lester Kirkendall and Sol Gordon, helped with the first training courses and development programs in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In 1978, the curriculum for family life and sex education was formally adopted and the unit ceased to be an experimental one. After several years of independent (precarious) existence, it was adopted administratively into the Psycho-Educational Services of the Ministry of Education. The infrastructure for supporting implementation of sex education now includes several regional trainers, with whom teachers can consult.

The appearance of AIDS on the Israeli scene in the mid-1980s was a mixed blessing for sex education. The rise in public interest in sexual behavior, the perception of youth as an at-risk group, and the feeling of inadequacy concerning sex education among many parents, acted together with other factors in 1989 to mandate sex education at least three times within the formal education span. In each stage, elementary, middle, and high school, pupils are to be given 16 hours of sex education. Unfortunately, this mandate was not accompanied by the necessary budgetary or time allotment for this purpose, so that its implementation still depends on local arrangements, the priorities of principals, and the difficulties of the staff in dealing with the subject.

On the other hand, the public interest in sex education took a swing from the developmental-humanistic approach back to the preventive-medical ones. Also, parties less interested in education jumped on the bandwagon and attempted to lead campaigns by playing on the fears of the public.

The National-Religious Sector Approach (Excluding the Ultra-Orthodox Approach). This educational system focuses on a moralistic approach and normative behavior within the boundaries of the religious framework. An integral part of this framework is the dichotomization between public and private behavior. While the Jewish practice allows for the fallibility of the individual and mitigating circumstances, it strongly forbids the a priori consideration or discussion of alternative behaviors. Thus, an educational discussion of the forces leading to premarital sexual behavior, decision making, and alternatives within such situations can be done only within a judgmental right-wrong framework in which abstinence is viewed as the only appropriate alternative.

Several religious educators have been dissatisfied with this approach and expressed their displeasure by participating in training courses for sex educators in the secular sector, contrary to administrative directives. They explain this by their wish to respond to the pressing needs of their pupils beyond the formal and normative guidelines and by a personal need for developing in this area.

Ultra-Orthodox Educational Systems. There is only indirect and fragmentary knowledge about sex education within the “Independent Educational System” run by the ultra-orthodox sector, because this system is not accountable to the administrator of the national curriculum (see Section 13B, National, Religious, and Ethnic Minorities, on Ultra-Orthodox Jews [Haredim]).

B. Informal Sources of Sexual Knowledge

Parents as a Source of Information

Findings of a national study of youth sexuality from the 1970s, augmented by some later studies using convenience samples and limited populations studies, show that between the ages of 14 through 17: 1. parents in general were viewed as a low source of information on sexual issues; 2. daughters consulted more than sons with parents; 3. mothers are a much more common information source than fathers; and 4. both parents were a very low source of information for sons, although sons also consulted more often with their mothers than with fathers. Finally, the tendency to view parents as a source of information decreased with age—youth in the 10th and 11th grade were less likely to view their parents as a source of information than were 8th and 9th graders. This change was bigger for sons than for daughters. These results are supported by studies of unique populations, such as youth from problem families residing in boarding high schools, kibbutz youth, and by youth general health studies that included sexuality components. Even when similar pictures are different in important details, this can be explained by the unique conditions of the studied populations.

A possible explanation for the findings that girls interact more than boys with their parents, especially their mothers, on sexual issues, can be that the interactions are not initiated by the girls but by the mothers, who are both more concerned with the expression of female sexuality and more comfortable in approaching their daughters.

This finding that daughters consult parents more than sons conflicts with the findings that their objective knowledge is lower when compared to male youth. An explanation might be that the interaction of daughters with their mothers is more on issues of attitudes and consent than on information, or that the higher ambivalence of female adolescents about their sexuality does not allow them to benefit from the higher amount of interactions with adults.

A recent study using a limited convenience sample found a different picture that could be very important, if replicated in a more generalizable form. In a high-middle-class senior high school sample, parents were the second most important source of information for girls and third for boys.

This may indicate that urban middle-class parents are now finding it easier to talk with their children about sex. This may be part of the trend of increased acceptance of adolescent sexuality, or a reduction in the distance between parents and their adolescent offspring.

There is a question whether parents are an appropriate source of sexual knowledge for youth because of their emotional involvement and their heterogeneity in regard to reliable information. Popular sentiments, based on the general assumption that parental involvement in education is desired, regard as problematic the findings that parents are a low perceived source of information. Attempts are being made to change this situation by interventions directed toward both youth and their parents. However, the effort to increase parental involvement may also reflect adult ambivalence over youth sexuality and the desire to control it.

Even if one accepts the belief that increased parental involvement is desirable, these findings are insufficient grounds for designing interventions; many studies need to be deliberately targeted at more-defined specific subgroups before intervention programs are designed. It may be worth investing in programs to help parents to increase their role as a resource for their children and to help fathers talk with and be more available to their sons, only if the recent findings from the urban middle class are confirmed and the explanatory assumptions hold.

The findings from the boarding schools may indicate that in dysfunctional families, a parental substitute may be needed as a reliable source of information, especially for boys whose fathers are either physically or mentally absent and whose mothers find it difficult to interact with male adolescents about sexual issues.

Other Sources of Information to Adolescents

Concern over parents’ being a low resource is heightened when other sources of information are viewed. Peers and older adolescents are found to be the main source of information for both male and female adolescents. This may increase parental and adult perception of loss of control, as these are potential sexual partners. In addition, the reliability of this information resource is questionable because of the limited knowledge among older adolescents and because it is biased by the agenda of the resource persons.

While information from peers is in many cases unreliable or incomplete, its language and tone are acceptable to adolescents and young adults. It may, therefore, be beneficial to invest more efforts into developing systems of peer education and peer training.

An important information source is the written and electronic media. Unfortunately, much of the material directed to adolescents is sensationalistic, commercial in nature, and/or caters to the lowest common denominator. Thus, question-and-answer sections in youth magazines rarely deal with ambiguities and some questions that have no answers that are definite or generalizable.

Another source of concern is the fact that more children and youth report exposure to pornographic videos, especially among males, but also females, a result of cable television networks and the popularization of video. (Pornography is discussed in Section 8C, Significant Unconventional Sexual Behaviors.)

Extent and Reliability of Sexual Knowledge

Although knowledge is insufficient to assure healthy or responsible sexual behavior, it is essential for their attainment. Knowledge is also essential during puberty and adolescence to help prevent adverse sequels of sexual behavior, like unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

It should be noted that, unfortunately, some of the studies mentioned above used what is considered unsatisfactory measures of knowledge, i.e., subjective perception of knowledge rather than measurable objective ones. Studies by Ronny A. Shtarkshall in convenience samples have shown a marked discrepancy between objective knowledge and the subjective perception of knowledge about contraception; for example, the fact that 90% of adolescents in a large study reported familiarity with at least one contraceptive did not mean that they really had the knowledge they needed to use it.

When objective measures of knowledge were used, a low level of knowledge was found among high school students, many of whom were either sexually active or on the verge of initiating intercourse. Generally, male adolescents demonstrated higher objective knowledge. Female adolescents had higher score on signs of pregnancy and abortions, possibly because of the personal concern with an unexpected pregnancy.

It is unclear why females who reported more interactions with adults demonstrate lower knowledge. As was hypothesized earlier, this could be because their contacts are on issues of conduct, but also because they and the adults are more ambivalent about female sexuality and sexual behavior during adolescence. This hypothesis is supported by limited findings from a high-middle-class study that showed that positive feelings about sex were positively associated with higher objective knowledge.

Sexual Knowledge among Professional Students

A study evaluating knowledge of professional students in medicine, social work, and law at the Hebrew University in their first and final years revealed rather alarming findings. First, medical school education had almost no effect on the knowledge of medical students; only one of five content areas, the biomedical, showed a positive effect. Second, the level of knowledge was rather low, especially considering the professional needs of physicians and social workers. Third, sexual experience was in marked and significant association with subjective perception of knowledge. Fourth, there were weak and inconsistent associations between sexual experience during adolescence and objective knowledge. The combination of the two findings is alarming. Since it is assumed that awareness of lack of knowledge is better than perceived knowledge that is erroneous, the finding that medical students are largely aware of their lack of knowledge was viewed as a mitigating sign. Finally, even at this stage, age was positively associated with both increased knowledge and a more adequate perception of knowledge. Extrapolating for a younger age, this finding supports the hypothesis that older adolescents are more ready, both cognitively and mentally, to enter into the sexual arena.

Several studies by Shtarkshall evaluated the lack of knowledge apart from mistaken knowledge, assuming that people who are aware of their ignorance are in a better situation than those who do not know, but mistakenly think that they do. The finding that professional students were largely aware of their lack of knowledge was viewed as a positive sign.

4. Autoerotic Behaviors and Patterns

There are no known sources that document autoerotic behavior patterns in the general population in a quantitative way. Even a publication of a recent general population survey on sexual function and dysfunction does not fill this gap.

Sexual history interviews with a large biased sample of help-seeking individuals and couples show the following patterns. Among the nonreligious, more men than women report masturbating either prior to sexarche or after it. Also, more men than women report direct manual stimulation, while fewer report indirect stimulation, like rubbing the thighs, or thrusting and rubbing against objects. These methods are more favored by women. There is a question whether this is a difference in practice or a reporting bias, but this question cannot be resolved on the basis of these reports in themselves. Among the orthodox, and certainly among the ultra orthodox, the issue of reporting bias is more pronounced, as male masturbation is a serious sin, while female masturbation is only frowned upon and considered unhealthy.

There are many lay beliefs concerning masturbation that are expressed mainly by adolescents and youth, either as questions or comments within sex education sessions. These are mainly lay beliefs concerning general or reproductive health, and also the ability to identify a masturbating person. For men, the beliefs include depletion of the semen, blindness or shortsightedness, hirsutism on the palms, and an asymmetrical (bent) erect penis. Among women, there are admonitions about weak sight and about giving birth to retarded children as a consequence of masturbation.

5. Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors

A/B. Children and Adolescents

Pubertal Rites of Passage

See remarks on IDF service as a kind of rite of passage for adolescents under Section 2B, Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Factors Affecting Sexuality, Source and Character of Ethnic Values.

General Lack of Data

Attempts to elucidate the patterns of sexuality, sexual behavior, dyadic relationships, and other sexual issues concerning adolescents and youth are hampered by sociopolitical restraints. The last study of sexual knowledge, attitudes, and practices in a national sample of youth was done in 1970. In 1991, a proposed study of adolescent sexuality was approved by a review system and then vetoed on educational and moral grounds by the Director General of the Ministry of Education and Culture, a political appointment of a religious minister. Even after the change of government at the end of 1992, a lengthy and tortuous negotiation process about the same study ended abruptly when the psychological services of the Ministry of Education “changed its research priorities” and excluded the survey from them.

Most of the available quantitative information is on secular youth with little on those who define themselves as traditional. All information about religious youth reported here is anecdotal, although it represents the cumulative shared experiences of a network of researchers, counselors, and educators.

Puberty, Adolescence, and Psychosocial Development

Very little research has been done on pubertal stages. All studies have used convenience samples of Jewish girls. The normal range for the onset of breast development in 1977 was from 8.22 to 12.38 years and the normal (corrected) age for pubic hair development 8.58 to 12.58 years. The normal range for reaching menarche is 11.09 to 15.49 years.

Several interesting effects associating pubertal stages and social class or ethnic origin have been observed. Girls from low socioeconomic class as defined by their fathers’ occupations, whose mothers were poorly educated and who came from large families, reach the stages of puberty later than other girls. All three variables are highly and significantly associated with each other and with Middle Eastern/North African origin. Sample sizes did not allow a distinction between the contribution of ethnic origin (genetic) and social conditions (nurture) to this phenomenon.

It is possible that a secular trend is present, since a comparison of menarche in separate studies of similar populations have shown a drop of almost five months in mean age from 13.75 in the mid 1960s to 13.29 in the late 1970s. (This is not significant because of a large standard error in the more recent study.) During this period, there was a large increase in both the general standard of living and ethnic mixing.

The importance of individual and group differences in pubertal development in relation to psychosocial sexual development is well recognized but very difficult to study. Based on observations and anecdotal information, a hypothesis can be advanced that among Israeli female adolescents, there is an inverted J-curve relationship between age at puberty and the time gap between the onset of puberty and the first sexual intercourse, or sexarche, i.e., girls who develop earlier and later than their peers may go faster through a scale of the stages of sexual behaviors. (Information about male adolescents is insufficient even for development of a hypothesis.)

As for social-class differences in puberty showing that girls of low socioeconomic class reach pubertal stages and menarche at a later age, this may put some stressful pressure on them to act out sexually, especially in integrated schools, because the influence on psychosocial sexual development is exerted not through the abstract national norm, but through interactions with the significant peers. Another pressure on adolescents of low socioeconomic classes in schools, and especially in integrated ones, is the need to excel. There is enough information to suggest that low achievement, in comparison with a significant reference group, is associated with precocious sexual activity.

[Ongoing Research on Adolescents

[Update 2001: Several studies are currently in progress on the sexual behavior of adolescents and young adults. Another round of the Health Behavior in School Aged Children (HBSC), a study coordinated by the European Region of the World Health Organization, was scheduled for 2001. This long study contains a very brief section on sexual behavior. The results of the previous round, conducted in 1994 and published in December 1997 (Harel, Kani & Rahav 1997) were limited to the secular sector of the national school system and further limited only to the 10th and 11th grade section of the survey. Other behaviors were also studied among 6th to 7th graders and also in the National Religious Sector of the schools. Adolescents in Israel report having sexual relations to a lesser extent than those in the U.S.A., 27.8% and 13.9%, as compared to 53.5% and 53.1% for American males and females, respectively. The difference between the genders in reporting intercourse during adolescence, on which we reported earlier (in our original chapter in the International Encyclopedia of Sexuality), persisted even at the end of the 20th century. Preliminary results from other studies show that this difference continues to be true today. The two other studies are another study in the secular school sector, which focuses on sexual attitudes, norms, and behavior, and a study started in 1995, which looks cross-sectionally at successive groups of young adults. The latter also includes information about orthodox men and women. In the HBSC study, the researchers were able to demonstrate that risky behavior, coitus with more than one partner ever or in the last three months, engaging in unprotected coitus, and experiencing coitus under the influence of alcohol or psychoactive drugs is limited to a small subgroup of the adolescents, which may explain the picture of the spread of HIV/AIDS in Israel. (End of update by R. A. Shtarkshall and M. Zemach)]

Premarital Sexual Activities and Relationships

This discussion of sexual practices among Israeli youth focuses on two main issues: premarital intercourse and the context within which it occurs, and on sexarche or age at first intercourse.

The issue of premarital intercourse during adolescence is more complex than that of premarital intercourse in general. It includes adult attitudes toward adolescents’ sexual expression and adolescents’ response to it, the interaction between adolescents, peers, and significant adults on issues of control and separation. It is very hard to treat these different issues separately, and sometimes even to distinguish between them.

In general, studies up to the mid-1980s showed that attitudes of Israeli youth concerning premarital intercourse, self-pleasuring, homosexuality, and gender are more conservative than those of European and North American youth. Attitudes among adolescents towards premarital intercourse were associated with several independent variables: gender, age, modernity (socioeconomic status of the family of origin), and religiosity.

Degree of agreement with two extreme attitudes toward premarital intercourse—“Intercourse is forbidden before marriage” and “Intercourse is permitted if both partners want it” (not qualified by age, above 18, or by relationship status, in love or engaged)—are detailed in Table 1. In general, younger adolescents are more conservative about premarital intercourse. Both younger boys and girls are more accepting of the forbidding message than older boys and girls, while the situation is reversed for both genders in relation to the permissive attitude.

The findings indicate that, in general, younger adolescents are more conservative about premarital intercourse. 1. As expected, acceptance of the permissive message increases, and that of the restrictive message decreases, with age for both genders. 2. Comparing genders, one sees that in various adolescent age groups, more boys than girls accept the permissive message and more girls than boys accept the restrictive one. 3. Both boys and girls are more accepting of premarital intercourse if there is an emotional commitment, and more so if there is a formal public one, i.e., engagement. The commitment is much more important to girls than to boys. 4. The discrepancy between boys and girls that supports a behavioral double standard is more pronounced when males and females report their attitudes towards virginity at marriage. Both genders express more-permissive attitudes toward males’ premarital intercourse. More than two thirds of females believe that girls should be virgins at marriage, while less than half expect this of their prospective partners. Among males, 10% believed that sex is forbidden before marriage, while 43% felt that a woman should be virgin at marriage. 5. There is also a discrepancy between attitudes and behaviors: Males are more permissive in their attitudes than their behavior and females are more permissive in their behavior than their attitudes.

These differences in premarital sex attitudes are more pronounced if one compares older boys with younger girls. As this is usually the pattern of pair formation, it can be a source of tension and discontent in dyadic relationships, prior to initiation of intercourse and after initiating it.

Mechanisms like denial and externalization used to cope with these discrepancies can cause difficulties on the individual and social level, including coercive behavior and problems in contraceptive behavior. They can also lead to a reporting bias about intercourse.

In the religious sector, public norms are against any premarital sexual expression, not just intercourse. Many structural and social controls attempt to enforce these norms because of the common belief that, while adolescents have natural urges, they lack the self control of adults—such beliefs are also common among the more conservative elements of the secular sector. The result is sometimes paradoxical: The constant warnings and controls make people more aware of the temptation. The results may be dire when those who transgress do not possess the range of skills that enable them to protect their own needs while doing so. Those who transgress also have very little chance of parental or even peer social support.

Trends in Sexual Behavior, Premarital Intercourse, and Sexarche

Pooling the results of several different studies, one is able to conclude that the trend from the 1960s to the 1980s is for more youth to engage in premarital intercourse, and that a larger proportion of those who do so start at a younger age. The increase in the reported rate for younger women from the 1960s to the 1980s is three- to sixfold, the highest increase for both men and women of all ages.

Table 2 shows the trend to earlier sexarche among urban women in one study. Caution is needed in using this study, the only one giving data about premarital intercourse among urban Jewish women prior to 1965. This study has all the limitations of retrospective studies; the time span between the occurrence of the events and the reporting point varies, and the reporting may be influenced by a memory bias. In addition, it was limited to married women in their first marriage, and thus it does not represent the whole Jewish population. Both nonmarrying and divorce may be associated in more than one way with the timing of first intercourse.

Table 2 also demonstrates an interesting phenomenon. All three groups of women show a sharp rise between ages 16 to 17 and 18 to 19. Since most Israeli youth leave home at that age to go to the IDF, it seems that this is a critical age for the urban women.

In all studies of the urban population, more than 90% of the studied population—secular Jewish youth at high school, at any age more men than women—reported that they had already had sexual intercourse. However, the trend from the 1970s to the 1980s shows that the gender discrepancy in decreasing. The ratio of urban men/women reporting intercourse ranged from more than 8:1 for the 10th grade and 3:1 in the 12th grade in the 1970s, to 3-4:1 in the 10th grade and 2-3:1 in the 12th grade in the late 1980s.

In the mid to late 1980s, between 12% and 30% of urban females and 40% to 55% of males had reached sexarche by the end of grade 12; 2% to 11% of girls and 20% to 35% of boys were sexually active at the end of grade 10.

The discrepancy in proportions between men and women should be a source of concern. The three most widely used explanations in the literature are: 1. the presence of a small group of young women who engage in sex with many young men; 2. the initiation of young men into intercourse by older women; and, 3.  reporting bias. As far as is known, the age gap between partners in most of the relationships among adolescents and young adults is either very small or in the opposite direction, the men being older than the women. There are no indications that there is a small group of women who initiate many men into sexual intercourse. Also, the tradition of initiation through sex-for-profit is relatively rare in Israel. It is thus probable that the normative pressures reported above are acting on youth of both genders to create reporting bias in the opposite direction: That is, more boys report having reached sexarche than those who actually do so, with fewer girls reporting it than those who do. An extensive experience with interactive sex education programs dealing with normative pressures and sexual behavior lend additional evidence to support this explanation.

The Context of Sexarche

In studies of the context within which intercourse is initiated during adolescence, a high proportion of youth reported that intercourse is started within a steady relationship. This is more true for females (95% of those reporting premarital intercourse in a large-scale study) than for males (46% in the same study). The same picture is apparent when comparing the length of relationships: More girls initiate intercourse in longer relationships. Also, girls who were sexually active reported higher frequency of intercourse than boys, which would be the case if intercourse is practiced within a steady relationship.

Despite the general trend of initiating intercourse within a steady relationship, a phenomenon of initiating intercourse with a “sex object” is encountered in significant numbers. Youth of both genders report that they chose a person for the sole purpose of losing their virginity, mainly because “it was time.” Sometimes, the chosen person is a different man or women from the one they are in a current dyadic relationship with. Sometimes, this happens when they play the role of a sexually experienced person in the beginning of a relationship and do not find a way out of the role; at other times, they set out deliberately to find a person “to do it” with. Attention should be paid to this group even if it is small, as they may be considered an at-risk group. Because communications may be hampered by conflicting agendas and pretending experience that is not there, and the commitment between the sexual partners may be lower, it can be hypothesized that protection within this group would also be lower.

Experience shows that youth who are able to consult with parents or other significant adults, more often engage in protected intercourse. Unfortunately, these are a minority, and those who do talk with adults are usually older and less in need of this support than the younger ones.

In looking at the length of relationship within which intercourse is initiated, a seemingly contradictory picture appears. A higher proportion of young women initiate intercourse within a steady relationship of more than 13 months as compared to the young men—41% and 27% respectively.

Several factors, acting separately or in unison, could contribute to this phenomenon. First, the study was done among high school youth, and it is possible that the steady relationship of the young women is with older men who are already out of school. This does not fit with the higher proportion of males reporting the initiation of intercourse during adolescence. Second, the study may be dealing with a double-barreled reporting bias: young women, who feel that it is desirable to initiate intercourse within a relationship, tend to overreport the duration of the relationship, or those who start intercourse early in a relationship refrain from reporting it. An additional contribution to this discrepancy is that a higher proportion of casual relationships are between younger males and older females.

Premarital Courtship, Dating, and Relationships and the Prospects of Military Service

The dyadic and sexual relations are highly influenced by the required military service, even long before they have to enter the IDF. Awareness of this future in the life of each and every youth comes in many ways, encroaching on the daily life of adolescents. Boys and girls are called for physical examinations at age 17. Many of the boys and some of the girls start even earlier on a road leading to one of the elite units or to a desirable military task. Membership in an elite unit means three things: first, a very high physical and mental competition requiring intense and long preparation; second, a much more strenuous and dangerous service; and third, a longer service, ranging from one to six years beyond the mandatory three years. Not all Israeli youth actually espouse this lifestyle; those who do are the pacesetters. The danger of getting killed or wounded in the army is small, higher in the combat units, and still higher in the elite units where even the training can be dangerous. The visibility and psychological impact on everyone are very high and out of proportion to the statistical reality when compared with road accidents or accidents in the workplace.

Working closely with youth and with facilitators of sex education, one frequently encounters two ways in which this reality influences youth in their midadolescence. First, lack of time to grow up and an unsure future are often brought up as reasons for hastening sexarche, mainly by boys, but also by girls who find it hard to face these realities. Girls bring these facts up as looming in their mind even when the boys do not raise them. While it is possible that some young men use these as manipulative arguments, many of them are also strongly concerned. This effect is also documented in fiction and films, especially those by young artists. The summer before army service is part of the cultural terminology that carries with it connotations far beyond the surface.

Also encountered was an effect acting in the opposite direction, to postpone initiation of intercourse. Girls from some conservative environments, especially of Middle Eastern origin, may postpone sexarche in expectation of the time when the family and social controls will be lowered, and also out of regard for their parents’ feelings, honoring family values by waiting until they are out of the home prior to initiating intercourse. Most of these girls will not go to college, but when they come back home after two years, the parents are already resigned to their new status.

Age of Consent: Lowering the Social Controls Over the Sexual Behavior of Youth

In the 1980s, the law of consent underwent a significant reform. Until then, the uniform age of consent—16—applied to women only. While some interpreted this as an expression of the wish to control the sexuality of women, others viewed it as expression of male threat to females’ virtue. Toward the end of the 1980s, a change in the legal age of consent took into consideration some of the changes in the behavior of youth. While the age of consent remained 16—again only for women, intercourse between a girl aged 14 to 16 and a boy who was older than her by two years or less would not be considered statutory rape in the context of this relationship. On the other hand, the age of consent was elevated to 21 in cases of intercourse with someone under the guardianship or influence of a professional. The latter section applies to both men and women victims, but it is still not clear whether it applies to perpetrators of both genders.

C. Young Adults

Heterosexual Relations and IDF Service

Life within the IDF strongly influences sexual behavior, the formation of couples, marriage patterns, and gender issues.

By and large, the IDF is an institution of young people, outside regular parental and adult social controls, with its own sets of norms and pressures. Its immediate formal rules, which can be very restrictive, are usually set and administered by people who are between two to seven years older than those obeying them. For most youth, the regularity of military life is highly irregular when compared to their previous lifestyle. On the other hand, outside of defined training and active military duty, life in the military leaves them with unregulated and unsupervised time in the exclusive company of their peers. Despite being a male institution, the IDF includes a high proportion of young women.

There are no formal or social restrictions on fraternization between officers and soldiers, and very little emphasis on military formality and distancing that to outsiders sometimes looks alarmingly like anarchy. Since most youth serve in the army, and all officers rise from the ranks, they are essentially of the same class and traditions.

These circumstances that offer many chances for intimate and sexual encounters, combined with a rite-of-passage situation, tend to give those who are not sexually initiated a chance to be so. This is especially true for those who refrain from dyadic or sexual relations because of external restriction. Many girls growing up in traditional families or communities consciously postpone their sexual debut until the army, as an act of honoring their parents. They view sex away from home as less encroaching on the parental values. It seems that, by mutual consent, the question is not discussed between parents and daughters. Most of these girls will not go to college, but when they return home after two years, the parents are already resigned to their new status, as noted above.

The conditions and situations within the army service are conducive not only to sexual relations, but also to pair formation and to experimentations in relationships (see Section D, Marriage Patterns, below). The IDF environment also creates two specific problems in regard to sexual behavior and gender roles.

First, the permissive environment can impose a strong hardship on youth from traditional backgrounds, especially those with lower educational achievements, who find it very difficult to deal with the relative lowering of parental control over sexual behavior, coupled with increased opportunities and the company of eligible mates. This is especially true of some young women, mostly from families of Asian/African origin, who put a great value on virginity, and who, finding themselves in an environment much more permissive than their home atmosphere, lack the personal, experiential, and social skills to cope with controlling their own sexual behavior. Add to this the fact that those behaving permissively, including other women, are the ones with the prestigious jobs and high social status, and one gets a problematic situation. To resolve this conflicted situation requires internal controls and social skills that some of these women do not possess because of their traditional sheltered upbringing. For some who feel that once they have lost their virginity they are tainted, the result is promiscuous behavior. For others, it is a contributing factor to their inability to use contraceptives resulting from externalizing what they are doing. Internal conflicts regarding the fact that they are engaging in intercourse are sometimes resolved by the feeling of being repeatedly subjected to it “unintentionally,” a solution that also precludes the use of contraceptives. The majority of soldiers applying for abortions through IDF come from this background.

To counter this, the IDF women’s corps targets women with low educational achievement as a priority group for sex education programs. These programs attempt to strengthen their self-image and internal controls and to allow those who initiate intercourse to preserve both their self-respect and health.

A second factor is that Israel is a geographically small country. With very strong family ties, most soldiers in the combat units get home regularly every second or third week for a long weekend. It is rare that they will not get home for a month or more. It is thus possible to preserve dyadic relationships and meet with girlfriends on a regular basis. On such weekends, the soldiers, who are both tired physically and under a lot of emotional stress, try to cram in as much eating and sleeping together as they can. Their girlfriends accept the role of supporters and nourishers, a traditional motherly role, because they know how much hardship the boys have to take. There is also a tacit agreement not to raise disagreeable issues. This creates a situation in which the partners establish a pattern of separate traditional roles at the early stages in the relationship. It may also create regressive symbiotic dependence, where one is feeding into the relationship different components and relies on the other to supply the missing ones.

Cohabitation

Unmarried cohabitation has become more prevalent in recent years. Its frequency is unclear, but it is certainly much more visible and acceptable, mostly among middle-class secular youth, either working or in higher education. This is a change from a generation ago when fewer couples cohabited, and then mostly after having decided to get married. Although this phenomenon has been little studied in Israel, the combination of anecdotal data and educational experiences suggest several points of interest:

D. Marriage Patterns

Legal Age of Marriage

The legal age of marriage is distinct from the age of consent. It applies only for women, and currently it is 17. Ronny A. Shtarkshall was involved as an expert witness in an attempt to apply both age of consent and legal age of marriage to men also. This was barred in a parliamentary committee by a representative of a human rights party on the grounds that this will complicate things and that, while women need protection from men, men do not need protection from women.

Age at First Marriage

In comparison to other Western industrial countries, Israelis marry relatively young. This is true even if one looks separately at the Jewish population. In 1990, the median age at first marriage for Jewish brides was 23.2 and for grooms 26.0. It seems reasonable that many marriages at the younger age were initiated by encounters within the service in the IDF. In 1990, roughly 25% of all the men who married for the first time did so between ages 20 and 23, and a third of the women marrying for the first time did so between ages 20 and 22, the years immediately following the service.

Among the Arabs, Muslim women marry for the first time at the median age of 20.0, more than 3 years younger than their Jewish counterparts, while the men marry at 24.4, only about a year and a half younger than Jewish men. Among the Christian Arabs, the median age is only a year younger for women, 22.5, but a year later for the men, 27.5.

In Table 3, we show the changes in age at first marriage of the Jewish population over four decades. It is evident that between the early 1950s and mid-1970s, there was a drop of more than two years in the age at first marriage of Jewish grooms from 27 to 25. Among Jewish brides, the phenomenon is very similar, but smaller, a drop of about one year (23 to 22). This drop is because of the mass immigration from Muslim countries in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. The tradition of these Jewish communities favored early marriage, similar to the Muslim host cultures. This effect on the mean marriage age of brides is less pronounced—and in the median age even nonexistent—because traditionally, brides were younger than the grooms and were married at a very young age, 14 to 16. The Israeli laws forbade such marriages, raising somewhat immediately the marriage age of brides.

Since the mid-1970s, there is a steady rise in both mean and median age of first marriage for both brides and grooms. The rise is larger for women than for men. It is suggested that this rise is the result of educational changes, especially those affecting immigrants from Islamic countries that had a greater impact on women, who were educationally underprivileged in comparison to men. It is also possible that the social acceptance of cohabitation has contributed to the rise in age at first marriage for both genders.

Marriage Formation

Among the Jewish population, most first marriages, especially those that do not deviate by more than a few years beyond the median age for first marriage, are based on personal choice and attachment. This is true for the secular, traditional, and orthodox segments of the Jewish population, the exceptions being the ultra orthodox and small groups of immigrants from Georgia, Ethiopia, and the Caucasus. Even among the immigrants, the pattern is changing, and many arranged marriages merely formalize previously formed attachments. Youths from some immigrant groups explain that they go through the motions in an attempt to preserve cultural traditions and avoid conflict within their families. The pattern of marriage formation among the ultra-orthodox Jews and among Muslims, the largest group of non-Jews, will be discussed in the special sections dedicated to them at the end of this chapter (see Section 13).

At an indeterminate point beyond the median first marriage, the pressure on the unmarried to conform increases. Participation in family weddings becomes a burden, as many people use the traditional well-meaning but stress-generating blessing, “Soon at your wedding.” This is especially stressful to people with homosexual orientation and those whose self-image keeps them from initiating pair formation. At this point, families, especially mothers, sometimes turn to matchmakers and the young adults agree. The young adults themselves sometimes resort to meeting people through advertising in the newspapers. It seems that these channels are used by a minority of the population.

Interethnic Marriages among the Jews

It is estimated that 15% to 20% of the marriages of secular and traditional Jews are among those who originate from different parts of the world, mainly Ashkenazi Jews, originating mainly in Europe, and Sephardic ones, who lived during the last 500 years in Islamic countries. The rate is somewhat lower among the orthodox and lowest among the ultra orthodox. The melting-pot ethos, high mobility of the Israeli society, and the strong mixing effect of the army all contribute to this.

Marital Variations: Polygamy

Polygamous marriages were prevalent among several Jewish ethnic groups, especially those immigrating from Islamic countries. During the peak immigration years of the 1950s, there was a great outrage about polygynous marriages, mainly from women’s organizations, and they were outlawed almost immediately. This civil law contradicted both the Jewish Halachic law (as interpreted in these Jewish communities) and the Islamic law and tradition.

Common Law and Civil Arrangements

The courts recognize the status of a “common-law spouse” for the purpose of property division, inheritance, pension rights, and carrying a name. It also recognizes civil marriages enacted in foreign countries by citizens of Israel, and cohabitation contracts enacted according to the civil code, even when the religious courts ban these specific unions. As a matter of fact, these arrangements evolved in order to solve cases that rise from the conflicts that have already been referred to between the Halachic canons and the secular public.

Other patterns of marriage, like homosexual marriages, are not recognized by Israeli law, and single people find it very hard to adopt children.

Divorce

The Israeli divorce rate is lower than that of the U.S.A. and non-Catholic European countries. Still, the rates of divorce per 1,000 ever-married people aged 15 to 49 rose monotonously by 48% from 1973 to 1983, from 6.5 to 9.6, respectively, for husbands and from 5.3 to 8.2 for wives. In 1983, the denominator was changed to 1,000 married at all ages; comparison between the two periods is difficult. Since 1983, the rate has fluctuated, rising from 5.8 in 1983 to 6.4 in 1991 (new rates), about a 10% increase.

A time series analysis of rates of divorce after a specific duration of marriages reveal that the increase in rates of divorce is only because of an increase in rates of “late divorce.” It is the rates of divorce after nine and 12 years of marriage that are still on the rise. The rate of divorce after two years of marriage did not rise at all since the early 1960s and may even have come down slightly. The rate of divorce after six years of marriage has remained stable since the early 1970s; see Table 4. These findings are somewhat puzzling, as formal marriages are almost universal, the percentage of secular people is similar to most western European countries, and the Jewish religion is more tolerant toward abortion than Catholic Christianity. The relative stability in Israeli marriages supports the claim that the family is a central theme in Israeli society.

One result of the increase of late divorce is an increase in the average duration of marriages that ended in divorce—a rise from 8.3 in the early 1960s to about 11 in the late 1980s and 11.9 in 1991. However, this increase in the duration of the divorcing marriages by almost 4 years was not accompanied by a similar increase of average age of divorce. For men, the average age at divorce for the same periods is 40.0, 38.6, and 39.4; for women, it is 35.1, 35.2, and 35.8, respectively.

This means that the proportion of the couples who marry at a younger age among the divorcing couples is higher than among other couples. This is a sobering observation regarding marriage at a younger age if one regards stable marriages as desirable.

Extramarital Relations

Another measure for the quality of marriages is extramarital affairs. There is no reliable research evidence about the prevalence of extramarital affairs among married Israeli couples, but anecdotal evidence, the reports in the newspapers about extramarital affairs of celebrities of all kinds, and the citations in divorce cases lead one to believe that the prevalence is rather high. Evidence from counseling, and from extensive education and information work among adults, leads one to believe that extramarital affairs, even known ones, are not in themselves sufficient to destabilize marriages.

E. Marital Law and the Status of Women

The law in Israel gives authority over personal issues to semiautonomous religious judicial systems of the recognized religious communities. Cases are tried according to the religious laws of each denomination. This is one of the reasons why conservative fundamentalist elements within the non-Jewish religions sometimes support Jewish religious parties, and even vote for them. Opponents of religious rule over personal issues sometimes refer to this as the “unholy alliance.”

Marriage and divorce issues of Jews are, therefore, largely determined by the religious Halachic law, although the civil law may also be resorted to in issues of division of property and custody of children. For a secular Jew, the patriarchal nature of the Halachic law creates an asymmetrical and undesirable power balance between the marriage partners.

This situation should not be fully attributed to the power of religious politics. They have at least the passive support of large segments of the secular majority. Attempts to create a situation in which secular civil marriages will be recognized under the law have been defeated several times under different governments. The claim of orthodox Jews, who are a minority, that this will create a schism within the nation that will end up in a disaster, strikes a chord in the heart of many nonobservant Jews. On the other hand, several developments suggest that the power of the religious establishment is diminishing (see below).

Jewish religious laws and the practice of the religious courts place women in a highly undesirable position for those who do not accept the canonic tenets. They cannot be judges in the rabbinical courts or even testify officially; they can only present their case. According to the Jewish religious laws, the men have more sexual freedom, even within a marriage. The husband is the grantor of a divorce and the wife is the acceptor. Even the religious courts cannot force a husband to receive a divorce against his will. On the other hand, there are several reasons why a divorce can be enforced on a women, one of them being adultery. As the duty to procreate is placed on the man, he may be granted permission to marry a second wife, when his first one is infertile and refuses to accept a divorce after ten years of marriage.

F. The Incidence of Oral and Anal Sex

Although anal intercourse was proscribed by law until recently, the restriction was almost never applied to heterosexual couples. A prosecution dealing with a heterosexual couple did result in a ruling by the then-Legal Advisor and Chief Prosecutor, that strongly restricted the legal control of sexual issues (see below).

There is no collected data on the prevalence of these practices, but the experience of counselors and therapists point to the fact that all are practiced by significant numbers of couples. It is interesting to note that several subgroups in the Israeli population, Jews and non-Jews, practice heterosexual anal intercourse as a means of keeping an intact hymen and as a birth control measure, where the loss of one and the appearance of the other can be highly stigmatizing, damaging, or even dangerous.

The approach of orthodox Judaism is expressed in the fact that it frowns upon these practices, but does not proscribe them. A Talmudic story illustrates this approach very clearly, although using metaphorical language. A woman approached one of the sages with a complaint: “I set a table for my husband and he turned it around.” The sage answered: “What can I do, daughter, and the scriptures permits him.” There is a question whether the story deals with the issue of anal sex or with vaginal rear entry, but at least some of the commentators agree that anal sex is the issue. This can be perceived on one hand as ambivalence, but on the other as a realistic view of human nature.

6. Homoerotic, Homosexual, and Bisexual Behaviors

A. The Legal Situation

Until recently, homosexuality—or rather anal intercourse (sodomy), including heterosexual anal sex—was illegal in Israel. This was an inheritance of the British colonial penal code of 1936. According to gay organizations, victimization of homosexuals on the basis of this law was frequent.

Changes have occurred gradually and evolutionarily, starting in the early 1960s. Despite the illegality of anal intercourse, the then-Legal Advisor to the government and Chief Prosecutor and later Supreme Court Judge, H. Cohen, ruled that sexual intercourse between consenting adults, in private, cannot be a basis for prosecution. Since 1972, five attempts had been made by members of different parties to strike this sodomy statute from the penal code. In 1988, a political opportunity allowed its revocation. An amendment to the Equal Opportunity Law passed in 1990 also protects the rights of homosexuals to employment.

The attempts to change the law were accompanied by both public campaigns and many changes in public mood toward homosexuals and homosexuality. Until the mid-1970s, the IDF discharged homosexuals for psychiatric incompatibility and/or for being a security risk. This was changed prior to the 1988 legal change, and the IDF made several arrangements that allow homosexuals to serve without being exposed to undue difficulties.

Currently, several issues are being contested in the courts, mainly rights of cohabiting males that are usually granted to spouses under the rulings of common-law marriages. The issue is not as simple as it looks on first sight, especially when considering the regulations governing the pension rights of spouses when the principal owner of the rights dies. Male spouses have smaller pension rights as survivors than females. In the case of cohabiting gay men, this will give the couple an economic advantage over heterosexual couples.

B. Public Atmosphere Concerning Homosexuality

Several factors combine to make issues of homosexuality very difficult to cope with:

In early 1993, a gay/lesbian conference was held in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), despite strong protests from members of religious and right-wing parties. Public response to the conference, and to the personalities who discussed their difficulties, created further changes in both attitudes and practice.

A still problematic issue is that of open gay cohabitation. Although possible and prevalent, many people feel uncomfortable about it, and some express opinions that this is part of homosexual activism attempting to influence heterosexuals.

[Update 2002: Jerusalem saw its first “gay/lesbian pride parade” and outdoor party in a public park on June 8, 2002. Despite strong protests from orthodox Jews, approximately 4,000 homosexual Israelis recognized Jerusalem’s sanctity to Jews, Christians, and Muslims with a blessing in Hebrew, English, and Arabic, and then marched under rainbow flags and balloons provided by city officials. Similar parades have been held in recent years in the predominantly secular Tel-Aviv, where gays are more accepted and can socialize at an assortment of cafes, clubs, and bars that cater to them. There are only a handful of such gathering places in Jerusalem, where the first local gay community center opened in 1999 (Greenberg 2002). (End of update by R. T. Francoeur)]

C. Homosexuality in Sex Education

Despite the fact that homosexuality is part of the sex-education curriculum, and several units deal with homosexuality in general and with homophobia in particular, it seems that both school administrations and sex educators still find it uncomfortable to deal with the issues properly. Many youths, therefore, go through school without encountering issues of homosexuality in sex education, a fact that in itself constitutes a very strong message to both homosexual and heterosexual youth, and especially to those who are still ambivalent about their orientation or wonder about it. Adolescents uncertain of their sexual orientation or gender identity will hardly find support within the school system, as there is no systematic training and recommendations on how to deal with these issues. Normative pressures to conform are high.

An interesting difficulty in facilitating issues of homosexuality in the schools was encountered during the training process of sex educators. Several educators justified their reluctance to deal with homosexuality, expressing fear of their own biases or stereotypical thoughts. Facilitators from the Association for Individual Rights, the Israeli equivalent of a gay task force, supported this position, claiming that only gay people are sufficiently unbiased and sensitive enough to facilitate educational programs on homosexuality.