In Israel, a family of three adults are declared the children's equal parents.

---

Another step for polyfamily recognition: An Israeli judge, guided by "the best interest of the children," has granted a woman and her two gay male living partners equal co-guardianship of their children. Erez Benari from Seattle tells us,

This broke yesterday and hasn't been officially translated to English yet. An Israeli thrupple asked to legalize their non-traditional union by approving all 3 adults in the family (2 guys, one woman) to hold "legal guardian" status of their 2 children. Each of the men had a separate child with the woman, and now each of the dads is officially a father to both kids, as is the mother.

Hopefully, this is a first step towards a legal union between the adults.

The original article (Jan. 23, 2020) in Yedioth Ahronoth, reportedly Israel's largest-selling newspaper. Google Translate turns the Hebrew into English as follows:

The judge ruled: Mother, Father and Father

Orr, Gil and Glee formed a family and sought to register as co-parents of the two children born to them — each man as another guardian of a child who never came from his seed.

By Yoram Yarkoni

The Tel Aviv Family Court recognized triple parenting — a new family unit that includes Mom, Dad and more Dad as guardian. The two children born to three are officially siblings.

The state is in principle opposed to recognition of a family structure of three parents. ... The judge who recognized triple parenting is Yehoram Shaked. The decision that gave the three parents equal status to their children reads: "The children were created and born into a situation where they have three parents. Rejection of the lawsuit will have one and only meaning for the parties: Continued disobedience and conduct that does not benefit the minors or the whole family."

Judge Shaked further stated that when considering the best interests of the minors, the good of the whole family must also be taken into account. In the past, Shaked has made a decision on triple parenting, in another case with other legal circumstances, but is prohibited from [publicizing] and cannot [give details] about it.

...[The two men] living together wanted to have children. They contacted Glee, whom they knew, and together decided to start a single family with three parents. The pregnancy process took place abroad.

...The three parents' attorneys, attorneys Haggai Kalei, Danielle Jacoby, Carmel Ben Tzur and Carmit Mizrahi, argued that the request to add a guardian to each child came to reflect the reality in which the children live from their day of birth and that they consider themselves brothers for everything. The parents' attorneys said: "In the State of Israel there are thousands of families where children are born prematurely and intentionally to a loving family unit that includes three parents. In the LGBT community, this family structure is particularly common. But so far, the court has not given a proper response regulating the rights of these family [units]."

Itai Notak, a member of the Tel Aviv City Council and who assisted in the struggle of the three parents, said: "Life is stronger than conservative perceptions that our lives must not be waged."

Attorney Dalit Yaniv-Messer, a family law expert, said: "The importance of providing guardianship to a non-biological parent is that it has the right and duty to care for the minor's needs like his biological parents."...

This recalls a similar landmark ruling in Newfoundland, Canada, in April 2018.


Update February 11, 2020: Erez writes about another, similar case:

Another precedent set in my home country of Israel. A throupple of one man and two women has received a "Common law partner" recognition by the court.

The man, referred to as "R" in the article, was recognized as a common-law partner of one woman, but felt his connection with the 2nd woman ("N") was strong, so he took it to court with lawyer Shiri Robbins Golan. N says she signed a partnership contract with R because has has multiple financial assets and she wanted him to feel comfortable with their relationship, and not be concerned about her motives (as in, being financial rather than romantic).

Original article in Hebrew.

[Permalink]

Friday Polynews Roundup — New polyamory music, Israeli poly anarchitecture, guess who faces more scrutiny, and more

It's Friday Polynews Roundup time! — for December 27, 2019


● From Israel, Graduate of elite IDF Unit 8200 breaks barriers with her free-love commune (Dec. 20):

Shir Talor (crouching) and companions building a mini-dome.

 
Just a short drive from the hummus shops and hairdressers in the center of Pardes Hannah, there is a free-love commune where dozens of people happily give the finger to societal norms.

Old-timers in the Israeli town think it’s a myth, and even the many hippies who have migrated to the small city of 42,000 an hour north of Tel Aviv aren’t sure whether to believe the rumors of the love collective established last year.

...[Shir] Talor doesn’t take the predictable path of most alum of the Israeli Intelligence Corps’ Unit 8200, who often head successful tech startups or lecture at international forums on cybersecurity. Instead, after 11 years in the elite unit, her big project is to pioneer polyamory in a home dominated by a “cuddle space” large enough for several people to get intimate.

She is convinced that society must become more “pluralistic” about sex rather than view it as necessarily bound up with marriage, childbearing and exclusivity.

“For us, sexuality is not a goal you get to on the way to something or somewhere. It’s a tool, just like conversation or playing board games, to spend time with another person and build intimacy. Sometimes sexuality leads to other things and sometimes it doesn’t,” she says.

Talor is an architect — or as she puts it, an “anarchitect,” meaning “anarchist architect” — and uses her design skills to map the intricate relationships between more than 30 people in the polyamorous group with crisscrossing lines. She calls the diagram a “polycule” because it resembles the blueprint of a molecule, but the web is actually much bigger, she stresses, with many more relationships between members of both the same and different sex. ...

● In his Savage Love column (in many alternative newspapers), Dan Savage this week lays into more baaad "CNM" that sullies our name. He responds to a question about a girlfriend who says she's monogamous and also says she wants the opposite: Open Ended (Dec. 25, 2019).

...We are interested in opening up our relationship, but I have reservations. She wants the freedom to throw herself into her new world without the constraint of having to shut down non-platonic sparks. [She] has brought up marriage several times. While she admits she doesn't have a good track record with monogamy, she insists marriage will change that.

Another concern: The last time she was in an open relationship, she cheated on her then-boyfriend with me. "No exes" was one of their rules, and I was her ex at the time. (I didn't know she was with someone else.) Another wrinkle: When I confided in her recently that I had developed romantic feelings for another person, she asked me to choose between her and them....

I would be fine with her hooking up with women, but it makes me sick to my stomach to think about her with other men.... She would be willing to put her desire for experiences with other women to the side in order to be with me, she says, once we are married. I would love to hear your thoughts....

Don't open it. End it. It's time to put this dumb, messy, past-its-expiration-date shitshow of a relationship behind you. Would knowing your girlfriend is already fucking other people help you do that? Because when someone with a shitty track record where monogamy and nonmonogamy are concerned asks their partner for an open relationship while at the same time demanding their partner "abort" any potential "non-platonic" friendships... yeah... already fucking other people.

...People who are bad at monogamy don't get better at it once they're married. If anything, people who were good at monogamy tend to get worse at it the longer they're married. ... And if your girlfriend cheats because she gets off on risk, danger, or deception, getting married — which would obviously make cheating riskier and more dangerous — could make cheating more appealing to her, not less.

● Indie-pop singer-songwriter Jyoti Mishra of Derby, UK, under the name White Town, released a new album,  Polyamory, on Christmas Eve. Tracks:

You and Him and Her and Me (3:19)
You're Free (2:15)
Love Isn't Property (2:57)
Troo Love (3:50)
Night of Rain and Monsters (2:30)
You Be Me (3:57)
Christmas Eve 2019 (3:40)


Listen here, with lyrics and videos.

From a review:

The "band" White Town consists of Jyoti Mishra, who writes and records the music almost entirely on his own, with occasional help from other musicians. Although best known for the fluke 1997 hit "Your Woman," White Town's mix of musical, political, and social influences makes Mishra one of the more intriguing, although frustratingly inconsistent, musicians in '90s indie pop. – Stewart Mason, AMG

I wasn't much impressed on first listening, but then these tunes began to haunt.


● A significant article from the Black Youth Project: Black women face greater scrutiny than white women for being polyamorous (Dec. 20, 2019):

The societal impact of straying from what is considered a norm is greater for Black people than it is for our white counterparts.

(A scene from Spike Lee's unfortunate She's Gotta Have It)

by Sarah Thomas

Of the many places to learn about my sexuality, That 70’s Show was as good as any... but one episode in particular stood out to me. Red and Kitty attend a party with their neighbors, Bob and Midge. After a few minutes of conversation and mingling, it becomes clear just what kind of party they’ve been invited to.... Kitt rises to leave and giggles nervously as she says, “My God. You’re swingers!”

Red and Kitty quickly dash away from the party, whose attendees seem to be having the time of their lives. It was the first time I saw an instance of open relationships on TV. Instead of tapping into the implied humor at the expense of these “debaucherous” people, I was entranced with how free they seemed. The only problem was that I didn’t look like them. That 70’s Show was a snowy-white sitcom, and it would be a while before I saw myself reflected in portrayals of polyamory in media.

...While conversations about sex and sexuality have become less taboo, the face of pleasure is still being defined. BDSM gear graces the runways and think pieces about triads are found in major publications. Alternative lifestyles such as polyamory can be brought up at dinner parties and people (mostly) don’t bat an eye. [But] when we picture that dinner party, and that quirky person who is empowered by their sexuality, what do they look like?

...In an interview with yesyesnonmono, Kevin Patterson, author of Love’s Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities, comments on the responsibility of white people to hold space for people of color. “It’s so easy to not see yourself represented in a thing and then to assume that thing is not for you. Polyamory is one of those things. We need more visible people of color in these spaces,” says Patterson. “But that also means that white folks with platforms need to use them to prop up people who don’t get the same kind of exposure. That means bloggers, organizers, community leaders, etc.”

Like white feminism, the white sex-positive crowd benefits from white supremacy. White people benefit from the assumption of innocence when exploring their sexuality. Compare this to most Black people’s experiences with kink and polyamory. ... As said in Shirley Yee’s Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism, 1828-1860, “[S]tereotypes of black and white women were mutually reinforcing images, not simply opposites; the assumption that black women were sensual and physically strong served to buttress the notion that white women were delicate and passionless.” The assumption of this fragile innocence and passivity of white women harms us because we are seen as deviant beings.

...There is less of an outcry from a white community that could alienate those that are behaving outside of social norms. The people that they have to answer to are usually parents and a few friends instead of an entire people. For some Black people, adopting respectability politics is a gateway to acceptance across communities. ...

● News You Can Use

A reminder: Find your options and plan your trips to hotel polycons, wilderness polycamps, retreat intensives, and other polyamory-community gatherings for the coming year at Alan's List of Polyamory Events.

Back again next Friday if not sooner!

[Permalink]

That poly conference in Israel managed to happen, despite religious threats

The polyamory conference for psychology professionals in Israel, which was under fire from religious demonstrators (previous post), happened yesterday on schedule as reported in Haaretz, even though Bar-Ilan University administrators partially caved by limiting who was allowed to attend. And, we learn more about who orchestrated the opposition.

Scene at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan

 
Religiously-oriented Israeli University Holds Confab on Polyamory Despite Uproar

Orthodox groups demonstrate against 'academic-therapeutic' conference at Bar-Ilan University, claiming the phenomenon encourages adultery

By Shira Kadari-Ovadia

A university in central Israel is holding a conference Tuesday on the treatment of polyamory, a phenomenon in which people engage in intimate, consensual relations with more than one partner or have a desire for such relationships.

The conference is taking place at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan despite the fact that there were protests last week by religious groups, claiming that holding it constitutes encouragement of adultery.

The conference, being held as part of a training program in the university's department of social work for treating sexual problems, had been fully booked in advance registration. Scheduled speakers include academics, psychologists and sexual therapists.

Opposition to the event at Bar-Ilan – Israel’s only religiously-oriented university – was led on social media by the Liba Center, a conservative Orthodox group that in the past organized protests against women serving in the army and equal rights for members of the LGBT community.

Leading up to the conference, members of the group demonstrated outside the homes of senior Bar-Ilan administrative officials.

In response to the protests, the administration issued a statement stressing its commitment to academic freedom, adding: “Unfortunately, the people from the Liba Center, which is identified with extremist positions, is spreading information that is selective and not current regarding the conference, which is academic-therapeutic in nature."

The statement insisted the conference is geared "exclusively to professionals who are social workers and therapists" and that the university supports faculty members interested in holding business-like deliberations based on knowledge and research.

"By its nature, academia frequently deals with controversial social issues,” the statement concluded.

The original (February 5, 2019. Registration wall).

The article comes with promos for four previous polyamory stories in Haaretz, a prominent voice for secularism:

–  Who's afraid of polyamory? (Feb. 3, 2019)
–  I know my boyfriend's wife. We go out for coffee together." (May 27, 2017)
–  Is an open marriage the secret to keeping love alive? (July 26, 2015)
–  Polyamory: A product of deprivation or a cure for a monogamous rut? (March 26, 2016)


Also, in the Daily Sabah, a Turkish pro-government paper:

Uproar fails to stop polyamory event at religious Israeli university

...Over the past week, religious groups have been doing their best to have the seminar nixed.

A Facebook group against the event called "adultery at Bar-Ilan!" bears a logo of one of the Ten Commandments: "You shall not commit adultery."

Bar-Ilan University attracts many religious Jewish students and lecturers, and requires students to include Jewish studies in their degrees.

...Demonstrators believe the concept clashes with Jewish values. One of the protests was organized at an interchange outside the university at the time as the seminar.

An online petition to stop the seminar garnered more than 2,700 signatures. It states: "If you too think that this is a conference which is not moral and not academic, join us in our activities to cancel the adultery conference."

...Responding to a request for comment, Bar-Ilan said the conference is a professional one and "is not intended to encourage polyamory."

"Polyamory has become a more prevalent social issue and, as such, is of great interest to the sex therapist professional community in Israel," it said in a statement.

The whole article (Feb. 5, 2019).

[Permalink]

Speaking up for poly, under attack at Israeli university

Now a rational voice is in the news amid the furor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, where the psychology department is set to hold a polyamory conference for therapists (see my last post). Haaretz, a leading Israeli newspaper with a liberal bent, ran this column today:

Who's Afraid of Polyamory?

For people who can’t find themselves in monogamy, polyamory offers alternative frameworks for their relationships based on commitment, sincerity, good will and love

By Lihi Rothschild

A conference on polyamory and psychological therapy is to go ahead as planned on Monday at Bar-Ilan University despite numerous objections from groups of conservative students. The students say the conference promotes unfaithfulness and moral depravity. The protests, including demands to cancel the conference, reached the doorstep of the university’s rector, Miriam Faust.

Polyamory is a lifestyle involving a number of simultaneous romantic and or/sexual relationships with the knowledge and consent of all involved. In recent years it has become increasingly popular in Israeli society, with many people experimenting with various forms of non-monogamous ties. Opposition to the conference is based on a distorted presentation of polyamory. Contrary to the claims by opponents of the conference, this lifestyle does not involve unfaithfulness but rather an open and conscious choice of non-exclusive sexual or emotional relationships.

The accusation that polyamory is responsible for the destruction of the monogamous family is also exaggerated. The normative couple does not fall apart because of polyamory, but rather because monogamy is a framework marketed as a glove that fits every hand, but like most one-size-fits-all garments, many people find that it isn’t the best fit for them. For people who can’t find themselves in monogamy, polyamory offers alternative frameworks for their relationships based on commitment, sincerity, good will and love.

When a polyamorous man or woman enters psychological treatment, they sometimes find themselves in a complex situation. Sometimes they have to spend the first session, or even several sessions, explaining what polyamory is, how it works exactly and how their life relationships work. In more difficult cases they encounter scorn over their lifestyle choice, or face all sorts of stereotypes which assume that non-monogamous relationships are unhealthy, unstable and even deviant.

Sometimes instead of the treatment that focuses on resolving the patient’s problems, it mistakenly assumes that polyamory is the source of those problems, and tries to correct it. Such therapy not only doesn’t help, it can be very harmful. ...

...The American Psychological Association has recently recognized the need to expand knowledge and awareness about polyamory among professionals, and over the past year established a committee to study the subject and establish guidelines for treatment. The Israel Psychological Association held a conference last March on the subject entitled “Polyamory – are there rules for love?”

Such research groups and conferences like the one to take place on Monday at Bar-Ilan can help start dealing with the lack of understanding, the stigma and ignorance in this area. However, it would be better in the future if greater efforts were made to bring in spokesmen and spokeswomen from the polyamorous community and therapists who have undergone training in this area.

In conclusion, a few words about academic freedom. The essence of academic life is to ask questions about social structures and phenomena. It is meant to track changes and developments in a critical manner. It is meant to make new knowledge accessible and encourage critical thinking about the world. The demand to make knowledge and academic discourse subservient to codes of Jewish law goes against the essence of the academic world.

It is regrettable that Bar-Ilan University has given in to pressure and restricted entry to the conference to professionals in the field. This is a decision that harms the purpose of the conference in that it creates the impression that this issue must be hidden from the public eye and restricted to researchers in the field, and this limits academic discourse. However, the rector, and the head of Bar-Ilan’s school of social work, Prof. Nehami Baum, are to be given full support for their insistence on holding the conference, even in its limited form, considering the objections.

Lihi Rothschild is a Ph.D. candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her area of research is polyamorous and queer families in society and law.

The original (February 3, 2019. Registration wall.)

[Permalink]

Tumult grows in Israel over psychologists' conference on polyamory

Fury is building among religious conservatives in Israel over a conference by psychologists titled "Treatment Issues in Polyamory" scheduled for Tuesday, February 5th, at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv.

The psychology department's building at Bar-Ilan University

Rabbi Naftali Bar-Ilan, grandson of the university's namesake, has called the conference an insult to his grandfather's memory. The prohibition on adultery, he is quoted as saying, "is not subject to discussion, even under the guise of a scientific gathering, neither in public nor in private. Conferences should be organized to combat this phenomenon, bringing in professionals and experts who strengthen the institution of the family.”

Students are circulating a petition saying, “Is that what you call integration of Torah and academia? We strongly demand that the university stop this disgrace, immediately cancel the ‘adultery conference,’ and declare that it upholds family values in Israel and does not cooperate with all sorts of inventions against morality, Torah and family.”

The conference organizers are pressing ahead but have instituted security measures, changed the names of some sessions, and are cancelling registrations of attendees who are not psychologists or therapists.

Bar-Ilan University, originally founded with an Orthodox orientation, is one of the country's largest universities with about 33,000 students.

News of the dispute is spreading in Israeli media.

● From the Jewish Press, based in Brooklyn with a Modern Orthodox viewpoint: Rabbi Bar Ilan’s Grandson: Conference on Open Marriages Violates my Grandfather’s Memory (January 27, 2019)

...Rabbi Naftali Bar-Ilan said that “the founders of the university aspired to establish a high level academic institution that would not harm the supreme values ​​of the Jewish people. Not only that, but one of the seven Noahide laws that bind non-Jews is the prohibition against incestuous relations,” stressing that billions of people around the world adhere to it.

...Bar-Ilan University issued a response saying, “The professional conference, as its name suggests, deals with treatment issues and is not intended to encourage this phenomenon. This is a new social phenomenon that resonates [in the public arena] and is being discussed by the professionals. The School of Social Work, attentive to the public arena, which has been among the few to engage in training sexual therapists for 12 years, thought it necessary to address the issue. Despite the fact that this issue is controversial, conference organizers believe it requires professional discussion based on knowledge and clinical research.” ...

● In the Times of Israel: Bar-Ilan University’s polyamory conference draws fire from students, professors (Jan. 30)

...The three-hour conference, which will be held on February 5 at the university’s Ramat Gan campus, is titled “Treatment Issues in Polyamory.” It will include talks by professors from the psychology and gender studies departments titled, “On Polyamory, Open Relationships and Judgment in the Therapeutic Space,” and “Polyamory — Fusion and Healing in the Face of Fracture?” Organizers specified that it is intended for therapists only and will be closed to the general public.

Over 600 opponents signed a petition calling for the conference to be canceled, claiming it supported dismantling families, and saying it was “shocking to think about a child growing up in a house full of this kind of betrayal and fornication,” the Israel Hayom daily reported.

Protesters hung signs over the weekend in the area around the campus that read “Adultery at Bar-Ilan,” according to the right-wing Israel National News site. Other opponents held a protest outside the home of the university’s rector.

“Although in academia there is the idea of freedom of expression at a scientific conference and this is very important,” said Professor Ely Merzbach, “the polyamory conference organized by the school of social work does not appear academic at all; it offers treatment methods that are completely against the Torah, the sacred values of most of the university population and the structure of the family.”

The organizers changed the structure of the conference following protests, with “the goal of better reflecting its professional face more accurately.” ...

● And today in Arutz Sheva / Israel National News (identifying with Religious Zionism): Growing criticism of polyamory event at Bar Ilan University (Jan. 31)

Religious Zionist university ramps up security ahead of the scheduled conference highlighting open marriages amid demonstrations, petitions.

The controversy surrounding a conference highlighting the subject of polyamory that is scheduled to take place at Bar Ilan University refuses to die down.

The event has caused an uproar at the institution, with upwards of 2,000 students and faculty alike signing a petition this week protesting the event as one that "destroys families". Demonstrations have also been held outside the house of Bar Ilan University Rector Miriam Faust and students received emails and text messages imploring them to flood university management with complaints.

...According to the blog 'The Hottest Place In Hell', the university has ramped up security to an "unprecedented level" after the moderator scheduled to host the event said that she feared for her physical safety.

Meanwhile, booklets promoting the conference have been changed and do not include racy quotes that graced the original version. In addition, a lecture that was formally titled "A Painful Compromise Whose Name Is Polyamory" has been renamed and is now called "Polyamory: Associations Of Impulse And Anxiety And Clinical Patterns In Professional And Public Attitudes To The Phenomenon".

...A slew of restrictions have also been imposed regarding who is allowed to attend the controversial conference. "At first, no restrictions were imposed on registration for the conference, but the second leaflet stated clearly that 'the conference is intended for therapists and early registration only," reported The Hottest Place In Hell. "People who registered and paid received a cancellation notice."

● The previous instances of Israeli poly in the news here, few and surely incomplete, are more positive (after this one; scroll down).

● Here's the Polyamory Israel Facebook group, in Hebrew. Can someone tell me if anything's going on there about this? Please reply in the comments here.

[Permalink]