Haifa: City of steps – landscape and literature of Hadar HaCarmel

thus less tangible than the economic situation of the Yishuv. The second implicit assumption is that married couples had penetrative intercourse regularly. Challenging this assumption, it is interesting that the National Council’s Committee in Birthrate Problems did not encourage people to engage in sex more frequently. This, perhaps, can indicate that sex was considered an even more personal issue than pregnancy and abortion. To conclude, Rosenberg-Friedman’s important and thought-provoking book is written from the perspective of social history, offering an integrative look at the numerous aspects of this issue including women’s lives, families’ lives, household management, doctors’ work, conditions in hospitals, demographers’ work, and public opinion. Rosenberg-Friedman demonstrates how the issue of birthrate reveals the Yishuv society in its complexity, in terms of gender relations, ethnic and class divisions, clashing ideals, and an intricate collective mission in a tumultuous period.