Yehezkel Schiff is President of Jewish Family Forever, jewishfamilyforever.org
At the recent National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) in Jerusalem, the opening focus was on strengthening the traditional family. Katy Faust, one of the lead speakers, who heads a coalition of over 100 organizations, “Greater Than," spoke about the need to rebuild the walls around the traditional family, comparing their efforts to Nechemya’s rebuilding of the Old City of Jerusalem.
The situation in the US and the west in general is dire with birth rates well below needed replacement along with all sorts of living arrangements outside of traditional marriage. By contrast, Israel’s outlook looks positive with robust birth rates and marriage laws which protect the traditional Torah life path. Yet as Einat Ramon who moderated the panel pointed out, Israel too has growing challenges to traditional marriage which must be addressed.
Israel’s public schools, like much of western culture, support the LGBTQ agenda which is inculcating our precious children with anti-Torah values. The Israeli Health Ministry is offering puberty blockers to hundreds of children who want to change their gender. There are political parties pushing for civil marriage which can open the door to gay and polyamorous marriage as has happened in the US and across the west. Numerous studies show that for children from these relationships, there are significant mental health issues as Ms. Faust illustrated. (“Sex Differences in Reported Effectiveness and Psychosocial Effects of Therapy-Assisted Sexual Orientation Change," Dr. Paul Sullins, May 2026).
Most Israelis are not happy about the government using their tax dollars to fund gay pride parades where nudity and debauchery reign. There are concerns about harvesting the sperm from dead soldiers so it can be used to create babies for single or non-traditional family arrangements. As a rule, Israeli Moms and Dads just don’t want their children exposed to this anti-Torah rot but don’t know where to turn.
In the US, social conservatives have a home and significant influence in the Republican party and are able to impact policy and law as a result. In Israel, we don’t. I have spoken with a number of MK’s who are seeking office in parties where one would think there would be support. The Haredi parties have shown little interest in policy areas that don’t impact their immediate constituencies with the important exception of opposition to changes in the traditional marriage law. While most in the Religious Zionist parties support the status quo on marriage, they are principally focused on territory and would need to decide to take on the issue of Torah direction for families, a cause for which they are eminently suited. The Noam party is the natural home for these issues. In the last session, they did not effectively push these efforts, perhaps because of lack of support from other religious parties or concerns that the mainstream media will continue to vilify them. We wish them success, but current polls predict that Noam will not likely cross the threshold and they do not have a vote sharing agreement.
Culture underlies everything as the NatCon organizers clearly understood. If you can tear apart the traditional family, you can tear apart a nation. For most Israelis, family is the foundation of life itself. For Judaism, the traditional family is the foundation of our faith. NGO’s outside of Israel including the Jewish Federation, are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars that pull us away from traditional Torah family values.
Israel is blessed with a number of organizations who are fighting back and working in support of a traditional family agenda and Torah values, such as Choosing Family, Shovrot Shivion, Forum of Organizations for the Family, CJV- the Coalition for Jewish Values (2000 Orthodox Rabbis in US with branch in Israel) and Jewish Family Forever. We believe there are potentially tens of thousands of voters, moms and dads, who prioritize protecting their families over almost everything else. But we are struggling to find a home. God-willing we will find one.