Kosher IVF: How Orthodox couples manage fertility treatment

This is the second instalment of a six-part series, Be Fruitful: Fertility Journeys in Modern Jewish Lives, which explores the complex and sometimes taboo journey to parenthood in the Jewish community.

Building a Jewish family is a strong cultural expectation for all Jews, but for the Orthodox, it is also a religious requirement.

For those who are among the one in six Australian couples who experience infertility, it is not always possible to fulfil this duty.

Enter Rabbi Yehoram Ulman: a senior member of the Sydney Beth Din and one of the foremost rabbinical experts on fertility internationally, who developed a world-first protocol authorising the use of IVF.

Affectionately dubbed ‘Kosher IVF’, the protocol enables Orthodox couples to access reproductive technologies without compromising Jewish law.

“It's not that anything with IVF sits at odds with Jewish religion, but you have to address substantive and specific questions,” Ulman told The Jewish Independent.

“For example, how can you observe Shabbat while timing the required IVF tests and procedures? How can you follow family purity laws if you are ovulating before mikveh?”

Ulman says it makes sense to go to great lengths to enable Orthodox couples to access fertility treatment.

“We make sure there are proper protocols for ensuring the kashrut of products. If we are abiding by Jewish law when it comes to meat and wine, how much more so [should we be] when it comes to the children we bring into this world?”