Storytelling is powerful.
That’s why we’re launching Your Family-Building Story, a new story-collecting initiative, created to break down taboos and help people better understand and support loved ones.
A partnership with the Jewish Women’s Archive and Uprooted: A Jewish Communal Response to Fertility Journeys, our umbrella for this initiative is big. And intentionally inclusive. We’re reaching out to individuals across the Jewish community.
The stories we collect will come from people who recognize that their stories can help others, people willing to talk — openly or anonymously — about their personal experiences with infertility, pregnancy loss, adoption, foster-parenting, becoming a single parent by choice, LGBTQ+ family-building, blended families, step-parenting, living child-free and more.
As we share and collect stories through the Your Family-Building Story initiative, we’ll be starting important conversations. The end result? Less isolation and feelings of shame. More sensitivity and support. Our goal: to help more individuals feel empowered to navigate these challenges — be it their own or a loved one’s.
“Our goal is to shed light on infertility, long a taboo subject in the Jewish community,” says Hadassah National President Rhoda Smolow. “And while this particular initiative focuses on that community, the issues we’re raising are relevant to everyone trying to figure out what kind of family they want and what ‘family’ means to them. We are thrilled to partner with the Jewish Women’s Archive and Uprooted on this important project.”
The more we hear and see people talk openly about their challenges, the easier it is for others to face their own — and to ask for help. And Hadassah will work to build awareness nationally and locally, on our social networks, and with policymakers as part of Hadassah’s advocacy efforts.
Interested? You can share your own story, or interview someone you know. It’s easy to get started using the Story Aperture app or form on the Jewish Women’s Archives website, which provides prompts and user-friendly tools.
Dismantling taboos takes time. In the Jewish community, families are cherished. But as we change how we define and talk about family, we can make our communities more welcoming, helping many feel less isolated and alone.
Share your story. Break taboos. Build understanding.
Read the press release and learn more about Your Family-Building Story.
Read more about our partners at the Jewish Women’s Archive and Uprooted.
Find out more about Hadassah’s reConceiving Infertility initiative, launched in April 2020.