{"id":303738,"date":"2026-02-22T02:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T02:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/303738\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T02:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T02:07:09","slug":"with-co-parenting-on-the-rise-in-israel-one-advocate-aims-to-export-the-model-to-us-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/303738\/","title":{"rendered":"With co-parenting on the rise in Israel, one advocate aims to export the model to US Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"

JTA \u2014 In playgrounds around Tel Aviv, it\u2019s no longer unusual to meet a child who splits time between two homes, not because their parents divorced, but because they were never a couple in the first place.<\/p>\n

In a society where having children is widely seen as non-negotiable, co-parenting, in which two people decide to have and raise a child together platonically, has become a legitimate alternative for those who haven\u2019t found a partner but aren\u2019t willing to give up on family.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery person you ask will personally know three people who have chosen to co-parent,\u201d said Michal Biran, a former Knesset member who founded Hachasida (\u201cThe Stork\u201d), a platform that matches aspiring co-parents. Once a fringe idea mostly associated with gay men and single women, \u201cco-parenting by choice,\u201d a phrase Biran\u2019s organization says it coined, has spread. \u201cStraight men have discovered this,\u201d she said, estimating they now make up about half of the men entering new matches, compared with a time when almost all of the men were gay.<\/p>\n

The model has flourished in Israel for a mix of cultural and practical reasons. Israel\u2019s unique combination of conservatism and creativity makes it fertile ground for separating parenthood from couplehood, with publicly funded fertility treatments making it easier for would-be parents to pursue pregnancy outside a conventional relationship. \u201cIt\u2019s the ultimate startup,\u201d Biran said.<\/p>\n

Biran herself is part of the trend. Approaching 40 and single, she decided to have children via co-parenting rather than waiting for \u201cMr. Right.\u201d She and her co-parenting partner, Nimrod, who is gay, met through a co-parenting website and now raise two young children, a daughter, 6, and a son, 2, alternating custody every other day.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
\n\t\t\tby email and never miss our top stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n

One upside, she said, is a more \u201cbalanced and flexible\u201d life with built-in \u201ctime off,\u201d whether that means parenting solo when Nimrod is doing army reserve duty or having space when he takes the children for a trip. The model can also accommodate different personalities and interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate camping and Nimrod loves it. He takes her camping while I stay home and watch Netflix, it\u2019s perfect,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Surprised that the idea hadn\u2019t taken hold elsewhere in the world, especially in places where she assumed the cultural ingredients already existed, Biran decided to export the model.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand how it hasn\u2019t happened in New York, which has so many Jewish mothers and so many gays,\u201d she quipped. She is rolling out the service abroad under the name \u201cNesting,\u201d a term she prefers to Hachasida\u2019s literal translation of \u201cstork,\u201d beginning in California and New York.<\/p>\n

So far, 54 babies have been born through Hachasida, with more pregnancies underway. Her core business is a paid, hands-on matching service, though she also offers an app used by a few hundred people, mostly Israelis, to connect directly without her involvement.<\/p>\n

Prospective co-parents begin with an intake on values, lifestyle and expectations around raising children, with an emphasis on alignment that matters in a long-term parenting partnership.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike in romantic partnerships, where people often fall in love with their opposites, here it\u2019s easier to set people up if they\u2019re similar,\u201d Biran said.<\/p>\n

Politics has become a major filter. \u201cThese days, pro-Bibi and anti-Bibi people won\u2019t have kids together,\u201d she said, referring to Israelis\u2019 polarized views of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Geography is another, she said, because ideally co-parents should live in the same vicinity for the arrangement to work.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tMichal Biran, at right, then a Labor MK, joins colleagues in signing a declaration of women\u2019s rights, on International Women\u2019s Day in Tel Aviv, March 7, 2013. (Gideon Markowicz\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

Once she introduces a potential pair, Biran encourages them to test how they function in ordinary settings before anyone commits to fertility treatments. That can mean meeting friends and family, spending a long afternoon together, or going to IKEA to see how they handle friction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf one of them ends up shouting at the cashier or the waitress, it\u2019s better to know in advance,\u201d she said. She recalled one woman who said a man brought a bottle of wine to a picnic with her friends and later asked her to reimburse half the cost, which Biran took as a clue about how he might approach bigger child-related expenses later.<\/p>\n

If both sides decide to proceed, they sign a detailed contract covering custody, finances and decision-making.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like divorcing, but amicably. There\u2019s no shouting,\u201d Biran said. Only then do they move on to fertility treatment.<\/p>\n

One co-parent, Jean-Marc Liling, said the arrangement in many ways felt less like a social revolution than a throwback.<\/p>\n

\u201cIronically, it\u2019s almost a traditional way of doing things,\u201d he said, likening it to the Jewish \u201c[matchmaking] system of the 19th century, where the sole aim of meeting a woman is to create a family.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lawyer and venture capitalist, Liling entered co-parenting as he approached his late 40s after struggling to find a woman he could build a life with.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tJean-Marc Liling became a co-parent through the Israeli organization Ono; another Israeli co-parenting firm advertises a US branch, Nesting, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in February 2026. (Courtesy of Liling via JTA)<\/p>\n

\u201cI really felt I didn\u2019t want to miss out on being a father,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a culture, we\u2019re obsessed with having children,\u201d he said, calling Israel \u201cthe mecca of co-parenting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Living in Jerusalem and religiously observant, Liling said the friction was not with the concept, but with some of the women he met through the process, describing what he saw as a knee-jerk reaction from secular matches who \u201cdon\u2019t really understand the nuances of liberal Orthodox.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went through Oro, Israel\u2019s only other co-parenting agency, where, after several other introductions that fell through, he was matched with his eventual co-parent, a woman in her early 40s in Tel Aviv. The two met weekly for about five months before moving ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was easy, natural,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were a lot of instances where I thought, aha, this could work.\u201d Now 3 years old, their daughter splits her time evenly between them. Liling keeps an apartment in Tel Aviv to make the logistics easier on her, even as he continues to live in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone had told me seven years ago I would become a co-parent with a secular woman in Tel Aviv, I never would have dreamed of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If someone had told me seven years ago I would become a co-parent with a secular woman in Tel Aviv, I never would have dreamed of it<\/p>\n

Liling said he and his co-parent tried to build something that felt like a family, not a strict division of labor.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cEven using the word family is not a given for some,\u201d he said, noting that some co-parents prefer a parallel model in which each household operates separately. In their case, he said, they try to operate as a unit around their daughter, with all three of them going to the playground together and both parents showing up for doctor\u2019s appointments. On nights she is with him, he makes time for an evening call to her mother so she can say goodnight.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tA mother walks a baby in a stroller, March 12, 2021. (Moshe Shai\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

Sociologist Ya\u2019arit Bokek-Cohen of Netanya Academic College, who has studied elective co-parenting in Israel, said there are no official statistics on how many children are born into such arrangements because no single state body systematically tracks it. Birth registrations capture \u201cmother\u201d and \u201cfather,\u201d without noting whether the adults are a couple or unrelated co-parents. Still, she said the phenomenon is growing rapidly, particularly among gay couples who want to avoid the high cost of surrogacy abroad and who also prefer a setup in which a biological mother is present in the child\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Early research has been cautiously reassuring. A University of Cambridge-led study cited recently by The New York Times found that children in elective, nonromantic co-parenting families \u201cseem to be doing well and no different to other family types,\u201d though critics such as Emma Waters of the conservative Heritage Foundation told the Times that research highlighted by the conservative Institute for Family Studies suggests children tend to do best across a range of measures when raised by their married biological parents.<\/p>\n

Biran said half her work revolves around stopping people from \u201cself-sabotage,\u201d especially those who enter co-parenting while still holding out hope that a conventional relationship will arrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest challenge for me is someone who says they\u2019re not ruling out a relationship,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re much less likely to succeed in your Plan B if you haven\u2019t fully let go of Plan A.\u201d She compared it to \u201ca gym membership that you don\u2019t use, but you also won\u2019t cancel because maybe you\u2019ll go tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019re much less likely to succeed in your Plan B if you haven\u2019t fully let go of Plan A<\/p>\n

For that reason, romantic involvement with would-be matches is one of the only reasons for removing someone from the database.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really harms the chances of success. They don\u2019t need me to find a date \u2014 there are plenty of platforms for that,\u201d Biran said. She recalled one match that did turn romantic, with the pair later conceiving \u201cthe old-fashioned way\u201d while vacationing in Thailand.<\/p>\n

Bokek-Cohen, who analyzed user-written profiles on Israeli co-parenting websites in a 2025 study<\/a>, said the pull of conventional couplehood still shows up even in spaces built for parenting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funny thing is that they know they\u2019re on a co-parenting website, and yet their profiles still say they\u2019re looking for a love partner,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tMichal Biran, left, with her children and co-parent in a Tel Aviv playground, is a former Israeli lawmaker and leading advocate for co-parenting in Israel. (Courtesy of Biran via JTA)<\/p>\n

Trying to replicate the model in the United States, Biran said, has been harder than she expected, from the high cost of fertility treatments to basic logistics like geography. She recalled her short-lived delight when she found a potential match for a Florida client within the state.\u00a0 \u201cAnd then I looked at a map and realized just how huge Florida is,\u201d she said, laughing.<\/p>\n

But the biggest hurdle, Biran said, is educating Americans about what she means by the concept, even as co-parenting platforms have grown (one app cited by The New York Times said it had 100,000 registered users in 2025, up from 30,000 in 2020). She pointed to Amichai Lau-Lavie, an Israeli-born LGBT rabbi in New York who fathered three children with a lesbian couple, as helping to raise the idea\u2019s visibility, but Lau-Lavie draws a sharp distinction between his arrangement and co-parenting. While saying he is \u201cvery present in the kids\u2019 lives,\u201d adding that \u201cthey call me Abba,\u201d he describes himself as an \u201cinvolved known donor.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Biran said, Nesting\u2019s US outreach is aimed mainly at older single women and gay men. Rising antisemitism has made the timing feel more urgent, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the right time to make people understand that, if bringing children into the world from a love [relationship] doesn\u2019t work, the most logical next step is to do it within the community,\u201d she said. \u201cI tell women, don\u2019t go straight to the sperm bank. Meet a cute Jewish gay guy instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

I tell women, don\u2019t go straight to the sperm bank. Meet a cute Jewish gay guy instead<\/p>\n

In December, Nesting hosted a Zoom session for a couple of dozen men, mostly Jewish gay men from California and New York, promoted through Facebook ads<\/a> that asked: Are you longing for a child? Considering surrogacy but don\u2019t want to raise a child on your own? Co-parenting by choice might be the right model for you. Another session aimed at American women is planned in the coming weeks.\n<\/p>\n

Nesting\u2019s US service costs $8,000, Biran said, split into three installments tied to progress in the process, with the final payment due once an agreement is signed. (The comparable service in Israel costs around $3,000.) An app similar to the Israeli version is pending approval in Apple\u2019s app store but already works on Android, and Biran also offers a more bespoke accompaniment for clients who want something more intensive.<\/p>\n

In bookstores and pilates studios in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for example, there are flyers with a QR code linking directly to a Nesting profile for a wealthy philanthropist looking to become a father. The profile describes him as fit and active, and willing to cover all the costs of raising a child. The catch? He\u2019s 71. The man\u2019s age was not, in itself, disqualifying, Biran said, adding that she has no limits for who she takes on as a client \u201cexcept if they show aggression \u2014 that\u2019s a dealbreaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond that, who am I to judge? It\u2019s a free world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Liling said he had one central criticism of the agencies that broker these arrangements, arguing they often step back just as clients need support most. While he credits Oro with running a supportive and professional process in finding a match, it ended once the contract was signed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeeting and deciding to go on this journey together, I would say, is the easy part,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meeting and deciding to go on this journey together, I would say, is the easy part<\/p>\n

Beyond that, he said, co-parents need \u201cfollow up and follow on,\u201d through the strain of fertility treatments and into the first years of raising a child with someone they are not in a relationship with. \u201cWe haven\u2019t been spared of any of the regular challenges [of parenthood] but we don\u2019t have the mechanism of knowing each other for years. The model requires us to be inventive in how to overcome them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

For her part, Biran said she does try to stay in the loop beyond the signing, especially during fertility treatments, and will check back in if she has not heard from a pair for months. Part of her job, she said, is managing expectations because the fertility process is often difficult and unpredictable, adding that skills she picked up as a Knesset member have served her in that role.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, I want there to be babies, not just agreements,\u201d she said. But longer-term accompaniment is beyond a matching agency\u2019s role, she said, pointing instead to existing support frameworks, including a co-parenting group at the Tel Aviv municipality\u2019s LGBTQ center.<\/p>\n

That gap left Liling and his co-parent to arrange their own follow-on support, including weekly couples therapy, which he said reflects how intentional they are about parenting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe attention and care we bring to our daughter is probably more than that of your average parent. She is lucky to have us as parents,\u201d Liling said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JTA \u2014 In playgrounds around Tel Aviv, it\u2019s no longer unusual to meet a child who splits time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-303738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}