I’m jealous of a second son.
The interview that was broadcast on the “Fact” program last Thursday is the dream that every documentary filmmaker has: a person, a camera, a story. This time, it was a particularly intriguing story. Lior Schlein, the spouse of Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, became a father for the first time in his life last summer, when his eldest son Uri was born through a surrogate mother in the United States.
Many speak of his partner, who has often been responsible for rather disturbing quotes: “The nuclear family, as we know it, is the least safe place for children. This is where absolute parental rights and guardianship still give men complete control over their children and sometimes their wives, It is part of the ongoing pain among children, “she said in an earlier interview with Australian television.
In Keshet 12’s investigative program, like many, they tried to understand how it happened that the woman who opposed the surrogacy process crossed the bridge and did it herself. Tried and did not really succeed. The interview took place with Schlein only, while Michaeli’s side was brought in through archive footage and old videos from the show that aired in the March 2021 election (did you think we would not pay attention?).
For many months, the staff of “Fact” photographed Schlein. They came with him to stand-up shows and documented him playing with baby Uri on the carpet. In between, the comedian made sure he got good jokes, because how can you do without. When the boy mumbles in his baby language, Schlein is naive, “Uri, are you talking to me or sending me a fax? I do not understand.”
He further describes how for years they tried to get pregnant, without success. “You did not hear about it, our immediate families did not know about it. We tried, we tried to do it without external tactical aids, we did not succeed.” This is not the only time Schlein has been exposed like this in front of the cameras. For example, he also tells of the first thought that popped into his head when he discovered that the pregnancy had become a high risk, and the surrogate was hospitalized due to a medical complication. “What will be his height? Just so he doesn’t be tiny, not eat beatings at school.” After all, Uri was born healthy but spent five weeks in preterm labor.
The matter of the alleged exploitation of the woman in the surrogacy process Schlein explains as follows: “From how we did you will understand how we avoided the problematic things. We did everything possible, and in my opinion we succeeded so that there would be zero exploitation, zero dependence.” The choice of the United States, the meeting with surrogate Kelsey and her family and the realization that it was not an economic hardship that led her to give birth to a baby for strangers, “I learned during this journey about altruism, having it in insane amounts.”
A circumcision did take place, in case you were wondering, and you were wondering. Schlein says that even as a secular and atheist, he did not have a dilemma, but most did. “We did not do a ceremony with a rabbi, a salted fish and a kiss,” he reveals. He explains the decision on the alliance on the grounds that “physical diversity is not good.”
The big question, how did it happen that Merav Michaeli, if all feminists, became a mother through the process she opposed, Fact failed to answer. And it does not matter either. The gaps between the statements of yesteryear and the deeds of today have not been explained, which is fine. The hidden ways of the heart are hard to convey in a 50-minute docu-program on TV, and go understand.
For me, there is a stunning beauty in this flexibility. Perhaps in the end, one can put all the great teachings aside, and the rigid ideology, in whatever field, which guides our lives with exhausting rigor, is best thrown out the window. Because in the end, there is life to live.