Egg Matchmaking

“It turns out that we Jewish women have been the ones to wait the longest to have our babies. According to the 2000 National Jewish Population Survey, more than half of 34-year-old Jewish women are childless, almost double the percentage of women overall.
from “A Strange New World” by Michelle Cove, published in 614, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute’s E-zine.

No one is sure why Israeli women are more willing to donate their eggs [for in-vitro fertilization] than American Jewish women seem to be, but Ruth Tavor has her theories. Young Israeli women have been through the army (many of Tavor’s recruits are recent army graduates who are traveling in America before beginning University), which she thinks makes them more adventurous and more mature. “They can make a decision,” she says, as opposed to the few American women she’s worked with, who she found to be less committed to the process. The truth is Tavor prefers working with Israeli donors because, as an Israeli herself, she understands them better. “I have no idea about Americans,” she admits.
from “The Egg Matchmaker” by Rebecca Honig Friedman, 614.

“A lot of people assume egg donation is something that people are doing just to make money — as if it needs to be purely altruistic to be a good act. The amount of money is nothing but a very fair compensation for time invested and hardship suffered. That’s why sperm donors only get paid a few hundred dollars.”
from “Thoughts from a Donor,” an anonymous interview, 614.