Maternity among the scholars

 Maternity is a wonderful experience that starts with a desire and ends, if it ever ends, with a full grown adult, the child of your own. In this amazing, atavistic, colorful experience, one - especially a woman - needs to maintain her own identity, lifestyle and personal necessities.

Being a scientist/researcher while planning a pregnancy, being pregnant or being a new mom is exhausting, challenging and scaring. Especially when abroad and without support of your enlarged family.

In particular, being a PhD or a Postdoc in TAU and at the same time a mama requires some important information in order to better deal with the challenges that might arise during your pregnancy/post partum.

1) Being fired while expecting, while undergoing IVF or while one is in maternity leave is forbidden by law. The "problem" with us, who are not citizens of Israel and neither employees of the University, is that the rules are slightly different. Unfortunately there were cases where people were dismissed because pregnant. In this case, while you are having "the conversation" with your PI, ask them what are their expectations and ideas towards pregnancy. Just to make sure what the horizon looks like. Nevertheless, if one of you ends up in a conflict of interests with the PI, SEGEL will represent your cause and rights in such context. 

2) According to the information provided by the official website of SEGEL (here the link), the scholars are entitled to continue receiving a scholarship during the period of maternity leave, which is 15 weeks after the birth of the child.

The following assertions on the webpage state:

a) A scholar is entitled to have an extension of their scholarship for the duration of their absence (from their work) as long as they gave birth while receiving scholarship. This amenity is called "Rector's Scholarship".

b) Cited from the website: research students who gave birth during their studies are entitled to extend them by two semesters, without being charged tuition or any additional payment due to this extension.

The ambiguous part, for which we invite you to dig deeper and make sure, is about the term "research students", which is always unclear. Research students is generally referred to master and PhD degrees, not postdocs. On the other hand, the university does not consider the postdocs neither workers nor students, and the state of Israel recognizes them as students, since it provided (most of) us with the student visa.

For the postdocs, the rules are therefore more conditional: 

from the SEGEL website: 

Postdoctoral fellows are entitled to continue receiving a scholarship during the period of absence following childbirth in the same way as research students, but they are entitled to the extension of the scholarship only when their training period is 24 months or more.

3) Health insurances by default do not pay pregnancy's and child deliver's expenses. Check with your provider how to possibly implement an extra insurance or the other possibilities you can have as a foreigner in need of this specific type of medical assistance. NOTE that also IVF procedures are not covered by the insurance!

    In this regard, TAU Lowy International School website reports that Ofek Operating Solutions can        offer coverage for pre-existing conditions, pregnancy, accidents and more.

    Contact information for “Offek”:

    E-mail: Sagit sagit@offek.org, Adi Adi@offek.org

   Telephone: +972 (0)73-3678418/ 9 or +972-(0)52-801-0884

4) on campus there is a daycare for babies available, but it is not sponsored in the international community. Click here for more information! The website is in Hebrew, but Google translator makes a good job!

5) Better safe than sorry! Make sure that the lab in which you are working is safe for you and your child: there is a specific webpage on TAU website from the faculty of medicine. 

6) TAU is working with an association called WiseMama (https://www.wisemama.org.il/), which helps the female researchers achieving their results while being mother. Also, they recruit "educators", women who already been there, in that situation, and now are willing to help a brand new mama to make her steps ahead.

ULTERIOR helpful info

The Israeli association for International Couples --> https://aic.org.il/

Chaim V'Chessed: a guide for Israeli and Non-Israeli couples to childbirth-->  https://chaimvchessed.com/information/birth/birth-legalities/

A PDF with some legal information on the working conditions and the right of pregnant/ new mom women --> https://www.kavlaoved.org.il/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/04/Information-for-pregnant-non.pdf

Info from the Government website on the recording of a baby born from an Israeli father and a foreign national mother --> https://www.gov.il/en/service/minor_of_foreign_worker_mother_and_israeli_father

If you are around Rehovot area, maybe you want to get in contact with this mega clinic of Clalit for maternity --> https://hospitals.clalit.co.il/kaplan/en/med_units/women_maternity/Pages/lobby.aspx

Some general information from the Ministry of Health in Israel -->  https://www.health.gov.il/English/Topics/Pregnancy/during/examination/Pages/permanent.aspx

Some other interesting info on the webpage dedicated to Olim --> https://www.yadlolim.org/healthcare/pregnancy-guide