With co-parenting on the rise in Israel, an advocate aims to export the model to American Jews
February 18, 2026
TEL AVIV — In playgrounds around this city, it’s 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. 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’t found a partner but aren’t willing to give up on family.
“Every person you ask will personally know three people who have chosen to co-parent,” said Michal Biran, a former Knesset member who founded Hachasida (“The Stork”), a platform that matches aspiring co-parents. Once a fringe idea mostly associated with gay men and single women, “co-parenting by choice,” a phrase Biran’s organization says it coined, has spread. “Straight men have discovered this,” 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.
