I started identifying as polyamorous in 2005. I was introduced to the word by an American friend, and immediately knew that it defines who I was, and the relationships that I had been seeking. I was poly long before that, but I had no word to describe who I was, aside from “Non-monogamous”, The lack of a word, and a definition stood in my way to many relationships, as people mixed my desire to have more than one committed relationship, with fear of commitments, never considering me to be a serious partner. Having a word, a definition, something to google up, and study was a first step in a long the way to the relationships that I've wanted to have, and to the community that I wanted to live in, and the bricks have not always been yellow, and the path was often rough and twisted.

Carmel, 31 years old, recounts a similar experience over his first encounter with the word poly. “I still remember how relieving it was to hear the word polyamorous for the first time. Until then, even when I had known how I wanted to live, I only had words with negative connotations to describe it, slut and such. This word really expended my horizons, and gave a title to things that had always been there.”

When I started having poly relationships, I knew what I believed in, and I knew what I wanted, and I sort of knew how I think it should work. But there were almost no other poly people around me, and those that were belonged to my own social circle. We had no models to build on, aside from Livejournal groups, and several poly-families websites. We had to construct everything from scratch, and obviously we had made almost all possible mistakes along the way. There were other people living a polyamorous lifestyle in the country, but nothing connected between us. In 2007 I gave my first public interview as a poly person. It was published in a women magazine called La'aish (for the woman), and later on, on Ynet news portal. For all I could find this was the first mention of the word “polyamory” in Israeli public media.

One could say that I have been conducting a participatory field research of polyamory in Israel since the day I started defining myself as such. What I'm doing now is merely turning practice into theory. My review of polyamory in Israel will be divided into two. Firstly I will discuss the progression of polyamory in Israel since I came out poly about a decade ago, until today, the growing visibility of polyamory in the media, and the evolvement of a small, yet existent poly community, or in fact communities. Following that I will highlight several aspects that are unique to the poly experience in Israel. I will conclude with another trifle of personal introspective, noting the difference between my experiences now, as opposed to my past experiences, and a bit of an outlook towards the future of polyamory in Israel.

It is said that feminist and queer trends tend to arrive to Israel a decade later than they have started flowering in Europe and in the US. This too seems to be the case with polyamory. Over the past decade polyamory has been growing in popularity and visibility in Israel.

The first social platforms for polyamorous people in Israel were virtual ones. It had started with forums, one was for “Open and different relationships” in Tapus, which was an Israeli forums and news site. The other managed by myself and by another girl was “Polyamory forum”. Several meet ups of the forum members took place in Tel Aviv. When the traffic in those forums dwindled, as facebook had become the heart of virtual space, Uzi Hen (37) formed in 2010 an “Open and different relationships” group on facebook. “I wanted to create a virtual space that would bring people together, and allow them to express themselves in all this major issue of open relationships, a space that would allow sharing, learning, and a sense of belonging.” Uzi's group has reached 200 members in 2001, and today it numbers 805 members. Less than a year after the group was established Uzi has also started organising monthly meetings of its members. The meetings, which were usually attend by 15-20 people, involved introduction, and a certain workshop, lecture, or other form of social activity, and friendships and relationships were formed between the group members. Several other poly facebook groups have been established since then, most notable amongst them are the “parrots”, a group for those who identify as poly and geek. It is a closed group, and any member can veto newcomers, thus the group which numbered at its height 90 people, has only 65 members at the time being, and “I'm polyamorous and I don't have a sense of humour”, with 152 members, and the “queer polyamorous group”. Several events introducing people to the concept of polyamory, also took place over the past few years. One was hosted by myself in the LGBT community centre, another took place last Wednesday in the Bar Kaima and activists co-op bar.

Following my interview in La'aish other media took interest in polyamory, and over the past few years, articles about polyamory have been published all over the Israeli media, both in print and online. A couple of weeks ago Israeli channel one, featured a polyamorous social activist in their politics show panel for Valentine's day. Some of these articles treated polyamory as a sexy topic that will draw readers, or as some form of social curiosity that must be looked at. Others, though, have made an effort to paint an accurate picture of the polyamorous lifestyle and ideology. Several attempts have been made to conduct documentaries on polyamory, so far, though, none of them came through. The growing exposure in the media has also exposed people to the possibility of a polyamorous lifestyle and allowed them to explore it.

It is difficult to assume the number of polyamorous people in Israel right now. It it possible to make some estimation based on the numbers of the members of the aforementioned facebook groups, but these are congruent groups, and many people partake in more than one of them. Furthermore, many of the group members do not identify as polyamorous. Some of them are non-monogamous, but not poly, others practice other forms of open relationships, some are going through some process of self-search process, trying to figure out how they feel about the possibility of a poly existence, and some are monogamous people in a relationship with people who want to switch to a polyamory. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that there are at least several hundreds of self-identified poly people in Israel, and potentially more.

Nevertheless, although a poly community of some sort has come into being over the past few years, polyamory in Israel is still very much limited to the margins of society, to marginalized groups and sub-cultures. The main cores of polyamorous social circles and groups in recent years have been within the nudist/spiritualist/hippie community, the geek community, and the queer-activist community.

It is not surprising that polyamory has first taken root in communities which have already been situated outside the social and cultural mainstream. For many members of those communities the process of questioning monogamy was merely the next step after subverting other social norms. For people in the nudist and spirtualist circles, the negation of the idea of shame, regarding nudity, and corporality, allowed for some, the negation of shame regarding sexuality and reconsideration of socially dictated relationship forms. In the queer community the subversion of gender roles and gender, and the conception of those as social constructs, encouraged a similar outlook on monogamy. For many members of the geek community, it was their interest in science fiction literature, and alternative worlds, which allowed them to develop a critical outlook on monogamy in specific and social norms in general. Science fiction often meddles with social structures and social phenomena and try to imagine alternative futures, or even presents, and some of those books specifically delve into monogamy in this way. Many Israeli geeks specifically point Robert Heinlein's literature as the initiator of a thought provoking process that ended up in identification as non-monogamous, or polyamorous. Shay, 29 years old woman, who identifies as non-monogamous, though not polyamorous says “For me this whole concept of open-relationships was totally related to Heinlein. I mean, I discussed it with a friend, and we both agreed that monogamy is completely unreasonable. I wasn't much of the jealous type anyhow, but the things we've read, and the discussions that followed, definitely ignited a concrete thought on this matter.”

One of the things that unifies all the aforementioned social groups, is that many of their members have become accustomed to viewing themselves as social misfits while they were growing up, “Even before I cam to identify as queer, or poly, growing up as a geek child, I have always been unlike other kids around me, and being different has always organized and affected my experiences.” says Carmel. This ongoing experience of not belonging made it easier for them to consider and choose alternative lifestyles, relieving them from the fear of social sanctions. Tammy, 43 years old woman highlights this aspect: “In order to be polyamorous I must accept the fact that I undertake an activity which is not socially accepted. For mainstream people, social seclusion is on of the most horrendous social sanctions, and most of them won't risk it. As for myself, I have never been part of the mainstream, and I have suffered social seclusion, so I find this possibility much less intimidating. I am not married out of choice, not a mother out of choice, a radical feminist, and much more left winged than most people.... “ Thus, the initial experience of social rejection, allows members of marginalized communities to overcome the fear of being rejected, and thus it is easier for them to explore alternative lifestyles, amongst them polyamory.

It must be noted, though, that polyamory has only started to bloom in this communities, only several years after their establishment. Following a time period in which their members could develop a sense of belonging, and safety within their own community. Thus the experiences of people initiated to these communities these days are very different from those who have been amongst their founding, or initial members. Many people initiated into these communities nowadays, also find themselves initiated into polyamory or at least non-monogmay, as part of the process, polyamory is just another part of the package. This is especially true for people within the queer circles. “I have never been hetero-normative”, says Uriyah, 19 years old genderqueer trans woman, “and I never called myself straight, but I wasn't bi either, or trans. The first time I came out of the closet was when I had already been queer, and all the queers around me were poly, and presented polyamory as part of this world for me, so it was quite elementary.”

Aside from contending with a small community, in its initial stages, which is still at the social and cultural margins, there are several other unique aspects to the Israeli polyamorous experience. The Israeli society is in many ways very conservative. Familial structures are very strong and committing. Families members and friends are far more prone to meddle in each other's lives than they do in other society, whether in forms of advise, critique, or judgement. Privacy is much less respected within one's close circle, and full exposure of one's personal interests is part of the social norm. The intensity of familial relationship is also encouraged by the state, as the family is considered a stabilizing structure, as well as a matter of public interest, as part of the demographic battle. As a result of that, openly polyamorous people in Israel have to constantly contend with the need to explain and defend their chosen way of living, more often than they would have had to had they lived in a different place.

At the same time, the small size of the country and its population make it much harder to hide one's private life. Everybody knows everybody, every person you meet is likely to be somehow interconnected to other people in your life. The likelihood of running into a workmate, a close or distant relative, or a random acquaintance, while walking down the street, going to the movies, or participating in a protest is very high. Thus, making living a closeted life very challenging. Most of the polyamorous people that I have encountered are open, at least to a certain extent about their relationships.

There is, though, a certain aspect in which polyamorous Israelis are privileged over their counterparts in other countries. The fact that the only marital contracts afforded by the state are religious ones, and that many people, are excluded by choice or by force from these arrangements, reduced over the years the social pressure to marry, and encouraged the development, of both legal and social bypasses to marital coupledom. In the virtual polyamorous forums and live journal groups that I used to frequent when I started identifying as poly dilemmas related to marriage, the pressure to get married, and legal aspect concerning marriages and shared lives were a frequent concern. Within the Israeli polyamorous circles this matter rarely come across. Some people choose to marry, others choose not to, but either way it is not something people are preoccupied with.

It is hard to investigate a community that is still in its very initial phases. It is also very interesting. I have been watching the Israeli polyamorous community enfold over the past few years, and I am very curious to see into what the future has in store for it. I am somewhat envious of people who start identifying as polyamorous today, who come out to a community, and have certain rolemodels that they can follow, and consult with. This is a sentiment shared by many people whose polyamorous experience started in a similar time to my own. It is also almost to obvious to state that I am very happy for this development. I believe it is safe to say that in the near future we shall see a growing expansion in the Israeli polyamorous community, as both the virtual and actual communities have not yet spent their reach even within the marginalized communities that they approach. Will it exceed those circles and break into the mainstream is a tougher question to answer. I would say that I find it unlikely as a timely vision, and would require a broader social change in sexual and gendered norm, and an undertaking of a more political route by many people for whom polyamory today is more of a personal matter. I for one would be very happy with such a development. Nevertheless, looking backwards to where we stood less than a decade ago, and at my personal feeling of seclusion and alienation at the time, and comparing them with where we are now, I am also quite satisfied with taking a moment and appreciating the great distance that we have encumbered in this time.