‘To the masses both foreign born and native’: The Birth-Control Politics and Activism of Ernest Lilien and Herman Rubinraut

This chapter examines the politics and activism of two male Polish Jewish birth-control pioneers, Herman Rubinraut, who was involved in the ‘conscious motherhood’ campaign in Poland, and Ernest Lilien, a social activist and journalist, who worked with Polish immigrant women in the United States. I argue that, although their initiatives were directed at different ethnic groups, they both aimed at alleviating the situation of lower-class women overburdened with multiple children. Lilien focused on promulgating information about birth control through press publications and by establishing a family-planning association, while Rubinraut provided contraceptive advice in a birth-control clinic in Warsaw. The chapter also examines the reactions to Rubinraut’s and Lilien’s activism and politics and their embodiment of the ‘engaged’, or ‘mobilized’, ideal of Jewish masculinity.