JTA — In playgrounds around Tel Aviv, 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.

The model has flourished in Israel for a mix of cultural and practical reasons. Israel’s unique combination of conservatism and creativity makes it fertile ground for separating parenthood from couplehood, with publicly funded fertility treatments making it easier for would-be parents to pursue pregnancy outside a conventional relationship. “It’s the ultimate startup,” Biran said.

Biran herself is part of the trend. Approaching 40 and single, she decided to have children via co-parenting rather than waiting for “Mr. Right.” She and her co-parenting partner, Nimrod, who is gay, met through a co-parenting website and now raise two young children, a daughter, 6, and a son, 2, alternating custody every other day.

One upside, she said, is a more “balanced and flexible” life with built-in “time off,” whether that means parenting solo when Nimrod is doing army reserve duty or having space when he takes the children for a trip. The model can also accommodate different personalities and interests.

“I hate camping and Nimrod loves it. He takes her camping while I stay home and watch Netflix, it’s perfect,” she said.

Surprised that the idea hadn’t taken hold elsewhere in the world, especially in places where she assumed the cultural ingredients already existed, Biran decided to export the model.

“I don’t understand how it hasn’t happened in New York, which has so many Jewish mothers and so many gays,” she quipped. She is rolling out the service abroad under the name “Nesting,” a term she prefers to Hachasida’s literal translation of “stork,” beginning in California and New York.

So far, 54 babies have been born through Hachasida, with more pregnancies underway. Her core business is a paid, hands-on matching service, though she also offers an app used by a few hundred people, mostly Israelis, to connect directly without her involvement.

Prospective co-parents begin with an intake on values, lifestyle and expectations around raising children, with an emphasis on alignment that matters in a long-term parenting partnership.

“Unlike in romantic partnerships, where people often fall in love with their opposites, here it’s easier to set people up if they’re similar,” Biran said.

Politics has become a major filter. “These days, pro-Bibi and anti-Bibi people won’t have kids together,” she said, referring to Israelis’ polarized views of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Geography is another, she said, because ideally co-parents should live in the same vicinity for the arrangement to work.

Once she introduces a potential pair, Biran encourages them to test how they function in ordinary settings before anyone commits to fertility treatments. That can mean meeting friends and family, spending a long afternoon together, or going to IKEA to see how they handle friction.

“If one of them ends up shouting at the cashier or the waitress, it’s better to know in advance,” she said. She recalled one woman who said a man brought a bottle of wine to a picnic with her friends and later asked her to reimburse half the cost, which Biran took as a clue about how he........

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