Jewish Law and Modern Medicine Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- by and +1
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- Jewish Law, Jurisprudence, Jewish Studies, Family Law
- by Eliezer Brodt
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- Jewish Studies, Jewish History, History of Halakha and Jewish Law, Jewish Customs
- by Avraham Weiss
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- Neonatal, Jewish Law and Modern Medicine

Is ‘Jewish medicine’ a valid historical category? Does it represent a collective constituted by the interplay of medical, ethnic and religious cultures? Integrating academic disciplines from medical history to philology and Jewish studies, this book aims at answering this question historically by presenting comprehensive coverage of Jewish medical traditions in Central Eastern Europe, mostly on what is today Poland and Germany (and the former Russian, Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Empires). In this significant zone of ethnic, religious and cultural interaction, Jewish, Polish, and German traditions and communities were more entangled, and identities were shared to an extent greater than anywhere else. Starting with early modern times and the Enlightenment, through the 19th century, up until the horrors of medicine in the ghettos and concentration camps, the book collects a variety of perspectives on the question of how Judaism and Jewish culture were dynamically related to medicine and healthcare. It discusses the Halachic traditions, hygiene-related stereotypes, the organization of healthcare within specified communities, academic careers, hybrid medical identities, and diversified medical practices.

- by Marcin Moskalewicz and +5
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- Jewish Studies, History of Medicine, Jewish History, Health and Religion

This thought experiment considers whether Siamese (Conjoined) are allowed to marry according to Halacha. It considers various aspects of the Biblical bans on incest and offers a very contemporary discussion about the meaning of personhood. This paper uses medical journals, works on medical history, and various responsa to find a precedent and paradigm by which this question can be considered.

- by Reuven Chaim Klein
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- Jewish Law, Sexuality, Jewish Ethics, Medical Ethics

Eric Wittkower founded McGill University’s transcultural psychiatry unit in 1955. One year later, he started the first international newsletter in this academic field, which became (and remains) the main journal today: Transcultural Psychiatry. However, at the beginning of his career Wittkower gave no signs that he would be interested in social sciences and psychiatry; he originally trained as a specialist in internal medicine in Berlin. This paper describes the historical context of the post-war period, when Wittkower founded a research unit at McGill University with an American anthropologist, Jacob Fried. Using archival material from McGill, I focus on the history of scientific networks and the circulation of knowledge, particularly on the exchanges between the French- and English-speaking academic cultures in North America and Europe. Because the history of transcultural psychiatry is a transnational history par excellence, but also a literature of exile, this leads necessarily to the important question of the reception of this academic field abroad.

- by Emmanuel Delille
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- History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Psychology

The introduction of respiratory machines in the 1950s may have saved the lives of many, but it also challenged the notion of death itself. This development endowed " machines " with the power to form a unique ontological creature: a live body with a " dead " brain. While technology may be blamed for complicating things in the first place, it is also called on to solve the resulting quandaries. Indeed, it is not the birth of the " brain-dead " that concerns us most, but rather its association with a web of epistemological and ethical considerations, where technology plays a central role. The brain death debate in Israel introduces highly sophisticated religious thought and authoritative medical expertise. At focus are the religious acceptance and rejection of brain death by a technologically savvy group of rabbis whose religious doctrine––along with a particular form of religious reasoning––is used to support the truth claims made from the scientific community (brain

- by Hagai Boas
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- Medical Sociology, Medical Anthropology, Critical Medical Anthropology, Organ Donation

Joseph Roth’s novel Hiob contains countless references to the cultural universe of Orthodox Judaism. Its protagonist, Mendel Singer, is explicitly described from the very beginning as a pious observant Jew, teacher of Holy Scriptures. Starting from these primary textual data, the present essay aims to analyze a central episode for the narrative-building process, namely the story of the smallpox epidemic, in light of the halakhic sources on the subject.

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is the author of God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry (Mosaica Press, 2018) and Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew (Mosaica Press, 2014). He studied in premier Hareidi Yeshivoth including the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem and Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood. He is currently an RCA Member and lives with his wife and children in Beitar Illit, Israel. ‘Till Death Do Us Part: The Halachic Prospects of Marriage for Conjoined (Siamese) Twins

- by Reuven Chaim Klein
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- Jewish Law, Philosophy, Sexuality, Jewish Ethics

The purpose of this study is to assess the significance of changes in the attitudes of halakhic authorities in Poland to medical diagnosis during the transition from the early modern to the modern period, as reflected in the case of " Attribution of a sighting of blood to a lesion ". In the eighteenth century the halakhic discussion migrated westward to the German states, where a variety of approaches developed, most of them tending to rely on medical diagnosis. The differences between the attitudes of authorities in different geographic spheres can be explained by the differing status of the physicians: whereas in the German states physicians enjoyed an important status in Jewish society, in early modern Poland the quality of medical training was poor and they did not enjoy the prestige of their German counterparts. In the first half of the nineteenth century, we find a discussion of this matter among the authorities in Posen, a region that passed into the hands of Prussia and experienced an accelerated modernization process. Their approach lending legitimacy to medical diagnosis can be explained on the background of the shift among the authorities in the German states in combination with the increasing connection between Posen and Prussia and the improvement in the professional level of the physicians. The findings can facilitate a clearer understanding of the central processes in the development of Jewish Law and medicine in Jewish society in Poland.

- by Eliezer Sariel
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- Early Modern History, History of Medicine, Eastern European history, Menstruation
- by Don Seeman
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- Religion, Abrahamic Religions, Comparative Religion, Sociology of Religion

- by Joanna Lusek
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- Jewish Studies, History of Medicine, Jewish History, Health and Religion