Jewish Medical Ethics
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Jewish Medical Ethics
Jewish medical ethics is a modern scholarly and clinical approach to medical ethics that draws upon Jewish thought and teachings. Pioneered by Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits in the 1950s, Jewish medical ethics centers mainly around an applied ethics drawing upon traditional rabbinic law (halakhah). In addition, scholars have begun examining theoretical and methodological questions, while the field itself has been broadened to encompass bioethics and non-halakhic approaches. Key issues In its early years, Jewish medical ethics addressed a range of ethical dilemmas, as well as general questions about the professional ethics for doctors. Major issues have included abortion, artificial insemination, brain death, cosmetic surgery, euthanasia, genetic screening, hazardous medical operations, circumcision, oral suction in circumcision ( metzitzah b'peh), organ donation, psychiatric care, and smoking cigarettes. In recent years, Jewish bioethics has examined questions of medical technology ...
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Medical Ethics
Medical ethics is an applied branch of ethics which analyzes the practice of clinical medicine and related scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Such tenets may allow doctors, care providers, and families to create a treatment plan and work towards the same common goal. These four values are not ranked in order of importance or relevance and they all encompass values pertaining to medical ethics. However, a conflict may arise leading to the need for hierarchy in an ethical system, such that some moral elements overrule others with the purpose of applying the best moral judgement to a difficult medical situation. Medical ethics is particularly relevant in decisions regarding involuntary treatment and involuntary commitment. There are several codes of conduct. The Hippocratic Oath discusses ...
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Wissenschaft Des Judentums
"''Wissenschaft des Judentums''" (literally in German language, German the expression means "Science of Judaism"; more recently in the United States it started to be rendered as "Jewish Studies" or "Judaic Studies," a wide academic field of inquiry in American universities) refers to a nineteenth-century movement premised on the critical investigation of Jewish literature and culture, including rabbinic literature, to analyze the origins of Jewish traditions. The ''Verein für Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden'' The first organized attempt at developing and disseminating ''Wissenschaft des Judentums'' was the ''Verein für Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden'' (''Society for Jewish Culture and Jewish Studies''), founded around 1819 by Eduard Gans, (a pupil of Hegel), and his associates. Other members included Heinrich Heine, Leopold Zunz, Moses Moser, and Michael Beer (poet), Michael Beer, (youngest brother of Meyerbeer). It was an attempt to provide a construct for the Jews as a '' ...
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Shlomo Zalman Auerbach
Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (; July 20, 1910 – February 20, 1995) was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, posek, and rosh yeshiva of the Kol Torah yeshiva in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem neighborhood Ramat Shlomo is named after Auerbach. Biography Auerbach was the first child to be born in the Sha'arei Hesed neighborhood of Jerusalem founded by his maternal grandfather, Shlomo Zalman Porush, after whom he was named. His father, Chaim Yehuda Leib Auerbach, was rosh yeshiva of Shaar Hashamayim Yeshiva, and his mother was named Tzivia. Following his marriage, he studied under Zvi Pesach Frank at Kollel Kerem Tzion. His first major published work, ''Meorei Esh'', was the first ever written on the subject of using electricity on Shabbat. He was the brother-in-law of Rabbi Sholom Schwadron, who married his sister Leah. Auerbach died on February 20, 1995. An estimated 300,000 - 500,000 people attended his funeral in 1995. He was interred on Har HaMenuchot. Auerbach had seven sons, including ...
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Moshe David Tendler
Moshe David Tendler (August 7, 1926September 28, 2021) was an American rabbi, professor of biology and expert in medical ethics. He served as chairman of the biology department at Yeshiva University. Biography Moshe David Tendler was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City on August 7, 1926. He received his B.A. degree from New York University in 1947 and a master's degree in 1950. He was ordained at the Yeshiva University-affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) in 1949, and earned a Ph.D. in microbiology from Columbia University in 1957. In 1951, Yeshiva University's Samuel Belkin encouraged Tendler to lead the Great Neck Synagogue for one year as an intern, thereby becoming the community's first rabbi. He later became the long-time rabbi of the Community Synagogue of Monsey, New York. Tendler served as a senior rosh yeshiva (dean) at RIETS, and the Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler Professor of Jewish Medical Ethics and Professor of Biol ...
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Saul J
Saul (; , ; , ; ) was a monarch of ancient Israel and Judah and, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, the Kings of Israel and Judah, first king of the United Monarchy, a polity of uncertain historicity. His reign, traditionally placed in the late eleventh century BCE, according to the Bible, marked the transition of the Israelites from a scattered tribal society ruled by various Biblical judges, judges to organized statehood. The historicity of Saul and the United Kingdom of Israel is not universally accepted, as Historicity of the Bible, what is known of both comes exclusively from the Hebrew Bible. According to the text, he was anointed as king of the Israelites by Samuel, and reigned from Gibeah. Saul is said to have committed suicide when he fell on his sword during a battle with the Philistines at Mount Gilboa, in which three of his sons were also killed. Saul's son Ish-bosheth succeeded him to the throne, reigning for only two years before being murdered by ...
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Avraham Steinberg
Avraham Steinberg (; born 25 August 1947) is an Israeli medical ethicist, pediatric neurologist, rabbi and editor of Talmudic literature. Steinberg is Director of the Medical Ethics Unit at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, and co-chairman of the Israeli National Council on Bioethics. In 1999 he won the List of Israel Prize recipients, Israel Prize for original Rabbinic literature for his 7-volume ''Encyclopedia Hilchatit Refuit'' in Hebrew - the most comprehensive text book ever compiled on this subject. It was translated into English by Fred Rosner as the ''Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics''. Steinberg is Director of the Torah literature publishing group Yad HaRav Herzog, head of the Editorial Board of the ''Talmudic Encyclopedia'' (or Encyclopedia Talmudit) and Editor-in-Chief of the ''Talmudic Micropedia''. He professes to see "very good things" in different Orthodox Judaism#Groups, Orthodox groups and declines to identify with a particular one. Early life Stei ...
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Fred Rosner
Fred Rosner (October 3, 1935 – July 2024) was an American professor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine (archived from the original) and the director of the Department of Medicine at Queens Hospital Center. He was also the chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee of the State of New York. He was, moreover, an expert on Jewish medical ethics and on the medical writings of Moses Maimonides. Life and career Rosner was born in Berlin, Germany, where, at the age of three, he and his brother were on the last of the Kindertransport boats to the United Kingdom. After the end of the Second World War, Rosner immigrated to the United States and was an undergraduate at Yeshiva University. He qualified as an MD at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with the first graduating class in 1959. He was a diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine and was board certified in his specialty of hematology. Among his many awards are the American Medical Association's Isaac Ha ...
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Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Oral, as literally revelation, revealed by God in Judaism, God on Mount Sinai (Bible), Mount Sinai and faithfully transmitted ever since. Orthodox Judaism therefore advocates a strict observance of Jewish Law, or ''halakha'', which is to be Posek, interpreted and determined only according to traditional methods and in adherence to the continuum of received precedent through the ages. It regards the entire ''halakhic'' system as ultimately grounded in immutable revelation, essentially beyond external and historical influence. More than any theoretical issue, obeying the Kosher, dietary, Tumah and taharah, purity, ethical and other laws of ''halakha'' is the hallmark of Orthodoxy. Practicing members are easily distinguishable by their lifestyle, refraining from doing 39 Melakhot, numerous rou ...
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Sanctity Of Life
In religion and ethics, the sanctity of life, sometimes described as the inviolability of life, is a principle of implied protection regarding aspects of sentient life that are said to be holy, sacred, or otherwise of such value that they are not to be violated. This can be applied to humans, animals or micro-organisms; for instance, in religions that practice Ahimsa, both are seen as holy and worthy of life. Sanctity of life sits at the centre of debate over abortion and euthanasia.eader, in_religion[christianity, judaism, etc. in_law[us, uk, etc. --> In Christianity The phrase ''sanctity of life'' refers to the idea that humans are sacred, holy, and precious. Although the phrase was used primarily in the 19th century in Protestant discourse, since World War II the phrase has been used in Catholic moral theology and, following '' Roe v. Wade'', Evangelical Christian moral rhetoric. The sanctity of life principle, which is often contrasted with the "quality of life" to some e ...
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Palliative Care
Palliative care (from Latin root "to cloak") is an interdisciplinary medical care-giving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating or reducing suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Many definitions of palliative care exist. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes palliative care as:"an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual". Since the 1990s, many palliative care programs involved a disease-specific approach. However, as the field developed throughout the 2000s, the WHO began to take a broader patient-centered approach that suggests that the principles of palliative care should be applied as early as possible to any chronic and ultimatel ...
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Abortion
Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnancies. Deliberate actions to end a pregnancy are called induced abortion, or less frequently "induced miscarriage". The unmodified word ''abortion'' generally refers to induced abortion. Common reasons for having an abortion are birth-timing and limiting family size. Other reasons include maternal health, an inability to afford a child, domestic violence, lack of support, feelings of being too young, wishing to complete an education or advance a career, or not being able or willing to raise a child conceived as a result of rape or incest. When done legally in industrialized societies, induced abortion is one of the safest procedures in medicine. Modern methods use medication or surgery for abortions. The drug mifepristone (aka RU-4 ...
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Bioethics
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society (what decisions are "good" or "bad" and why) and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine (" the ethics of the ordinary"), ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health. Etymology The term ''bioethics'' (Greek , "life"; , "moral nature, behavior") was coined in 1927 by Fritz Jahr in ...
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