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The Schlesinger Institute for Medical-Halachic Research was founded in Israel in 1966 under the funding of Shaare Zedek Medical Center. It is named after the hospital's second Director General. The institute is dedicated to the halachic (Jewish law) approach to medical ethics, and has the purpose of researching, and resolving the halachic issues that emerge as medicine progresses, to consider their medical, halachic, legal, and ethical ramifications, and to present practical responses. [1] Leading rabbis, physicians.
The Schlesinger Institute offers religious and academic programs in Jewish medical ethics involving prominent Jewish medical ethicists to diverse audiences and student groups. Among these programs are a thirty-hour semester course at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, summer and winter seminars for medical and nursing students from other countries, lectures and tours of the Shaare Zedek for yeshiva and seminary students, as well as one-day seminars on selected topics for Israeli high school pupils.
A number of books and journals on Jewish medical ethics are available through the Schlesinger Institute.
The Schlesinger Institute publishes two journals, ASSIA in Hebrew and JME in English. Both journals cover medical and ethical problems, solutions, and ethical thought processes of rabbis and doctors who have dealt with these problems.
Articles published in the journals deal with a variety of topics, including: scientific, legal, ethical and halachic aspects of cloning, determining time of death, heart transplantation, truth-telling to dangerously ill patients, halachic and medical aspects of the AIDS virus, psychiatry and halacha, the selling of organs, the cessation of medical treatment and euthanasia, initial counseling for a juvenile with homosexual urges, smoking and life expectancy, coercive medical treatment, surrogacy, medical dilemmas that hospital nurses face and halachic principles that are connected to the obligation to save human life.
By Avraham Steinberg, M.D.
The Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics covers topics in medical practice from the point of view of halacha and Jewish thought, covering sources from scripture through the whole of ancient, medieval, and modern rabbinic literature. Systematic surveys of related medical, scientific, philosophical, ethical, and legal material, with thousands of references.
Articles in the Encyclopedia cover a wide range of topics both for the medical professional and the patient. It combines halachic principles and medical knowledge, with full references for both. It includes medical, scientific, philosophical, ethical, and legal material, from scripture and Talmud through to the most recent sources.
The articles include: Paternity, Suicide, Autonomy and Free Will, Hospitals, Genetics, Religion and Science, Consent, Abortions, IVF, Organ Transplantation, Conflict of Halacha and Science, Old Age, The Patient, Embalming, Malpractice, Pain, Kashrut and Shabbat, Birth, Medical Education, Human Sexuality, Limited Resources, Medical Experimentation on Humans, Surgery, Confidentiality, Fertility, Lifesaving, Causing Pain to Animals, Triage, Defining Death, Physicians, and General and Jewish Ethics.
By A.S. Abraham, M.D., F.R.C.P
Published as four-volume set, the Nishmat Avraham on Medical Halacha consists of new responsa and new medical halachic rulings. The Nishmat Abraham is a commentary on the four sections of the Shulchan Aruch with detailed references from the Talmud through Rishonim and Acharonim. It covers thousands of rulings from halachic literature, including up-to-date material from contemporary authorities all over the world such as Rav M. Feinstein, Rav Sh.Z. Auerbach, Rav Waldenberg, Rav Eliashiv, Rav Ovadia Yosef, Rav Wosner and Rav Neuwirth.
Problems are covered as far-ranging as the doctor and patient on weekdays and Shabbat, Yom Kippur and Pesach, in the hospital or at home, hospice, end of life and brain death, pregnancy and assisted reproduction, contraception and abortion, brit milah and the medical problems of niddah, medical malpractice and claims, genetic engineering and cloning, DNA and stem cells, AIDS and herpes, the threatened doctor and the psychiatric patient, Hatzalah and preventive medicine and their attendant problems in halacha.
The views of leading authorities are comprehensively summarized on each point, covering nearly every issue in medical halacha. It has extensive indices.
The institute published other books including:
Questions the Institute receives about medical procedures, ranging from general theoretical inquiries to specific technical ones, are answered by one of the rabbi-doctors at the institute, or, in special cases, by a recognized rabbinical authority.
The Library and Information Center is one of the main resource centers for Jewish medical ethics in Israel. It is home to the standard texts of the Jewish library, as well as compendiums of halacha, medical and Jewish journals, and legal texts.
Computer facilities, a database of Jewish sources, and a bibliography of the library are also available to the public. The information center is named after Chaim Kahn, the first chairman of the institute.
Contributions to the halachic approach to medical or ethical questions are made at the international conferences organized by the Schlesinger Institute. These conferences bring together rabbis, doctors, and others from around the world for lectures by experts on contemporary medical halachic issues. Conference proceedings and background materials have been published in both English and Hebrew.
The Shulchan Aruch HaRav is especially a record of prevailing halakha by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1812), known during his lifetime as HaRav and as the first Rebbe of Chabad. Within the Chabad community the work is known as the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch.
Yosef Shalom Elyashiv was a Haredi rabbi and posek who lived in Jerusalem. Until his death at the age of 102, Rav Elyashiv was the paramount leader of both Israel and the Diaspora Lithuanian-Haredi community, and many Ashkenazi Jews regarded him as the posek ha-dor, the contemporary leading authority on halakha, or Jewish law.
Shlomo Zalman Auerbach 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.
Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg was a rabbi, posek, and dayan in Jerusalem. He is known as a leading authority on medicine and Jewish law and referred to as the Tzitz Eliezer after his 21-volume halachic treatise covering a wide breadth of halacha, including Jewish medical ethics, and daily ritual issues from Shabbat to kashrut.
Moshe Feinstein was a Russian-born American Orthodox Jewish rabbi, scholar, and posek. He has been called the most famous Orthodox Jewish legal authority of the twentieth century and his rulings are often referenced in contemporary rabbinic literature. Feinstein served as president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, Chairman of the Council of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of the Agudath Israel of America, and head of Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem in New York.
Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (1884–1966) was an Ashkenazi Orthodox rabbi, posek and rosh yeshiva. He is best known as the author of the work of responsa Seridei Eish.
Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin, author of the responsa Benei Banim, was a Religious Zionist and Modern Orthdox posek.
The Shaare Zedek Medical Center is a large teaching hospital in Jerusalem. It was established in 1902 and is affiliated with Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Mordechai Halperin is an Israeli rabbi, physician and scientist. He is the chief officer of medical ethics for the Israeli Ministry of Health and director of the Falk Schlesinger Institute for Medical-Halachic Research in Jerusalem. He is also a member of the Bioethics Advisory Committee of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Yehoshua Yeshaya Neuwirth was an eminent Orthodox Jewish rabbi and posek in Jerusalem. He was one of the primary students of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and the author of a two-volume Hebrew language treatise, Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah — translated into English as Shemirath Shabbath: A practical guide to the observance of Shabbath — a compendium of the laws of Shabbat which is viewed by many as an authoritative work regarding these laws.
Tehumin is a Hebrew-language annual journal of articles about Jewish law and Modernity.
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.
Yitzchok Zilberstein is a prominent Orthodox rabbi, posek and expert in medical ethics. He is the av beis din of the Ramat Elchanan neighborhood of Bnei Brak, the Rosh Kollel of Kollel Bais David in Holon, and the Rav of Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center in Bnei Brak. His opinion is frequently sought and quoted on all matters of halakha for the Israeli Lithuanian yeshiva community.
In Jewish law, a posek is a legal scholar who determines the application of halakha, the Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah, in cases of Jewish law where previous authorities are inconclusive, or in those situations where no clear halakhic precedent exists.
The Shaare Zedek Cemetery is a small Jewish burial ground located behind the first Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. Originally used by the hospital as farmland for grazing milk cows, the area was converted into a temporary cemetery during the Arab siege of Jerusalem in 1948. Approximately 200 burials were conducted here between March and October of that year. Most graves were transferred to permanent cemeteries after the war, but a handful remain, notably those of several prominent Jerusalem rabbis and the founding director of Shaare Zedek Hospital, Dr. Moshe Wallach.
Moshe (Moritz) Wallach was a German Jewish physician and pioneering medical practitioner in Jerusalem. He was the founder of Shaarei Zedek Hospital on Jaffa Road, which he directed for 45 years. He introduced modern medicine to the impoverished and disease-plagued citizenry, accepting patients of all religions and offering free medical care to indigents. He was so closely identified with the hospital that it became known as "Wallach's Hospital". A strictly Torah-observant Jew, he was also an activist in the Agudath Israel Orthodox Jewish movement. He was buried in the small cemetery adjacent to the hospital.
Ask the Rabbi is a term used in Jewish newspapers and on Jewish websites for responsa, known as Shut, the traditional term for correspondence with rabbis, usually on a Halachic basis. This phrase is often used in casual conversation in Hebrew pop culture.
DavidFink is an Israeli Orthodox rabbi and expert in halacha and Jewish medical ethics.
Avraham Steinberg is an Israeli medical ethicist, pediatric neurologist, rabbi and editor of Talmudic literature.
Rabbanit Shayna Goldberg is an American–Israeli Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist author, educator, and Yoetzet Halacha. She is the current Mashgicha Ruchanit at the Stella K. Abraham Beit Midrash for Women Migdal Oz, an affiliate of Yeshivat Har Etzion.