Editor's Introduction

Abstract

It is now commonplace to observe that we live in “unprecedented times.” The cliché isn't without merit. The Covid-19 pandemic has ruthlessly revealed and exacerbated deep fissures—epistemic, racial, epidemiological, economic—in American society. The murder of George Floyd, recorded on video in Minneapolis this May, has inspired renewed agitation across the country for racial justice and against police brutality. Such protests demand of us to consider our assumptions and convictions regarding whiteness, state violence, and political identity.We hope, therefore, that this issue of the JJE may aid in reflection, research, and political action beyond the commonplace. In his essay, JJE coeditor Jonathan Crane offers extended reflections on the difficulties of ethical reasoning within a pandemic, noting that while “[b]ioethical deliberations most frequently occur outside of the situation of concern,” in the current pandemic and other comparable crises, ethicists do not have the luxury of distance. Crane argues, “Asking a question like ‘How can Jewish ethics solve the problem of the COVID-19 pandemic?’ is unhelpful. The pandemic is not a problem in search of a solution. It is many things but not a singular problem. It is wiser to wonder, ‘What can Jewish ethics be in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic? What might a Jewish ethic look like from within a pandemic?’”Joshua Moise-Silverman's essay, “Jewish Ethical Reflections on the Promises and Challenges of Mitochondria Replacement Therapy,” takes up the bioethical and halakhic considerations of MRT. This replacement technology in the context of human reproduction can, as Moise-Silverman explains, “prevent a child from inheriting mitochondrial disease from their mother,” but may also raise significant questions about the child's Jewish status in some Orthodox Jewish communities. Moise-Silverman traces the history of rabbinic debate around this technology and the ongoing communal questions the therapy presents.Amanda Mbuvi's essay, though based in entirely different sources, also raises provocative questions about children in Jewish communities. Her text is a children's book, Rebecca's Journey Home, which tells the story of a white American Jewish family's adoption of a baby girl from Vietnam. Mbuvi turns her analytic eye to the language and pictures of this short book, arguing persuasively that the book illustrates—literally—some significant assumptions and conflicts in American Jewish racial and identity discourses. Mbuvi concludes, “Viewing the baby through a gaze both loving and steeped in stereotype, Rebecca's Journey Home demonstrates the pitfalls that the American context presents for conceptualizing Jewish identity across racial lines. However, the book also illustrates the potential of Jewish tradition to serve as a basis for thinking beyond the American rules of race and even for transforming them.”Geoffrey Claussen's essay, “Teaching Modern Jewish Ethics through Role-Play,” invites readers into his classroom, where he provides a detailed account of a recent course in Jewish ethics. In Claussen's class, students represent modern Jewish thinkers in verbal dialogue, holding fast to these thinkers' points of view in order to engage one another in sustained conversation and dispute over a body of contemporary Jewish ethical questions. Claussen notes, “Some students were more reluctant to take on perspectives with which they strongly disagreed, but even students who took on such perspectives once or twice during the semester reported that they found great value in the experience.”Jason Weiner's article, “Are There Limits to How Far One Must Go for Others? Toward a Theoretical Model for Healthcare Providers,” engages contemporary bioethical principles alongside classical Jewish texts, and probes difficult questions about the limits of healthcare providers' responsibilities to their patients and profession. He argues that “[w]ithin both traditions, even as limits on the duties of healthcare providers are articulated, the societal importance of the role of healthcare providers to care for the sick is maintained. The perspectives examined do not see healthcare providers merely as mechanics of the body, but as individuals who have taken upon themselves social and even Divine expectations of responsibility to go out of their way for others.”Finally, we are very proud to feature Aryeh Cohen's translation of Rabbi Chaim David Halevi's responsa on incarceration in Jewish law. It is the first time that these extended selections from Halevi's work have been published in English; we will feature another set of newly translated material on incarceration in the next edition of this journal. Cohen's contribution reminds us that translation or curation of sources is also an ethical endeavor, even if we do not know all the “work” that these sources will do. To that end, we continue to invite scholars to submit curated compilations of Jewish source texts (from any language) in order that these texts may be accessible to broader communities of readers.