Orthodox Rabbis Research Articles

What Was So Funny about Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob (1973)

This article reappraises Gérard Oury’s Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob (1973), a comedy about a bigoted Frenchman and an Arab revolutionary disguised as orthodox rabbis, by considering the film’s original historical context, its attention to traumatic memories, and its place inside French culture as a cinematic lieu de mémoire. Rabbi Jacob represented a comedic medium through which Oury addressed the serious themes of racism and antisemitism as he envisioned multicultural reconciliation between the French, Arabs, and Jews. Rabbi Jacob was inseparable from the history of Jews in France, their deportation during the Second World War, and the postwar acceptance that being Jewish was compatible with integration into France. At the same time, Rabbi Jacob portrayed Arabs as a series of (post)colonial stereotypes leading one pro-Palestinian supporter to hijack an airplane in protest. Rabbi Jacob records an optimistic moment at the close of the trente glorieuses and continues to serve as a source for narratives on philo-Semitism, tolerance, and anti-racism in France.

Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Foods by Roger Horowitz

Reviewed by: Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Foods by Roger Horowitz Ted Merwin (bio) Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Foods. By Roger Horowitz. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 320 pp. Starting as a niche segment of the American food industry, kosher food has become ubiquitous, with more than 70,000 products certified as kosher and close to 15 billion dollar business in annual sales. How kosher food became such a major segment of the marketplace is the subject of Roger Horowitz's engaging book Kosher USA. Horowitz explores how an ancient set of rituals governing food consumption among Jews was transformed by modern science through the fascinating story of how everyday foodstuffs like Coca-Cola (which contains glycerin), Jell-O (which contains gelatin), and Oreos (which originally contained lard) succeeded in becoming kosher, frequently over the vociferous objections of Orthodox rabbis for whom ingredients derived from non-kosher animals were patently unacceptable. Just as departments and interdisciplinary programs in Food Studies have sprouted up in colleges and universities throughout the country, the study of Jewish food has mushroomed. Hasia Diner's seminal Hungering for America (2008) spawned a spate of academic books on the history of particular Jewish foods, including Maria Balinska's The Bagel (2009), Laura Silver's Knish (2014), and my own Pastrami on Rye (2015). Gefilte fish, pickles, and rugelach await their chroniclers. At the same time, economic history has been its own gold mine for Jewish studies, with many exemplary works, such as Adam Mendelsohn's award-winning book on the rise of the clothing business, The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire (2014), and Rebecca Kobrin's edited volume Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism (2012). Horowitz's timely book straddles these trends; it is situated at the junction of gastronomic and economic history. An independent scholar who directs the Hagley Library of Economic History, Horowitz's two prior books focused on the American meat packing industry, Negro and White: Unite and Fight! A Social History of Industrial Unionism in Meatpacking, 1930–1990 (1997) and Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste, Technology, Transformation (2005). With Kosher USA, Horowitz again looks at meat, but this time in a kosher framework, and he also examines many other types of kosher food. The author frames each chapter with anecdotes from his own life and then weaves personal reminiscences throughout the narrative. For example, the book memorably opens with the relatives from the father's side of his family refusing to eat the sturgeon (which they deem to be [End Page 314] non-kosher because of its deeply entrenched scales) that is being served for a Yom Kippur break-fast by his maternal grandparents, triggering an epic battle that became part of family lore. The author's family members become characters in the story just as much as the rabbis, scientists, food manufacturers, and others for whom whether or not a specific food is ultimately authorized as kosher has significant ramifications for how they conduct their businesses or their lives. Horowitz demonstrates that these stakes were great, not just for companies that wanted to sell to kosher consumers, but for those consumers themselves, as the kosher food market began to go mainstream after World War II. He quotes numerous letters from Jewish supermarket shoppers to rabbis, asking if foods that they can feed to their own families are the same foods that their neighbors and friends are buying. The answer, unfortunately, was usually no; it often took decades for the rabbis' controversies over these foods to get settled. Horowitz also looks at non-Jewish customers for kosher products, specifically African-Americans, who, in the 1950s, before Hebrew National's "We Answer to a Higher Authority" and Levy's Rye Bread, "You Don't Have to Jewish to Love Levy's" advertising campaigns that aggressively targeted non-Jews, became the nation's biggest consumers of Manichewitz sweet kosher wine. It is when Horowitz traces the history of kosher meat that his narrative is the most compelling. The kosher slaughter industry was huge, especially in New...

“And I Find a Wife More Bitter Than Death” (Eccl 7:26): Feminist Hermeneutics, Women's Midrashim, and the Boundaries of Acceptance in Modern Orthodox Judaism

This article joins the new interest in a feminist hermeneutics of scripture featured in this journal in 2014 and contributes new insights about the status of feminist hermeneutics in patriarchal traditions through the prism of Modern Orthodox Jewish feminism. Through analyzing contemporary Jewish Modern Orthodox feminist midrashim, Irshai seeks to understand why some contemporary Orthodox rabbis dismiss feminist interpretation as anomalous and illegitimate. Why are radical feminist midrashic interpretations judged inadmissible, even when they follow all the established hermeneutical rules of traditional rabbinic interpretation? Is it just the very fact of female authorship (in other words, a matter of power and hierarchy)? After all, the Jewish hermeneutical tradition is replete with deep controversies and conflicting stances, yet the prevailing rabbinic principle is that “both these and those are the words of the living God.” One of the answers the article suggests is that radical feminist midrash is problematic (for Orthodox establishment readers) because it does not try to link its critique to voices within the tradition that can support and sustain the values it speaks for.

Dancing in Solidarity and Dissent

AbstractIn this deeply personal article, Mark Solomon explores the universal dichotomy between group solidarity and individual dissent by reflecting on two formative experiences of his own life. The first was his inspiring teenage encounter with Lubavitch Hasidism and his revulsion at its extreme, particularistic views about Jewish souls, which led to a loss of faith in Judaism and a four-year spiritual struggle over whether to convert to Christianity. Later, as an Orthodox rabbi, he had to deal with a growing awareness of being gay and the need to come out, once again leaving the solidarity of the traditional Jewish family structure for a dissenting way of life. Individual dissent can create a new sense of community and bring with it a solidarity among outsiders. The challenges of belonging and personal freedom are part of the perpetual rhythm of life and can be a source of growth and energy.

The Most Influential Scientists in the Development of Medical informatics (12): Joshua Lederberg.

JOSHUA LEDERBERG (1925–2008) Joshua Lederberg (May 23, 1925 - February 2, 2008) was an American molecular biologist known for his work in microbial genetics, artificial intelligence, and the United States space program. He was just 33 years old when he won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering about bacterial genetic information transfer. His father, Zvi Lederberg, was an orthodox rabbi; and his mother Esther a homemaker. Joshua felt drawn to science at an early age, stating in a homework assignment at age seven that his career aspiration was to become “like Einstein,” to “discover a few theories in science.” He graduated from Stuyvesant at the age of fifteen. At the Columbia University, his mentor Francis J. Ryan introduced him to the red bread mold, Neurospora, as an important new experimental system in the emerging field of biochemical genetics. In the United States Navy’s V-12 training program, he performed his military training duties and examined stool and blood specimen from malaria patients. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in zoology in 1944, he enrolled in Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and continued to do his research. Lederberg carried out experiments with the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli which demonstrated that certain strains of bacteria can undergo a sexual stage, that they mate and exchange genes. The most important of his discovery was the discovery of viral transduction, the ability of viruses that infect bacteria to transfer snippets of DNA from one infected bacterium to another and insert them into the latter’s genome. The use of viruses in manipulating bacterial genomes became the basis of genetic engineering in the 1970s. In the year 1958 he received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Tatum and George W. Beadle, “for his discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material of bacteria.” The launch of Sputnik in 1957 led Lederberg toward an interest in astronomy that lasted 20 years. His concern about the risk of spacecraft returning to Earth with contaminants from space resulted in a quarantine for space travel that remains in effect today. He went on to design experiments intended to detect the presence of life on Mars, resulting in the Mars Viking lander. Lederberg became increasingly aware of the value of computers. He formed collaborations with researchers at Stanford to create a program for analyzing mass-spectrometric data of molecular structures, called DENDRAL, which led to further programs for disease diagnosis and management. It was the first expert system for specialized use in science. Over the course of his life, Lederberg was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, received the National Medal of Science, was named an honorary life member of the New York Academy of Sciences, was awarded Foreign Membership of the Royal Society of London and holds the title of Commandeur, L’ordre des arts et des lettres in France. Lederberg published over 300 scientific and policy-related articles and was the editor of several books, including Papers in Microbial Genetics: Bacteria and Bacterial Viruses (1951), Emerging Infections: Microbial Threats to Health in the United States (1992), and Biological Weapons: Limiting the Threat (1999). His first marriage ended in divorce and he remarried Marguerite Stein Kirsch, a clinical psychologist, with whom he had two children. Following a battle with pneumonia, Lederberg passed away in New York in 2008 at the age of 82. Interesting facts: As a child, his idol was Einstein. He was a member of Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. He studied how astronauts from Sputnik can contaminate Earth with space organisms - modern space quarantine. He invented first expert system for specialized use in science. He won a Nobel Prize at the age of 33.

Does she... Or doesn’t she?: The making of Miss Clairol hair coloring

Does she... Or doesn’t she?The making of Miss Clairol hair coloring Shirley Polykoff The following is a chapter from Shirley Polykoff’s autobiography of the same title, published by Doubleday in 1975. Polykoff was responsible for the titular Clairol hair dye advertisements from 1956, which propelled the product into mainstream usage. The campaign, however, is only one of this advertising executive’s many successes. For an overview of the ups and downs of her career, hunt down a copy of the delightful account of her career. I guess my whole life wrote that campaign. There are advertising campaigns that seem terribly smart, bright, slick, humorous, written to impress the copywriting colleague down the hall, or even to show off one’s own wit to oneself, but I have always believed that ads that communicate, ads that really create a compelling person-to-person bond, are ads that reflect the writer’s total life experience. I know that sounds a little big, even pompous, but if an ad writer is willing to expose her honest reactions not only to the product but, more importantly, to the significance of the product in terms of the emotional needs it fulfills (as well as its practical utility), she will be able to distill those aspects of the product that are its genuine selling points. Since I like to think of this as a book on advertising, let’s examine the premise that my whole life wrote it, that everything that has contributed to me as a person also has contributed to the campaigns I create. Being an awkward seven-year-old middle child between two beautiful brunette sisters was a fundamental factor in this first Clairol campaign. The older one, Lillian, was lovely enough to have been photographed nude on a white fur rug. The youngest, Ellenore, was so pretty people were always stopping the carriage to admire her. As far as I knew, nobody ever photographed me nude on a white fur rug or stopped the carriage to admire me. But I had blonde hair like my mother’s, though most of her friends assured me I’d never be as pretty. So the way I felt at fifteen, when my hair began to darken and I began periodic visits to Mr. Nicholas—beauty parlor one flight up—wrote that campaign too. Little gray-haired Mr. Nicholas and I maintained a pleasant fiction. He didn’t bleach my hair. He just lightened the back a little to match the front. And the back kept getting closer to the front. But nobody seemed the wiser, and whatever compliments I got continued to be about my “naturally” blonde hair, which was just like my mother’s, to whom a beauty parlor was the room you fixed up and used only for company. Or maybe it was something that happened to me in 1933. I had just met George. I had known him three weeks when he invited me to Passover dinner in Reading, Pee-ay. In 1933, if you lived in New York and a fellow invited you to come meet his family in Reading, Peeay, it was tantamount to a proposal of marriage. I had been dragging along with two other fellows for about five years, neither of whom had ever asked me to come home and meet the family. So I was very excited about the idea and I accepted. George’s father was an Orthodox rabbi. He was tall and handsome with a beard which seemed to get smaller through the years as he grew to feel more American. And he liked to tell jokes. He and I hit it off right away. George’s mother, on the other hand, was a rather silent, old-fashioned lady who wore a severe, pulled-back, tight haircomb, one step away from the sheitel, a wig worn by Orthodox women to cover the shaven head since hair was an unseemly adornment for a respectable Orthodox matron. It was quite obvious that she adored her son. It was also quite obvious that the whole family adored him. He was the second child and the oldest boy, the first to break away from the family...

R. Judah he-Hasid or R. Moshe Zaltman: who proposed that Torah verses were written after the time of Moses?

In the year 1975, I.S. Lange published an anthology of commentaries entitled Commentaries on the Torah of R. Judah he-Hasid . In three of the commentaries included in this collection, the exegete suggests that the Torah includes post-Mosaic interpolations. In an additional passage, the commentator maintains that David removed psalms from the Torah and incorporated them into the book of Psalms. Some Orthodox rabbis found these comments to be heretical and rejected the possibility that they were written by R. Judah he-Hasid. In response to this criticism, Lange published a censored edition of the book, without the controversial sections. These four passages have been subject to considerable academic inquiry. On the basis of these commentaries, it is commonly maintained that R. Judah he-Hasid had idiosyncratic views about the composition of the Hebrew Bible. In this article, I argue that the controversial notes were not written by R. Judah he-Hasid but rather by his son, R. Moshe Zaltman.

Saul Genuth, MD: clinical researcher and leader in developing modern diabetes treatment.

Saul Genuth was born to David L. and Anna Einhorn Genuth on 13 March 1931 in Norwalk, Connecticut. His father was an orthodox rabbi and his mother was a housewife. David Genuth was born and raised in Hungary but immigrated to the U.S. to escape induction into the Romanian army (the area of Hungary where he lived ceded to Romania after World War I). Anna’s parents came from Poland, seeking a better life for their future family. David became an orthodox rabbi, while Anna remained a homemaker and a rabbi’s wife (which Saul states was a profession in and of itself). Saul Genuth, MD Saul was 4 years old when his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and he has made Cleveland his home through most of his medical training and his entire professional career. Saul noted that he and his two younger sisters grew up “somewhat poor in a lower middle class neighborhood but were never hungry or deprived.” He remains close to his one surviving sister, a retired attorney in Portland, Maine. When asked about his childhood, he admits he was not the athletic type growing up but could shoot a mean game of marbles. Today his main source of recreation is reading. Saul’s subtle sense of humor comes through as he explains, “I hope printed books never disappear. I don’t read e-books, they have never ‘kindled’ my interest.” He is also devoted to classical music and regularly attends Cleveland Orchestra concerts and local recitals. Saul met Molly Goodman, the love of his life, in 7th grade. He told the story of them sitting near each other in homeroom because their last names both began with “G.” They became fast friends, and as a 13-year-old, Molly told her mother that one day she was going to marry Saul Genuth. …

Differences over Darwinism: American Orthodox Jewish Responses to Evolution in the 1920s

Rabbis have offered a variety of reactions to evolutionary theory since On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. The current article focuses on the differences of opinion on Darwinism among American Modern Orthodox rabbis in the wake of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” that captured headlines in 1925. It illustrates that some rabbis in this group proposed that evolution could be easily integrated into Jewish philosophy, while others claimed that it was outside the bounds of a worldview that accepted a divinely created and guided universe. It is argued here that those who adopted this later view did so, at least in part, because of an approach that differentiated between the emerging American “modern” and “ultra” Orthodoxies based solely on cosmetic grounds, rather than ideological ones, and identified Darwinism with an ideological assault against all streams of Orthodox Judaism.

The Transitioning of Jewish Biomedical Law: Rhetorical and Practical Shifts in Halakhic Discourse on Sex-Change Surgery

This article examines discourse dynamics in Jewish law on sex-change surgery (SCS) and, in general, transitioning between genders. Orthodox medical ethics has moved beyond the abstract condemnation of SCS to the design of practical rules for transsexuals living in observant communities. The reasoning against SCS has also shifted, both in complexity and with implicit ties to Christian and secular tropes. By medicalizing or, conversely, spiritualizing the experiences of transgendered persons, a few Orthodox authors are opening up interpretive space for sympathetic responses to SCS. Such transitions reach their most elaborate expression in Israeli Orthodox rabbi Edan ben Ephraim’s 2004 monograph, Generation of Perversions , which has taken center stage in Orthodox deliberations on transsexuality. Overall, halakhic discourse seems to be moving in innovative, unavoidably interdiscursive directions.

From Teacher to Scholar to Pastor: The Evolving Postwar Modern Orthodox Rabbinate

From Teacher to Scholar to Pastor:The Evolving Postwar Modern Orthodox Rabbinate Zev Eleff (bio) In September of 2012, Rabbi Avi Weiss reflected on the Orthodox rabbinical school he had founded in Riverdale, N.Y. more than a dozen years before. The emphasis of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School (YCT) on “practical rabbinics,” said Weiss, makes it unique in its “approach to rabbinic education.” Although his faculty provides students with the material to become “knowledgeable,” Weiss said, he stressed the importance of the pastoral elements, observing, “The rabbinate is about simply being there for people.”1 That sentiment was well understood by one of Weiss’s graduates. Speaking to a researcher, the young rabbi confessed that he had chosen YCT because of the importance the seminary placed on counseling. “Of the different things that rabbis do,” he said, “that’s one of the most important for me, so I wanted to go to a place where I would get taught that.”2 Most probably, the young rabbi’s alternative choice of a seminary would have been Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS). Although the school’s curriculum has never matched YCT’s offerings in pastoral training, RIETS recently reconfigured its curriculum to reflect more inclusively the professional portfolio of today’s American Orthodox rabbi.3 Ever cautious of criticism, RIETS carefully measured its curricular changes to ensure that traditional Torah learning would remain paramount within its study halls. YCT has not shared these concerns, at least not to the same degree. Criticism toward YCT’s belief in innovative Orthodox rabbinic training has been forthcoming. Ever since YCT, a liberal Orthodox seminary, was founded in 1999, moderates at Yeshiva and interested parties within right-wing Orthodoxy had been quick to label the seminary as “Orthodox-lite.”4 Many [End Page 289] of the complaints centered on the school’s pastoral courses that were drawing considerable time away from Torah study. In response, Rabbi Asher Lopatin, YCT’s newly appointed president, claimed in 2013 that it was precisely their pastoral training that “forged successful careers” for the school’s graduates.5 Time and again, however, those opposed to the curriculum at YCT have rejected this model of rabbinic training. Instead, they argue, Orthodox rabbis imbued with Torah knowledge have fared well and have adequately met the needs of their communities and congregations without exposure to a significantly revamped rabbinical school curriculum. Neither side is totally correct. Over the years, traditionalist rabbis have styled themselves—as have some of their more liberal counterparts—as learned men steeped in Torah knowledge.6 But that classic rabbinic profile was also bound up with two other important matters. First, rabbis responded to the changing expectations of their laypeople. Second, elements beyond the insular Orthodox community compelled the Orthodox rabbinate to adapt to new conditions.7 By and large, the Orthodox rabbinate has succeeded. Although still the smallest of the major religious movements in American Judaism, Orthodoxy has persisted despite the most ominous predictions.8 For their part in securing the community’s vitality, Orthodox rabbis have adjusted to internal and external forces. But versatility has probably not been enough. More than that, the traditional rabbinate has persevered because it was able to adapt while simultaneously maintaining a rabbinic image that was unquestionably Orthodox in character. On the other hand, the Orthodox rabbinate has struggled when it could neither adapt to its surroundings nor present a concrete religious identity. [End Page 290] Prologue On March 1, 1940, RIETS held its quadrennial ordination ceremony. The evening’s featured speaker was the school’s leading scholar, Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik. The sage offered a clear message to the eighteen graduates: In response to Hitler’s European conflagration, he asserted, “American Judaism has been charged with the mission to stand at the breach and expand and raise the dissemination of Torah in this country, and to save the surviving remnant and continue the long tradition for which our fathers gave their lives.”9 Soloveichik’s words struck emotional chords with many, reminding American Orthodox Jews of their grave responsibility.10 His words probably also concerned some of the young rabbis seated in the auditorium that night. Chances are...

Goliath: life and loathing in greater Israel

2014 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Notable Book Award In Goliath, New York Times bestselling author Max Blumenthal takes us on a journey through the badlands and high roads of Israel-Palestine, painting a startling portrait of Israeli society under the siege of increasingly authoritarian politics as the occupation of the Palestinians deepens. Beginning with the national elections carried out during Israel's war on Gaza in 2008-09, which brought into power the country's most right-wing government to date, Blumenthal tells the story of Israel in the wake of the collapse of the Oslo peace process. As Blumenthal reveals, Israel has become a country where right-wing leaders like Avigdor Lieberman and Bibi Netanyahu are sacrificing democracy on the altar of their power politics; where the loyal opposition largely and passively stands aside and watches the organized assault on civil liberties; where state-funded Orthodox rabbis publish books that provide instructions on how and when to kill Gentiles; where half of Jewish youth declare their refusal to sit in a classroom with an Arab; and where mob violence targets Palestinians and African asylum seekers scapegoated by leading government officials as threats. Immersing himself like few other journalists inside the world of hardline political leaders and movements, Blumenthal interviews the demagogues and divas in their homes, in the Knesset, and in the watering holes where their young acolytes hang out, and speaks with those political leaders behind the organized assault on civil liberties. As his journey deepens, he painstakingly reports on the occupied Palestinians challenging schemes of demographic separation through unarmed protest. He talks at length to the leaders and youth of Palestinian society inside Israel now targeted by security service dragnets and legislation suppressing their speech, and provides in-depth reporting on the small band of Jewish Israeli dissidents who have shaken off a conformist mindset that permeates the media, schools, and the military. Through his far-ranging travels, Blumenthal illuminates the present by uncovering the ghosts of the past--the histories of Palestinian neighborhoods and villages now gone and forgotten; how that history has set the stage for the current crisis of Israeli society; and how the Holocaust has been turned into justification for occupation. A brave and unflinching account of the real facts on the ground, Goliath is an unprecedented and compelling work of journalism.

Seeking Empowerment and Spirituality in the Secular Age: Secular and Traditionalist Israelis Consulting Rabbis

This empirical study investigates the phenomenon of secular and traditionalist ( masorti) Israeli Jews who consult orthodox rabbis on personal matters. The study was conducted using a combined methodology: analysis of data from a large survey ( N = 6056) and conducting 50 in-depth semi-structured interviews. We found that of the 24 percent of the Israeli Jewish population who regularly consulted rabbis, 43 percent defined themselves as secular or traditionalist. People from all social strata regularly consult rabbis. Their socio-demographic characteristics and experiences are presented here. The phenomenon of secular and less religious Jews who consult orthodox rabbis on personal matters indicates the current relevance of religion and spirituality as resources for empowerment when dealing with various kinds of existential and personal difficulty. The study contributes to the ongoing discourse on the secular age and post-secular societies by examining the middle ground between traditional-religion and secular-modernity. It indicates a contemporary blurring of these categories.

Eliezer Berkovits on Conversion: An Inclusive Orthodox Approach

Eliezer Berkovits was singular among contemporary Orthodox rabbis in his approach to conversion. This article describes the activist stance Berkovits took on this issue in the larger Jewish world, and analyzes in detail his halakic analysis of traditional laws of conversion. Berkovits felt that these laws had to be applied in light of a broad legal context that demanded that the commandment of ahavat yisrael (love of the Jewish people) be honored. His concern for the supremacy of this latter commandment in the hierarchy of Jewish values led him to adopt a lenient and inclusive stance on conversion and even caused him to countenance the participation of Conservative and Reform rabbis alongside Orthodox rabbis on a rabbinic court assembled for conversion. By comparing the writings of Berkovits on these issues to those of his colleagues in the Orthodox world, this article demonstrates that his stance on conversion was unique in the Orthodox world.

Coping with Illness and Threat: Why Non-religious Jews Choose to Consult Rabbis on Healthcare Issues

Whereas modern and advanced medical services are available and accessible to all citizens of Israel, the phenomenon of consulting Orthodox rabbis (Jewish clerics) on healthcare issues is gaining ground among populations that do not identify themselves as religious. The objective of the research was to enquire why non-religious Jews choose to consult rabbis on medical issues. Fifty semi-structured open-ended interviews were conducted during 2009-2011 in northern Israel. The article presents the respondents' main motives, expectations, beliefs, and modes of consulting both physicians and rabbis. This study aims to contribute to discussion about conflating modern medicine with spiritual-religious beliefs in modern-secular society.

Malbim's Approach to the Sins of Biblical Personages

This article examines one component of the exegetical method of Malbim (1809–1879), an Orthodox rabbi of a strongly conventional bent, and questions the scholarly assumption that he invariably defends outstanding biblical figures. After surveying the accepted scholarly view, I discuss three examples of Malbim’s advocative interpretations, and then seven examples of his critical attitude towards biblical figures (also taken from his commentary on the book of Genesis) as well as two additional examples from his commentary on the Former Prophets. An analysis of the findings reveals five characteristics of his exegetical approach on this question (which at times is comprised of two phases), and suggests that he occupies a middle ground between two of his contemporaries, R. Jacob Zvi Meklenburg and R. Samson Raphael Hirsch.

Análisis del crecimiento de las comunidades judías ortodoxas en Chile

This article analyzes the increased growth of orthodox communities among Chilean Jews. These communities have risen dramatically in the past decade, due to the emergence of several orthodox institutions that promote the study of the Torah among young people; a growing demand for spirituality and a certain decline of the traditional institutions of Chile’s secular Jews. This article is based on interviews with orthodox rabbis and members of Santiago’s orthodox community and aims to reconstruct the history of Chile’s Jewish orthodox communities, of which there are no bibliographical records in existence.

Not Judging by Appearances: The Role of Genotype in Jewish Law on Intersex Conditions

Jewish communities have always had children with intersex conditions, which involve atypical anatomic, chromosomal, or gonadal sex. In the last several decades, Orthodox rabbis have issued ad hoc rulings to assign sex to children and adults with intersex conditions. However, rabbinic texts reflect disunity over whether to assign gender, for the purposes of Jewish law, according to outward appearance or chromosomal makeup. This rabbinic controversy has been exacerbated by an increasingly complicated medical picture. Endocrinologists have diagnosed more than two dozen intersex conditions, across nine overarching congenital types. Such complexity makes it difficult for rabbis to make across-the-board decisions about gender assignment. This essay examines how rabbinic law may change because gender cannot be assigned consistently by chromosomal sex—despite the prevalence of this formulaic criterion in rabbinic opinions. Consequently, Jewish legal reasoning is poised to shift from a static reliance on chromosomal sex. The essay also considers the implications of this trajectory on Jewish law towards sex change surgery and transsexuals.

Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism (review)

Reviewed by: Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism Michael Graetz (bio) and Naomi Graetz (bio) Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism, by Tamar Ross. Brandeis Series on Jewish Women. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2004. Tamar Ross, an Associate Professor of Jewish Thought in the Department of Philosophy at Bar Ilan University and the central instructor of Jewish Thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum since its inception, has written one of the first books about Orthodoxy and feminism, Expanding the Palace of Torah. It is ironic that on the first page of her preface Ross writes, “I never used to think of myself as a feminist. Even today I am not totally comfortable with this label.” On the other hand, she recognizes that religious believers who ignore feminism’s message do so at their own peril. Her first coming to grips with feminism was at a JOFA conference in 1996 where her talk on the potential impact of feminism on Orthodox Jewish theology was warmly received, in contrast to a chilly reception bestowed on another paper that she had earlier given at the Orthodox Forum at Yeshiva University. The present book is an outgrowth of those two papers. The book is divided into five major parts: the first acknowledges the problem and discusses feminism and the halakhic tradition; the second explores halakhic malleability and its limits; the third evaluates revisionism and halakhic pro-activism; the fourth inquires about the role of interpretive traditions in expanding the palace of Torah; and the fifth includes Ross’s own visions for the future. Throughout her book, Ross gives a thorough and excellent summary of the problematics of modern Orthodoxy’s attempts to account for women’s growing desire to have a more participatory role in Jewish religious life. She grapples with the question of formalism versus external considerations. She surveys the opinions of some modern Orthodox rabbis, choosing to focus on those who give formalistic reasons for their decisions. She contrasts those with past decisions, showing that perhaps considerations other than the formal ones had been paramount in earlier times. For example, she asks: “Can a formal principle explain the willingness of the rabbis in talmudic times to allow women to lay their hands on a sacrificial animal in order to grant them ‘spiritual pleasure,’ as opposed to the objection of many contemporary rabbis to passing them a Torah scroll to kiss in the synagogue?” [End Page 89] (p. 83). She calls this and all of her other examples “anomalies,” the purpose of which is to call into question the notion of “pure” halakhah in a formal way. In her terms, halakhic positivism doesn’t work—that is, it cannot explain all of the anomalies. In addition to this, Ross identifies “a double standard of scrupulousness” for men and women in the non-formal principles used in modern halakhic discourse, terms such as zila milta, “disgrace of usual standards,” or ein ḥavuratan na·ah, “their company is unbecoming” (pp. 88–90). It seems to be hard for her to admit that the creation of double standards—and thus the exclusion of women—is exactly the point of creating the new principles. Indeed, feminist critique might note that the “anomalies” are really norms. Ross, in an excellent survey of feminist sociological, theological, and halakhic theory, then goes on to describe suggestions for revamping the system. She shows the promise of the revisionists and their limits. The most important part of this section is her explanation of halakhah and its centrality to Judaism. She points out the approaches that take the line that biblical tradition needs to be revamped and improved upon are a serious threat to the notion of divine revelation. Moreover, reading the Bible as a thoroughly patriarchal document implies that it is the captive of unjust and ungodly forces in society and that it cannot be the word of God unfiltered by human bias. Ross summarizes these arguments: “What sort of God would ignore the voices, insights, and experiences of half the human race? Because the perspective of the Torah is limited, can we really credit it with being divine?” (p. 141). In the conclusion to her chapter on...

‘‘The Other Side of the Coin’’: The Anatomy of a Public Controversy in the Montreal Jewish Community, 1931

This article examines in detail the repercussions of a 1931 sermon by Sheea Herschorn, an immigrant Orthodox rabbi in Montreal, on the public discourse of the Montreal Jewish community. It begins with a brief consideration of the position of the immigrant Orthodox rabbinate in Montreal and then explores the nature of the public discourse on this sermon, in which Rabbi Herschorn was accused of agreeing with an anti-Semitic position, through a close examination of the reportage of the controversy in Montreal’s Jewish press, which then included two newspapers in Yiddish, the Keneder Adler and Der Shtern, as well as the English-language Canadian Jewish Chronicle. Finally, the article explores some of the major issues raised in Rabbi Herschorn’s sermon regarding the contemporary situation of Polish Jews in relation to their society, tying it to his perception of the relationship of Canadian Jews and Canadian society as a whole. These latter issues included especially the relationship between Montreal Jews and Montreal’s public Anglophone institutions, such as the Royal Victoria Hospital, and McGill University, whose ambivalent acceptance of Jews as physicians and students was then an issue of great concern to the Jewish community.