The “Jewish premium”: attitudes towards Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants arriving in Israel under the Law of Return

The Spirit of Jewish Law

Over the years, a number of Jewish legal classics have become available to the English reading public. The Mishna, 1 the Babylonian Talmud 2 and the Abbreviated Code 3 have been the object of translation, and presently the Code of Maimonides is acquiring an English garb.4 However, the Mishna provides but the outline of Jewish law; the Talmud demands skills that can be commanded only after years...

Physician assisted suicide under Jewish law.

Physicians' strikes and Jewish law.

In 1975, writing about the immorality of a strike by resident physicians (housestaff) in New York City,1 I pointed out that "for a physician to strike, for whatever reason, is unconscionable and totally contrary to every standard. of medical ethics and morality." Although sympathetic to the demands of the housestaff, I argued that to leave patients without direct medical assistance and attendan...

Assisted reproduction in Jewish law.

This Article attempts to untangle Jewish law regarding assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), namely artificial insemination with husband’s sperm, artificial insemination with donor sperm, and in vitro fertilization. The author examines teachings by prominent Jewish law scholars and clarifies basic schools of thought regarding each method. He explores Jewish law prohibitions on incest and a...

Surgical Placebo in Jewish Law

Background Placebos have been used in one form or another for at least two centuries.1 Researchers in the late eighteenth century, in an attempt to establish science as a sound discipline separate from unorthodox and unconventional fi elds of treatment and therapy, recognized the idea of confounding environmental and psychological factors and attempted to mitigate them as best possible. For mos...