The Israeli State recently announced that it may begin to use genetic tests to determine whether potential immigrants are Jewish or not. This development would demand a rethinking of Israeli law on the issue of the definition of Jewishness. In this article, we discuss the historical and legal context of secular and religious definitions of Jewishness and rights to immigration in the State of Is...

Breast milk has been shown to have multiple benefits to infant health and development. Therefore, it is important that maternal contraceptive choices consider the effects on lactation. Women who observe traditional Jewish law, halakha, have additional considerations in deciding the order of preference of contraceptive methods due to religious concerns including the use of barrier and spermicida...

BACKGROUND Following the announcement of actress Angelina Jolie's prophylactic bilateral mastectomies and subsequent prophylactic oophorectomy, there has been a dramatic increase in interest in BRCA testing and prophylactic surgery. OBJECTIVE To review current medical literature on the benefits of prophylactic mastectomy and oophorectomy among BRCA-positive women and its permissibility under ...

Rights) that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . " History has repeatedly demonstrated the need for separation of church and state which our United States Constitution guarantees. By imposing the tenets of any religious group on all we would destroy the liberty of all not in agreement with the state-sponsored morali...

English law, like the English language, is an amalgam of diverse cultural influences. The legal system may fairly be seen as a composite of discrete elements from disparate sources. After the conquest of 1066, the Normans imposed on the English an efficiently organized social system that crowded out many Anglo-Saxon traditions. The Jews, whom the Normans brought to England, in their turn contri...