________________________________________________________ Asher Bush, a graduate of Yeshiva University and RIETS, is the rav of Congregation Ahavas Yisrael in Wesley Hills, NY, and is currently the chairman of the Rabbinical Council of America’s Vaad Halacha. He has authored over fifty articles on various halakhic topics including medical issues, and his Sho’el b-Shlomo responsa address a range ...

Hepatitis A outbreaks have been reported in some Jewish Orthodox communities in New York City and New York State. The factors which lead to the transmission of the virus are known: families with a high proportion of children in the lower age groups, large numbers of children in schools which admit them at a very young age, and the close interaction between the various congregations within a reg...

PURPOSE A previous genome-wide study in Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish pedigrees showed significant linkage of ocular refraction to a Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL) on 1p34-36.1. We carried out a fine-mapping study of this region in Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish (ASHK) and Old Order Amish (OOA) families to confirm linkage and narrow the candidate region. METHODS Families were recruited from ASHK and O...

Psychiatric rehabilitation contains value-laden concepts that may be unacceptable to certain cultures and many individuals. The concepts of independence and work are examined in a clash between mental health professionals in charge of national policies in psychiatric rehabilitation in Israel and a rehabilitation center for the severely mentally ill within the ultra-orthodox Jewish community. Th...

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to explore oral health knowledge and beliefs and access to dental care in a culturally distinct Orthodox Jewish community in North London, with a view to informing local health policy. METHODS A dual method qualitative approach to data collection was adopted in this study utilising semi-structured face to face interviews and focus groups with women f...

For about a decade, ultra-Orthodox and Bedouin women have been applying to higher education academic institutions in Israel in order to study despite bans from their conservative communities. Academic studies instill learning and culture, create an encounter with knowledge for the individual and thus carry a high degree of threat to the rigid conservative enclave. This article examines how cons...

OBJECTIVE To examine the relation between level of religiosity, grade level, self-esteem, and level of disordered eating-related psychopathology among Modem Orthodox Jewish adolescent girls in Israel. METHOD The sample consisted of 320 Jewish religious adolescent schoolgirls in the 9th to 12th grades of middle and high schools. The girls completed the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 (EDI-2) and t...

An in-depth qualitative interview study is reported, with respondents (N=52; all female) from the following urban-dwelling religious groups: White Christian, Pakistani Muslim, Indian Hindu, Orthodox Jewish and Afro-Caribbean Christian. Qualitative thematic analysis of open-ended interview responses revealed that the degree to which religious coping strategies were perceived to be effective in t...