Papers by Edward Reichman
Seforim Blog, 2024
A new discovery sheds light on the first two Jewish medical students to ever attend a German medi... more A new discovery sheds light on the first two Jewish medical students to ever attend a German medical school. This article brings rare archival material related to the matriculation of Tuviya HaRofe and Gabriel Felix at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder and their subsequent transfer to the University of Padua. It concludes with an analysis of newly discovered letters between Rabbi Yehudah Briel and the two medical students, revealing that in addition to multiple shared experiences throughout their medical training, they also shared a rabbinic mentor.
Buried in Cantarini's obscure work, in a section peripheral to the main theme of the book, we fin... more Buried in Cantarini's obscure work, in a section peripheral to the main theme of the book, we find a vivid and poetic description of a tragic incident relating to anatomical dissection.[4] Viewed in isolation, this incident merits historical attention due to its gravity. Yet, it merely reflects a much larger historical chapter about the Jews and postmortem dissection which long preceded the time of the Noda biYehuda and has remained largely undissected until now. But first a word about this work, its provenance and its author.
Aschkenas
The Mehler family was a distinguished German family from Bingen in the 17th and 18th centuries co... more The Mehler family was a distinguished German family from Bingen in the 17th and 18th centuries comprised of numerous rabbis and communal leaders. In this essay we draw attention to the physicians of the Mehler clan, a father and son in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Though graduating just forty years apart, they represent the transition of the medical training of students of Ashkenaz (Poland, Germany, and France) from Italy to Germany. Prior to the mid seventeenth century, a young Jewish student longing to attend medical school had essentially one option, the University of Padua. By the early eighteenth-century German universities began to welcome Jewish students. Our father and son physicians straddle this period and reflect the transition of Jewish medical training from Italy to Germany. We have identified some remarkable archival material allowing us to provide also an illustrated history of their medical careers.
Seforimblog.com, 2022
The city of Padua (or Padova), just twenty-five miles southwest of Venice, has a rich and expansi... more The city of Padua (or Padova), just twenty-five miles southwest of Venice, has a rich and expansive Jewish history, though it is not typically on the itinerary of the Jewish traveler to Italy. One might perhaps recognize the city name as the penultimate stop on the train from Florence to Venice. The likes of Rabbi Yehuda Minz (Mahari Minz-15 th century), Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen (Maharam Padua-16 th century), and Rabbi Moshe Ḥayyim Luzzatto (Ramḥal-18 th century) all lived and taught there, as did many other great personalities in Jewish history. One of the centerpieces of the city is the University of Padua, one of the oldest universities in the world, which is celebrating its 800 th anniversary this year. To this day, it remains one of the premier universities in Europe. The Jewish history of this city is very much intertwined with the university. One remarkable connection between the two is geographical. As divine providence would have it, the Ghetto of Padua was established literally meters away from the university campus. A casual stroll from Palazza Bo, the iconic architectural center of the University of Padua, to the Ashkenazi Synagogue in the Ghetto, now home to the Jewish Museum in Padua, takes less than five minutes. A new exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Padua, in collaboration with the University of Padua, explores the unique relationship between the university and the Jewish community in the pre-modern era, with particular focus on the medical training of Jewish students. The exhibit commemorates a key role the university played in Jewish medical history, beginning in the fifteenth century, as the first university to officially allow Jews to gain formal training in the field of medicine. Since the formation of the earliest universities,[1] Jews were officially barred by papal decree from attending, as the universities were by and large under the auspices of the Catholic Church. In the pages of this
The Torah u-madda journal
... This comment of Ibn Ezra was cited by Zevi Ashkenazi (?1660-1718), known as Hakham Zevi, in h... more ... This comment of Ibn Ezra was cited by Zevi Ashkenazi (?1660-1718), known as Hakham Zevi, in his famous responsum on the halakhic status of a chicken that was found to be lacking a heart, 9 and is an example of the appli-cation of homiletic exegesis to the realm of halakhah ...
The history of a unique chapter in Jewish legal history which evolved from the first case of ovar... more The history of a unique chapter in Jewish legal history which evolved from the first case of ovarian transplantation in 1906.
Clickable Table of Contents of Studia Rosenthaliana Journal of the History, Culture and Heritage ... more Clickable Table of Contents of Studia Rosenthaliana Journal of the History, Culture and Heritage of the Jews in the Netherlandsjournal 1(48) 2022.
The Torah U-Madda Journal, 1993
Journal of halacha and contemporary society, 2002
1 On the history of conjoined twins, see G. M. Gould and W. L. Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of... more 1 On the history of conjoined twins, see G. M. Gould and W. L. Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine (New York, 1896), 167-89; H. H. Wilder, “Duplicate twins and double monsters,” American Journal of Anatomy 3:4 (1904): 388-472 (which includes a fascinating discussion on the physiological theories of development of conjoined twins); J. Bondeson, Th e Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels (Ithaca, NY, 2000). See also the National Library of Medicine online exhibit, “From Monsters to Modern Medical Miracles: Selected Moments in the History of Conjoined Twins from Medieval to Modern Times,” http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/ conjoined/ (accessed May 12, 2012). Th e Mutter Museum in Philadelphia has a permanent exhibit with artifacts and images explaining how conjoined twins develop, including examples of famous conjoined twins of the past and present. Th e autopsy of the famous Siamese twins, Eng and Chang Bunker, was performed at this museum, and a cast of their bodies is on
Case Report On January 18, 2008 a unique medical case was reported in the British newspaper, the ... more Case Report On January 18, 2008 a unique medical case was reported in the British newspaper, the Daily Mail. Two babies were carried in the same womb, born only one minute apart, yet Thomas and Harriet Mullineux are not twins. They were conceived three weeks apart thanks to an extraordinary twist of nature. Their mother Charlotte had been pregnant with twins when at seven weeks she miscarried one of them. But two weeks later, she discovered, after undergoing a follow-up ultrasound, that she was carrying another fetus conceived separately and still growing in her womb. The surviving twin and the new baby were born in May of 2007. This case, which may represent an extraordinarily rare, and not well documented, phenomenon, is the substance of this brief essay. We shall address the medical, historical and halakhic aspects of this case.
In this issue of Tradition, Dr. J. Kunin reviews the medical literature relating to the anatomica... more In this issue of Tradition, Dr. J. Kunin reviews the medical literature relating to the anatomical and physiological studies of the brain dead patient. Based on the medical evidence that there remain both physiological function and some anatomical integrity of the brain in these patients, he argues that the original halakhic legal decisions accepting brain death as halakhic death need to be re-analyzed and possibly retracted. The notion of persistent physiological function in the brain dead patient has been acknowledged anecdotally in the halakhic world for over a decade,1 but Dr. Kunin’s essay is an updated and systematic review of the medical literature. While this type of research requires careful attention and further analysis, I would not be so quick to pull the plug on the halakhic acceptance of brain death. I will not revisit the brain death debate here, nor will I discuss the merits of or advocate for any particular position. My objective is simply to clarify that those who ...
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Papers by Edward Reichman