Join the Jewish Community Forum of Raritan Valley on Motzei Shabbat, Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. at Cong. Ohr Torah in Edison as Rabbi Dr. Edward Reichman presents “The Travails of Chanina and Ruchami on ‘Shtisel,’ Balancing the Life of the Fetus vs. the Mother.”
Those familiar with the popular Israeli TV series “Shtisel,” about a Haredi family living in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem, remember that Ruchami’s first pregnancy ended disastrously in a medically necessary abortion, and she was advised that she could not safely carry a pregnancy to term, having only a 1/1,000 chance of survival.
Reichman is a professor of emergency medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, where he teaches Jewish medical ethics, and is an attending physician in the emergency medicine department at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
Reichman received his semicha from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University and writes and lectures internationally in the field of Jewish medical ethics. He holds the Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler Chair in Jewish Medical Ethics at Yeshiva College, and his research is devoted to the interface of medical history and Jewish law. His book, “The Anatomy of Jewish Law: A Fresh Dissection of the Relationship Between Medicine, Medical History and Rabbinic Literature,” was recently published jointly by Koren, OU and YU presses.
Participants can join the session in person or online at inyurl.com/3nurhjxt.