David Gordis

Occasional essay: Jewish perspective on prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion of affected fetuses, including some comparisons with prevailing catholic beliefs

American journal of medical genetics, Jul 1, 1982

Prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion of affected fetuses are controversial subjects for many... more Prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion of affected fetuses are controversial subjects for many individuals. Much of the controversy centers around religious beliefs. In this paper we present prevailing Jewish and Catholic beliefs concerning these two subjects. We hope to resolve some of the controversy and emphasize the fact that physicians counsel and patients often make decisions based on their religious persuasion.

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Vouchers for School Choice - Challenge or Opportunity? An American Jewish Reappraisal

Expanded outgrowth of a conference on the subject convened in May 1997 in Washington, D.C.https:/... more

Two Literary Talmudic Readings

Is This the Way?: On Reading Michael Graetz's Essay

Conservative Judaism, 2011

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Jewish Identity in America

Efforts to foretell the future of the American Jewish community date far back to the nineteenth c... more Efforts to foretell the future of the American Jewish community date far back to the nineteenth century, and for the most part the prophecies have been exceedingly gloomy. Fonner President John Adams predicted in a letter to Mordecai Noah in 1819 that Jews might "possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians." A young American Jewish student named William Rosenblatt, writing in 1872, declared that the grandchildren of Jewish immigrants to America would almost surely intennarry and abandon the rite of circumcision. Within fifty years "at the latest," he predicted, Jews would be "undistinguishable from the mass of humanity which surrounds them." Just under a century later, in ] 964. Look magazine devoted a whole issue to the "Vanishing American Jew," at the time a much-discussed subject. More recently, in ]984, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, in a book entitled The Orthodox-He/ann Rift and the Future 0/ tlte Jewish People, warned that "we are heading towards a disaster of massive proportions which the North American Jewish community simply cannot afford.'" So far, thank God, all of these predictions have proven wrong. The Jewish people lives on. Some might consider this a timely reminder that (as someone once said) "prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." Others may view our continuing survival as nothing less than providential: evidence that God, in a display of divine mercy, is watching over us. A third view, my own, is that precisely because Jews are so worried about surVival, we listen attentively to prophets of doom and respond to them. Gloom-and-doom prophets function hisLorically as a kind of Jewish early-warning system: their Jeremiads hit home and produce necessary changes. Hlr this reason, conLemporary prophets, much like the biblical Jonah, are oneil fated to spend their lives as "selfnegating prophets." Their widely publicized prophecies, instead of being fulfilled, usually result ill the kinds of changes needed to "avert the evil decrees." With this in mind, I should like to focus here on a basic change in the

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Jews and Race in America

Two Literary Talmudic Readings

Jews and Race in America

Vouchers for School Choice - Challenge or Opportunity? An American Jewish Reappraisal

Expanded outgrowth of a conference on the subject convened in May 1997 in Washington, D.C.https:/... more

Jewish Peoplehood: 2010

Crime, Punishment, and Deterrence: An American-Jewish Exploration

Journal of Law and Religion, 2002

Crime, Punishment, and Deterrence: An American-Jewish Exploration, is a slim volume of the procee... more Crime, Punishment, and Deterrence: An American-Jewish Exploration, is a slim volume of the proceedings of a 1990 conference at the Wilstein Institute in Los Angeles. It consists of nine papers delivered at the conference by a diverse group of Jews who draw on a variety of sources, both Jewish and Western, and who have differing "political and ideological perspectives." (ix) Also included are the discussions following the presentations of the papers. The aim of the conference, as stated in the foreword, was "an exploration of the subject of crime and punishment by legal scholars, philosophers of law, judges, law-enforcement people, rabbis, and others whose views are informed in one way or another by the Jewish tradition and the Jewish experience." (ix) David Sidorsky's opening paper, "Criminal Justice: Some Perspectives from Political Philosophy," is scholarly yet accessible. It describes various theories of justice primarily through examining the opposing viewpoints of liberal and conservatives in the context of liberty and order, equality and hierarchy, legal responsibility and social causation. Of necessity, these opposing positions are presented in a somewhat truncated fashion. Sidorsky, a professor of philosophy at Columbia University, then explains Jewish polarization on issues of criminal justice mainly as a division between the Orthodox community, which favors civic order, and the non-Orthodox, whose emphasis is on liberty and pluralism. This is perhaps a bit facile. Although Sidorsky's generalization may be true, at the same time many Orthodox Jews are liberal while many of their Conservative, Reform and unaffiliated counterparts are at the other end of the political spectrum. Sidorsky also fails to distinguish the various shades of Orthodoxy, and much of what he describes as the belief of Orthodox Jews represents only a narrow segment of that community. Sidorsky concludes that, notwithstanding this polarization, there are enough shared values to permit policy agreement in this area. (17-18)

Is This the Way?: On Reading Michael Graetz's Essay

Conservative Judaism, 2011

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A Jewish Perspective on

A Jewish physician and a rabbi discuss prevailing Jewish and Catholic beliefs which affect decisi... more A Jewish physician and a rabbi discuss prevailing Jewish and Catholic beliefs which affect decisions about prenatal diagnosis as well as abortion. Rome Decries Abortion VATICAN CITY--The Roman Catholic Church condemned the abortion of unborn babies showing malformation and deficiencies as pseudo-humanistic and a breach of medical ethics. "'Science and medicine have allowed "us today to discover in the fetus some defects which could give rise to future malformations and deficiencies. The impossibility at present of providing a remedy for them by medical means has led some to propose and even practice the suppression of the fetus. This conduct springs from an attitude of pseudo-humanism which compromises the ethical order and objective values and must be rejected by upright consciences," the Vatican said in a document for the International Year of Disabled Persons. This document reflecting Pope John Paul's views about the sanctity of human life, said the quality of a society and civilization would be measured by the respect shown to the weakest of its members. Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah, 13 March 1981 ECENT advances in prenatal diagnosis have generated a moral crisis for many people. mportant technological applications have created options which only a few decades ago would have been regarded as science fiction. While physicians now have the ability to diagnose and exercise in utero control over some diseases, unfortunately they are unable to treat all severe birth defects which can be diagnosed prenatally at this time. Scientists, humanists, and lay persons are becoming increasingly aware of the religious, ethical, and moral issues which have arisen from medicine's enhanced ability to control life processes or, in some cd~ses, terminate pregnancies. A significant body of literature reflecting Jewish scholarship in the field of bioethics has been published.

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Jewish Identity in America

Efforts to foretell the future of the American Jewish community date far back to the nineteenth c... more Efforts to foretell the future of the American Jewish community date far back to the nineteenth century, and for the most part the prophecies have been exceedingly gloomy. Fonner President John Adams predicted in a letter to Mordecai Noah in 1819 that Jews might "possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians." A young American Jewish student named William Rosenblatt, writing in 1872, declared that the grandchildren of Jewish immigrants to America would almost surely intennarry and abandon the rite of circumcision. Within fifty years "at the latest," he predicted, Jews would be "undistinguishable from the mass of humanity which surrounds them." Just under a century later, in ] 964. Look magazine devoted a whole issue to the "Vanishing American Jew," at the time a much-discussed subject. More recently, in ]984, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, in a book entitled The Orthodox-He/ann Rift and the Future 0/ tlte Jewish People, warned that "we are he...

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Halakhic Man

Journal of Law and Religion, 1989

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