What is the role of religion if humans have the technology to replace body parts with artificial ones, test for and terminate problematic pregnancies and choose when to die? We tackle these contentious topics and more in our six-week series about medical ethics viewed through a Jewish cultural and traditional lens. This is the second series under our new partnership with the Lyons Learning Project.
Events begin at 8pm. You can register for the whole series or book separately for individual talks. Streaming links will be sent out shortly before each event. See below for full details.
JR has an ethical ticketing policy and is offering free tickets to these events, but if you can afford it, please donate to support our work. We are proposing denominations of 18 – the numerical value of the Hebrew word 'chai', meaning 'life'.
Past events
Monday 17 January
Just Because We Can, Should We?
How do religious Jews handle new scientific breakthroughs that aren’t obviously covered by Jewish ethics and law? We find out in the first instalment of our six-week series. Professor Paul Root Wolpe, who directs the Center for Ethics at Emory University and is the chief bioethicist at NASA, where he advises on the medical experiments that happen during space travel, will be in conversation with Rabbi Joseph Dweck, senior rabbi of the S&P Sephardi Community. The pair look at the broad sweep of ethical dilemmas presented by advances in medicine due to new technology and research.
Monday 24 January
Designer Babies
Eugenics has long been a dirty word, most searingly associated in the public conscious with Nazi ideologies of World War II, but the ethical complexities haven’t stood in the way of science. Studies in gene editing have continued as a way of understanding and screening for certain diseases. Since the beginning of in-utero testing for serious genetic diseases that are prevalent in the Jewish community (Jnetics currently offer screening for 47 different disorders), an increasing number of parents have opted to terminate those pregnancies, but how does this development correspond with traditional Jewish lore? Dr Juliette Harris, specialist genetic counsellor at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, and Dr Daniel Eisenberg, a noted lecturer in the area of Jewish medical ethics, radiologist and assistant professor of diagnostic imaging at Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine. Hosted in association with Jnetics.
Monday 31 January
Reproducing Jews
IVF, surrogacy, three-parent embryos using mitochondrial DNA, uterine transplants… None of these treatments had been conceived of when the Talmudic rabbis were debating and creating halacha (Jewish law) about the womb. So how does Jewish culture and tradition deal with the ethical ramifications raised by such advances in reproductive technology? Professor Susan Martha Kahn, director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, who is a social anthropologist and author of Reproducing Jews – the key academic text exploring the impact of new reproductive technology on Israeli society – is joined by Guila Vaz Mouyal, Jnetics’ outreach, research and development manager, whose own academic research explores Jewish law on assisted reproductive technology in relation to the lives of Orthodox women.
Monday 7 February
Recycled Parts
Can a religious Jew accept a pig’s organs to save their life? And where does it leave God if we can replace body parts with artificial ones designed by humans? In this session, we’re joined by Professor Anthony Warrens, a consultant transplant physician who is both dean for education at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry as well as a former chair of the London School of Jewish Studies, and Dr Graham Lipkin, a consultant physician and nephrologist who is former president of the UK Kidney Association. They will discuss new possibilities in organ transplantation – human, animal and artificial – and consider the ethical implications in relation to halacha (Jewish law).
Monday 14 February
Reading Minds
In recent years there’s been a heightened awareness of mental health issues, but resources to treat them have become increasingly scarce. This session examines the impact of developments in presentation, diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues on patient rights and communal responsibilities and, based on Rabbi Hillel's key question over 2,000 years ago, asks: Who will be for me? On our panel is psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, writer and social critic Dr Susie Orbach (pictured); patient advocate David Gilbert, who has used the mental health service and worked in healthcare for 35 years; consultant psychiatrist and JAMI adviser Dr Louise Morganstein; and Rabbi Howard Cooper, author of Soul Searching: Studies in Judaism and Psychotherapy.
Monday 21 February
Assisted Dying
Should the choice to die be our own? The proposed Assisted Dying Bill currently being debated in the House of Lords has thrown up a flurry of ethical questions, but how should Jews be responding to it? The former Chief Executive of Liberal Judaism, Rabbi Danny Rich, gave both oral and written evidence to the Falconer Commission on assisted dying. As a communal rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue and the author of Divine Command Ethics, Rabbi Dr Michael Harris finds it both a pragmatic and philosophical issue, while for Dr Harrie Cedar end of life discussions are part of her daily work as healthcare chaplain at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, and she has been involved with the establishment of post-graduate healthcare chaplaincy training to meet NHS standards of care. They come together in this session to explore the reality of euthanasia in relation to Jewish beliefs surrounding the preservation of life, end of life, burial and mourning.
