There’s an old joke where a Jewish grandmother is watching her two grandchildren. Someone asks her how old the children are. She replies with nachas that the doctor is 4 and the lawyer is 2. The joke underscores how important and pervasive the medical profession is within modern Jewish culture.
In “Jews in Medicine: Contributions to Health and Healing Through the Ages,” Ronald Eisenberg, MD, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and radiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has written a fascinating work that details the substantial contributions of Jews in the medical field from Talmudic times to the current era.
The recent Belgian government ban of shechita (Jewish ritual
slaughter) overlooks some important considerations.
The recent Belgian government ban of shechita (Jewish ritual
slaughter) overlooks some important considerations.
First, it ignores the many problems related to stunning, their preferred method
of slaughter. These are thoroughly covered in the book Slaughterhouse: The
Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the US Meat
Industry, by Gail Eisnitz. Through many interviews with slaughterhouse workers
and USDA inspectors, she carefully documents in gut-wrenching, chilling detail
the widespread, unspeakable torture and death at US slaughterhouses where
animals are stunned prior to slaughter.
This week’s Torah reading, Vayigash, reflects the narrative of the reconciliation of Yosef and his brothers, and the reunion with his father, Yaakov. There is much to be said of this saga. One very timely book on this biblical legacy is Was Yosef On The Spectrum? Understanding Yosef Through Torah, Midrash, and Classical Jewish Sources [Urim Publications, 2019] by Prof. Samuel Levine.
In “The Lonely Man of Faith,” Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik writes that he has never been seriously troubled by the problem of the Biblical doctrine of creation vis-à-vis the scientific story of evolution at both the cosmic and the organic levels. While it was not a problem for him, it can nonetheless be quite disconcerting for some people. For many others, the supposed scientific conflicts between the Chumash and modern science has them leaving the world of faith for the world of science.
When I first saw the title of the book, I admit I did a double-take. What could be the connection between the biblical character about whom the Torah gives us so much personal information and a developmental condition that is currently on the rise? As a pediatrician, I certainly have heard a lot about “the spectrum” and at no point, before reading this book, did the idea cross my mind.
However, that is exactly the beauty of this book. It takes a story that we have heard/read/taught multiple times and makes one look at it in a new light. Chapter by chapter the author analyses the interactions of Yosef through the prism of autistic spectrum disorder. Some of the examples are rather convincing. The author’s argument helps understand why Yosef often seems so incredibly self-centered and why much of his family found him annoying. Others are somewhat less so, but nevertheless give one pause to think through the story again.
Some readers might feel uncomfortable assigning one of our great leaders a diagnosis that would render him less than perfect. However, throughout the book the author weaves in information about high functioning autism that shows that people with this diagnosis can achieve great heights. This is yet another important contribution of this book.
In summary, I found the book interesting and thought provoking and I would recommend it to all.
Justice Elyakim Rubinstein Deputy President (Ret.) The Supreme Court of Israel
Professor Levine has masterfully challenged us with a completely new reading of Joseph’s saga. While intuitively one may be surprised by the original idea of Joseph being on the spectrum, so different from what we would usually contemplate, the richness of varied sources and the deep psychological analysis are rather compelling. The book provokes much thought, and Sam Levine should be commended for a fresh contribution to the study of Genesis-Bereishit.
Posted by Jewish Book Maven 
New Review – Was Yosef on the Spectrum
January 14, 2019Alan Jay Gerber ● The Jewish Star
The Legacy of Yosef
This week’s Torah reading, Vayigash, reflects the narrative of the reconciliation of Yosef and his brothers, and the reunion with his father, Yaakov. There is much to be said of this saga. One very timely book on this biblical legacy is Was Yosef On The Spectrum? Understanding Yosef Through Torah, Midrash, and Classical Jewish Sources [Urim Publications, 2019] by Prof. Samuel Levine.
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