![Pentateuch: Beginning of the book of Exodus ([Ferrara], 1472). © Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Canon. Or. 62, fol. 47r.](https://www.eurojewishstudies.org/wp-content/themes/lifestyle-pro/images/header3-large.jpg)
SOAS, University of London Centre for Jewish Studies
2020-21
Evening Lecture Series
Chair: Prof. Catherine Hezser (HRP)
Jews and Health: Tradition, History, and Practice
In the time of Coronavirus, the preservation of health, the prevention of infection, and the healing of the sick have become our foremost concerns. The topics of health and illness play a prominent role in the Jewish tradition from the Hebrew Bible onwards. In the Book of Job, the protagonist is given advice by his friends on how to deal with the disease that afflicts him. In the Babylonian Talmud, rabbis provide medical advice in the context of Hellenistic and Persian medicine. Jewish physicians were present at the Ottoman sultan’s court. Jews also experienced epidemics such as the plague in earlier periods already and understood the need for social distancing and adjustments in religious law. This lecture series looks at health, illness, and medicine amongst Jews from antiquity until today.
The lectures will take place on Zoom on Wednesdays from 18:00-19:00h. Attendance is free of charge. Advance registration on Eventbrite (at the links provided below) is required separately for each lecture. Places are limited to 50 for each lecture. Those who have registered will receive a Zoom link a few days before the event takes place. For questions please contact the organiser at ch12@soas.ac.uk.
Wednesday 18 November 2020, 18:00-19:00h GMT:
Prof. Katherine E. Southwood, St John’s College, University of Oxford:
“Illness in the Book of Job and the Health Advice of Job’s Friends”:
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Wednesday 13 January 2021, 18:00-19:00h GMT:
Prof. Mark Geller, University College London and Paris Institute of Advanced Studies:
“Forget about Galen? Talmudic Medicine in Context”
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Wednesday 10 February 2021, 18:00-19:00h GMT:
Prof. Miriam Shefer Mossensohn, Tel Aviv University:
“Medical Reform and Jewish Reform: Two Ottoman-Jewish Physicians Around 1700”
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Wednesday 24 February 2021, 18:00-19:00h GMT:
Prof. Susan L. Einbinder, University of Connecticut:
“Writing Plague: Jewish Accounts of the Great Italian Plague (1630-31)”
Register for this lecture on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lecture-by-prof-susan-einbinder-writing-plague-tickets-128505372027
Wednesday 3 March 2021, 18:00-19:00h GMT:
Dr. Daniel Staetsky, Woolf Institute, Cambridge:
“Jews and Coronavirus: The Global View of Phase 1 of the Pandemic”
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Wednesday 17 March 2021, 18:00-19:00h GMT:
Prof. Joshua Teplitsky, Stony Brook University:
“Dilemmas of Disease: Jews and the Plague in Prague in the Eighteenth Century”
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