Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Med Anthropol. 2013;32(3):208-26. doi: 10.1080/01459740.2012.674992.
This article analyzes a public controversy surrounding the hormonal treatment of infertility associated with observance of rabbinic law to illuminate the reach of rabbi-doctor relations in a local configuration of religion and biomedicine that I call "kosher medicine." I combine a historical perspective on the evolution of religious laws governing menstruation, and the rabbi-doctor relations with a contemporary ethnography of these relations and laws to illuminate the interplay of continuities, discontinuities, tradition, and modernity and their uses and abuses in the contemporary mode of interpenetration between observant Judaism and biomedicine. The controversy highlights asymmetric permeations into biomedical and rabbinic professional domains. Collaborations persist as long as doctors who declare their incompetence in rabbinic law accommodate to demands of rabbis who are expert in it and also claim competence to challenge medical decisions. Once a doctor demonstrates competence in rabbinic law to challenge rabbinic directives a crisis develops.
本文分析了一场围绕犹太教律法下的不孕荷尔蒙治疗所展开的公共争议，以阐明在我称之为“洁净医学”的地方宗教和生物医学配置中，拉比-医生关系的影响。我结合了对统治月经的宗教律法的历史演变以及拉比-医生关系的历史观点，以及对这些关系和律法的当代民族志，以阐明连续性、不连续性、传统和现代性的相互作用，以及它们在犹太教虔诚和生物医学之间的当代渗透模式中的滥用。这场争议凸显了不对称地渗透到生物医学和犹太律法专业领域的现象。只要宣称自己在犹太律法方面无能的医生满足于对其精通的拉比的要求，并声称有能力挑战医疗决策，合作就会持续下去。一旦医生表现出在犹太律法方面的能力来挑战拉比的指令，就会出现危机。
