B'OR HA'TORAH Volume 12 (2001)

Miryam Z. Wahrman is professor of biology, director of general education, and co-director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at William Paterson University of New Jersey where she has also served as chair of the department of biology and chair of the faculty senate.

Wahrman’s book, Brave New Judaism: When Science and Scripture Collide, (University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press, 2002; paperback edition, 2004), has received many accolades, including a starred review (awarded for book of outstanding quality) from Publishers Weekly. Wahrman is also an award-winning journalist; she has been science correspondent for the New Jersey Jewish Standard and Jewish Community News for the past ten years. 

Professor Wahrman has published in the areas of bioethics, reproductive biology, cancer, genetic engineering and biotechnology and is co-author of a laboratory manual that has been reprinted in five editions. She has lectured widely and has presented papers at numerous professional and scientific conferences such as the American Association for Advancement of Science, International Congress of Cell Biology, American Association for Cancer Research, International Conference on Differentiation, Conference of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists and the Miami International Conferences on Torah and Science.

After graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Hunter College of City University of New York, Wahrman completed a PhD in biochemistry at Cornell University. She worked as associate researcher at Sloan-Kettering Institute; postdoctoral associate at Cornell University; guest investigator at Rockefeller University; and instructor, department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. At Mount Sinai, Wahrman was a member of the in vitro fertilization team that produced the first test-tube baby in New York State. She has published over a hundred thirty articles on topics in science and health for the Jewish press throughout North America and Germany, including dozens of articles on the interface of bioethics with Jewish life and halakhah (law).

wahrmanm@wpunj.edu

Professor Fred Rosner, MD, MACP is the former director of the Department of Medicine of Mount Sinai’s Queens Hospital Center in Jamaica, New York, and professor of medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He was also visiting professor of medicine at his alma mater, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and is board certified in his specialty of hematology. Among his many awards are the American Medical Association’s Isaac Hays, MD, and John Bell, MD, Award for “Leadership in Ethics and Professionalism;” the Bernard Revel Memorial Award from the Yeshiva College Alumni Association for “Distinguished Achievement in the Arts & Sciences;” and the Lawrence D. Redway Award for Excellence in Medical Writing from the Medical Society of New York.

Listed in a number of prestigious Who’s Who publications, Dr. Rosner has been an international authority, visiting professor, and lecturer on medical ethics. He is a member of the professional advisory board of the Kennedy Institute for Ethics of Georgetown University. He is the founding and former chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee of the Medical Society of the State of New York, and former cochairman of the Medical Ethics Committee of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York as well as coeditor of its popular Compendium on Medical Ethics.

Dr. Rosner reviews manuscripts for nineteen professional medical journals and serves on the editorial board of three of them. He has published thirty-eight books, written chapters by invitation in several dozen books, and is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Judaica and the Encyclopedia of Bioethics. His bibliography has nearly one thousand items. He is author of eight widely acclaimed books on Jewish medical ethics, including Modern Medicine and Jewish Ethics (Ktav, 1991); Medicine and Jewish Law I, II and III (Jason Aronson, 1990 and 1993); Pioneers in Jewish Medical Ethics (Jason Aronson, 1997); and Biomedical Ethics and Jewish Law (Ktav, 2001). Other books include: an English translation of Julius Preuss’s classical reference work, Biblical and Talmudic Medicine (reprinted in 1993); and the Encyclopedia of Medicine in the Bible and the Talmud (Jason Aronson, 2000). Dr. Rosner translated Avraham Steinberg’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics, published by Feldheim in 2003. A world authority on Maimonides, Dr. Rosner is the translator and editor of Moses Maimonides’ Medical Writings (seven volumes, published by the Maimonides Research Institute, Haifa); A Medical Encyclopedia of Moses Maimonides (Jason Aronson, 1998); and The Medical Legacy of Moses Maimonides (Ktav, 1998).

fsrosner@gmail.com

Rabbi Professor Moshe D. Tendler, noted authority on medical ethics and the relationship of medicine and science to Jewish law, is rosh yeshivah at the Yeshiva University–affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and professor of biology at Yeshiva College, and holds the Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler Chair in Jewish Medical Ethics at Yeshiva University.

Rabbi Tendler was ordained at RIETS in 1949 and received Yoreh Yoreh in 1953 from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, of righteous memory. He earned a PhD in biology from Columbia University in 1957. He has served on the Medical Ethics Task Force of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, for which he edited the Compendium of Medical Ethics. For nine years he served as its chairman. For decades he chaired the Bioethical Commission of the Rabbinical Council of America. A former president of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists and current member of its board, Rabbi Tendler is author of Pardes Rimonim (a text on Jewish family life); co-author with Professor Fred Rosner, MD, of Practical Medical Halachah, a primer for physicians; and author of Care of the Critically Ill—Responsa of Rav Moshe Feinstein; as well as many articles on science and religion in leading publications. He is frequently consulted by the media and public officials on ethical issues.

Tendler@YU.edu

Herman Branover was born in Riga, Latvia, earned his PhD from the Moscow Institute of Aviation in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), and completed a DSc degree in physics and mathematics at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. While a leading scientist at the Latvian Academy of Science, Professor Branover discovered G-d and the Torah, became a Lubavitcher Hasid, and then struggled for the right for Jews to immigrate to Israel. During this difficult period and up until the present, he has led the cultural and spiritual revival of Russian Jewry.

After settling in Beersheba with his wife and son, in 1977 Professor Branover created the Center for Magnetohydrodynamics Studies at Ben-Gurion University. The Center engages in teaching, research, and the development of a novel MHD electricity generator. He has authored over twenty scientific books and textbooks, thirty technological patents, hundreds of professional articles, and an autobiography, Return (published by Jason Aronson).

As honorary president of SHAMIR, the Israel Association of Religious Professionals from the Former USSR, Professor Branover continues encouraging Russian Jews to observe the Torah and live in Israel. He is the initiator and editor-in-chief of B’Or Ha’Torah, published by SHAMIR. A recipient of the S.D. Bergman Prize for the development of new technology in Israel, he also received the Knesset Speaker’s Award in 1991 for his work with Russian immigrant absorption. He chairs the prime minister’s committee for solving immigrants’ professional employment problems. He is a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences in Moscow and the Latvian Academy of Sciences, a member of the Moscow International Energy Club, and has received honorary doctorates from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Technical University of St. Petersburg, and Yeshiva University. In 2001 he won the Award of Honor of the Menachem Begin Prize for his outstanding contribution to the State of Israel and the Jewish People.

Papers by Professor Branover have been published in B’Or Ha’Torah volumes 7E, 9E, 10E, 11E, and 12E.

Tobiy R. Gurvich was born in Riga, Latvia, and graduated from the Riga Medical Institute and became a clinical researcher in 1977. Since 1980 he has been assistant professor of the Chair of Internal Diseases of the Riga Medical Institute (renamed the Medical Academy of Latvia in 1990). He specializes in internal medicine and cardiology. Dr. Gurvich has published more than ninety scientific papers, mainly in cardiology, clinical diagnostics, adolescent medicine, medical ethics, medicine in Torah, and medicine in fiction. In 1976 he won the gold medal for the best student research paper in the USSR. In 1978, 1980 & 1985 he received awards from the Riga Medical Institute for scientific achievements. In 1992 he graduated from the Free Jewish University in Riga. He is a member of the editorial board of Gesharim, the monthly newspaper of the Riga Jewish religious community. He is also a member of the Latvian Medical Society Bikur Holim and its auditing commission. Dr. Gurvich holds free reception hours as an internist and cardiologist at the Asvata Medical Center of the SHAMIR Foundation of the Riga Synagogue.

Rabbi Kenneth Brander is senior rabbi of the Boca Raton Synagogue; dean of the Boca Raton Judaic Fellows Program; and the founder of the Yeshiva High School of Broward and Palm Beach County. Additionally, he is the adjudicator for the Boca Raton community mikveh, cochairman of the ORB/South Palm Beach County Va’ad Hakashrut. He has received many awards for his community service, including the Yeshiva University Wexner Rabbinic Leadership Award in 1999. Rabbi Brander studied at Yeshivat Shaalvim in Israel and then received his BA in computer science and mathematics from Yeshiva University. He continued his studies as a fellow in the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1986. Then he continued as a postgraduate fellow in the Yadin-Yadin Kollel, a program which prepares rabbis to become Jewish judges. During his years of study he had the distinction of serving as the personal aide to Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Recently, he received an advanced level of ordination from the Puah Institute of the Israeli rabbinate, acknowledging the rabbi’s particular expertise in issues of medical bioethics. Rabbi Brander has authored many articles in various scholarly journals and also co-edited The Yeshiva University Haggadah. He is married to Rachel Tambor Brander. They are blessed with four children.

branderfam@compuserve.com

Daniel Kantor received his BA and BSE from the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as a Jewish Renaissance Fellow. He is currently a medical student in the Ben-Gurion University-Columbia University MD Program in International Health and Medicine and a PhD student in the Unit of Biomedical Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel.

Jeffrey Kantor PhD, a professional accountant in the US, Canada and Israel is currently the director of the international MBA program at Bar-Ilan University. Professor Kantor has written/edited several textbooks and has published in excess of forty articles in refereed journals. In addition he has presented professional papers internationally for over twenty years. His interests have included ethical issues relating to the accounting profession and cross-cultural studies. Currently he is researching interfaces between accounting/business, art and the Bible/religion.

Jonathan Kantor received his BA and MA from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently an MD/MSc student at the School of Medicine and Department of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published and presented several papers in the field of dermatoepidemiology.

kantord@bgumail.ac.il

Professor Emeritus Velvl Greene earned a PhD in bacteriology and biochemistry at the University of Minnesota, where he was professor of public health and microbiology for many years. In 1986 he and his family settled in Israel, where he directed the Sir Immanuel Jakobovits Center for Jewish Medical Ethics and also taught public health at the University of Ben-Gurion of the Negev in Beersheba. Most of Professor Greene’s career was devoted to teaching and researching environmental health and microbiology. One of the original bioscience researchers participating in the US Space Program, he has authored and coauthored dozens of scientific papers, educational films, monographs, and other scholarly contributions in such diverse areas as disinfection and sterilization, aerobiology, contamination control and hospital infection control. Together with his wife and five children, he was active in the Minneapolis, Minnesota Jewish community and Habad Lubavitch. Since his retirement he has extensively lectured in North America on a broad variety of Jewish and scientific topics.

vgreene@netvision.net.il

Dr. Louis Flancbaum, a Torah-observant Jew and a general surgeon, received his BS degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his MD from the State University of New York-Downstate Medical Center. He completed his postgraduate training in surgery at the University of Illinois Medical Center and the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems in 1984. Dr. Flancbaum was an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and visiting professor of nutrition at Rutgers University in New Brunswick until 1989, when he moved to the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus, Ohio, where he was associate professor of surgery, anesthesiology and human nutrition and a member of the faculty of the Melton Center for Jewish Studies. He is currently chief of the Division of Bariatric Surgery at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City and associate professor of clinical surgery at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is a member of over twenty-five professional societies and has published over one hundred scientific articles and book chapters. As a result of his religious background and specialization in critical care medicine, Dr. Flancbaum developed a strong interest in Jewish medical ethics and bioethics and the Holocaust. These were cultivated through his involvement in the Wexner Heritage Foundation. Since then, he has taught courses in these subjects at Ohio State and around the Midwest and written numerous articles on Jewish themes. He recently completed a book dealing with Jewish medical ethics entitled “And You Shall Live by Them”: Contemporary Jewish Approaches to Medical Ethics, which will be published later this year. He is working on another book called Making Judaism Make Sense. Dr. Flancbaum has served as president of the Columbus Torah Academy and a member of the boards of the Columbus Jewish Federation and the Hillel Foundation at Ohio State University. He is married, has three children, and enjoys biking, reading, and writing about Judaism in his spare time.

LouFlanc@aol.com

Jonathan Braunstein was born and raised in Miami, Florida. After completing undergraduate studies at Ohio State University he attended the University of Miami School of Medicine. He underwent three and a half years of postgraduate training in internal medicine at the same school of medicine. Dr. Braunstein went on to become a faculty member at the University of Miami School of Medicine, a position he has held for over thirty years. For twenty-two years he also served as an associate dean of the medical school, where he directed a course on behavioral science. He coauthored and coedited Medical Applications of the Behavioral Sciences.

jonathan.braunstein@med.va.gov

Arthur Seltzer is both an ordained rabbi (from the chief rabbi of South Africa) and a certified alternative healer. He earned an OMD (doctorate in Oriental medicine) from the International Acupuncture Institute in Hong Kong, and an ND (doctor of naturopathy) and PhD in holistic nutrition from the Clayton College of Natural Healing in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a certified Ayurvedic practitioner, and a Reiki master. He also holds a D Phil degree from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa for his dissertation on “Esoteric Themes in the Book of Jonah.”

Dr. Seltzer teaches Jewish meditation and kabbalistic healing in Cape Town, and combines all the above disciplines in his holistic healing practice, basing treatment upon specific patient needs and

diagnostic requirements. He is married to Dr. Barbara Lewis, herself a registered homeopath and herbalist. They share a joint healing practice.

lewseltz@iafrica.com

Since receiving ordination from the Central Lubavitch Yeshiva in Brooklyn in 1968, Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar has been an emissary in Miami for the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In 1969 he founded the Landow Yeshiva Center in Miami Beach, Florida. He has served as its principal and dean of its elementary school, yeshivah academy, and high school, and was responsible for training its rabbinical students. In 1981, he founded The Shul of Bal Harbour. As its head rabbi, he is both the spiritual leader and educational programmer for all ages. Also in 1981, Rabbi Lipskar founded the Aleph Institute and the Educational Academy for the Elderly. The Aleph Institute is a non-profit national humanitarian organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for Jews in limited environments, including prisoners and military personnel and their families. Rabbi Lipskar has created alternative punishment philosophies and developed unique educational opportunities for the general public in the field of treatment of closed populations. He directs the pioneering Educational Academy for the Elderly.

Rabbi Lipskar is the founder and chief organizer of the Miami International Conferences on Torah and Science.

rabbilipskar@theshul.org

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Yitzchok Block holds a PhD in Philosophy from Harvard University. Professor Block is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, where he taught in the Department of Philosophy for 36 years. Block’s professional areas of interest are Aristotle and Wittgenstein. Professor Block has published numerous papers and edited a book, Perspectives on the Philosophy of Wittgenstein. oHis article “G-d and Rationality” appeared in B’Or Ha’Torah 2; and “God and Rationality Revisited,” in B’Or Ha’Torah 6E. A revision of “God and Rationality” appears in Science in the Light of the Torah published by Jason Aronson.

James E. Huchingson is professor of religious studies in the Department of Religious Studies of Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He began his career in aerospace engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and eventually worked for the Boeing Company at Cape Canaveral, Florida and at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. Before entering the doctoral program in religious studies at Emory University in Atlanta, he pursued graduate studies on an NDEA Fellowship in the History of Science and Technology at the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland. After completing his PhD at Emory, he came to his present position at Florida International University with the responsibility of designing the initial program in religious studies. He eventually served two terms as chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies.

Professor Huchingson has worked in the field of science and religion for thirty years. For fifteen years, he served on the editorial board of Zygon, The Journal of Religion and Science. He is the author of three books in the field including a widely used text in the field entitled Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement (Harcourt Brace, 1993). He has received numerous state and national awards for his teaching and course design.

huchings@fiu.edu

Pamela Elfenbein completed an MSW at Barry College in Miami and a PhD in medical sociology at the University of Miami in Coral Gables. Since 1978 she has been involved in social work for the elderly in the Miami area, including the prayer project described in this paper. In 1999 she was appointed director of the Center on Aging at Florida International University.

Elfenbep@fiu.edu

Shira Leibowitz Schmidt was raised in an assimilated Jewish home in New York, and became observant while studying at Stanford University in California. In June 1967 she told her engineering school professor she would miss the final exam because she was going to Israel to volunteer during the Six Day War. “That's the most original excuse I have ever been offered,” he responded. She arrived during the war and stayed, receiving her BSc in absentia. She subsequently met and married the late Elhanan Leibowitz, and they raised their six children in Beersheba. Shira acquired a Masters in Urban & Regional Planning from the Technion, and an MSc in Civil Engineering from University of Waterloo. She remarried Dr. Baruch Schmidt, and they live in Netanya where she currently works as a translator and writer, and does volunteer work for the Shas Ha’maayan Torah day schools.

shiras@netvision.net.il