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Medical Ethics Symposium Features CLAL Scholar

By Andrew Silow-Carroll, Communications Director

Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, CLAL's Director of Organizational Development, recently served as scholar-in-residence at the 4th Annual Jewish Medical Ethics Symposium at the University of Illinois-Chicago Hillel.

The conference, sponsored by the Maimonides Institute of Jewish Ethics and the Jewish Medical Student Association, took place September 1. Rabbi Blanchard discussed the evolution in Jewish medical ethics from rabbinic to modern times. The hallmark of modern medical decision-making, explained Rabbi Blanchard, is an increased emphasis on the web of human relationships that inform abstract principles on euthanasia, abortion, organ transplant and other issues.

Rabbi Blanchard's appearance at the Chicago conference is another example of CLAL's work as a leader in the field of Jewish healing and spirituality. CLAL has produced a unique series of conferences, seminars, publications and curricula intended to help doctors, health care professionals, caretakers and patients discover Jewish resources on illness and healing. In 1998 CLAL completed a three-year grant by The Nathan Cummings Foundation to create CLAL programming and resources on healing, including a five-session curriculum that provides a sensitive understanding of the Jewish components that address healing for those who are ill and those who provide them with care.

In addition to his Rabbinic Ordination from St. Louis Rabbinical College, Rabbi Blanchard received a Ph.D. Psychology from St. Louis University and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of "Joining Heaven and Earth: Maimonides on the Laws of Visiting the Sick," a monograph published The Jewish Healing Center.

For more information on CLAL's "Jewish Healing and Spirituality" initiative, contact Andrew Silow-Carroll, 212-779-3300, ext. 121, acarroll@clal.org.