Judaic Studies 251 - Jews,Medicine&HealingPremodern

What do health and medicine mean in an age of pandemic? This course will explore the long and deep history of Jewish engagement with medicine and healing, examining how ideas about health, medical knowledge, and health care providers have shifted over time. Over the course of the semester, we will look at the ways that Jews across the Middle East, Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Atlantic conceived of health, illness, and the body, asking how Jewishness and Judaism contributed to these developments. We will consider how the various geographical locations in which Jews settled influenced the development of their medical culture, and how `medicine? and `health? as concepts took on distinct meanings in different social and cultural contexts. Through critical analysis of both primary and secondary literature on the subject, we will come to better understand the substance, breadth, and complexity of the relationship between Jews, medicine, and health. (Gen. Ed. HS, DG)