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Kosher medicine and medicalized halacha: An exploration of triadic relations among Israeli rabbis, doctors, and infertility patients
Author(s) -
IVRY TSIPY
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1425.2010.01277.x
Subject(s) - medicalization , judaism , hegemony , biomedicine , power (physics) , fertility , ethnography , sociology , psychological intervention , medical anthropology , gender studies , psychology , social science , law , philosophy , anthropology , theology , psychiatry , political science , politics , demography , population , physics , quantum mechanics , biology , genetics
Drawing on my ethnography of rabbinically mediated fertility treatments for observant Jewish couples in Israel, I illuminate two simultaneous processes: the koshering of medical care and the medicalization of rabbinic law. My findings show how hands‐on rabbinic interventions transform doctor–patient relations into rabbi–doctor–patient relations and introduce a network of power relations into clinical practice, at times empowering and at times disempowering patients. This case prompts a reconsideration of scholars’ tendency to view biomedicine in hegemonic terms.