Jewish responses to AIDS

By Gad Freudenthal

Book Description

When a global health crisis emerges, religious communities must grapple with profound questions about faith, ethics, and human responsibility. This scholarly collection examines how Jewish thinkers confronted the AIDS pandemic during its most challenging decade, offering insights that extend far beyond any single crisis.

Editor Gad Freudenthal presents a comprehensive exploration of how rabbis, physicians, philosophers, and other Jewish voices responded to AIDS between 1986 and 1995. Rather than offering simple answers, this volume reveals the complex process of applying ancient wisdom to contemporary challenges. Readers will discover how Jewish communities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel wrestled with theological questions, ethical dilemmas, and matters of religious law when faced with unprecedented circumstances.

The book serves as both historical documentation and spiritual resource, showing how religious traditions can engage meaningfully with modern medical and social realities. Through careful examination of major texts and responses from this pivotal period, readers gain understanding of how faith communities navigate the intersection of sacred teachings and human suffering.

For those interested in religious ethics, medical decision-making, or the evolution of spiritual thought, this collection demonstrates how authentic religious engagement requires both deep reverence for tradition and courageous willingness to address new moral territories with wisdom and compassion.