44 | JULY 22 • 2021
HEALTH
A
well-known obser-
vation: In medieval
times, many rabbis
worked as physicians. Less well-
known: In our own times as
well, several Orthodox rabbis
are also physicians. A few rabbi/
physicians told the Jewish News
what Jewish law advises about
COVID-19 vaccines.
Aaron Glatt earned rab-
binical ordination from
Rabbi Avraham
Tzvi Wosner at
Machon LeTorah
Vehora’ah and his
medical degree
from Columbia
University College
of Physicians
and Surgeons in
New York. He is professor of
infectious diseases and hospital
epidemiologist at Mount Sinai
South Nassau (N.Y.) and assis-
tant rabbi at Young Israel of
Woodmere (N.Y.).
Rabbi Dr. Glatt strongly
advises that people who are
able to get vaccinated as soon as
possible and rejects arguments
for delaying or refusing.
“Unfortunately, there are
many misguided, not scientif-
ically based patently incorrect
high-quality glossy pamphlets
that are being circulated,
” he
said. “I have not seen any
that identify the names of the
‘expert’ physicians purport-
edly writing these statements,
which are in total opposition
to the true experts in infectious
diseases who 100% support
COVID vaccination efforts.
“They misquote or misrep-
resent the true facts and unfor-
tunately continue to propagate
information that is outright
100% false, such as vaccines
cause infertility or cause people
to shed virus that infect other
people. Both are nonsense with
zero evidence to support such
falsehoods.
”
‘GUARD YOURSELF’
Rabbi Dr. Shalom Schlagman
earned rabbinic ordina-
tion at Rabbi
Isaac Elchanan
Theological
Seminary, affili-
ated with Yeshiva
University in New
York, and his
medical degree
at the University
of Rochester (N.Y.) School of
Medicine. He serves as a fel-
low in Hospice and Palliative
Medicine at the University of
Rochester.
Schlagman takes questions
about the COVID-19 vaccine
personally.
“My own uncle, my mother’s
brother, who was a medically
fragile person, was taken from
us last spring when he was
infected in the first COVID-19
surge,
” he said.
“
As a resident in a regional
quaternary-care academic med-
ical center, I cared for patients
whom we could not save from
the disease. I literally watched
people succumb to the infection
despite our most advanced and
aggressive medical care, and
I witnessed others who lan-
guished in our ICU for weeks
or months and whose subse-
quent recovery was complicated
by strokes, blood clots or infec-
tions from their prolonged bed-
bound state.
“I cared for teenagers and
children, who, with minimal
other symptoms of COVID-19
infection, found themselves
in the ICU weeks after initial
recovery, now the victims of
MIS-C, a complication of the
Doctors who are also
rabbis recommend
COVID-19 vaccines —
“It’s a mitzvah.”
Roll Up
Your
Sleeves!
LOUIS FINKELMAN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Rabbi
Dr. Aaron
Glatt
Rabbi
Dr. Shalom
Schlagman