44 | MAY 26 • 2022 

R

abbi Herbert 
Yoskowitz stepped 
away from being the 
full-time spiritual leader of 
Adat Shalom Synagogue in 
2018, but he has not stepped 
away from professional 
leadership in the ethical 
imperative of the rabbinate.
The rabbi’s central 
commitment has moved 
from synagogue to academia 
as he regularly conducts 
two seven-session seminars 
at the Oakland University 
William Beaumont School 
of Medicine. Both are part 
of the for-credit elective 
curriculum. 
Jewish Bioethics, which 
began in 2012 with the 

opening of the medical 
school, regularly changes 
as it covers current health 
issues, such as treatment 
allotments during COVID. 
Nazi Medicine and Its 
Impact on the Founding 
of Bioethics, which began 
in 2017, has an historic 
orientation as it delves into 
the influence of German 
anatomists on politics, 
medical experiments without 
informed consent and 
attitudes toward eugenics.
“My goal as a rabbi and 
educator is to try to teach the 
students that they should not 
be passive,” said Yoskowitz, 
who has been surprised 
that most of the students 

enrolling in his seminars 
have not been Jewish.
“Medical students 
should learn to be active in 
defending the ethics that we 
try to teach them to make a 
difference in the places they 
occupy as medical students 
and throughout the time 
they serve as physicians.
“Since becoming a rabbi 
in the 1970s, I have believed 
that the most important 
aspect of Judaism is the 
respect for human life 
regardless of race or religion, 
and so issues of bioethics 
remain central to what I 
want to communicate.”
Yoskowitz, whose next 
Jewish Bioethics series 
starts in late summer and 
whose next Nazi Medicine 
series returns in the fall, 
also speaks on specific 
bioethical topics before 
medical students at other 
schools. He points out that 
after World War II, the issues 
were addressed through 
The Nuremberg Code as a 
consequence of courtroom 
trials revealing the extent of 
Nazi medical cruelty.
Some 120 students 
have attended Yoskowitz’s 
seminars, reading the 
assigned articles and 
preparing required papers 
based on their own research 
interests.

SOMETHING NEW 
This year, two major changes 
are occurring in what will 
be offered through the 
second seminar. The most 
far-reaching is the planning 
of a trip to Poland so 
students can experience the 

Auschwitz-Birkenau State 
Museum and observe the 
structures where devastating 
experiments occurred. 
The second is a salute to 
personnel staffing the Israeli 
field hospital established in 
Ukraine.
“The Jewish doctors who 
have set up a field hospital 
are consistent with what 
Jewish physicians have done 
through the centuries,” 
Yoskowitz said. “We Jews, 
within our ethical system, 
believe that all people are 
created in the image of God. 
Therefore, when we are 
helping to heal people, we 
are partners with God and 
what God intended us to do.”
A continuing seminar 
speaker is Guy Stern, retired 
Wayne State University 
professor and Holocaust 
survivor who served with 
a United States World War 
II military intelligence 
interrogation team. Students 
also visit the Zekelman 
Holocaust Center in 
Farmington Hills.
“History has proven that 
we must learn from the 
lessons of the past in order 
to increase the chances of 
avoiding the repetition of 
the same errors,” Yoskowitz 
said about his immersion 
into this topic after graduate 
education in history at Rice 
University in Texas and 
participation in a bioethics 
fellowship sponsored by the 
Bush Foundation Leadership 
Program with study at St. 
Bartholomew’s Hospital in 
London and Georgetown 
University in Washington, 
D.C. 

HEALTH

Rabbi Herbert Yoskowitz enjoys a 
second career teaching medical 
students about bioethics.

Reinventing 
Himself

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Rabbi Herbert 
Yoskowitz

