[00:00:01] Welcome to What's New, What's Next? Jewish studies in the time of pandemic. My name is Shaul Stampfer, and today I will be speaking about Jewish responses to epidemics in the modern period. This is not a simple topic. If someone raises this topic, there is probably an unstated assumption that there must have been a distinctive Jewish response or Jewish responses. However, to talk about Jewish responses to epidemics or about Jewish responses to anything, we have to ask where the Jewish response is different from the responses of their neighbors. If so, how and why? There are, of course, standard answers, such as? It depends on which Jews we are talking about or to which elements of the surrounding non-Jewish community are we comparing the Jews. This is beginning to get complicated. Is it really worth talking about Jewish responses to epidemics in the modern period? In my opinion, the main reason to do so is that the topic is interesting and important because epidemics affect entire societies simultaneously. Examining responses can be a useful way to consider some of the differences and also the underlying similarities between different elements of these societies.



[00:01:54] This is not a light task in my talk. I will only be able to discuss a few points with regard to Jewish responses and no more. However, at this stage, Jewish tradition can be useful. A classical Jewish ethical work, chapters of the Fathers that was written about two thousand years ago, quotes the opinion of a rabbi Tarfon on the tasks expected of a human being. He said, You are not required to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to abandon it. In that spirit, we will get to work on those Jewish responses and we will leave the comparisons for others or for another occasion. But it is important at least to recognize the importance of comparisons. To be honest, Jewish tradition offers less guidance and precedent with regard to epidemics than one might have thought. In addition, the preconditions for epidemics are often neglected. To understand Jewish responses to epidemics in the modern period, we will have to start in the distant past. Very distant. Epidemics are generally seen as very human phenomena, even though they can exist among animals under what conditions?



[00:03:34] Charles Altan, who wrote a classic study already in nineteen thirty one, noted epidemic diseases among animals are usually associated with overcrowding in the population. He went on to point out that disease is a perfectly natural phenomenon and it forms one of the most common periodic checks on the numbers of wild animals. Humans are no different. Overcrowding creates conditions that encourage epidemics. While after epidemics, human populations usually recover rather quickly. After epidemics, food supplies for their survivors are usually good, which leads to higher fertility and lower mortality. Indeed, given the intense urbanization of our days, it is a bigger challenge to explain why the number of epidemics is limited, then to explain why or why there are epidemics at all. Early humans were hunters and gatherers, not farmers. They were nomadic and often had to relocate to be near sources of food. There was no advantage for human early humans to live in very large groups and they didn't. It seems that only with the transition to farming and even more so, two patterns of urban residence were conditions created that facilitated epidemics among humans. We may not be aware of this, but today, in order to successfully deal with an epidemic, we try to recreate primitive conditions. The concerns are for clean air and most significantly, for social distancing. Very much like the living conditions of primitive man. The conditions of intensive urbanization did not exist for Jews in biblical times, and their way of life was not really conducive to epidemics. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that epidemics were not a central theme in the Bible.



[00:05:57] The Bible emphasized human events, notably wars and sometimes peace, as having greatest impact on the fate of Jews. The exceptions, notably the exodus from Egypt, involved various deeds of God, but not necessarily plagues. The 10th of the plague in Egypt, The death of the firstborn really can be seen as a true plague. However, since that took place all in one night, according to the biblical narrative, and since it affected only a very clear subpopulation and did not prove to be a threat to others, it was not a classic epidemic. The exceptions to this generalization are interesting. According to biblical descriptions, when the Jews were in the desert after leaving Egypt, they lived in tents surrounding a central sanctuary. At times they were punished for sins by rapidly spreading disease that was stopped upon repentance. This description presents the Jews as living together in a dense concentration, and illness under such circumstances would not have been surprising. David was punished for various deeds by plagues, although this had nothing to do with population density. However, perhaps most significantly, the Assyrian army besieging Jerusalem around 700 BCE was reported to have withdrawn in the wake of a plague or epidemic. Armies that are composed of many people living in close quarters all right, of course, offer ideal conditions for the spread of infectious diseases. The Bible assumes the good health is the natural condition and that illness needs to be explained. For the Bible that explanation is often seen as punishment for doing evil.



[00:08:14] The Bible, however, gives little attention to epidemics. The greatest concerns were from. Wars, drought and famine, that's the biblical record, could not serve as a very useful model or guide for Jews facing epidemics in the modern period, the rabbinic works written after the Bible dealt a bit more in detail with epidemics. The Mishnah, composed in the land of Israel about eighteen hundred years ago, dealt with epidemics together with drought. In the section devoted to fasts is stated that for earthquakes, locusts, drought, epidemics and other natural disasters that a ram's horn is blown, which has a side sound like a trumpet, and often the entire community fasts. The fasting is to placate God and the shofar blowing service, perhaps to warn neighboring communities of approaching danger. This procedure could not have been easily applied by Jews living outside the land of Israel as minorities among a larger population. It was not their responsibility to call the entire communal population to act. The blowing of Ram's horns was certainly dramatic, similar to ringing church bells. But it should be remembered that minorities usually take less dramatic steps. The Talmud written later than the Mishna, largely in Babilonia and offers advice that is more easily applied. It states that if there is an epidemic in the city, gather your feet. In other words, stay indoors. And as is the habit in the Talmud, it brings support from the Bible. On the eve of the exodus from Egypt, which was also the night that the first born of the Egyptians died, the Jews received this instruction.



[00:10:29] None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. The Talmud continues to note that during an epidemic, a famous rabbi named Rava would shutter his windows because the prophet Jeremiah used the phrase for death has come up to our windows. This, Rava felt, suggests the death comes in the windows. Staying inside and closing the windows is probably useful advice, although you closing windows can be exaggerated. That advice to stay put, but to avoid social contact has indeed been implemented up until our time. However, a flight to a less populated area was also a way to limit social contact, and it became a popular response among the general population. The advice to stay put became the reverse of the familiar European approach to flee infected cities. Flight to the countryside is common today, but it was also common centuries ago, if not for flight, that the Cameroun would never have been written. It would be reasonable to ask what happened when popular approaches to non-Jews conflicted with the advice of the Talmud. It should not surprise us that early modern rabbis found ways to explain away the advice of Rabbi Rava. Indeed, the well known early modern Rabbi Moshe of Trani, a Greek rabbi who achieved fame as a rabbi in Safed in the northern part of the land of Israel, stated that Jews could and should flee an epidemic just like they're non-Jewish contemporaries.



[00:12:30] However, he was troubled by a theological problem. It is a common Jewish belief that on the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, otherwise known as the Jewish New Year and the door to torment the fate of every Jew for the coming year is determined, and the names of those who are destined to live until the end of the year are inscribed in the Book of Life. If so, he wondered, how can fleeing an epidemic help and why is it recommended? A person who is destined to die will do so one way or another, and a person who is destined to live will live. His answer was that the strain of exile and the physical and emotional distress of flight service a sufficient punishment for an individual instead of actual death that's the fate of a person who might be fated to die, could possibly escape the punishment of actual death by undertaking the difficulties of flight. He knew what he was talking about. His parents had fled the city of Trami in southern Italy and moved to Greece because of persecution and about Moshe himself had left the comforts of Greece to settle in the town of Safed. The most dramatic impact of Slaid of Plagues on Jews was a bit before the time of motion of Trani when the Black Plague reached Europe in the early 14th century. It was a classic byproduct of the growth of human civilization. The plague apparently originated in Central Asia and came to Europe by merchant ships in the Mediterranean Sea.



[00:14:24] The black plague spread rapidly inland from the sea ports. It was transmitted by fleas which were everywhere and led to a death of perhaps a third of the population of Europe, growing urbanization and increased contacts with faraway places where the basis for the spread of this disease. It was exceptionally violent in the 14th century, since the disease had not been seen in Europe for hundreds of years and there was no immunity. The high numbers of people infected, the high death rate and the speed of the spread of the black plague led to widespread terror and desperate searches for explanations and for solutions. Many of the general non-Jewish population saw it as a response of God for one reason or another. Others thought to be a consequence of the configuration of the stars. Yet others offered more detailed explanations. Evil groups such as Catalans for beggars, the poor or the poor, were poisoning wells. The Jews were added to the list with severe consequences. Pope Clement, who reaffirmed the longstanding papal collective protection of Jews, pointed out the Jews were dying in numbers as great as the Christians and they would not have been so stupid as to poison themselves. Moreover, Christians were victims of the plague in places such as England, where there were no Jews. These were good points, but they did no good. There was a wave of massacres of Jews in the German speaking lands, these persecutions were promoted by local elites, both noble and urban elites. It appears that the overwhelming motivation was religious hatred and not an opportunity, not a desire for opportunistic economic gain, even though the opportunities to appropriate Jewish property were not neglected.



[00:16:41] It was a mass hysteria of elites and not a class confrontation of lower classes seeking economic, political or social gain. By the time I was over, the vast majority of Jewish communities in the German speaking lands, hundreds of them had been destroyed and thousands of Jews had died. The that the exact number of deaths could not be determined because there were so few survivors. The destruction was so massive that no records were left. However, what should be noted is that the terrible persecutions that the Black Death years did not leave an imprint on how Jews responded to epidemics in later years, and it did not affect their relations with their non-Jewish neighbors. More significantly, the epidemics the spread in Europe in future generations did not lead to anti-Jewish persecutions. In the modern period, the threats of famine, drought and other natural disasters were mitigated by improvements in food supply and transportation. While growing urbanization exacerbated the risks from epidemics, disease became a more central concern. However, while these epidemics in the modern period often led to violence, it was not generally directed to Jews. As Samuel Cohen pointed out, even in the 19th and 20th century, however, epidemics tended. Epidemics tended to spur hatred and blame. But these were limited to certain diseases, the most prevalent prevalent of which were cholera, smallpox and the black plague.



[00:18:38] And all of these three continue to spark violence after the mysteries of their transmission had been dispelled and often with basic preventive measures in place. Consistently, the targets of violence were not the impoverished, the marginal or the victims of the disease, but rather agents of the state, from police to mayors, regional governors, and even counts while the perpetrators were the impoverished minorities as newly arrived Irish Catholic laborers or the unemployed, diseases with high rates of mortality, cholera and plague were the ones most likely to spur suspicions and violence against government authorities and the medical profession. With these, the marginal, the poor were the perpetrators while governor, while governing elites and medical professionals were the targets of violence, Jews were left out. Jews generally accepted the demands of governments to quarantine and to limit social contact in order to limit the spread of disease. The story of color and Vilner is an interesting case. It was reported that in eighteen forty eight, Rabbi Israel Salanter. At that time, one of the most influential rabbis of Lithuania went on the pulpit of the main synagogue of Vilnus on the holy fasting of Yom Kippur and during a cholera epidemic to inform the congregation that they should eat, stay home and protect their health. In a fascinating article, Alexander Evolva, St.Petersburg showed that this probably did not happen. It seems to be a story invented by a modernizer eager to demonstrate the importance of science. How what? However, what is interesting is that the report was believed by many, even by staunch traditionalists, and it entered the Jewish historical memory.



[00:20:57] It would not it was not a true story, but it could have been true. And that was a sufficient. The first vaccine to be used widely was against smallpox. Poland was an early adopter of the use of vaccine. Already in 1811 in Warsaw, the vaccination against smallpox became mandatory. One of the topics that do not have a significant place in the study of Jewish responses to epidemics is opposition to vaccination. Indeed, the material that is injected into the body of a vaccination is not kosher. There was actually opposition to vaccination when it was first developed, but not because of kosher laws. The laws of kosher prohibit only eating, non-kosher and food that is ingested through the mouth. Whatever goes into the body through an injection does not have to be kosher. However, the earliest vaccinations actually involved in injecting into the body a limited amount of fluid from a sick person. Usually this led to the desired result to immunization, but sometimes the person actually got sick. This raised the question in Jewish law, is the person allowed to deliberately put himself or herself to risk? As the process of vaccination improved in the course of the 19th century, especially after the innovation of gender that involved injecting cowpox and not smallpox, almost all the leading rabbis of the time realized that since it was not a very big risk, since that since the vaccination was also shown to work, it was permissible.



[00:23:03] They even permitted vaccination on Saturday on the Sabbath. If that was the only possible day to do a vaccination and if there was no alternative day, what then can one say about Jewish responses to epidemics in the modern period? It seems that in many respects the Jews did not have distinctive responses to epidemics. There may have been differences in timing, but the similarities and responses between the behavior of Jews and the non Jewish neighbors outweighed the differences. Dr. Marek Tuszewicki pointed out the many fascinating aspects of Jewish magic and folklore, some of them quite unique to Jews. However, he shows that the long-term tendency was in the direction of adopting generally accepted views. Therefore, the adoption by Jews of current medical knowledge should not surprise us. The elements of Jewish tradition that they were working with, with themselves already integrated with beliefs of the surrounding societies. As Professor Maciej Munnich pointed out. Indeed, one can almost claim that the Jewish tradition is to accept and tend to integrate, integrate current thinking and that it is untraditional to adhere blindly to patterns of the past. This process illustrates what is already well known that despite distinctive dress, distinct, distinctive language and. Distinctive religion, the influences of the surrounding society of Jews in the modern society, as in earlier periods, was profound. However, we should remember that profound is not a similar for the word total. Professor Meir will point out a significant exception in his lecture, and I will leave that to him. Thank you.



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