Word: orthodox
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Down from the Tree. Most Orthodox Jews consider autopsies generally barred by a passage in the Torah, Deuteronomy 21:22-23, in which Moses says: "And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day." In other words, even criminals were to be spared the possibility of mutilation by wild animals after their execution. Orthodox extremists interpret that injunction as meaning that any human must be given prompt...
Liberal interpreters insist that autopsies can save lives by contributing to medical knowledge. In 1953 Israel's Parliament passed a law authorizing an autopsy when three doctors certify that it is necessary to determine the exact cause of death or for the treatment of another person. Orthodox extremists, who opposed the law in the first place, have been enraged, along with many other Jews, by charges that doctors are conducting widespread post-mortems for pathological research...
...last spring, relatives of a farmer whose body had been examined by autopsy ran amuck in a hospital, injuring 20 persons including physicians and nurses. Last October, Israel's two chief rabbis, joined by 356 other religious leaders, called for repeal of the 1953 law. Ever since, the Orthodox dissenters, led by the ultra-rightist Agudath Israel Party, have stepped up a grisly campaign against postmortems. Fortnight ago, they accused a Tel Aviv hospital of stealing the heart of a rabbi's wife after she died...
...some future sociologist were to analyze the character of New York City solely on the basis of certain of its novels, he might conclude that the bulk of the population was Jewish, lived in broken-down Brooklyn brownstones and consisted largely of boys, half extremely Orthodox, the other half rebellions. The fathers of these boys, he would discover, were physically infirm but wise and gentle. Of women there were few: a strong, sad-eyed mother or two kneading kreplech day and night, and an occasional gentile girl with dirty underwear. Inevitably, rebellious and Orthodox boys alike resolved their socio-theological...
Danny is a Hasid-a member of the ultra-Orthodox sect that affects earlocks, broad-brimmed hats and long, black overcoats-while Reuven, the novel's narrator, practices a more liberal Judaism. As the son of a tzaddik (as the Hasids' hereditary rabbis are called), Danny must follow his father as the sect's leader, though his personal bent is toward psychology. Gradually, the two boys work toward Danny's inevitable break with tradition and discover along the way that the humanistic content of Judaism far outweighs its rigid ritualism...