Rabbi Claudio Kogan of Anshe Emeth in New Brunswick spoke about bio-ethics in Judaism on Wednesday night at Hillel. A doctor, mohel, and a HUC-ordained rabbi, Kogan spoke to a diverse audience of students, representing the various religious communities in Rutgers. He emphasized the need to learn about ethics via discussion with all of the different denominations.
The program began by Rabbi Kogan making a delineation between morals and ethics, and after a short discussion he broke the students up into groups to discuss specific cases, specifically asking students not to be in groups with others who share the same Jewish upbringing. After about fifteen minutes of loud group discussions, everyone got back together to discuss the topics as a whole where there was more lively debate. The topics ranged from popular bio-ethic issues such as Euthanasia, Abortion, and Genetic selection, to more ignored issues of organ transplants and scarcity of resources.
Talya Judovits, the president of the Kesher (Reform) community at Rutgers Hillel and the organizer of the event, told CampusJ she was very happy that the event “created an open form to talk about various medical issues.” Judovits said that there is not necessarily a space, every day, for people to hear the intellectual ideas of people from all the different Jewish communities.