TY - JOUR
T1 - Religious Doctrine and Attitudes Toward Vaccination in Jewish Law
AU - Muravsky, Nicole L.
AU - Betesh, Grace M.
AU - McCoy, Rozalina G.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2023/2
Y1 - 2023/2
N2 - Individual and herd immunity against communicable diseases requires high rates of timely and complete vaccination, particularly in closely knit communities, densely populated areas, and places with high influx of potentially infected individuals. Recent outbreaks of COVID-19 and, previously, measles in religious Jewish communities of New York, as well as the rise of vaccine hesitancy in faith communities, call for the examination of Jewish attitudes toward vaccination. In this article, we examine religious doctrine and guidance on vaccination in Orthodox (including Modern Orthodox, Chabad-Lubavich, and Ultra-Orthodox), Conservative, and Reform denominations of Judaism and apply these principles to vaccinations against measles, human papillomavirus (HPV), and COVID-19. We found that the leaders and scholars in these three major denominations of Judaism are uniform in their strong support, often to the point of mandate, for the principles of vaccination. Support for vaccination is deeply rooted in the Torah, Jewish law, and contemporary rulings of poskim (Jewish legal scholars). These principles are applied by each denomination in strong support of measles and COVID-19 vaccination, though there is less certainty in their support of vaccination against HPV.
AB - Individual and herd immunity against communicable diseases requires high rates of timely and complete vaccination, particularly in closely knit communities, densely populated areas, and places with high influx of potentially infected individuals. Recent outbreaks of COVID-19 and, previously, measles in religious Jewish communities of New York, as well as the rise of vaccine hesitancy in faith communities, call for the examination of Jewish attitudes toward vaccination. In this article, we examine religious doctrine and guidance on vaccination in Orthodox (including Modern Orthodox, Chabad-Lubavich, and Ultra-Orthodox), Conservative, and Reform denominations of Judaism and apply these principles to vaccinations against measles, human papillomavirus (HPV), and COVID-19. We found that the leaders and scholars in these three major denominations of Judaism are uniform in their strong support, often to the point of mandate, for the principles of vaccination. Support for vaccination is deeply rooted in the Torah, Jewish law, and contemporary rulings of poskim (Jewish legal scholars). These principles are applied by each denomination in strong support of measles and COVID-19 vaccination, though there is less certainty in their support of vaccination against HPV.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Human papillomavirus
KW - Judaism
KW - Measles
KW - Public health
KW - Religion
KW - Vaccination
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U2 - 10.1007/s10943-021-01447-8
DO - 10.1007/s10943-021-01447-8
M3 - Article
C2 - 34708328
AN - SCOPUS:85117902240
SN - 0022-4197
VL - 62
SP - 373
EP - 388
JO - Journal of Religion and Health
JF - Journal of Religion and Health
IS - 1
ER -