The Coronavirus Pandemic

How should doctors ration ventilators during a pandemic - who gets priority?
How to perform circumcision during the pandemic?
Can one inform authorities about his neighbor who is violating a social-­distancing ordinance?
What are the parameters of fasting on Yom Kippur and Tishah B’Av during a pandemic?
Does a marriage during a lockdown require a minyan?

The Coronavirus Pandemic presents the Jewish reader with critical knowledge and perspectives about COVID-­19
and its impact.

Rabbi Dr. Avraham Steinberg, one of the foremost medical ethicists in the world, puts the coronavirus pandemic into historical perspective and explores a long list of halachic dilemmas that the pandemic has created.

Dr. Ari Ciment, a pulmonary and critical care front-­line physician, shares some real-­life experiences, bringing the challenges and conundrums of the pandemic to life.

In addition, Dr. Ciment asks and Rabbi Dr. Steinberg answers actual questions that arose during the coronavirus pandemic.
Rabbi Professor Avraham Steinberg is a pediatric neurologist, a rabbi, and an ethicist. He is currently the director of the Medical Ethics Unit and the chairman of the IRB at Shaare Zedek Medical Center. He is also the head of the Editorial Board of the Talmudic Encyclopedia.

Steinberg is the author of the Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics (in Hebrew and English) and Ha’refuah K’halachah (in Hebrew). He is the laureate of the prestigious Israel Prize and the Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem award (Yakir Yerushalayim). Involved with many public committees and legislations in Israel concerning medical ethics, Steinberg has discussed many modern issues in medicine with the Gedolim, including Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, zt"l, Rav Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, zt"l, Rav Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg, zt"l, Rav Ovadia Yosef, zt"l, and many others. He has published many of their halachic rulings on these issues.

Ari Judah Ciment, son of Larry and Helen Ciment, is board certified in internal medicine and pulmonary and critical care medicine. He has been practicing in Miami Beach, Florida, since 2008. In addition to many medical field achievements, he has been an invited grand rounds lecturer for several hospitals and universities. As a medical ICU attending in a residency teaching program, he regularly teaches classes on a variety of topics, including pulmonary embolism, sepsis, ARDS, and now COVID novel therapies.

Dr. Ciment is currently president of the medical staff with the Mount Sinai Medical Center and is on the board of the Hebrew Academy of Miami Beach, serving on their medical committee. In addition, he served as adjunct professor on Jewish medical ethics at Touro College and has arranged several medical ethics symposiums, most notably, with the renowned ethicist Rabbi Avraham Steinberg as well as BU ethicist Michael Grodin.

Dr. Ciment is the author of Pirkei Dr. Ari (Mosaica Press, 2019), which blends the weekly parashah with an ethic from Pirkei Avos. His hobbies include basketball, tennis, guitar, and studying Talmud. He lives with his wife, Elissa, and their three children, Tehila, Jack, and Sam, in Miami Beach, Florida.