Biomedicine, Religion, and Ethnicity: Healing in a Hasidic Jewish Community

David J. Rozen

This article examines the utilization of the biomedical health-care system by Hasidic Jews. The history of the Jewish little community, the development of Hasidism, and migration to the U.S. are briefly reviewed. A Hasidic Jewish community is described in ethnographic terms with an emphasis on religious ritual and ethnomedical beliefs and practices. Finally, the clinical experiences of medical doctors and nurses who care for sick Hasidic persons are analyzed from a medical anthropological perspective which focuses on the autonomy of the profession of medicine and the phenomenon of ethnicity in the biomedical workplace.

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