This issue discusses two main topics: "Serpents in Jewish Lore" - a trans­cultural topic treated as such in four essays and Holocaust Medical Studies. The latter will henceforth be considered a regular topic in KOROT, and will include a selected number of studies presented at the annual meetings of the Nahariya Conferences on Medicine in the Holocaust, convened by Prof. Shaul Shasha. Contents EDITORIAL The Serpent in Medicine, Medical Culture and the Jewish Tradition Ephraim Nissan The Cyclical Snake in Jewish Sources: An Examination of Occurrences of the Ouroboros Samuel Kottek The Serpent in the Talmud Kathleen Walker-Meikle Toxicology and Treatment: Medical Authorities and Snake-Bite in the Middle Ages Helena Paavilainen Viper Bite Therapies in Maimonides‘ On Poisons and the Protection against Lethal Drugs Holocaust Studies Miriam Offer The Study of Jewish Medicine during the Holocaust: Its Creation and Preliminary Steps Etienne Lepicard True Friendship or Relation against Nature? The Libman-Carrel Correspondence, 1923–1934 Peter Schwarzand and Wolfgang Neugebauer Medicine without Humanity: A Brief Outline of the History of Nazi Euthanasia in Vienna, Austria, 1938­1945 Kenneth Collins Practicing Humanity: Four Medical Practitioners and their Holocaust Legacy Varia Moshe Feinsod A Distant Reflection: The Physician in the Eye of the Jewish Medieval Satirist Kalonymus ben Kalonymus (1287­1337?) Zalman Greenbergand and Anton Alexander Professor Israel Jacob Kligler: List of Publications HISTORICALNOTES Kenneth Collins Samuel Levenston: An Historical Footnote Avi Ohry Jewish Physicians and Scientists' Historical Contributions to Society Korot of the Past Joshua O. Leibowitz The 25th Anniversary of Koroth L. Wislicki The Day of Nazification of a Hospital in Berlin BOOK REVIEWS Wolfgang Uwe Eckart: Medizin in der NS­Diktatur: Ideologic, Praxis, Folgen, 2012. Danielle Gourevitch: Limos kai Loimos: A Study of the Galenic Plague, 2013. Regis­Nessim Sachs: Medecins juifs du Xe au XVIIe siecle, 2014. Robert Weston: Medical Consulting by Letter in France 1665­1789, 2013.

For contents and article abstracts press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo. The articles in this volume: Aharon Shemesh and Moshe Halbertal - The Meʾun (Refusal): The Complex History of Halakhic Anomaly Shulamit Elizur - The Early Scope of Parashat Sheqalim Gideon Bohak - The Hidden Hekhalot: Towards Reconstructing an Unknown Hekhalot Composition from the Cairo Genizah Avraham Grossman - The Impact of Rabbi Samuel of Spain and Reuel of Byzantium on Rashi’s School Idit Einat-Nov - Uncertainty as a Poetic Principle: A Reading of Nəʾum Ašer Ben Yəhudah by Shlomo Ibn Ṣaqbel English and Hebrew Abstracts

For contents and article abstracts press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo. The articles in this volume: Alexander Rofé - Redressing the Calamity in the Transmission of the Bible Yonatan Feintuch - The Textual Development of the Aggadah of Rav Ada b. Abba (b BB 22a) in Light of the Evidence of an Early Genizah Fragment Avi Shmidman - Quina Poems for the 10th of Tevet and the 17th of Tamuz Avraham Fraenkel - Kingdoms and their Harsh Decrees in Medieval Italian Jewish Poetry Tzahi Weiss - ‘Most of the Errant Err in Malkhut’: The Worship of the Shekhinah in Early Kabbalah Tsippi Kauffman - Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Przysucha English and Hebrew Abstracts

The book in English can be purchased here . This book is an invitation to an anthropological journey to the politics developed around the professional therapy of PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Through four years' fieldwork (2004-2008) at two nongovernmental organizations — NATAL ("Israeli Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War") and the ITC ("Israel Trauma Coalition") — the chapters of the book examines how clinical questions of diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the disorder intersect with collective markers of group identity and with political questions of ethno-national power-relations within the framework of the Israeli nation-state. How Israeli experts and their donors (most of them from Jewish-American federations) negotiating mental suffering against one bio-medical category, PTSD, but in relation to different military and political situations, from the uprising of the Second Intifada (October 2000), to the "Disengagement Plan" (August 2005) until the Second Lebanon War (July 2006)? Which symbolic struggles do therapists engage in over the meaning of trauma and its social boundaries within this highly politicized context? What practical agreements have been reached regarding aid interventions and the allocation of resources within deep religious, ethnic and demographic stratification, from Jewish-Israeli citizens who exposed to Palestinian terror attacks in the center of the country, many of them first and second generations of immigrants from East-Europe ('Ashkenazim') to the ongoing threat of rocket fire against Jewish-Israeli citizens who lived in the South of the country, many of them first and second generations of immigrants from North-Africa ('Mizrachim') and later from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia ?

For contents and article abstracts press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo. :Participants in this volume Dr. Matti Huss Prof. Uri Ehrlich Dr. Maoz Kahana Prof. Alexander Lubotzky Prof. Yair Lorberboim Prof. Yosef Ofer Prof. Menahem Kister Dr. Avraham (Rami) Reiner Dr. Avi Shmidman

The production of this issue of Korot has marked the completion of a lengthy program of study in aspects of infectious diseases in the Holy Land over the past century or so. My own studies in the management of trachoma by the Yishuv during the British Mandate illustrated many of the features which characterized the Zionist movement of the period. These included the sense of community care and of nation building and the concern to create a new society. For some years there had been plans to bring together the research conducted by various Israeli academics working in a range of university settings on aspects of infectious diseases into one printed forum. Therefore, this issue of Korot represents the fruits of many areas of study into many different diseases as they have affected the population of the Land of Israel, with an introduction by Nadav Davidovich and Rakefet Zalashik, who have long shared my determination that this collection of essays should be published within a single volume, which sets the scene for the essays which are included here. Korot has long had a reputation for stimulating research into many aspects of the Jews and medicine, and I have relished the opportunity afforded to me to work in Jerusalem as an active member of the Editorial Board in close conjunction with Professor Samuel Kottek and with Dr. Helena Paavilainen. Medical history in Israel continues to flourish in a number of different settings, and research continues in many contemporary fields, whether it relates to social aspects of health and disease, medicine and the Holocaust, or as we portray here, to the wider impact of infectious diseases on the land and its peoples. Having a special collection of essays in this issue is an occasion of significance for the study of medical history in Israel, and it underlines the importance of this journal in showcasing the best of Israeli studies in the history of medicine. This theme of infectious diseases is also represented in this issue by a collection of essays resulting from a Symposium entitled “A Leper is Like a Dead Person,” which was held at the Van Leer Institute on June 2, 2010. The meeting was sponsored by the School of Pharmacy, Hebrew University (Ein Karem campus) and by the National Center for Hansen’s Disease at Hadassah Hospital. Organized by Dr. Yisraela Nili, it brought together many different aspects of this enigmatic medical and sociological phenomenon from ancient times to modern Israel. As the editor of Vesalius: the Journal of the International Society for the History of Medicine I have had a first-hand opportunity to see the vitality of medical history studies around the world. Israeli researchers have taken a prominent role on the world stage whether in the Congresses and Meetings of the International Society or in the submitted articles to Vesalius. Professor Samuel Kottek has long been an honored figure in the International Society, and Professor Shifra Shvarts is the Society’s Business Manager. It was interesting to see at the recent International Society Congress in Padua/Abano the continuing presence of Jewish historical issues, from the enduring presence of Jewish medical students to the role of the converso physician. While there may be no independent entity of “Jewish medicine,” the confluence of the Jews and medicine remains an area of fascination which retains the power to excite, to instruct, and for us all to learn and to share. Thus, the Editorial Board of Korot is always open to original contributions and communications on the history of Jews and medicine, medicine in Jewish sources as well as medical history topics relating to Israel. Dr. Kenneth Collins, Guest Editor

The book Biblisch- talmudische Medizin , first published in Berlin, in 1911, is a unique life's bringing together a comprehensive knowledge in medicine, Jewish and general sources. The various chapters include a broad review of the world of medicine in the Bible and the Talmud in light of Jewish law, a detailed description of the biological organs, diseases of body and mind, deformities, gynecological and sexual. There are chapters on legal medicine, preventative medicine, health cures and dietetics. The material is also based on in-depth study of Bible, Mishnah, Talmudic and Rabbinic literature, Midrash, the External Books, the works of Joseph Ben Matityahu, the New Testament, as well as ancient and modern legal literature, Likewise illuminating sources from Greek and Latin literature, western medical literature, referencing hundreds of publications from the eighteen and nineteen hundreds were used. The writer Dr. Julius Preuss (1861-1913) was born in a small town in Prussia, in which his parents' house was the only Jewish family. He studied medicine in Berlin and was close to the orthodox Jewish community, where he acquired much of his extensive knowledge in Judaism. Over the years Preuss published over thirty articles on medicine and Judaism in various scientific journals, all the while maintaining a medical practice in the town of his birth and afterward in Berlin. He passed away two years after publishing his book in German, based on his articles. Preuss' book was translated into English by Dr. Fred Rosner (Biblical and Talmudic Medicine) and was published in the United State in 1978. At a conference on Jewish and medical law, which took place in Jerusalem in 1998, the book was quoted and it was indicated that a translation into Hebrew was sorely needed. The translator into Hebrew, Uri Wurzburger, remained loyal to the original German, at the same time expanding the quoted references appearing in the book and adding modern interpretations.

The relationship between wealth and government became a topical and important question in Russia after the Soviet Union was dissolved for the regime as well for the Russian people.This book analyses this relationship from the year 1991 until today.

Scientific investigation is a cognitive activity, aimed at revealing the truth of nature. Politics is an activity of intent, aimed at realizing specific values derive from subjective judgment. Political activity by scientists is a necessity arising out of the bitter competition over resources. Uncontrolled competition may endanger the ability of science to realize its aims, and will consequently undermine the trust of the society on which its very existence is based. The synthesis between science and politics depends on the interrelationship between daring and humility. Daring is the basis of the drive towards vigorous effort to expose the truth of nature. Humility is the origin of self-discipline and cooperation between individuals. The premise of this book is that recognition of the narrative behind scientific achievements is vital for understanding the scientific enterprise. Besides theoretical discussion the book depicts and interprets case histories relating to the conflict between politics and science: among them, the notebooks of Pasteur, the land of Darwin, the double helix, the understanding of aspirin, lithium and bipolar disorder, and the association between autism and immunization.

The book examines the connection between the health system and the National Health Insurance Law and the change processes in Israeli society, as well as connections between economics and politics. The book discusses whether the National Health Insurance Law is part of the political factors, which are partial to the values of individualism and competition and are gaining strength in Israel.

Korot is unique as the only journal devoted to Jewish aspects of the history of medicine and science. To quote Prof. Leibowitz (z”l), one of the first initiators of Korot, the purpose of the publication is: ...preference for topics based on sources not readily accessible to our colleagues abroad in their researches. Avoiding, as far as possible, a narrow parochial approach, we hope to enlarge the knowledge of medical historical facts and concepts in a field often regarded as somewhat esoteric.1 It is our hope that the present volume of Korot has succeeded in this endeavor. Our special thanks are due to Dr. Kenneth Collins for his kind assistance in the proofreading stage. Our next issue will emphasize the subject of Jews and medicine in the Renaissance period, e.g., Tuviah Cohen and Yosef Shlomo Delmedigo. Our readers are warmly invited to submit articles connected with these subjects, but also any other historical essays related to Jewish aspects of the history of medicine and science, for publication. Letters to the editor and brief historical notes are also welcome.

This book deals with rheumatic diseases that are mainly diseases of the skeletal system and muscles. It contains comprehensive and up-to-date information on more than 120 acquired and congenital joint diseases, such as various arthritis, skeletal and spinal diseases, tendon issues, vascular infections, peripheral nerve injury syndromes, and more. The book is written in a simple, clear and comprehensible language. It lists the various symptoms of diseases, diagnostic methods, including laboratory tests and various imaging methods, various therapeutic approaches, including conventional drug therapies and alternative therapies. A special chapter in the book is devoted to common questions frequently asked by the patients and the answers to them. It also presents explanations of common terms and concepts in rheumatic diseases.