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Articles by Ben Kasstan
Poliovirus outbreak in New York State, August 2022: qualitative assessment of immediate public health responses and priorities for improving vaccine coverage | Epidemiology & Infection | Cambridge Core
The 2018–19 measles epidemics and COVID-19 pandemic were described as milestones in understanding challenges in vaccine engagement by PH and HCP participants. During the 2018–19 measles outbreak, religious exemptions from NYS school vaccination requirements were removed, and unvaccinated children were banned from public spaces (including schools) that were intended for gathering of more than 10 people in Rockland County [Reference Cantor30].
Polio, vaccines and the Haredi community: A preventable public health tragedy?
With polio resurfacing in New York State, the press and public are focusing their attention once more on the ultra-Orthodox or Haredi Jewish community in Rockland County, where the first patient was identified, allied to the question of how widespread the phenomenon of refusing vaccinations is among that the Haredi population both locally and in general. The write-ups have offered many condemnations and generalizations, but few have acknowledged the complexities at hand - or their solutions.
“If a rabbi did say ‘you have to vaccinate,’ we wouldn’t”: Unveiling the secular logics of religious exemption and opposition to vaccination.
Maintaining ‘faith’ in vaccination has emerged as a public health challenge amidst outbreaks of preventable disease among religious minorities and rising claims to ‘exemption’ from vaccine mandates. Outbreaks of measles and coronavirus have been particularly acute among Orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods in North America, Europe and Israel, yet no comparative studies have been conducted to discern the shared and situated influences on vaccine decision-making.
“A Free People, Controlled Only by God”: Circulating and Converting Criticism of Vaccination in Jerusalem
Abstract This paper explores how criticism surrounding the ethics and safety of biomedical technologies circulates and ‘converts’ through global–local religious encounters, producing new claims of moral opposition and rights to religious freedom. The paper is concerned with the question of what rhetorical devices make vaccine safety doubt relevant to religiously Orthodox settings and what implications arise?
Vaccines and vitriol: an anthropological commentary on vaccine hesitancy, decision-making and interventionism among religious minorities
Involvement of Rabbinic and Communal Authorities in Decision-Making by Haredi Jews in the UK with Breast Cancer: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
Angry at ultra-Orthodox Jews for ‘defying’ coronavirus rules? It’s more complicated than that | Opinion
The coronavirus pandemic has amplified both anxieties and generalizations around Haredi - or ultra-Orthodox - Jews in Israel, the U.S. and the UK. Media outlets in these countries have mostly represented Haredi Jews as either ignorant or deliberately defiant of public health restrictions. Their level of compliance with those restrictions is viewed as a litmus test for how poorly Haredim are integrated in state and society.
Making Bodies Kosher: The Politics of Reproduction among Haredi Jews in England | Berghahn Books
The Politics of Reproduction among Haredi Jews in England Ben Kasstan Full Text PDF | Full Text ePUB Made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license with support from Wellcome Trust.
Challenging injustice after the Etz Chayim attack
On 27 October I read the news that a synagogue, the holiest of shelters, had been ambushed in Pittsburgh. All Jews must die, the White nationalist had yelled before taking eleven lives. Each passing detail made the massacre more heart-wrenching. The synagogue was called Etz Chayim (tree of life) — a synonym for the Torah that has nourished and sustained countless Jewish generations since it was handed down to Moses at Mount Sinai.
After the EU Vote, Racism Is Trending in Britain
“Get a grip... whatever people voted is their choice. It's their right as a citizen of this country.” subscribe now to get the full story Haaretz unlimited. Only 1$ for the first month
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