Program Description:

What is hospice? And how might Jewish wisdom support decision-making around end-of-life care?

Too often, choosing hospice is seen as “giving up”, against the Jewish directive to “choose life.” Join us as we dispel this (and other myths) in conversation with Toby Weiss, Assistant Vice President of Cultural Diversity at MJHS Health System, a renowned provider of hospice care. We will explore everything you wanted to know about hospice but didn’t know to ask, including the types of care offered by hospice, how, when, and for whom hospice care can help; and how to maximize what hospice can offer. 

Recording:

Resources:

For Individuals:
MJHS’s “hospice menu,” as an example of what hospice can provide (ask your local hospice for theirs)
Judaism, Hospice and Palliative Care: Questions and Answers: My Jewish Learning
Hospice Foundation of America resources

For Professionals:
The Jewish Patient and terminal dehydration - A Hospice Ethical dilemma
Ethical Challenges When Caring for Orthodox Jewish Patients at the End of Life

Speaker:

Toby Weiss is Assistant Vice President of Cultural Diversity at MJHS Hospice and is Chair of the MJHS Ethics Committee. Toby’s passion revolves around improving equitable access to care while embracing the needs of all who are seriously ill. She educates on the importance of advance care planning and earlier access to healthcare resources in alignment with a person’s lived experiences. She was selected to serve on the national CMS Health Equity Expert panel that developed Health Equity measures for Hospice and Homecare Quality Reporting. Toby established the MJHS “Halachic Pathway” for Orthodox Jewish patients which has become a replicable model for other cultural and faith-based communities. Her team created and rolled out a digital toolkit aimed at caring for Holocaust Survivors at the end of life, which won the AJAS National Jewish Programming award in April 2022. She serves as co-chair of both the NHPCO Diversity Advisory Council and the NPHI Health Equity Forum. Toby manages a team of cultural sensitivity liaisons and outreach coordinators, who provide education and higher touch support to patients and families of different backgrounds. She is also a long standing Board Member of Plaza Jewish Community Chapels and a member of the Chevra Kadisha of Queens.

In conversation with Gila Silverman, Education Program Manager at Shomer Collective.