Description:
What is palliative care, and how does it differ from hospice? How might understanding it change the way we approach end-of-life decisions — and where does Jewish wisdom fit in?
Join us as we build the knowledge and confidence to face end-of-life planning with greater clarity and less fear. Shomer Collective's Rabbi Melanie Levav will be in conversation with Dr. Michael Pottash, Professor of Clinical Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, whose teaching and research bridges serious illness, end-of-life communication, and medical ethics.
Let's Talk is Shomer Collective's ongoing conversation series, where Rabbi Melanie Levav brings Jewish wisdom into honest dialogue with experts, practitioners, and lived-experience voices on death, dying, and the questions that matter most.
Recording:
Resources:
Jewish Perspectives on End-of-Life Care on My Jewish Learning
Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Caring for Jewish Patients from the National Library of Medicine
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks
Speakers:
Dr. Michael Pottash is a clinician educator focused on pain & palliative medicine and clinical ethics. His teaching, writing, and research has focused on the nature of suffering, serious illness communication, and the ethics of research with human subjects. He holds the appointment of professor of clinical medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine where he has taught medical humanities and served as chair of the Georgetown University IRB and vice chair of the Ethics Committee at the John J Lynch Center for Ethics.
Rabbi Melanie Levav serves as executive director of Shomer Collective, devoted to helping more people talk about death Jewishly. She pivoted her career toward end of life after seeing too many families end up in crisis because we don’t talk about or plan sufficiently for death and dying. A second-career rabbi, Melanie was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary; she is a board-certified chaplain, licensed social worker, credentialed death doula, and certified grief coach.