The enduring relationship between the Jews and medicine traces back to biblical times, yet for centuries Jews were denied admission to European universities for formal medical training. The prestigious medical schools of the Netherlands, with their tolerant admissions policies, played a pivotal role in the history of Jewish medical education during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Drawing upon remarkable archival treasures preserved in the great libraries of Europe, including the University Libraries of Amsterdam and Leiden, we will explore this rich historical chapter. Together, we will walk the halls of the early modern Dutch medical school, encounter Leiden’s first Jewish medical graduate, study student dissertations (including a newly discovered dissertation of Benedictus de Castro), and view congratulatory poetry composed in their honor.

We will also examine the rare and controversial medical diploma of Menasseh ben Israel’s son, Samuel, currently housed in the University Library of the University of Amsterdam. While many scholars have cast aspersions on the authenticity of this diploma- dismissing it as a "doctored" brazen counterfeit - Reichman will suggest that it was not a forgery at all, but rather, written “for Jewry”.

Edward Reichman is professor of Emergency Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and holder of the Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler Chair in Jewish Medical Ethics at Yeshiva University. Reichman received his rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and writes and lectures internationally in the fields of Jewish medical ethics and Jewish medical history. He is the author of The Anatomy of Jewish Law: A Fresh Dissection of the Relationship Between Medicine, Medical History and Rabbinic Literature (Published by Koren Publishers/OU Press/YU Press, 2022), and Pondering Pre-Modern(a) Pandemics in Jewish History: Essays Inspired by and Written during the Covid-19 Pandemic by an Emergency Medicine Physician (Shikey Press, 2022).