How to Spot the Signs & Where to Get Help for College Students

Judith Ruskay Rabinor, Ph.D. The American Eating Disorder Center of Long Island jrrabinor@gmail.com Originally published in the book “What May I Do With My Body” Jewish Choices/Jewish Voices: Contemporary Ethics, Spirituality, and Identity. Published by the Jewish Publication Society, editors, Elliot Dorff and Louis Newman “To save one life is to save the world.” The […]

Judith Ruskay Rabinor, Ph.D. (Originally published in Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, Philadelphia: Routledge; Volume 6, Issue 2, Summer 1998.) “Help us find the courage, to make our lives a blessing.”* Healing remains one of the genuine mysteries of life. Throughout history, artists, poets, writers and healers have grappled with the question […]

Kate Miriam Loewenthal, Psychology Department Royal Holloway University of London Egham Surrey TW20 0EX UK c.loewenthal@rhul.ac.uk Important aspects of Orthodox Judaism. What are the most fundamental aspects of orthodox Jewish beliefs and life-style? Which are most salient for psychology and psychotherapy? Since the destruction of the second Temple nearly 2,000 years ago, many Jewish were […]

By Emily Kuriloff, Psy.D. A Jewish mother instructs a daughter in prayer, shows her how to fold the dough for rugalach, or the way to run a business. Other lessons are more subtle. Daughters take their mothers in like food, and slowly they become a part of them. But the relationship is not as unfettered […]

> One of the most defining features of Orthodox Jewish life is the Shabbos; a gold mine for both the restoration and growth of a person’s physical, spiritual, and psychological welfare. Interpersonally, Shabbos presents an opportunity to rekindle family relationships and friendships that can become obscured through the stress of a busy week. As the […]

By Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser Author of “Starving to Live” A major key in preventing the development of an eating disorder in a family member is to “know” them, to understand their individual natures and be attuned to the nuances in their behaviors. Very often, there are initial subtle hints that are actually a call for […]

Rabbi Cary A. Friedman The Talmud (Yoma 74b) teaches, “The blind eat but are not satisfied.” The commentators explain that a blind person cannot be truly satisfied by his food because he cannot see his food. What does it mean to be “blind” when it comes to eating? What does it mean to be unable […]

Marjorie C. Feinson, Ph.D. Principal Investigator June 7, 2009 Overview & Selected Findings Domestic abuse and disordered eating (DE) are now recognized as major problems confronting the Jewish community. Yet, there is a dearth of empirical data, leaving many crucial questions unanswered: • What proportion of women have serious eating problems? Are there some groups […]

Jennifer Daniel, MS, DTR and Susan Kleinman, MA, ADTR, NCC Reports of eating disorders among young orthodox women are rising at an alarming rate. A study of Orthodox Jewish girls in Brooklyn found that one out of nineteen were eating disordered, which is 50% greater than the occurrence of this disorder in the general population […]