Yeshiva University Museum

Modern medicine emerged in the second half of the 19th century, as innovative technologies and new theories of disease paved the way for extraordinary medical advances. For Jews - and for the Jewish community at large - the field of scientific medicine presented new opportunities, new challenges, and new ways to engage with modernity. Through an array of original medical instruments, artifacts, documents, letters, photographs, and video, Trail of the Magic Bullet explores the Jewish encounter with modern medicine on an individual, communal, and religious level. The exhibition brings the conversation up to the present, concluding with a specially produced film that examines key issues in contemporary Jewish bioethics.