Ematai’s goal is to empower and support Jews navigating their healthcare journeys with Jewish wisdom. Our mission is to address the full range of opportunities and choices presented by aging, end-of-life treatment, and organ donation.

Ematai (“If not now, when?”) is a call to action. We seek to upstream the necessary conversations that will facilitate meaningful choices later in life. Ematai helps individuals and their families anticipate the questions they’ll need to answer as they continue on their healthcare journey.

Ematai also explores the big moral questions that society needs to face as technological revolutions change the human experience. We are here to demonstrate how Jewish wisdom responds to the ethical dilemmas often found in healthcare innovation. To this highly relevant moral frontier, Ematai brings together rabbis, healthcare professionals, ethicists, and communal leaders to represent Judaism with a wise and nuanced voice.

In 2023, we’ll be launching several initiatives, including a new living will for the Jewish community. We invite you to explore this new website. It’s still in its alpha stage with some kinks to iron out, but you’ll see the building blocks of a dynamic online learning center.  

Some highlights include:  

• End-of-Life Care Principles: 10 key principles regarding this sensitive area of bioethics. 

• What We Believe: 4 major beliefs 

• Option 18: Ematai’s organ donor education initiative 

• Three new educational videos filmed in LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, on DNRs, DNIs, and extubation. The videos are embedded in our Learn More pages and can be viewed together on our YouTube Channel. Please note: the patients look real, but they are mannequins! Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, our Facebook page, and other social media pages (links on footer of the page).

• Learn More: Featuring 25 well-organized articles on a range of topics relating to aging and end-of-life care. (More to come!)

• Our Team: Check out our staff, expanded board, growing medical advisory committee, and incredible rabbinic advisory board, featuring: Rabbi Prof. Avraham Steinberg, Dayan Yehoram Ulman, Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt, Rabbi Dr. Edward Reichman, Rabbi Dr. Avi Rosenberg, Rabbi Dr. Jason Weiner, Rabbi Dr. Judah Goldberg, and Rabbi Mordechai Torczyner. 

Ematai will also maintain the old HODS website which contains a treasure trove of educational material.  

Please contact us with any questions, comments, or suggestions.