Dr. David Shabtai, adjunct instructor in Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University’s Isaac Breuer College, recently published a book with Shoresh Press. Titled “Defining the Moment: Understanding Brain Death in Halakha,” the book critically examines rabbinic and medical debate around the concept of brain death, a discussion especially relevant to the question of whether and when organ donation is permissible according to Jewish law. Shabtai is a fellow of the Wexner Kollel Elyon at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and teaches medical halakha at YU.

Dr. Jeffrey Gurock, Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, has been elected as a Fellow of the New York Academy of History. Fellows are selected in a closed ballot process by standing fellows from a pool of candidates with a demonstrated record of accomplishment in New York as authors, archivists, public historians, teachers and administrators. The NYAH advocates for the study of history and represents the interests of historians in classrooms, archives and historical societies.

Tamar Avnet, assistant professor of marketing at Yeshiva University’s Syms Schools of Business, recently co-authored an article that will soon appear in The Journal of Consumer Research. In the article, titled “Consumers’ Trust in Feelings as Information,” Avnet and co-authors Dr. Michael Tuan Pham, Kravis Professor of Business and Marketing at Columbia University, and Dr. Andrew T. Stephen, assistant professor of business administration and Katz Fellow in marking at University of Pittsburgh, identify an important factor that affects consumers’ reliance on feelings during buying decisions. Using advertisements and product choices as a framework, the authors demonstrate the role of consumers’ confidence in their own feelings during decision-making transactions and how that confidence can be manipulated.