L’Dor V’Dor
L'Dor V'Dor - Bridging Jewish Legacy and the Future of Medicine
- November 10, 2026
By: Ms. Dorothy Ripps, JMPN Emerging Healthcare Leader
Dr. Paul Scheinberg (VP-JMPN), Dr. Michele Melamed (Founder and President JMPN), and Dorothy Ripps at the Jornada Médica Internacional.
It is remarkable how far a conversation can travel. Mine began after the conclusion of Kol Nidre on Erev Yom Kippur, when prayer turned to mingling. Here, a conversation with Dr. Michele Melamed about my aspirations in medicine led to an invitation I never could have anticipated. At the time, I was navigating the process of applying to graduate school, eager to learn from those who had already found their place in medicine. I shared with her my hopes for my near and distant future, to which Dr. Melamed responded, “So, are you coming with us to Brazil?” She invited me to accompany her and Dr. Paul Scheinberg to the Jornada Médica Internacional in Erechim, Brazil, hosted by Sergio Lerrer, where we would represent her organization, Jewish Medical Professional Network (JMPN). The prospect of learning alongside such distinguished physicians and contributing, however modestly, to the work of an organization born of Dr. Melamed’s vision was a privilege I had scarcely imagined. My thoughts turned almost immediately from whether I could make the journey to how I would make it possible.
I had never been to Brazil. I knew little of the Jewish communities that had taken root in its southernmost regions, and even less of the histories that had sustained them. I arrived expecting to learn about medicine in a new corner of the world. What I found was an experience that expanded my understanding of just how closely the past and future are connected and how important it is to learn from the space in between.
From the moment we arrived in Erechim, we were welcomed with a generosity that made the unfamiliar feel remarkably close to home. At our first meal together, I was immediately struck by the ease with which conversation took hold, moving from introductions into thoughtful discussions that made me forget how recently we had met. I was reminded of a tradition so deeply woven into Jewish life, in which the dinner table becomes a place for questioning and the pursuit of understanding. Visiting Brazil for the first time, I had expected to encounter a culture unlike my own, yet I found myself embraced by a community whose hospitality reflected something I had known all my life. Thousands of miles from home, I began to understand that the familiarity of Jewish belonging lies not necessarily in a shared place or even a shared language, but in the ways we continue to make room for one another at the table.
About an hour's bus ride away, in Passo Fundo, we visited a synagogue that has remained a center of Jewish life in a region far removed from the larger Jewish populations. There was a certain humility to the way this community practiced its faith. Not everyone knew the intricacies of religious observance, and some traditions had been preserved more through memory than formal instruction. We saw siddurim with Hebrew prayers transliterated into Portuguese and learned how members of the community sought out those who could read from the Torah or guide them through Jewish funeral rites. What struck me was not the difference in formal Jewish ritual and observance, but the care with which they sought to preserve what had been passed down to them. In a community where maintaining tradition required conscious effort, observance became an expression of devotion rather than mere familiarity. I had grown accustomed to thinking of religious customs in terms of how faithfully they were performed, but here I began to appreciate something more fundamental, the intention behind their preservation. There was something profoundly Jewish in the determination to continue practicing traditions even when the precise knowledge of how to perform them had become difficult to sustain. I left with a renewed understanding that the endurance of a tradition depends not only on the accuracy with which it is repeated, but on the conviction that it is worth carrying forward. Jewish identity, after all, does not endure by accident. It survives because people choose, again and again, to remember, to gather, and to pass along what was entrusted to them.
Conference participants gather in Brazil.
That idea became especially poignant when we visited the local Jewish cemetery, where the head of the synagogue guided us past the graves of three generations of his own family. Standing there, I found myself thinking about the uncertainty that must have accompanied the first generation’s journey to Brazil. They had left behind the familiarity of their homeland in pursuit of a life free from religious persecution, arriving in a country shaped by cultures and traditions vastly different from their own. In seeking a place within this unfamiliar society, they faced the delicate task of building a new life without relinquishing the identity they had carried across the ocean. I wondered whether those early settlers could have imagined that, generations later, their descendants would still call this place home. What began as a search for refuge had grown into a lasting legacy. The four generations resting together seemed to embody the realization of that original hope that they would accomplish not merely the freedom to begin again, but also the opportunity to establish roots in a new society without severing those that connected them to their past. In that quiet cemetery, I saw something more meaningful than the passage of time. I saw the possibility of finding belonging in an unfamiliar world while remaining connected to the generations that came before. The cemetery offered a lesson in continuity. The people buried there had not simply left behind a record of their existence. They had left behind a community capable of remembering them.
JMPN representatives at the Jornada Médica Internacional in Erechim.
In the days that followed, I found myself considering that same idea from a new perspective. At the Jornada Médica Internacional, I had the privilege of listening to physicians and researchers discuss the discoveries shaping modern medicine. Dr. Melamed presented on the expanding role of artificial intelligence in emergency medicine, illustrating its potential through applications ranging from reducing the administrative burden of clinical documentation to assessing hazardous environments before first responders are placed at risk. Particularly compelling was the prospect that technology, so often perceived as distancing physicians from their patients, might instead restore valuable time to the human relationships at the heart of medicine. Dr. Scheinberg explored advances in functional respiratory imaging, including the use of in silico testing to simulate and predict how individual patients might respond to surgical interventions such as lung resections. Unlike conventional spirometry, which provides an overall measure of pulmonary function, these technologies offer a more detailed understanding of regional lung function, with the potential to improve predictions of postoperative outcomes and inform decisions about surgical candidacy. Both presentations revealed how technological innovation could expand the possibilities of medicine while remaining grounded in its most fundamental purpose of caring for others.
As I listened, I began to recognize a parallel between the scientific progress discussed at the conference and the history I had encountered in Passo Fundo. Just as generations of Jewish families had preserved their traditions while adapting to an unfamiliar world, medicine advances through the continual refinement of knowledge inherited from those who came before. Each discovery becomes the foundation for questions that earlier generations may never have imagined asking. I came to understand that preservation and progress are not opposing forces, but rather expressions of a shared responsibility. We must recognize the value of what we have inherited to ensure that its significance extends beyond our own generation.
As someone preparing to enter the medical profession, I found these presentations fascinating. Yet what impressed me most was not simply the sophistication of the science, but the curiosity that animated it. The physicians and researchers who spoke were accomplished in their respective fields, but their work was driven by the recognition that there was still more to understand. I have always loved that quality of science. The way every discovery seems to reveal another question, and the way advancement depends on the eagerness of people to share what they have learned. No physician begins with an empty body of knowledge. Every advancement rests upon the observations, questions, and discoveries of those who came before. What one generation learns becomes the foundation upon which the next can build.
What has always drawn me to science is its insistence that understanding is never complete. Even our most established knowledge must remain open to scrutiny, for it is often in questioning what we believe to be true that new possibilities emerge. I recognized something familiar in this intellectual practice that has long held a place in Jewish tradition. The practice of questioning is deeply woven into Jewish thought, where understanding is pursued through continued interpretation rather than unquestioning acceptance. This openness to reconsideration has shaped the Jewish experience across generations. Communities displaced from familiar surroundings have repeatedly faced the challenge of preserving their identity while adapting to worlds completely unlike those of their ancestors. The history I encountered in Brazil was one expression of this much larger story. I began to appreciate that the true measure of what we inherit lies not in how faithfully we leave it unchanged, but in how thoughtfully we engage with it. It is possible that the greatest tribute we can pay to those who came before us is not to accept their understanding as the final word, but to approach it with the same curiosity and conviction that allowed them to see possibilities beyond the limits of their own time.
On our final day in Brazil, this connection became even more tangible. We traveled to Quatro Irmãos, a historic Jewish settlement in Rio Grande do Sul, where we visited an early school and hospital established by the community. After days spent learning about the newest developments in medicine, there was something especially moving about standing in a place where earlier generations had worked to establish the foundations of education and healthcare. I thought about the people who had built these institutions, and the future they must have envisioned. For families establishing themselves in a new country, a school and a hospital represented more than buildings. They were expressions of hope, investments in the wellbeing of people they might never live to meet. To build a school is to believe that knowledge deserves a future. To build a hospital is to believe that the care of others is a responsibility worth organizing a community around. As I walked through the classrooms and procedure rooms, the distance between the historic settlement and the modern medical conference felt much smaller. The tools had changed. The questions had grown more complex. Yet the underlying foundation remained remarkably constant. To prosper, we must use what we know in service of those around us and leave something of value for those who follow.
The historic hospital visited in Quatro Irmãos.
My Hebrew name is Dorit (דורית), derived from dor (דור), the Hebrew word for “generation.” I have carried that name my entire life, just as I have grown up hearing the expression l'dor v'dor (לדור ודור), “from generation to generation.” Yet I had rarely considered what it meant to belong to a generation myself. We tend to think of generations in retrospect, as chapters of history already written, overlooking that we are living through one of our own. In Brazil, I became more conscious of that distinction. The people I met were not simply preserving the work of their ancestors. They were also giving that work a place in the present, making choices whose significance might only become apparent long after their own lifetimes. I began to think differently about the meaning of my name. A generation is not merely a use of life to measure time separating the past from the future, but a period in which we are entrusted with the opportunity to influence what comes next. I found that thought both humbling and exciting, particularly as I stood at the beginning of my own career. I could not yet know what contribution I might make, but I felt a renewed appreciation for the privilege of having something meaningful to which I can contribute. I left Brazil with a newfound gratitude for a name that honors our desire to leave the world richer in wisdom and connection than we found it, and to know that some part of what we give may live on in those who follow, something so profoundly human.
I remain deeply grateful to Dr. Melamed, Dr. Scheinberg, the Jewish Medical Professional Network, and the remarkable people who welcomed us to Brazil. I find it fitting that this journey began on Yom Kippur, a day devoted to introspection and reflection. There is a certain irony in the fact that, while I was looking inward for clarity about my own future, a conversation that drew me beyond myself would ultimately offer a perspective I could never have reached through reflection alone. I returned home with a deeper appreciation for how much we owe to those who came before us, and how much there remains to learn from the lives unfolding around us. Perhaps the most valuable lesson was that such understanding is never something we come across once and carry unchanged. It must be continually deepened by our willingness to encounter the unfamiliar and recognize the wisdom that exists beyond our own experience. As I look toward my future in medicine, I hope to carry forward not only what I have learned, but the openness to keep discovering how much I have yet to understand.
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