One interdisciplinary combination of these fields is reflected in Prof. Katvan's first doctoral dissertation, completed at the Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law, which focused on compulsory examinations and the link between compulsory examinations and social and gender oppression. This research may be classified as “Bioethics, Medicine and Law” although it also focused specifically on feminist approaches to Bioethics, on women as examinees and on women as examiners, among other issues. The research made it possible to identify the range of compulsory (medical, physical, psychological) examinations and map the various interests and actors involved in this practice. Thus it was possible to identify women as a group that is particularly vulnerable to such examinations, as well as the causes and consequences of the practice. A second interdisciplinary combination of these fields is reflected in Katvan's second doctoral dissertation, completed at Bar-Ilan University’s program in Science, Technology and Society (STS, formerly the History and Philosophy of the Sciences). This research explored the issue of medical examinations of immigrants to Mandatory Palestine between the two world wars and, in this context, addressed the matter of “selective immigration”, public health and medical restrictions on immigrants with contagious diseases, which were imposed in the name of public health by the British public health regulations and the guidelines of the Zionist movement. This research comes under the category of the History of Medicine, with emphasis on the sub-theme of health and immigration, which he further explored in additional studies. The research focused on the practice of immigrant examinations and, no less important, the professionals who conducted the examinations as well as diagnostic policymakers and their interests. The point of interface between these studies is the issue of examinations, which he sought to encompass and explore not only from the legal perspective but also the historical and sociological perspectives, in order to form as complete a picture as possible of what Katvan sought to define as a “phenomenon” with significant implications for individuals and population groups within society. The phenomenon cannot be understood by studying it from a purely legal or purely historical perspective (for example, a subsequent study in this area addressed examinations of women prior to marriage during the British Mandate era and shortly after the founding of Israel). A key insight that emerged from these studies is that the examinations did not merely serve medical or health-related aims but also, wittingly or not, deliberately or not, served covert symbolic functions, particularly for the control of individuals and population groups.

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Eyal Katvan, “Preventive (Marriage and Divorce) Medicine: Premarital Examinations and the Medicalization of Domestic Violence”, 10 Aley Mishpat (Academic Center f Law & Business Law Journal) (2012) 73 (in Hebrew). 

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Katvan, Eyal, “Different(ial) Diagnosis – On Compulsory Examinations and their Relation with Women Oppression”, in Law, Gender & Feminism, (ed. D. Barak-Erez, S. Yanisky-Ravid, Y. Biton, D. Fogatch,) (2007) 849 (in Hebrew).

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Eyal Katvan, “The Family Unit as a Biological Cell – Medical Examinations and the Good-Measures of Woman”, 6 Law & Business (2007) 487 (in Hebrew).

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Eyal Katvan and Meron Pioterkovski, “Josephine Zurcher-Fallsheer – The Forgotten Doctor”,  Bioethics, Law and Medicine (forthcoming 2020)

(in Hebrew)

The entry and integration of women in the medical profession had a profound impact for other women – on the one hand, because they created a precedent and a model for other women to follow, while, on the other hand, they could provide essential health services to female patients, many of whom were barred form, or deliberately avoided treatment for reasons of modesty, or for other motives. Josephine Theresia Zürcher, born 1866 in Zurich (Switzerland), is commonly known, in the German-speaking world, as one of the first female Swiss doctors. She was also one of the first doctors and veterinarians in the Near and Middle East. However, there is very little that is known about her, especially the fact, that she was the second female doctor in Ottoman Palestine and in the city of Haifa. This article attempts to do this some (historical) justice, as we will present here, a brief overview of her floruit with a special focus on her activities in the Land of Israel. This will be done while analyzing her activities in the broader context of the importance of the integration and the place of women in professionalism in general (and women in the medicine sector in particular), and in a multicultural reality, in which importance is attached to the question of gender interaction between therapist and patient

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Eyal Katvan, Nadav Davidovitch, “Between Health, Politics and Professionalism: Medical Examination of Emigration Applicants to Pre-State Israel, 1925-1928”, 11 Israel (2007) 31 (in Hebrew).

The article focuses on two instances when physicians were dismissed from their position as medical examiners in the Warsaw Eretz Israel office in 1925-28. These two related episodes serve as a case study for placing the medical examination of Jewish immigrants to Palestine by the Zionist movement in a broader social, political and professional context. Apart from their important public health function, Zionist physicians and administrators viewed the medical examination as an important vehicle for acquiring political and professional authority, which created constant tensions among political, ideological and medical considerations. An analysis of the various interests involved can help to understand the interaction between Zionism and public health during a decisive period when the basis for the medical selection of immigrants by the Zionist movement was being laid.

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Eyal Katvan, “” The Country is Our Battlefront and We Must Be the Guardians of Health”: The founding of the “Medical Office” and the system of medical diagnosis of prospective immigrants to Palestine (1934-1939)”, 18 Iyunim Betkumat Israel (2009)167 (in Hebrew).

When immigration to Eretz-Israel resumed in 1919, Zionist organizations required prospective immigrants to undergo medical and mental examinations in their country of origin, as a prerequisite to immigration. Further examinations were held soon after they reached Eretz-Israel. The links between both sets of medical examinations were loose and relied on different and inconsistent instructions. It was only in 1934 that the Medical Office was founded alongside the Zionist Immigration Department, and the administration of immigrants to Eretz-Israel was placed in the hands of a central authority. This was also a significant step towards the foundation of a wideranging system based on a holistic view of its authority in relation to the medical treatment (including physical examination) of immigrants. This article centers on the foundation and operation of the Medical Office, focusing on the hygiene-related program, in general, and the medical examination of immigrants and prospective immigrants, in particular. Looking into the scientific and bureaucratic foundations of the establishment of the Medical Office provides a chapter in the history of medicine and the foundation of medical organizations in pre-State Israel. Furthermore, the discussion throws light on the history of Zionism and immigration policies at the time. The article proposes that during the period in question, the aims of the medical examination of immigrants changed from a medical tool whose main goal was to select prospective immigrants, to a medical tool within a complex mechanism of education, assimilation and ‘normalization’ of immigrants to Eretz-Israel. The reasons for this shift stem from a change in the nature and composition of immigration, as well as from personal and individual interests of those associated with establishing this mechanism.

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Eyal Katvan, “Compulsory Physical Examinations for Determination of Disability “, 15 Refuah U-Mishpat  [Law & Medicine] (1996) 33 (in Hebrew).

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Eyal Katvan, “Who is the Landlord? Quarantine and Medical Examinations for Immigrants at the Gates of Eretz-Israel (1918-1929)”, 20 Korot (2010) 37 (in Hebrew).

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Eyal Katvan, Nadav Davidovitch, “The Examiners of the Immigrants to Mandatory Palestine between two World Wars”, 20 Korot (2010)19 (in Hebrew).

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Eyal Katvan, “‘Policy Makers’: The genealogy of the immigrant’s ‘Health Card (1926)’”, 171 Cathedra (2019) (in Hebrew). 


Katvan Eyal, Ben-Or Gali, "Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis – International Legal Aspects", in BIOETHICAL ISSUES OF PREIMPLANTATION  GENETIC DIAGNOSIS (PGD), (ed. Michel Ravel, The National Bioethics Council, 2008) 36 (in Hebrew)