Jews’ ‘Ethnic’ Category Scrapped for Testing
Jews should no longer be categorized by their ethnic origin when being tested for hereditary conditions, says the Health Ministry. The mixing of Jewish communities – mixed heritage – has rendered such categorization pointless, the ministry’s community genetics department says.
Because of the proliferation of “mixed marriages” between Jewish communities, as well as technological advances, a single set of tests for all Jews would do the trick, the ministry advises.
Genetic analysis institutes in health-care organizations and hospitals offer Jewish couples (typically trying to become pregnant) a series of genetic screening tests, looking for genes coding hereditary diseases such as Tay-Sachs. Which tests exactly each couple undergoes is based upon the ethnic category of each partner. For instance, Ashkenazi Jews are typically tested for Tay-Sachs, while Sephardic couples might not undergo such tests.
The Health Ministry recommends halting the practice of basing specific tests based on ethnicity, and to standardize genetic tests, which would be applied uniformly to all Jews.
For more, go to Haaretz.com
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
