Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Ashkenazi Jews, a major Jewish diasporic ethnic group native to Europe.
Ashkenazi Jews
The Latest
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Opinion Who Tests the Genetic Tests?
Testing the Testers: The Coriell Institute and Genetic Testing from Doni Bloomfield on Vimeo. What happens when you can’t trust a test meant to stave off a fatal disease? When, even if the test is 99% percent accurate, you don’t believe what it reports? That’s a question that keeps geneticists like Dorit Berlin up at…
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Culture How Do You Cope When a Disease Causes Your Body To Attack its Own Skin
About once a month, Rebecca Oling develops painful lesions inside her mouth, a symptom of a rare skin disease she’s been battling since 2004. With medication it takes the lesion roughly a week to dissipate. But Oling, in remission, considers herself one of the lucky ones. Feeling stressed by the deaths of her stepfather and…
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Culture Decoding the Ashkenazi Genome May Offer Clues to Cancer, Diabetes
Scientists have long been acutely interested in the genetic idiosyncrasies of Ashkenazi Jews. Like other groups with a long history of marrying from within, Ashkenazim constitute a relatively homogenous population. This has led to the discovery of a number of genetic alterations, or mutations, that are responsible for diseases found more often in Ashkenazi Jews….
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Culture Genetic Diseases Affecting Ashkenazi Jews
Here is a list of diseases that are often screened for in Jewish couples who are planning to have children because of an elevated risk of carrying a recessive mutation. Researchers have identified many more genetic diseases affecting those of Ashkenazi heritage than those of Sephardic and Mizrahi descent. Among Sephardic Jews more commonality exists…
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Breaking News David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef Elected New Israeli Chief Rabbis
A special electoral assembly on Wednesday elected Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau as Israel’s next chief rabbis, after weeks of a controversial and tense candidacy period. The two chief rabbis will hold office for the next decade. Both are sons of former chief rabbis: Yosef’s father is Shas spiritual leader Ovadia…
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Breaking News Israeli Chief Rabbis To Be Elected Today
The two new chief rabbis of Israel will be elected in Jerusalem Wednesday by 150 electors. The rabbis will hold office for the next decade. Among those electing the rabbis, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi, will be cabinet ministers, MKs, rabbis, mayors, religious court judges, heads of local religious councils and representatives of the general…
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Food Where To Get a Jewish Bite in Montreal
Heading north to Montreal this summer? If you’re not, you should be. Aside from being the three months out of the year when the city doesn’t look like a snow globe, summertime is festival time in Montreal. From June until mid-September, the newly laid-out Place des Festivals is aglow with lights, sounds, crowds, music and…
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Breaking News Angelina Jolie Has Double Mastectomy Over ‘Jewish’ Gene Breast Cancer Fear
Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of getting breast cancer and says she hopes her story will inspire other women fighting the life-threatening disease. Jolie wrote in the New York Times on Tuesday the operation has made it easier for her to reassure her six children that she…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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News Your complete guide to Trump’s Jewish advisers and pro-Israel cabinet
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Opinion After all that controversy, here’s why Ta-Nehisi Coates (probably) didn’t change any minds on Israel-Palestine
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Looking Forward How a Jewish student at Columbia became an icon of a movement
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Culture At 95, Shaindel Schreiber is still dispensing babka and advice on the Lower East Side
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Fast Forward Fighting antisemitism is ‘an American issue’ not a Democratic or Republican one, says House Democratic leader
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