This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture where you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music (including of course Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of…
Culture
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Where To Go for Support and Help
Where To Go for Support and Help BACHMANN-STRAUSS DYSTONIA & PARKINSON FOUNDATION 551 Fifth Avenue, Suite 520 New York, NY 10176 (212) 682-9900 www.dystonia-parkinsons.org Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia & Parkinson Foundation funds scientific research seeking to understand the causes of, and to find potential cures for, the movement disorders dystonia and Parkinson’s disease. BLOOM’S SYNDROME FOUNDATION 7095…
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Picture of Good Health: A Q&A with Susan Gross
Yeshiva University officially launched its new Program for Jewish Genetic Health with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in February. But the program’s roots go back much further than that. Inspired by Yeshiva’s Tay-Sachs community screens of the 1970s, Dr. Susan Gross, medical director of the human genetics laboratory at the Jacobi Medical Center, launched a pilot effort…
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Couples Aware Program Gives Rabbis Tools To Counsel Couples on Screening
When it comes to weddings, even the most secular of Jewish couples often reverts to tradition and asks a rabbi to officiate at the ceremony. So if the Jewish community needs to get an important message across to prospective parents at all levels of religious involvement, how better to convey that information than through the…
The Latest
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Annual Guide to Jewish Genetic Diseases
Annual Guide to Jewish Genetic Diseases There are about 20 known “Ashkenazic diseases,” though more are being discovered all the time. Here are diseases that are commonly screened for in Jewish couples who are planning to have children. In many of these diseases, Ashkenazic Jews are more likely to be carriers than the population at…
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A Laboratory Sleuth Follows the Trail From Gene Mutant To Search for a Cure
Two empty champagne bottles sit like trophies on the shelf. Their wrinkled foil labels catch the sun, scattering light onto hanging plants and genetics textbooks. These bottles lost their corks more than 10 years ago, after Susan Slaugenhaupt and her colleagues at the Massachusetts General Hospital discovered the disease-causing mutations responsible for two genetic disorders…
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Persian Jewish Testing To Expand in N.Y., Though Reluctance Remains a Concern in L.A.
The husband and wife who met with Catherine Quindipan did not expect the news. A community screening program among Persian Jews had revealed that they both were genetic carriers of a condition called hereditary inclusion body myopathy (HIBM), a muscle-wasting disease that starts in early adulthood. “They were absolutely shocked,” said Quindipan, a genetic counselor…
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DNA and You — Personalized Genomics Goes Jewish
The Human Genome Project turned 10 this year. In the decade since scientists first published our genetic blueprint, huge strides have been made in understanding the biological basis of inherited disease, the history of humankind and the role that genetics can play in modern medicine. The genetic map also created a new industry of personalized…
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May You Live Until 120: DNA Uncovers Secrets To Jewish Longevity
Life expectancy has risen steadily in recent years, with the average American now living for close to 80 years. But that’s nothing compared to the lifespans of people mentioned in the Bible. According to Genesis, Noah’s grandfather, Methuselah, lived the longest, at 969 years of age, with others, including Adam and his kin, not far…
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Sephardi Mutations Raise Calls for Expanded Test
Researchers have discovered the first mutations responsible for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer among “pure” Sephardi Jews, leading to calls for a more comprehensive genetic test for high-risk women in Israel. “When a woman of Sephardic origin used to come to our clinic, we would tell her, ‘You are not Ashkenazi, so you might have…
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Higher Tech Lowers Cost Of Genetic Screening
Screening for genetic disorders has come a long way since the first tests for Tay-Sachs disease in the late 1960s. At the time, clinicians screened the Jewish community by measuring enzyme levels in people’s blood. But in the late 1980s, newer genetic tests became available for Tay-Sachs and, soon after, for a range of other…
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A Tremor in the Research Force
Genetics has long been thought to play a relatively minor role when it comes to the development of Parkinson’s disease. So it came as a surprise to the medical community five years ago when Dr. Susan Bressman and her colleagues at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York reported that a single genetic mutation…
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