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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PET Scan Aids in New Hyperinsulinism Cure
After 1-month-old Lily Meyers suffered two seizures in the span of two weeks, her parents faced a terribly daunting task: wading through the endless possibilities of what, exactly, was plaguing their daughter. With the aid of some new technology, however, Lily was not only properly diagnosed but also effectively cured. Rana and William Meyers eventually…
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Making Progress, Bit by (Rib)Bit
In their research on Fanconi anemia, Maureen Hoatlin and her four associates at the Oregon Health & Science University have been getting groundbreaking help from a small, slimy source. Hoatlin’s lab has shown that the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) has Fanconi genes and can be used to understand the complex set of proteins that…
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Can Testing Ever Be a Mistake?
Even when given the option of free or low-cost genetic testing, there are some who have consciously decided against it out of fear that the results could lead to discrimination from insurance companies or employers. Are such fears warranted? According to Noah Kauff, a geneticist at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, they are not. Of…
The Latest
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Tay-Sachs Association Turns 50
When it was founded in 1957, the National Tay-Sachs & Allied Diseases Association was no more than a group of New York parents who had dedicated themselves to ending Tay-Sachs and the genetic diseases related to it. Tay-Sachs may still be around, but at the NTSAD’s 50th anniversary gala in October, the group will have…
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Similarities Between Cerebral Palsy and ML4 Make Diagnosis a Challenge
‘Diagnostic hell” was the way that Mary Jo Reich, a mother of two from Short Hills, N.J., described her son Scott’s battery of misdiagnoses. Although pediatricians had told Reich that Scott was following a normal developmental curve for the first eight months of his life, she had always sensed a problem. “He was less than…
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Two New Gaucher Meds on Horizon
Two new oral treatments for Gaucher disease, the most common of the Jewish genetic diseases, have reached Phase II clinical trials and could be on the market within the next few years. Two pharmaceutical companies, Genzyme and Amicus Therapeutics, are each developing their own oral drugs and have taken very different approaches to tackling the…
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Campuses Offer Genetic Tests (No Studying Required)
At the Pennsylvania summer camp where she was working as a counselor, Shoshana Rosen got tested for nine Jewish genetic diseases and found out she was a carrier of cystic fibrosis. Thanks to the Victor Center for Jewish Genetic Diseases, the tests she received were free of charge. Had she gone to a private laboratory,…
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Annual Guide to Jewish Genetic Diseases
The Forward presents this section to provide information on some of the more serious Jewish genetic diseases. There are about 20 “Ashkenazic diseases,” not counting the higher rates of at least four cancer-related genes. The diseases are more prevalent in the Eastern European Jewish population because of centuries of endogamy — literally, “marrying within.” Bloom’s…
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A Persian Josef K.
The Septembers of Shiraz By Dalia Sofer Ecco Books, 340 pages, $24.95. At its outset, Dalia Sofer’s novel, “The Septembers of Shiraz,” seems destined to be “The Trial: Tehran,” the story of a man wrongfully arrested and very belatedly informed of his supposed crime. But Sofer’s protagonist, Isaac Amin, is no Josef K., who comparatively…
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August 17, 2007
100 Years Ago In the Forward Last night, as 14-year-old Joseph Mintzer was playing with his friends in front of his building at 42 Delancey Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a car came whizzing by, smashing into Mintzer and flinging his body far down the sidewalk. Hundreds of Jews came out onto the street…
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Funny, Brad Greenberg Doesn’t Look Christian
It’s not surprising that a major Jewish newspaper would have its own “God Blog.” One might be surprised, however, upon learning that a Jewish newspaper’s “God blogger” is a church-going Christian. And one certainly wouldn’t expect said Christian to have a last name that starts with “Green” and ends with “berg.” Meet Brad A. Greenberg,…
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