This is the Forward’s coverage of Ashkenazi Jews, a major Jewish diasporic ethnic group native to Europe.
Ashkenazi Jews
The Latest
-
Fast Forward Ex-Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger Arrested for Million-Dollar Bribes
Former Israeli chief rabbi Yona Metzger was arrested on suspicion that he received bribes, as well as committed money laundering and fraud, during his time as Ashkenazi chief rabbi. Metzger was arrested Monday, following a several-month-long investigation. A Petah Tikvah court remanded to police custody for nine days. The Israel Police National Fraud squad believes…
-
News Medical Ethics Program Takes Aim at BRCA ‘Jewish’ Gene Mutation
After actress Angelina Jolie announced her decision to have a double mastectomy back in May, it didn’t take long for synagogues and Shabbat tables in the Jewish community to buzz with a new conversation. Her choice to have her breasts surgically removed touched a raw nerve within the community: while one in every 800 individuals…
-
Fast Forward Jewish Women’s Genes Traced Mostly to Europe — Not Israel
The maternal ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews comes mainly from Europe, a new study shows. The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, fly in the face of the commonly accepted notion that European Ashkenazim are descended from Jews who left Israel and the Middle East some 2,000 years ago and moved to the Near East….
-
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…
-
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…
-
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….
-
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…
-
Fast Forward 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…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture RFK Jr.’s poems to Olivia Nuzzi are peak cringe — so were King Solomon’s
- 2
News DNA test kits spark a surge of online conversions to Judaism in the U.S.
- 3
Culture She was a dancer who leapt to the top of her field — then the Trump administration fired her
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker has long embraced Jewish tradition. Now he has married a Jewish woman.
In Case You Missed It
-
Film & TV In ‘The Secret Agent,’ a peek into Brazilian Jewish history — and a warning against propaganda
-
Fast Forward NYC principal turns down Holocaust survivor’s talk over his ‘messages around Israel and Palestine’
-
Fast Forward Trump appointee promoted after reports he texted about having a ‘Nazi streak’
-
Theater The Jewish playwright who inspired Tom Stoppard to write his Holocaust history
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
