Dor Yeshorim

Dor Yeshorim (Hebrew: "generation is straight/reliable") is an organization that offers genetic screening to members of Orthodox Jewish communities. Its objective is to minimize the occurrence of genetic disorders common to Jewish people.

Dor Yeshorim is based in Brooklyn, New York, but has offices in Israel and various other countries. It has no web presence but announces testing sessions in community newspapers and Orthodox high schools.

Background

In both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish communities there is an increased rate of a number of genetic disorders such as Tay-Sachs disease, an autosomal recessive disorder that goes unnoticed in carriers but is fatal within the first few years of life in homozygotes.

Orthodox Judaism generally frowns on selective abortion. Although preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is often approved by Halakha, it is a difficult and costly process. By avoiding the marriage between "carriers", the incidence of the disease decreases without having to resort to such methods.

Policy

Dor Yeshorim screens only for recessive traits that give rise to lethal or severely debilitating diseases, providing prophylactic, rather than diagnostic services. They do not screen for diseases arising from dominant gene mutations, as these cannot be prevented by informed mate selection.

Methods

Dor Yeshorim advocates anonymous testing. Teenagers are tested during large sessions in Jewish schools and processed anonymously with only a PIN linking the sample with the candidate.

At present, testing is offered for:

When two members of the system contemplate marriage, they contact the organisation and enter both their PINs. When carriership of the same disease is present in both, the risk of affected offspring is 25%, and it is considered advisable to discontinue the plans. In the context of shidduchim, the "carriership check" is often run within the first three "dates", to avoid disappointments and heartbreak.

History

Dor Yeshorim was started in the 1980s by Rabbi Joseph Ekstein, who lost four children to Tay-Sachs disease between 1965 and 1983George, Alison. "The Rabbi's Dilemma". New Scientist 14 Feb 2004. Online version.. In a 2006 interview, Ekstein revealedLeiman, Yehoshua. "Trailblazer in Genetics for the Jewish World and Beyond". Personal Glimpses, supplement to Hamodia, Pesach 5766 (April 2006), page 24-27. that while of his first five children four died of Tay-Sachs disease, none of the ones born subsequent to his founding of Dor Yeshorim suffered the condition. The same interview quotes a New York neurologist who credits the near-total disappearance of the condition from the community to Dor Yeshorim's involvement.

Criticism

The system has received criticism from within and outside the community. The largely Eastern-European Orthodox congregation of Antwerp, for example, uses alternative methods of testing because of misgivings about the procedure.

Another criticism that is being leveled against the method used by DY is the resemblance of eugenicsRosen, Christine. "Eugenics—Sacred and Profane". The New Atlantis Summer 2003;2:79-89. Online version.. One has to bear in mind that the methodology of DY bears down to "phenotypical eugenics", as the carriership is not decreased at all. The effort is certainly not aimed at eradicating the hereditary traits, but rather at the occurrence of homozygosity.

Additionally they only test for resessive disorders that require two carriers, and thus are only concerned with eliminating active cases of the disease. But the testing has no impact on the rates of carriers, and they will not test for diseases that manifest even with one carrier. (See Policy section above.)

References