The organization

Dor Yeshorim is based in Brooklyn, New York, but has offices in Israel and various other countries. It does not have a web presence but announces testing sessions in community newspapers.

Background

In both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi elements of the Jewish community there is an increased rate of a number of genetic disorders. The most important one is Tay-Sachs disease, a 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 preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and selective abortion. By avoiding the marriage between carriers, the incidence of the disease decreases without having to resort to the methods that are disapproved of by halakha (Jewish law).

Methods

Dor Yeshorim advocates anonymous testing. Young unmarrieds are tested during large sessions in schools and yeshivas (Talmudic seminaries) and processed anonymously with only a PIN linking the sample with the candidate.

The sample is tested for a number of diseases that are prominent in the community. At the moment, these are:

• Tay-Sachs disease
• Familial dysautonomia
• Cystic fibrosis
• Canavan disease
• Glycogen storage disease (type 1)
• Fanconi anemia (type C)
• Bloom syndrome
• Niemann-Pick disease
• Mucolipidosis (type IV)
• Gaucher's disease (only by request)

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 before two people are arranged to meet each other, 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 1983.

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 eugenics. 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.

External links

• New Scientist interview with Rabbi Ekstein.
• Article in The New Atlantis on the ethics anonymous testing and defacto phenotypical eugenics.
• Article on the methods of DY.