In the documentary, we watched in class the man from the National Alliance says that Jews' genetic code predisposes them to have a greed to rule the world. This may be true, science today does not know how to identify the genetics of ruling the world. However, it is likely to be a false claim.
What we do know about the genetics of Jews is a series of disorders that specifically are prevalent in Ashkenazi Jews. Ashkenazi Jews are those who originated in Eastern Europe. About 80% of modern Jews have Ashkenazi ancestry, according to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and researchers found that all of the Ashkenazi Jews alive today can trace their roots to a group of about 330 people. This combined with Jews traditionally marrying other Jews left the gene pool closed.
The effects of this can be seen today as current estimates, state that as many as one in three Ashkenazi Jews are carriers for certain genetic diseases. This is considered the founder effect. Some of the original population of Ashkenazi Jews had mutated genes that posed no harm to them. As these genes were passed down from generation to generation the risk of developing a disease like Gaucher disease increased.Studies have shown that 1 in 10 Ashkenazi Jews has Gaucher disease. 1 in 24 has cystic fibrosis, 1 in 27 has Tay-Sachs Disease 1 in 31 has Familial Dysautonomia and 1 in 41 has Spinal Muscular Atrophy. These diseases are seriously debilitating.
To help combat these diseases screening initiatives have been launched to identify carriers of the genes.
Do you know of other examples of the founders' effect? Should more be being done to protect from these diseases?
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ashkenazi-jews-dna-diseases-20140909-story.html
https://www.gaucherdisease.org/blog/5-common-ashkenazi-genetic-diseases/
I have heard of Ashkenazi Jews because of the genetic diseases that can be passed down to the next generation when two Ashkenazi reproduce. I heard that people who were of Ashkenazi Jewish descent who wanted to have children, had to do some sort of genetic screening to make sure that their children wouldn't have certain diseases. However, I never knew what exactly would happen if they did, I only knew that it ended in something negative from a genetic standpoint. But diseases like Cystic Fibrosis and Spinal Muscular Atrophy are really horrific genetic disorders that result in a short and painful life for most who have those them. Is it worth it to take the chance and risk having a child if you're an Ashkenazi Jew or is it better to look into something like adoption?
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