Validity of Dna Evidence For Halakhic Purposes (Part 4): The “Jewish” Gene

(ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.) I. BACKGROUND In past decades the Israeli government vigorously encouraged aliyah on the part of Jews residing in what was then known as the U.S.S.R. Discrimination against Jews, economic deprivation and lack of civil liberties were significant motivating factors spurring emigration. Conversion to Judaism is an obvious expedient to avoid such problems, but an expedient that is fraught with halakhic difficulties when undertaken for material benefit or mere convenience.2 There are also some who for reasons of conscience or intellectual honesty refuse to profess a faith-commitment they do not harbor but-not unlike many of their secular fellow citizens-are proud of their claimed ethnic heritage as Jews.3 Judaism is a religion based upon faith commitment. Examination for the presence of the hypothetical "Jewish" gene herein described is analogous to genetic testing employed to establish personal identification or a blood relationship between two individuals. The "Jewish" gene would establish the existence of a Jewish grandmother many, many generations in the distant past who transmitted the gene to her daughter and subsequently the gene was passed on directly from mother to daughter over the span of centuries. Since Judaism recognizes only matrilineal succession, that genetic material must appear in mitochondrial DNA which is passed on from mother to child.6 The problem is that no one has demonstrated the existence of such a single gene or even claimed that it exists.