Jewgenics, Part II: Genes, Identity, History — and a compelling book on the subject
Cross-posted on True Ancestor
In a previous post, I’ve explored the ideas behind a book that looks at the cross-currents of genes, identity and values and tries to answer the question, “Who is a Jew?”
The answer, according to that post, and the book discussed therein, was “almost everyone.” A new and perhaps even more compelling book on the subject is Jacob’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History.
The book – beautifully reviewed by Jerome Groopman in a recent issue of the New Republic – views the complexities of identity, and the blurred and often-buried history of Jewish identity specifically, through a scientific lens. Genetic research indicates that there is a clear continuity in genetic makeup amongst the descendents of the Cohanim, the priestly tribe of Israelites, but Groopman — and, through him, the book’s author, David Goldstein — note that the urge to use science to ratify belonging leads us along dark paths down which we’ve been dragged before. While genetic research does point to common strands (literally) of experience, Goldstein notes that answers to questions of belonging are as complex as the genetic research that gives rise to them.
In our thirst for answers and connections, and in the profusion of our Google-ized sources, we often seize on the most available answers: they satisfy us without making us work too hard. Media distillations of the implications of genetic research routinely distort the overarching fact that genes don’t trump history. The sequence of events, the narrative that captures those events and the environment in which both are produced are even more complex than the microsatellite markers embedded in the Y chromosomes of descendents of Aaron. People who have chosen Judaism — who have learned it, practiced it, embraced it, lived it — are Jews.
Genetic history, says Goldstein, “is both more and less significant than it is depicted in popular accounts.” Science affirms history’s complexity; history shouts down the determinism that springs from simplistic proclamations, and nefarious ambitions, on the subject.
“The great and beautiful irony,” Groopman says in his review, ”is that this ancient assessment of position and potential in society, this hostility to biological determinism and respect for free human choice and its consequences, is also at the core of modernity. It is refreshing to have this truth now affirmed, and in this context, by a geneticist.”
In plainer terms, the answer to the question, “Who is a Jew?,” is:
“Anyone who really, truly wants to be.”
(h/t: Me True Ann-Sister)
Hi David,
Interesting post. In doing some reading online recently I discovered a site purporting to represent the descendants of David HaMelekh. Well I feel that claims of such heritage are rather dubious, it seems that those involved take the matter quite seriously. Speaking as a JBC, I think that those who obsess about qualifications and pedigree miss the most important point of Judaism: being a light to the nations and welcoming those who throw in their lot with the Jewish People. Bloodlines focus people on themselves, while Torah seems to indicate that the only purpose for the existence of the Jewish nation in the first place is to be that light to the nations; hard to do when division and exclusion are at the forefront.
Anyway, interesting post, thanks!
Yair