Choosing our own Precursors?: Jews, Genes and Identity

(Illustration Tablet Magazine; source images Wikimedia Commons and Shutterstock)

http://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/96237/on-the-cancer-gene-trail/ 

Jeff Wheelwright:

The Wandering Gene and the Indian Princess: Race, Religion, and DNA 

I was rather hesitant when I decided to listen to this podcast from VoxTablet. I like leaving science to the scientists and culture and history to the artists and historians out there. However, tomorrow at Yeshiva College we are hosting Inês Nogueiro, a geneticist from Portugal who will be discussing the connection between “Jewish” genes and contemporary Jewish identity, specifically related to the community of former crypto-Jews in Northern Portugal and more loosely to the descendants of the Conversos of 1497.  This very promising talk tomorrow put me in the mood to blur the lines and see what happens when science enters into questions of history and identity.

I was completely entranced by the podcast. The author, Jeff Wheelwright came to the subject without the more common “hopefulness” or sensationalism of some ethnically committed Jewish historians looking for exotic fellow tribesman in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. He wanted to understand the “biography” of a particular gene, the erroneously called Ashkenazi breast cancer gene, and how it wound up with such prominence among Hispano women in the South-West United States. 

After listening to the interview- which I highly recommend- I wanted to get my hands on the book. Wheelwright is good at not conflating genes with identity. Just because you have a Jewish gene does not make you Jewish— in this day and age the individual charts out there own path. On the other hand, it is clear that for some individuals, the genetic marker anchors them within a wider and deeper history.

The irony of the forced conversions that occurred in Spain and Portugal –in 1391, 1492 and 1497- is that instead of erasing the Jews from Iberian life and culture, the Old Christians managed to make a group of Christians—the converts- into Jews. The Old Christians identified Jewish blood with a tenacious hold on the worst (and sometimes the best) qualities of the Jews and Judaism, no matter how many generations the convert was in the bosom of the Mother Church.  And so, today, so many generations later we have people whose blood leads them back to Judaism and it is for them to make sense of that history and decide whether or not that is a legacy they want to embrace.

Tomorrow’s talk at Yeshiva College:

                            Portuguese Crypto-Jews:

Genetics & the  “Sense of Belonging”

Thursday, 4/26/12

Club Hour, 2:45pm—3:45pm

Belfer Hall, Room 516

Inês Nogueiro
PhD Candidate at IPATIMUP
Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology
of the University of Porto - Portugal

Understanding how the persistence of hidden religious practices and a strong sense of belonging to a community translate into genetics is the main aim of Ms. Nogueiro’s research program.

Inês Nogueiro is a population geneticist, who is descended from the Portuguese Anusim (Marranos).  She will present her results on paternal and maternal lineages showing that the communities scattered over NE Portugal have succeeded in maintaining a high level of genetic diversity and a genetic profile distinct from the host population with a clear root in the Near East and related to other Jewish populations.