Review of Dorff and Zoloth (eds.), Jews and Genes

BOOK REVIEW: Parsing the Jewish genome (Jonathan Kirsch , Jewish Journal).

Jewish law holds that Jewish identity is traced through the maternal bloodline, but history cautions us against the dangers of linking blood and religion. From the Spanish Inquisition to the Third Reich, the scrutiny of one’s ancestry has been a matter of life and death for Jews and their descendants. To put it another way, what is written in the Jewish genome cannot be erased.

Elliot N. Dorff and Laurie Zoloth, the editors of “Jews and Genes: The Genetic Future in Contemporary Jewish Thought” (Jewish Publication Society/University of Nebraska Press), are mindful of these dangers, but they insist that genetic science holds special meaning and promise for the Jewish people, a theme that is explored in fascinating and often surprising detail by rabbis, physicians, religious scholars, folklorists and bioethicists in the essays that are collected here.

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The essays in the book are wide ranging, including not only obvious topics such as whether there is "a single 'Jewish gene'" (doesn't look like it so far), but also the concepts of a human soul and the image of God in the book of Genesis, as well as the concept of magic in the Talmud and the question of where research moves into the realm of sorcery.