Dor Yeshorim is an organization that offers genetic screeningto members of the worldwide Jewish community. Its objective is to minimize, and eventually eliminate, the incidence of genetic disorders common to Jewish people, such as Tay-Sachs disease.
Dor Yeshorim is based in Brooklyn, New York, but has offices in Israel and various other countries. It announces testing sessions in community newspapers and Orthodox Jewish high schools.
Dor Yeshorim has been criticised for withholding patient results, for declining to publish its financial records and for not testing anyone who has already been tested elsewhere, by Professor Geoffrey Alderman, who says that Dor Yeshorim fails some fundamental tests itself. Critics including the Association for the Prevention of Jewish Genetic Diseases, have described Dor Yeshorim in the UK as a “Wedding tax”, when in fact free screening is available under the UK’s national health service.
Dor Yeshorim was also criticised for allegedly seeking to convince the Jewish community it must, for “religious reasons,” use its service, by circulating a letter from Rabbi Bezalel Rakow ofGateshead, who wrote “To deviate from the established path is to risk awesome pitfalls,”. Rabbi Rakow was in fact a signatory to a subsequent letter stating that “Every individual has the privilege to perform the test in a manner consistent with his desires.” Additionally, the Jewish Chronicle published a letter by a Tay Sachs carrier, who was hurt by a Dor Yeshorim organiser’s insinuation, that there was stigma attached to being a Tay-Sachs carrier.
