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7 Health Matrix 49 (1997)
Di Goldine Medina (the Golden Land): Historical Perspectives of Eugenics and the East European (Ashkenazi) Jewish-American Community, 1880-1925

handle is hein.journals/hmax7 and id is 55 raw text is: DI GOLDINE MEDINA (THE GOLDEN LAND): HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES OF EUGENICS AND THE EAST EUROPEAN (ASHKENAZI) JEWISH-AMERICAN COMMUNITY, 1880-1925 Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D.t I. INTRODUCTION HISTORIANS ARE BY NATURE HESITANT to pre- dict the future. Consequently, I approach this discussion of the BRCA1 gene's association with the Ashkenazi-Jewish popu- lation, based upon a consideration of previous associations of this population and eugenics, with some trepidation. But while history does not repeat itself exactly in alternating currents of thirty year cycles as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. once sug- gested,' there are recurrent themes that may be revealed by the historical study of this topic. Indeed, many historians would agree that past interactions of this population with genetic issues have the potential to be culturally and socially embedded in contemporary responses to the relatively high association of the BRCA1 gene among Ashkenazi-Jewish women. There are also areas of stark contrast between eugenic theories of the early twentieth century and contemporary biological debates that should help to further elucidate our collective study of the t Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases; Director, Historical Center for the Health Sciences, The University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-0318. Presented at the Case Western Reserve University Center for Biomedical Ethics and Law and Medicine Center's Symposium on the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Inherited Breast Cancer in Jewish Women, April 26, 1996. 1. ARTHUR MEIR SCHLESINGER, JR., THE CYCLES OF AMERICAN HISTORY 31 (1986) (offering an historian's reflection on the past and the future of the American experiment).

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