Hemophilia in Jewish Traditions and Genomes

Over the past century, the congruency between the modern description of hemophilia and a hereditary coagulation disorder described in the Talmud has been widely noted. Examination of the Talmudic text suggests that: 1. The disease described there closely resembles the modern characterization of classic hemophilia. 2. The hereditary pattern described is consistent with the distinctive inheritance pattern of chromosome-X lined recessive genetic disorders. An empirical basis for the observation of this disorder, as well as its inheritance patterns, was plausibly supplied by the Jewish practice of ritual circumcision, which facilitated a universal hematological evaluation of