Genetic variation in FGFR2 is a newly described risk factor for breast cancer. We estimated the relative risk and contribution of FGFR2 polymorphisms to breast cancer risk in diverse ethnic groups within Jewish and other Middle Eastern populations. We genotyped four FGFR2 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) and tested for association of these SNPs and haplotypes with breast cancer risk in a p...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE In Israel, stroke is the third most common cause of death. In 1997 stroke accounted for 2905 deaths (8.1% of total), 1390 of them among men (7.5% of total; crude mortality rate of 48.3/100 000) and 1515 among women (8.6% of total; crude rate of 51.7/100 000). This report presents trends on stroke mortality by population group and estimates of morbidity in Israel. METHOD...

BACKGROUND In observance of the Sabbath and other religious holidays, many Orthodox Jews maintain a burning lamp that uses paraffin lamp oil as fuel. Unintentional pediatric exposure to paraffin lamp oil, a hydrocarbon, is typically by ingestion and carries a risk of aspiration with subsequent pneumonitis. This investigation was prompted by an apparent increase in paraffin lamp oil exposures du...

The question of Jewish ancestry has been the subject of controversy for over two centuries and has yet to be resolved. The "Rhineland hypothesis" depicts Eastern European Jews as a "population isolate" that emerged from a small group of German Jews who migrated eastward and expanded rapidly. Alternatively, the "Khazarian hypothesis" suggests that Eastern European Jews descended from the Khazars...

The black Jewish movement in the United States is an African American new religious often linked to gods. This thought raises concerns and questions. Firstly, if assertions of Jews are factual, what happens biblical Israelites their historicity? Secondly, background Jews, how does that relate Israel? Thirdly, primary claims Jews? article a critical evaluation religious-historical, theological A...

Goldberg is a first-rate historian and it is good to have this 1989 volume on Prague Jewry in English, especially in Carol Cosman's literate and fluid translation. Goldberg surveys notions of illness, death, dying, and burial among the Jews of Prague from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Using communal records and ancillary sources, she provides detailed (and often extensive) quotatio...

We have analyzed the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA from each of nine geographically separated Jewish groups, eight non-Jewish host populations, and an Israeli Arab/Palestinian population, and we have compared the differences found in Jews and non-Jews with those found using Y-chromosome data that were obtained, in most cases, from the same population samples. The results suggest that m...