A very interesting article was written and posted by David Gewirtz, who hosts the ZDNet Government and ZDNet DIY-IT blogs. Not being Jewish, it’s a subject I hadn’t spent any time considering, but Mr. Gewirtz takes on the topic of cultural and religious identity. When you take a DNA test with Ancestry, you’ll get results that might show how “Jewish” you are. Wait a minute! Isn’t Jewish a religion? Why don’t our DNA tests tell us how Catholic or Lutheran we might be? Well… It’s much more complicated than that.
Mr. Gewirtz decidedly did not have a good time during his 5 years of Hebrew School, and that shaped his religious (non-religious?) identity for life. Then along comes DNA testing. He tested with Ancestry, then 23andMe, as well as Living DNA. The results were disconcerting, but also uplifting in many ways.
I don’t usually find other folks’ DNA results all that fascinating, but I’ll make an exception for David Gewirtz. Let me worn you, the article starts out a little boring (statistics and government stuff), setting the stage for the interesting parts in the later paragraphs. It’s worht wading through.
Read the article, My ancestry adventure: When DNA testing delivers unexpected and unsettling results, by David Gewirtz. I ended up subscribing the Gewirtz’ newsletter, as he’s a good writer.
