JGDC launches Rabbi Education Program
photos: Steven Rosen
On October 21st, 2010 the JGDC launched “Couples Aware”, a Rabbi Education Program presented in partnership with the NY Board of Rabbi’s (NYBR) and the UJA.
‘Couples Aware’ was created to better educate rabbis so that they may in turn inform their constituents, particularly young couples in pre-marital counseling, about the risks of Jewish Genetic Diseases and to encourage them to seek complete genetic screening prior to pregnancy.
The JGDC Rabbi Education Program consists of a physician or genetic counselor led a 45-minute seminar, a personal story from an individual with a family member afflicted with a Jewish Genetic Disease, and a rabbi led discussion and Q & A session.
Speakers at the Park Avenue Synagogue launch included: Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, Chair of this programs’ Rabbinic Advisory Committee and leader of the Park Avenue Synagogue, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Executive Vice President NYBR, John Ruskay, Executive Vice President and CEO of UJA-Federation NY, Dr. Harry Ostrer, Professor and Division Director of Human Genetics Departments of Pediatrics and Pathology, NYU Langone Medical Center, and Randy Yudenfriend-Glaser, Chair of the JGDC
In attendance at the event were rabbis of all Jewish faiths from the NY, CT and NJ areas. The launch included a training session and Q&A moderated by Dr. Susan Klugman, Director of the Division of Reproductive Genetics at Montefiore Medical Center) and Rabbi Deborah Bravo of Temple Emanu-El in Edison, New Jersey.
Rabbi Education Program: In the News
The Jewish Week (NY): “Training Rabbis To Promote Screening”
On NBC’s New York Nightly News with Chuck Scarborough, Rabbi Joe Patasnik (Executive Director, New York Board of Rabbis) and Randy Yudenfriend Glaser (Chair, JGDC) discuss the JGDC Rabbi Education Program
courtesy, NBC NY Nightly News
Two summers ago I had the opportunity to interview many couples to find out what they knew about screening for Jewish genetic diseases. All the couples I talked with had been married by a rabbi – sometimes the rabbi they grew up with, sometimes the rabbi their spouse had grown up with. They had all had at least one conversation with this rabbi before the wedding ceremony, and in some cases there’d been multiple meetings. But only one couple in over 25 marriages in the New York area had been advised by their rabbi to be screened for Jewish genetic diseases!
I was completely shocked. Why would rabbis not be raising the subject with the couples they were marrying? When I had gotten married in 1980 I had been screened at a hospital in Washington, D.C. for Tay-Sachs, and my rabbi had wanted to know if we’d been screened. Clearly, something had changed. Six months later, when we actually surveyed rabbis of all denominations about their knowledge of Jewish genetic diseases, I found out that while most were aware – of Tay-Sachs, at least – many said they weren’t fully informed and needed materials and resources to give to the couples they were marrying and to their congregants. Clearly, there was an information vacuum.
Orren Alperstein
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