Iraqi Jews Research Articles

One of the Two Common Mutations Causing Factor XI Deficiency in Ashkenazi Jews (Type II) Is Also Prevalent in Iraqi Jews, Who Represent the Ancient Gene Pool of Jews

Abstract In recent years four mutations causing factor XI deficiency have been identified in Jews of Ashkenazi (European) origin. Two of them, type II (a nonsense mutation) and type III (a missense mutation), were found to prevail among 125 unrelated Ashkenazi Jews with severe factor XI deficiency. A finding of type II mutation in four unrelated Iraqi- Jewish families raised the possibility that this mutation is also common in Iraqi Jews, who represent the ancient gene pool of the Jews. A molecular-based analysis performed in 1,040 consecutively hospitalized patients disclosed the following results: Among 531 Ashkenazi-Jewish patients, the type II allele frequency was 0.0217 and among 509 Iraqi-Jewish patients, 0.0167 (P = .50). The type III allele frequency in the Ashkenazi-Jewish patients was 0.0254, whereas none of 502 Iraqi-Jewish patients examined had this mutation. These data suggest that the type II mutation was present in Jews already 2.5 millenia ago. The data also indicate that the estimated risk for severe factor XI deficiency in Ashkenazi Jews (due to either genotype) is 0.22% and in Iraqi Jews, 0.03%, and that the estimated risk of heterozygosity in Ashkenazi Jews is 9.0% and in Iraqi Jews, 3.3%. As patients with severe factor XI deficiency are prone to bleeding after injury and patients with partial deficiency may have similar bleeding complications when an additional hemostatic derangement is present, the observed high frequencies should be borne in mind when surgery is planned for individuals belonging to these populations.

Ethnic Convergence Processes under Conditions of Persisting Socioeconomic-Decreasing Cultural Differences: The Case of Israeli Society

The central claim of the present study is that under conditions of persistent ethnic inequality accompanied by widespread acculturation, ethnic convergence processes may proceed in various directions among different subsections of the same group. Expectations based on three theoretical approaches that assume different directions of ethnic convergence are tested on data of friendship patterns among two generations of Iraqi Jews in Israel, using logistic regression procedures for polytomous dependent variables. The findings substantiate the central claim and lend general support to the triple melting pot diesis. An explanatory framework that could prove to be a fruitful direction for future research is suggested.

3-Methylglutaconic aciduria in "optic atrophy plus".

Behr's syndrome consists of recessively inherited infantile optic atrophy, together with chronic neurological disturbances such as ataxia, extrapyramidal dysfunction, and juvenile spastic paresis. This syndrome was found to be relatively common among Iraqi Jews. For our study, 18 such patients underwent metabolic study. All 18 showed abnormally elevated excretion of 3-methylglutaconic acid in their urine. The basic enzymatic defect is as yet unknown. We recommend that patients with early optic atrophy, and especially those with motor dysfunction, be examined for this organic aciduria.

Recurrent Hereditary Polyserositis or Familial Mediterranean Fever: An Overview

The etiology and pathogenesis of recurrent hereditary polyserositis (RHP) remain undetermined. There is a good evidence for a genetic basis (transmission being by a recessive Mendelian mode of inheritance), but not all cases have a family history and an infective (or other environmental) components has not been excluded. The marked variation in presentation and complications (in particular the prevalence of amyloid deposition) in different series suggests that this might not be a homogeneous entity. Vascular involvement is a basic prerequisite for the periodic attacks, and evidence for transient immunological abnormalities is incontrovertible. There are no reliable diagnostic techniques. Colchicine is of value in treatment, but its mode of action is unclear. More macro- and microepidemiological studies are required and will be of paramount importance. Clinical observations and molecular genetic studies should address the possibility that two or more immunological or metabolic defects might be interwoven; why for example do only some affected groups develop AA amyloidosis? Simple, non-invasive diagnostic tests are required for the uncomplicated disease and also for the presence of amyloid deposition. Preventive strategies might eventually involve genetic engineering techniques, but in the immediate future, education of doctors and other health care workers - to raise the "index of awareness" of RHP, in order that colchicine treatment can be commenced early in the disease - forms an important strategy. Colchicine therapy is not without complications and an alternative chemotherapeutic agent should be sought.

The molecular genetic basis of Glanzmann thrombasthenia in the Iraqi-Jewish and Arab populations in Israel.

Glanzmann thrombasthenia is an autosomal recessive bleeding disorder characterized by a decrease or absence of functional platelet glycoprotein (GP) IIb-IIIa (alpha IIb beta 3) integrin receptors. Although thrombasthenia is a rare disorder, its occurrence is increased in some regions of the world where intracommunity marriage and consanguinity are commonplace, resulting in increased expression of autosomal recessive traits. We have been studying two populations having an unusually high frequency of Glanzmann disease, Iraqi Jews and Arabs living in Israel, and were able to distinguish the populations on the basis of immunodetectable GPIIIa and platelet surface vitronectin receptor (alpha v beta 3) expression. In this article, we describe molecular genetic studies based on use of the PCR that have allowed us to characterize platelet mRNA sequences encoding GPIIb and GPIIIa from patients in these populations. In six of six Iraqi-Jewish families studied, cDNA sequence analysis identified an 11-base deletion within exon 12 of the GPIIIa gene. This mutation produces a frameshift leading to protein termination shortly before the transmembrane domain of GPIIIa. In contrast, a 13-base deletion encompassing the splice acceptor site of exon 4 of the GPIIb gene was found in three of five Arab kindreds studied. This deletion results in forced alternative splicing to a downstream AG acceptor, producing a 6-amino acid deletion in the GPIIb protein, including a single cysteine residue. These nucleotide sequence variations were exploited to design a rapid, PCR-based oligonucleotide dot-blot hybridization test for both pre- and postnatal diagnosis of Glanzmann disease. These studies demonstrate the heterogeneity of Glanzmann thrombasthenia in different populations, and its homogeneity within geographically restricted populations, and offer insight into the requirements for integrin surface expression.

Familial leg ulcers of juvenile onset

Chronic ulceration of the legs was found in the propositus and in ten male relatives in a family of Iraqi Jews. All eleven males had juvenile onset of symptoms. Venous lesions with ulceration were found in two of the propositus' brothers and without ulceration in his three sisters. The findings suggest an autosomal dominant sex-limited genetic defect.

Bulgarian Jews in Israel: genetic blood markers. Red-cell antigens, serum proteins and red-cell isozymes.

Two hundred and sixteen unrelated Bulgarian Jews were typed for the following genetic systems: ABO, MNS, Rh, Kell and Duffy of the blood groups; ADA, AK1, ACP1, ESD, GLO, PGD, PGM1 and PGM2 of the red-cell enzymes, and for the serum proteins HP, GC and PI. A comparison of observed gene frequencies with those of two other Sephardi Jewish groups, from Libya and Morocco, disclosed significant heterogeneity in several systems. This was mostly due to Moroccan Jews differing from Bulgarian or from both the Libyan and Bulgarian Jews. A comparison of gene frequencies in Bulgarian Jews with those in Oriental Jews from Iraq and in Ashkenazi Jews from Poland disclosed a similarity between the three groups in Rh, ADA, GLO, PGM1 and HP. The frequencies for the above systems in the three groups were closer to those of Middle Easterners than to those of Europeans. A different pattern was observed for GC and PI, in which Bulgarian resembled Polish Jews and differed significantly from Iraqi Jews. This probably reflects an outcome of convergent adaptive processes.

The Jews of Iraq: Three Thousand Years of History and Culture, by Nissim Rejwan. ix + 274 pages, maps, appendix, chronology, selected bibliography, index. Westview Press, Boulder 1985. $30.00. - The Lure of Zion: The Case of the Iraqi Jews, by Abbas ShibLak. 177 pages, appendices, bibliography, tables, index. Distributed in the U.S.A. by Humanities Books, Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Al

The Jews of Iraq: Three Thousand Years of History and Culture, by Nissim Rejwan. ix + 274 pages, maps, appendix, chronology, selected bibliography, index. Westview Press, Boulder 1985. $30.00. - The Lure of Zion: The Case of the Iraqi Jews, by Abbas ShibLak. 177 pages, appendices, bibliography, tables, index. Distributed in the U.S.A. by Humanities Books, Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Al Saqi Books, London 1986. 9.95. - Volume 22 Issue 2

Hakham sasson in 1949

The article which follows was found among the papers of the late Emile Marmorstein. It was published in The Jewish Chronicle on 30 December 1949 as 'By a Correspondent' under the title 'Baghdad Jewry's Leader Resigns'. It is reprinted here by kind permission of The Jewish Chronicle and of Mrs J. Marmorstein. The article deals with a critical point in the history of Baghdad Jewry, when Hakham Sasson Khadouri, the head of the Baghdad Jewish Community, resigned his position in December 1949 following a demonstration against him by members of the community the previous October. Marmorstein's article describes this event, but what is more important also discusses the little-known history of the Iraqi Jewish communal organization and politics in the preceding decades and offers a portrait of Hakham Sasson as valuable as his discussion of the communal scene. The article is a good example of Marmorstein's detailed and exact knowledge of the Baghdadi scene exemplified in the portrait of Dr Fritz Grobba printed in Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.23 No.3 (1987). The demonstration which led to Hakham Sasson's resignation was in protest against the indiscriminate and arbitrary arrests of Iraqi Jews, through which the authorities hoped to discover and break an underground Zionist network directed from Israel. A former network participant arrested in another connection led them to discover other group members. Marmorstein writes in the penultimate paragraph of his article that the Jews of Baghdad 'are attached to their homes, traditions, and the shrines of their prophets, and would not like to leave them in order to begin life once more in an immigrants' camp in Israel, where they believe, people are not particularly friendly to Oriental Jews'. These would certainly have been Hakham Sasson's sentiments, and the opposition to such views by a small, secret group of Zionist activists may have led to his downfall. There is little doubt that the views outlined by Marmorstein were prevalent at the time. However this did not prevent the swift dissolution of the community which began a few months after the publication of this article in response to a variety of powerful pressures from both Iraq and Israel pressures which the Iraqi Jews could by no means comprehend, let alone withstand, and which irresistibly led them by a snowball effect to abandon a land in which they had dwelt for two and a half millennia. Hakham Sasson was succeeded in his office by a notable, Heskel Shemtob, who served until 1953. During his tenure the ancient Baghdadi community was all but completely liquidated. Hakham Sasson thereafter resumed his post, remaining the official head of a now insignificant group until his death in 1971. Marmorstein's article was noticed in the Foreign Office in London, where a minute described it as 'singularly frank and well-founded'. The Baghdad

Book reviews

Soviet Interests in the Third World. Edited by Robert Cassen, London: Sage, for the Royal Institute of International Affairs. 1985. 329pp. £27.50hb/ £10.50pb Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union. David A Korn, London: Croom Helm. 1986. 199pp. £19.50hb Soviet Power and the Third World. Rajan Menon, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1986. 261pp. n/p The Soviet Union and the Third World: An Economic Bind. Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier, New York: Praeger. 1985. 188pp. n/p Superpower: Comparing American and Soviet Foreign Policy. Christer Jonsson, London: Frances Pinter. 1984. 248pp. £18.50hb Pills, Policies and Profits: Reactions to the Bangladesh Drug Policy. Francis Rolt, London: War on Want. 1985. 114pp. £2.95pb Bitter Pills: Medicines and the Third World Poor. Dianne Melrose, Oxford: Oxfam. 1982. 277pp. £4.95pb Pharmaceuticals and Health in the Third World. Surendra J Patel, London: Pergamon. 1983. 100pp. £11.50hb Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. Maria Mies, London: Zed. 1986. 251pp. £18.96hb/£6.95pb Women in Development: A Creative Role Denied? The Case of Tanzania. Marja‐Liisa Swantz, London: C Hurst, New York: St Martin's Press. 1985. 177pp. £12.95hb/£5.95pb Development, Crises, and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives. Gita Sen and Caren Grown for DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era), New York: Monthly Review Press. 116pp. $7.50pb Calculated Kindness: Refugees and America's Half‐open Door 1945‐Present. Gil Loescher and John A Schanlan, London: Macmillan. 1986. 346pp. £17.95hb Qadhafi's Libya. Jonathan Bearman, London: Zed. 1986. 297pp. £18.95hb/£6.95pb Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution. David Blundy and Andrew Lycett, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 1987. 230pp. £12.95hb Libya: Qadhafi's Revolution and the Modern State. Lillian Craig Harris, Boulder, Colorado: Westview/London: Croom Helm. 1986. 157pp. $24. 95hb The Lure of Zion: The Case of the Iraqi Jews. Abbas Shiblak, London: Al‐Saqi Books. 1986. 177pp. £16.00hb/£4.95pb Indonesia: The Rise of Capital. Richard Robison, Sydney, Australia/London: Unwin and Hyman. 1986. 425pp. £11.95pb Elections and Democratisations in Latin America, 1980–85. Edited by Paul W Drake and Eduardo Silva, San Diego, California: University of California. 1986. 335pp. n/p Latin America. Bankers, Generals and the Struggle for Social Justice. James F Petras et al:, Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield. 1986. 187pp. $28.50hb/$12.50pb The Dominican Republic: Politics and Development in an Unsovereign State. Jan Knippers Black, London: Allen and Unwin. 1986. 163pp. £22.95/£7.95pb

The Musical Tradition of Iraqi Jews: Selection of Piyyutim and Songs, by Amnon Shiloah. (Studies on History and Culture of Iraqi Jews 3.) Pp. 135 (Hebrew) + 33 (English), musical notations, plates. Iraqi Jew’s Traditional Culture Center, Or Yehuda, Israel1983.

The Musical Tradition of Iraqi Jews: Selection of Piyyutim and Songs, by Amnon Shiloah. (Studies on History and Culture of Iraqi Jews 3.) Pp. 135 (Hebrew) + 33 (English), musical notations, plates. Iraqi Jew’s Traditional Culture Center, Or Yehuda, Israel1983. - Volume 18 Issue 2

A Glanzmann’s Thrombasthenia Cluster Among Iraqi Jews in Israel

A country-wide survey of Glanzmann's thrombasthenia in Israel identified 44 patients. The patients belong to 23 unrelated families, 17 of whom are of Iraqi Jewish origin. The frequency of thrombasthenia among Iraqi Jews in Israel (total population 270,000) is 1:7714 and thus the calculated frequency of the carrier state is 2.3%.

The Musical Tradition of Iraqi Jews: Selection of Piyyutim and Songs

The Musical Tradition of Iraqi Jews: Selection of Piyyutim and Songs

HLA polymorphism in Israel. 7. The Babylonian Jews.

One hundred and twenty three Iraqi Jews, now living in Israel, were studied for their HLA polymorphism. Gene frequencies exceeding .1 were found for A1, A3, Aw19, B5, B12, and Bw35. A28, B8 and B14 were relatively rare whereas Aw25 and Bw37 were not found at all. Significant gametic associations occurred for (Aw23, Bw21), (Aw26, Bw16), (A11, B5), (A28, B8) and (A28, B7). The Iraqi Jewish population was found to be typical of Asiatics and Middle Easterners.

Lullabies of Iraqi Jews

UDAEO-IRAQI folklore is full of many lullabies which were transmitted orally generation after generation. Twenty-five years ago these lullabies began to disappear, owing to the emigration of Iraqi Jews to Israel. It is also interesting to note that in Iraq itself these lullabies began to disappear recently, chiefly because of the influence of television and radio. These simple songs have much charm, especially because of the fact that they express the thoughts and feelings of the people more than any other songs. These lullabies do not reflect the children's feelings, but rather the feelings of those who live with them and influence them. These songs show us that although their purpose is to induce sleep for the child through their melodies, the songs express the mother's feelings for her dear son and her fear of strangers who might hurt him. While singing, the mother would sit on the floor or on a couch near the cradle and in her hand would hold a rope tied to the cradle. She would sing to her child according to the rhythm of the lullabies.

A Parent's Guide to Children's Allergies.

Dr. Emile Somekh emigrated to Israel from Baghdad, Iraq, in 1950. He soon noted an epidemic of bronchial asthma among the children of Iraqi Jews who had recently settled in Israel. While living in Iraq, no member of the group had had bronchial asthma. Dr. Somekh speculates that, although the Iraqi Jews had the genetic predisposition to develop allergies, the manifestation lay dormant during their 2,500 years in Iraq, only to appear on their move to Israel, where environmental factors (aeroallergens, foods, and living conditions) triggered their genetically prepared reactive mechanisms. The study of genetic control of immunologic responsiveness is now one of the most popular fields in allergy and immunology. At a clinical level, Dr. Somekh had made an important historical observation. In addition, the challenge to understand this phenomenon set him on a career in clinical allergy. The number of printed works in the field of pediatric allergy

Frequency of Red Cell Adenosine Deaminase Phenotypes in Several Population Groups in Israel

The genetic polymorphism of red cell adenosine deaminase (ADA) was investigated in five population groups in Israel: Ashkenazi Jews, non-Ashkenazi Jews from Iraq, Yemen, North Africa, and Arabs. The distribution of the ADA¹ and ADA² genes was found to be heterogeneous. The highest frequency of the ADA² gene was observed among the Iraqi Jews (0.1494) and the lowest among North African Jews (0.0907). In spite of this heterogeneity, all the five communities shared a common trait, namely, significantly higher frequencies of the ADA² gene than those observed in most populations from Western or Northern Europe. The trait of high frequency of the ADA² gene had been described also in Mediterranean populations (Greece, Italy), Asiatic Indians and Filipinos.

A Bibliographical and Literary Study of the First Appearance of the "Arabian Nights" in Europe

Previous articleNext article No AccessA Bibliographical and Literary Study of the First Appearance of the "Arabian Nights" in EuropeDuncan B. MacdonaldDuncan B. Macdonald Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Library Quarterly Volume 2, Number 4Oct., 1932 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/613160 Views: 18Total views on this site Citations: 5Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Roger Allen, D. S. Richards The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, 2 (Mar 2008).https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521771603Dwight F. Reynolds A Thousand and One Nights: a history of the text and its reception, (Apr 2006): 270–291.https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521771603.014Tarek Shamma The Exotic Dimension of Foreignizing Strategies, The Translator 11, no.11 (Jan 2005): 51–67.https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2005.10799189Reuven Snir "My Heart Beats with Love of the Arabs": Iraqi Jews Writing in Arabic in the Twentieth Century, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 1, no.22 (Aug 2010): 182–203.https://doi.org/10.1080/1472588022000029406Jennifer Schacker-Mill Otherness and Otherworldliness: Edward W. Lane’s Ethnographic Treatment of The Arabian Nights, Journal of American Folklore 113, no.448448 (Apr 2000): 164–184.https://doi.org/10.2307/541287