Since orthodox Jews only marry and reproduce in their own community, genetic diseases like Tay-Sachs occur relatively often.
In the 1980ties Rabbi Joseph Ekstein, based in Brooklyn New York, started an organisation with the name Dor Yeshorim (‘upright generation’), to fight genetic diseases to appear and to spread. Since then many young Jewish orthodox school children all around the world give blood that gets an anonymous code and is stored in the Dor Yeshorim database.
If two orthodox Jewish partners want to marry and have children, they can anonymously check at the organisation in New York if there is a genetic disease match.
In Antwerp Joseph Weiss and his wife, a couple with five children, give their views on the matter. In the laboratory of the University hospital of Antwerp Professor Blaumeiser explains what kinds of genetic diseases occur in the Jewish community. Jewish family doctor Martin Rosenblum, is carrying a genetic disease himself, but has his doubts about genetic selection, since it might only make things worse.
Both Joseph Weiss and doctor Martin Rosenblum attend a ceremony of an inauguration of a Torah scroll and a procession of the scroll to a new synagogue in Antwerp.
For this background reportage Featurez gave advice, did the research, set-up and planning and accompanied the filming.