A genetic test for Tay-Sachs revealed surprising results—and helped my husband and me discover what Judaism means to us
By
Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy
Being tested for a genetic disorder is
usually not a laughing matter, but that’s exactly what we were doing
when my husband had his blood drawn to see if he, like me, was a carrier
for
Tay-Sachs.
His being tested was a formality for us as Jewish prospective parents.
We didn’t take it seriously because we didn’t have anything to worry
about: Matt had been born and raised Catholic in a rural town in
northeastern Pennsylvania. He converted to Judaism before we got married
two and a half years before. He had told me that loving me meant loving
everything about me, including my Judaism. He had told my parents that
he felt a resonance in Judaism that he had never found in Catholicism.
He had told our rabbi that he felt personally committed to helping
ensure that there would be future generations of Jews in the world, to
parent and raise Jewish children of his own. And yet Matt’s commitment
to his new faith didn’t alter the
statistical improbability of his being a Tay-Sachs carrier.
Which is why we were shocked, stunned, speechless when we learned
that he was a carrier. Not just because of what that test result meant
for our efforts to have children, but because of what it meant beyond
that: My husband, the Jew-by-choice, had been Jewish all along. Genes
don’t lie; a genetic counselor told us that Matt had, without a doubt, a
specifically Ashkenazic version of the mutation that causes Tay-Sachs.
The news was explosive, but also revelatory. While my husband found
himself obsessed with discovering the origins of this long-buried family
secret and strangely comforted by a new feeling of understanding with
his connection to Judaism, I felt like I was, in many ways, meeting my
husband, and my own sense of my faith, all over again.
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