Why is DNA test banned in Israel? Are Israelis afraid to find out they are of European origins instead of ancient Hebrew like the Palestinians? Israelis are forbidden to buy ancestry DNA kits from the store without presenting a court order.

This seemed so bizarre that I had to look it up. And yes, a doctor’s prescription or court order are required. But this reflects a growing concern in many countries over the uses that uncontrolled genetic information may be put to. The US and France are among the countries that are currently looking into this question and considering restrictions. Some of the issues are:

1) Once DNA data enters the system it is public record, and there is no way to control what is done with it. No other medical data is treated like this.

2) There is concern that access to DNA data has the potential to lead to more private medical data being compromised.

3) More and more, DNA analysis is being used to search for people connected to crimes, by fishing through random data. In justice systems that do not allow ‘fishing for evidence’ by other means, this is problematic.

4) The potential to disrupt families exists. This is especially true in Jewish families, where matrilineal and patrilineal descent can be religiously significant.

As you can see, there are legitimate issues that authorities in many countries are struggling to deal with right now, in a field that has little or no regulation. In Israel, a doctor’s prescription is sufficient to get tested, so that amounts to “anyone with a good reason can do it.”

If you wander around the DNA threads on Quora, you will find many Jews, Ashkenazi and otherwise, sharing their DNA results. No one is afraid of anything. Our heritage includes Levantine, European, and ME/NA elements, and many of us think it’s too cool for words to find out exactly what our individual heritage includes. So your question about that is just silly. Only non Jews obsess about this question.

ADDED: I should not have to add this note, but as people are reading things into my post that it does not say…the point of my last line is t hat no Jews care about this. If you read a post obsessing over the legitimacy of Ashkenazi Jewishness, you can be sure it was not written by a Jew.

The question is suggesting Jews ARE obsessed with this, so that is the answer.

I do not see anything in my post that says or implies anything about non-Jews in general.

MORE ADDED: Guys, if you post debunked theories about Ashkenazi DNA I am going to delete them. The fact that you WANT something to be true for the sake of a political narrative does not make it true.

YET MORE ADDED: Michael Miller added an interesting point, that after the Jewish experience in WWII Germany, Jews in general might be wary of a system that will record who is Jewish. That is a different fear than what the OP is asking about, but may well impact how Jews in Israel feel about such databases.

EVEN MORE ADDED: Info was offered in comments regarding the status of “mamzer”, which translates to “bastard.” That is when a Jewish woman has a child that is not her husband’s. The mamzer is subject to various onerous restrictions and in general is not a fun thing to be. So if a mother has had, er, extracurricular activities, she might have reason to avoid DNA testing for her children. (Hat tip Ruth Samuel)