Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Jewish community of Rome: An isolated population? Sampling procedures and bio-historical narratives in genetic analysis in the 1950s

  • Original Article
  • Published:
BioSocieties Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In 1953, geneticist Leslie Clarence Dunn approached the Jewish community of Rome for a genetic study. The community seemed to be an appropriate object for a genetic study because it had allegedly been an ‘isolated population’ since antiquity. His son, a cultural anthropologist, employed sociological methods to harden this assumption. After the team decided that their historical and sociological information was sufficient to prove the longue durée isolation, Leslie C. Dunn went on with serological examinations of those probands considered as belonging to the isolated community. The results were compared to data of Christian Italians and of Jewish communities in Israel. This contribution demonstrates how historical narratives of an isolated group were stabilized to serve as the basis for a biological investigation, and how they structured the genetic data achieved. Although the alignment of anthropometric data with bio-historical narratives had enjoyed much credibility long before, the alignment of serological and genetic data with such narratives was a challenge that the Dunns met with an ‘interdisciplinary’ approach. The article critically examines the sampling procedure as well as the narrative structure of the study results and points to general problems of bio-scientific approaches towards human biological diversity through micro level studies.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Dunn, Genetical Study; Dunn, The Biological Structure of a Small Community; Dunn (n.d.) A Biological Study of the Communità Ebraica di Roma. Dunn papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes, APS, Philadelphia; Dunn (n.d.) The Nature of the Community, Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes, APS, Philadelphia; Dunn (n.d.) Report of the Preliminary Study of the Community Represented in the Records of O.S.E. Nido Office, Dunn papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes, APS, Philadelphia. In 1959, Dunn senior published a chapter about the community in his Heredity and Evolution in Human Populations, Cambridge 1959, pp. 109–117. Further texts are cited in Gormley (2009b).

  2. The Jewish Community showed 26 per cent; Italy was reported with 13.8 per cent, Rome: 12.3 per cent, Reggio Emilia: 7.1 per cent, Trieste: 18.65 per cent; Dunn, Genetical Study, p. 18.

  3. The ‘r’ allele’, a form of the Rh gene, had caused serologists practical problems in Rh-tests; Dunn and Dunn (1957, 124ff). None of the manuscripts explore the specific findings and the problem further.

  4. Dunn, Biological Study (see n. 1). See also Dunn and Dunn (1957, 126f.); Dunn (1959, p. 114).

  5. Livi headed the General Administration for Demography and Race under Mussolini in 1938.

  6. This becomes clear from an undated letter draft of Dunn to the president of the Jewish community. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes, APS, Philadelphia.

  7. Ibid; Dunn, Report of the Preliminary Study, p. 1 (see n. 1).

  8. Dunn, Research notes (see n. 6).

  9. Dunn, Report of the Preliminary Study, p. 1 (see n. 1).

  10. Regarding the deportation of Jews; see: Sarfatti (2006, pp. 196–211); Zimmerman (2005); Zuccotti (2000).

  11. Dunn, The Nature of the Community (see n. 1).

  12. Dunn, Biological Study: 2 (see n. 1).

  13. Cited from Gormley (2009b, p. 110).

  14. For a discussion on ethical aspects, see Gormley (2009b).

  15. Dunn, Report of the Preliminary Study, p. 2 (see n. 1).

  16. Dunn (1954). Correspondence with Elisabeth Goldschmidt, J. Gurevitch, Leo Sachs. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Correspondence, APS, Philadelphia.

  17. Luschan (1892, p. 95). The ‘Rassengemisch’ hypothesis came to be the standard doctrine in the ‘biology of the Jews’ after 1900. Lipphardt (2008, pp. 72–85).

  18. Fishberg recounts literature on the Spanish interreligious relationships from the nineteenth century; Fishberg (1913, p. 189). From serology: Mourant (1954, p. 71).

  19. Mourant (1954, pp. 70–74) gives an overview over the data available, stressing how complex, incomplete and preliminary it was. For population genetics in Israel: Kirsh (2003).

References

  • AG gegen Rassismus, in den Lebenswissenschaften (ed.) (2009) Gemachte Differenz. Kontinuitäten biologischer ‘Rasse’ Konzepte in den Lebenswissenschaften. Münster, Germany: Unrast Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barkan, E. (1992) The Retreat of Scientific Racism. Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States Between the World Wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Epstein, S. (2007) Inclusion. The Politics of Difference in Medical Research. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gannett, L. (2001) Racism and human genome diversity project: The ethical limits of ‘population thinking’. Philosophy of Science 68 (3): 479–492.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gannett, L. and Griesemer, J.R. (2004) The AB0 blood groups: Mapping the history and geography of genes in Homo sapiens. In: H.-J. Rheinberger and J.-P. Gaudilliere (eds.) Classical Genetic Research and its Legacy: The Mapping Cultures of Twentieth Century Genetics. New York: Routledge, pp. 119–172.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gormley, M. (2006) Geneticist L.C. Dunn: Politics, activism and community. Thesis, Oregon State University, http://hdl.handle.net/1957/3786.

  • Gormley, M. (2009a) Scientific discrimination and the activist scientist: L.C. Dunn and the professionalization of genetics and human genetics in the United States. Journal of the History of Biology 42: 33–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gormley, M. (2009b) The roman campaign of ‘53 to ‘55: The Dunn family among a Jewish community. In: P. Farber and H. Cravens (eds.) Race and Science. Scientific Challenges to Racism in Modern America. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, pp. 95–129.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, D. (1989) Primate Visions. Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirsh, N. (2003) Population genetics in Israel in the 1950s: The unconscious internalization of ideology. Isis, Journal of the History of Science 94: 631–655.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koenig, B., Lee, S.S.-J. and Richardson, S.S. (eds.) (2008) Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age. New Brunswick/NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lerner, L.S. (2002) Narrating over the ghetto of Rome. Jewish Social Studies 8 (2&3): 1–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lipphardt, V. (2008) Biologie der Juden. Jüdische Wissenschaftler über ‘Rasse’ und Vererbung (1900–1935). Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lipphardt, V. (forthcoming) The emancipatory power of heredity: Anthropological discourse and Jewish integration in Germany (1892–1935). In: H.J. Rheinberger, S. Müller-Wille and C. Brandt (eds.). Heredity Explored: Between Public Domain and Expiremental Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 1850–1930.

  • Marks, J. (1996) The legacy of serological studies in American physical anthropology. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 18: 345–362.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mazumdar, P.M.H. (1995) Species and Specificity: An Interpretation of the History of Immunology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • M'Charek, A. (2005) The Human Genome Diversity Project. An Ethnography of Scientific Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Müller-Wille, S. (2003) Was ist Rasse? Die UNESCO-Erklärungen von 1950 und 1951. In: P. Lutz (ed.) Der (im-)perfekte Mensch: Metamorphosen von Normalität und Abweichung. Köln, Germany: Böhlau, pp. 57–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petryna, A. (2004) Biological citizenship: The science and politics of Chernobyl-exposed populations. Osiris 19: 250–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reardon, J. (2005) Race to the Finish. Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N. and Novas, C. (2002) Biological citizenship, http://wwww.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/pdf/RoseandNovasBiologicalCitizenship2002.pdf.

  • Sand, S. (2009) The Invention of the Jewish People. Brooklyn, NY: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarfatti, M. (2006) The Jews in Mussolini's Italy. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schneider, W.H. (1995) Blood group research in Great Britain, France and the United States between the world wars. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 38: 77–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silverman, R. (2000) The blood group ‘Fad’ in post-war racial anthropology. In: J. Marks (ed.) Kroeber Anthopological Society Papers, 84, pp. 11–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sommer, M. (2008) History in the gene: Negotiations between molecular and organismal anthropology. Journal of the History of Biology 41: 473–528.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spörri, M. (2005) ‘Reines Blut’, ‘gemischtes Blut’. Blutgruppen und Rassen zwischen 1900 und 1933. In: A. Lauper (ed.) Transfusionen. Blut-Bilder und Bio-Politik in der Neuzeit. Berlin, Germany/Zürich, Switzerland: diaphanes, pp. 211–225.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spörri, M. (2008) Mischungen und Reinheit: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Blutgruppenforschung, 1900–1933. Unpublished dissertation.

  • Stepan, N. (1984) The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain 1800–1960. London: Macmillan, Basingstoke.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stepan, N. (2003) Science and race: Before and after the human genome project. In: L. Panith and C. Leys (eds.) Fighting Identities: Race, Religion and Ethno-Nationalism, Socialist Register. London: Merlin Press, pp. 329–246.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmermann, J. (ed.) (2005) Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Zuccotti, S. (2000) Under his Very Window. The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

List of primary sources (archival material and publications)

  • Anav. (1953) Letter Dr Anav to Dunn, 30 April 1953. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Correspondence, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

  • Canaperia, G.A. (1953) Letter Giovanni A. Canaperia to Dunn, 9 February 1953. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Correspondence, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

  • Catalogue. (n.d.) Two-thousand years of history. Permanent Exhibition of the Jewish Community of Rome.

  • Ceppellini, R. (1953) Letter Ruggiero Ceppellini to L.C. Dunn, 18 November 1953. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Correspondence, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

  • Columbia University Archives. (n.d.) Institute for the Study of Human Variation, Subject Files.

  • Columbia University Archives. (n.d.) Institute for the Study of Human Variation, Subject Files: Report on Research Activities of the Institute for the Study of Human Variation.

  • Dobzhansky, Th. (1950) Mendelian populations and their evolution. The American Naturalist 84 (819): 401–418.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dobzhansky, Th. (1962) Mankind Evolving: The Evolution of the Human Species. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, L.C. (n.d.) A Biological Study of the Communità Ebraica di Roma. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (n.d.) A Genetical Study of a Jewish Community. The Old Ghetto Community of Rome, 9, Dunn Papers, series 5, box 32, Rome Jewish Community – ‘A Genetical Study of a Jewish Community, the Old Ghetto Community of Rome’. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (n.d.) Letter Draft to the President of the Jewish Community. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (n.d.) Report of the Preliminary Study of the Community Represented in the Records of O.S.E. Nido Office. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (n.d.) Research Notes. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (n.d.) The Biological Structure of a Small Community as Revealed by Blood Group Genes. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (n.d.) The Nature of the Community. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Notes., Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (1951) The Race Question in modern Science: Race and Biology. Paris: The Unesco Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, L.C. (1953a) Ruggiero Ceppellini – L.C. Dunn Correspondence. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Correspondence. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (1953b) Letter L.C. Dunn to Stefano Fajrajzen, 12 December 1953. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Correspondence. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (1953c) Livio Livi-Dunn Correspondence. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Correspondence., Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (1954) Letter to Prof. Mario Figa-Talamanca, 23 December, 1954. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Correspondence. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Dunn, L.C. (1955) A synopsis of three lectures on heredity and the human community. Bulletin of the Wagner Free Institute of Science 30 (2): 13–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, L.C. (1959) Heredity and Evolution in Human Populations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, L.C. and Dobzhansky, Th. (1959) Heredity, Race and Society. New York: Mentor, (first edition: 1946).

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, L.C. and Dunn, S.P. (1957) The Jewish community of Rome. Scientific American 196: 118–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, L.C. and Kuper, L. (ed.) (1975) Race, Science and Society, 343–364. Paris and London: The Unesco Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, S. (1958) An outsider visits the Roman Ghetto. Commentary 25: 130–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, S. (1960) The influence of ideology upon culture change: Two test cases. Dissertation submitted 1959, Columbia University.

  • Fischer, E. (1913) Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardisierungsproblem beim Menschen. Anthropologische und ethnographische Studien am Rehobother Bastardvolk in Deutsch-Südwestafrika. Jena, Germany: Verlag Gustav Fischer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fishberg, M. (1911) The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment. London: Scott.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fishberg, M. (1913) Die Rassenmerkmale der Juden. München, Germany: Ernst Reihardt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glass, B. (1953) The genetics of the dunkers. Scientific American 189: 76–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glass, B. (1960) The genetic basis of human racial differences. BioSocieties 31 (1): 3–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hiernaux, J. (1966) Human biological diversity in central Africa. Man, New Series 1 (3): 287–306.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kossovitch, N. and Benoit, M.F. (1932) Contribution à l’étude anthropologique et sérologique (groups sanguine) des Juifs Modernes. Revue anthropologique 42: 99–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Livi, L. (1918/20) Gli ebrei alla luce della statistica. Firenze, Italy: Libreria della voce/Vallecchi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luria, S. (1953) Letter Salvador Luria to Dunn, 13 March 1953. Dunn Papers, series 5, box 31, Rome Jewish Community – Correspondence Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.

  • Luschan, F. (1892) Die anthropologische Stellung der Juden. Correspondenzblatt der deutschen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie. Ethnologie und Urgeschichte 9–10: 94–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mourant, A.E. (1954) The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roth, C. (1946) The History of the Jews of Italy. Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowe, C.W. (1950) Genetics versus physical anthropology in determining racial types. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 6 (2): 197–211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sanghvi, L.D. and Khanolkar, V.R. (1949) Data relating to seven genetical characters in six endogamous groups in Bombay. Annals of Eugenics 15: 52–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Anna Friederike Heinitz and Jenny Bangham for their helpful comments and great support. Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their detailed and helpful critique which has provided many new insights. I have conducted archival research supported by a fellowship received from the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. The manuscript was produced at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin; I have profited from discussions with my MPI research group.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstr. 22, Berlin, 14195, Germany

    Veronika Lipphardt

Authors
  1. Veronika Lipphardt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lipphardt, V. The Jewish community of Rome: An isolated population? Sampling procedures and bio-historical narratives in genetic analysis in the 1950s. BioSocieties 5, 306–329 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2010.16

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2010.16

Keywords

Search

Navigation