DEC 2 8 1979

CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDY IN THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
202 Junipero Serra Boulevard * Stanford, California 94305 Telephone (415) 321-2052

December 22, 1970

Professor Joshua Lederberg
Chairman

Department of Genetics

Stanford University Medical Center
Stanford, California

Dear Professor Lederberg:

I hope you will not view this brief note as an affront but I
wanted you to see this clipping from last night's paper in view of
a point you made a few weeks back about Jewish incorporation into
"American" life.

As you may recall I maintained that it was important for mem-
bers of a group, such as Hopi, Tewa, or Navajo, to retain as much ~)
of their culture, including language, as was possible for survival Cc
as well as for dignity and high quality life. You felt that the
Jewish people had given up their language and culture in the U.S. @
This is doubtful, and there is every reason to believe that there Z
is a viable, dignified and functional Jewish culture within the
U.S. And if there is to be similar quality to black, Indian, Rt
Chicano or other subcultures they must retain the traditions and
language that provide the basis for identity, membership, reci-~
procity, security and pride. Given this behavioral base that en- “0
courages genetic isolation, then natural selection can work out
the long-term problems of genetic incompatibility, such as fre- 3
quency-dependent Rh maternal-fetal incompatibility selection, ‘ oO
excessive heterosis, if it occurs in man, balanced polymorphisms, f
like abnormal hemoglobin S, and so forth.

The Jews have probably survived more because of the beauty
and strength of their traditions, not the least of which is the
ultimate rationalization for self-preservation, namely that they
are God's chosen people, than because of any differential genetic
strength, although that too may someday be demonstrable. Jews
in the U.S. may have lost their language, but they have not lost
the use of a small number of Hebrew, or if from northern Europe,
Yiddish, words that seem to me to serve just as well as a whole
language in this instance. In fact, the Jewish population seems
to offer the best model and argument for cultural and linguistic
preservation. If we have to communicate through bi-lingual trans-
lators, so be it, because if it wise, as James Neel as recently
argued, to preserve our genetic variability, how much more impor-
tant is it to preserve our cultural variation,“in view of its
demonstrably more immediate value to short-term adaptive problems?

en ol t/e

any

My very best wishes to you over the holiday season.

de Singerel rs,
Moy cor Tring «Tra (Aire 1 rer oe