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Hereditary cancers aren’t just a women’s problem. Jewish men need to take precautions too.
Bill Harris, a veteran Los Angeles photojournalist, didn’t think much of it when one morning in 2012 he woke up and found a tiny blood spot on the T-shirt he’d slept in. The next morning, he found blood in the same place on his chest — and went straight to his computer.
“Online, I could find only three things that would cause a man’s nipple to discharge blood: being an avid runner, which I wasn’t; having a subtropical fungus, which I didn’t; and breast cancer,” he said. “That was a pretty big shock.”
Harris, then just a few weeks shy of his 61st birthday, immediately called his doctor, who ordered a mammogram and ultrasound. They confirmed a cancerous growth in his right breast. Ten days later, a biopsy came back positive. The next month Harris got a right mastectomy, followed by the removal of his left breast half a year later.
“I walked into a woman’s imaging center and had to get into a pink paper robe,” he recalled. “All the women in the waiting room were staring at me.”
Like many other Ashkenazi men, Harris never had considered that he might have been born with a harmful mutation of the BRCA gene, which elevates the risk not only of breast cancer, but also of melanoma and prostate, ovarian and pancreatic cancer.
“Hundreds of other mutations in the BRCA gene are just as dangerous, but they’re not specific to Ashkenazim,” said Dr. Robert Sidlow, director of the Male BRCA Genetic Risk Program at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. About 1 in 40 Ashkenazi Jews (those of Eastern European descent) carries the harmful mutation, compared to about 1 in 400 in the general population.
“The vast majority of patients I see are relatives of women who have breast or ovarian cancer and then get tested,” he said. Of BRCA mutation carriers, Sidlow added, “Most men are pretty happy to enroll in some kind of surveillance program once they get over the initial shock.”
Sidlow is on the Men’s Leadership Council at Sharsheret, the national Jewish nonprofit organization that educates the community about cancer risks and supports those with breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
Elana Silber, CEO of Sharsheret (Hebrew for “chain”), says it’s crucial that men with a family history of cancer undergo genetic counseling screening for BRCA and other hereditary cancer mutations.
Genetic testing is possible via a standard blood or saliva sample.
While Sharsheret is primarily considered a women’s organization, it has been using November — nicknamed Movember for its focus on men’s health — for an awareness campaign focused on Jewish men’s cancer risks.
“This is not only a women’s issue,” Silber said. “Family history is so important. When a man shares his family history with his doctor, he may not realize that he should mention that his mother had breast cancer or that his sister had ovarian cancer, as these are not generally ‘men’s diseases.’ They are not aware that these cancers could mean that they themselves are at increased risk for cancer and that they can pass on these mutations to the next generation – their daughters and their sons.”
If someone discovers he (or she) is a carrier of one of the genetic mutations with elevated cancer risks — not just BRCA but also such mutations as ATM, TP53, CHEK2, and PALB2 — there are various precautions they can take for themselves and their children. They can monitor their own health more closely, they can get encourage their children to test to see if they are carriers and, for any future children, take steps to prevent the mutated genes from being passed down.
For example, couples can conceive via in vitro fertilization, or IVF, and then test the embryos before implantation to ensure that only those unaffected by the genetic mutation are implanted.
While most women are aware of the risks of breast cancer, men generally are not — even though the disease strikes 2,500 men in the U.S. every year and kills about 500 of them, according to Sidlow. About 1-2% of men with the BRCA1 mutation and 6-7% of men with the BRCA2 mutation will develop cancer by age 80.
“This is why we recommend periodic mammograms starting at about age 50 for men who carry a BRCA2 mutation,” Sidlow said. “We like to educate these men on how to check their chests once a month and have a clinician do a breast checkup on them once a year.”
Since the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations also make prostate cancer more likely, men with either mutation should get PSA (prostate-specific antigen) levels in their blood tested annually beginning at age 40, rather than 50, the age at which screening generally begins, Sidlow said.
Sharsheret has been promoting the importance of learning one’s family history, genetic counseling and screening among both men and women. The 20-year-old organization also runs various peer support networks, offers financial assistance to cancer patients, provides mental health counseling and guidance to patients, caregivers, and their friends, and seeks to educate the broader Jewish community about cancer risks and support.
Peggy Cottrell, a certified genetic counselor at Sharsheret, said men in general are more reluctant to get regular checkups than women.
Ashkenazi Jewish men are at elevated risk not just of breast and prostate cancer but also of pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is particularly difficult because it’s tough to detect early enough and hard to treat. The five-year survival rate is only 11%. About 2% of BRCA1 carriers and 4% of BRCA2 carriers will develop pancreatic cancer, Sidlow estimated.
“Usually by the time pancreas cancer is clinically detected it has already spread microscopically to the liver,” Sidlow said. “But pancreas cancer is potentially curable if caught when the tumor is extremely small.”
Even among those with elevated risks, certain behaviors can improve one’s odds, such as avoiding obesity, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption.
Harris, the California photojournalist, is still fighting at age 71. While he overcame breast cancer 10 years ago, last year he was diagnosed with ampullary cancer, a rare disease related to his BRCA2 status that was discovered thanks to his participation in a UCLA study. Surgeons have removed his gall bladder, half his pancreas and part of his small intestine, and he has had to endure eight rounds of chemotherapy.
“I’m still working through the aftereffects of the chemo. I have to eat smaller quantities than before and take enzymes to supplement my digestive processes,” Harris said.
Meanwhile, his 37-year-old son discovered that he, too, carries the BRCA2 mutation, and he had a double prophylactic mastectomy and reconstruction at age 30 — just to be on the safe side.
“If there’s any history of breast, ovarian or prostate cancer in your family, get tested genetically so that you’re informed,” Harris advised. “Diagnoses happen way too late for men, and the danger is too big.”
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The post Hereditary cancers aren’t just a women’s problem. Jewish men need to take precautions too. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How Hezbollah Terrorists Became ‘Local Residents’ in the Media
Lebanese army members stand on a military vehicle during a Lebanese army media tour, to review the army’s operations in the southern Litani sector, in Alma Al-Shaab, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
During an operation earlier this month, the IDF reportedly clashed with Hezbollah operatives and “civilians” in the Lebanese village of Nabi Chit, leaving 41 people dead and another 40 injured.
At least, that is what CNN, the Associated Press (AP), Sky News, BBC, and The Guardian all reported.
But not a single outlet actually questioned who these “civilians” were that clashed with the IDF, or why there were clashes in the first place.
The operation was carried out in an attempt to return the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli navigator who has been missing since his fighter-bomber was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. He was believed to have originally been captured by the Amal Movement and handed over to Hezbollah, before being presumed dead.
As is the protocol with any missing person or soldier, the State of Israel works to recover every body for a proper and dignified burial in their homeland.
Based on intelligence, the IDF believed Arad’s body to be buried in a cemetery in Nabi Chit, a village located close to the Lebanese-Syrian border in the Beqaa Valley.
IDF special forces initiated a raid into Lebanon in an attempt to recover the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli airman shot down in 1986.
But it wasn’t only Hezbollah terrorists who engaged in a firefight with IDF soldiers on the ground:
@guardian: Hezbollah “fighters ambushed… pic.twitter.com/wOuWa9AXVj
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 8, 2026
On Friday, March 6, well before the operation began, the IDF issued an evacuation warning, urging innocent civilians to leave.
The village has long been a stronghold of Hezbollah, with several past leaders, including the second secretary-general, Abbas al-Musawi, born there. Being that Hezbollah has systematically embedded its infrastructure and operatives into the town itself, many — presumably including a significant number affiliated with or supportive of Hezbollah — appeared to defy the evacuation orders, staying in their homes.
Late Friday evening, Israeli commandos entered the village, hoping to quickly locate the body of Arad and leave without disturbance. According to some reports, the IDF forces arrived undercover. Had the IDF been seeking a battle, it would have entered openly rather than disguised, indicating that the goal was a targeted retrieval mission, not a confrontation.
However, soon after the IDF’s arrival, a firefight broke out between Israeli forces and Hezbollah operatives. This is precisely where international media coverage begins — and where the crucial context disappears.
Hezbollah operatives are suddenly grouped in with the “civilians” or “local residents” who supposedly rushed out to defend their homes against an Israeli invasion, leaving their houses with guns to engage in battle with the IDF.
But the IDF had entered the village on a limited mission: to retrieve the remains of a fallen soldier. There was no broader offensive and no threat to civilian homes. That raises a fundamental question: why did so many outlets lead with descriptions of “residents” or “local fighters” joining Hezbollah in “defending their homes,” when their homes were clearly not under threat?
Following the ensuing battle between the IDF commandos and Hezbollah, the Israeli Air Force provided air cover through targeted strikes to ensure the safe extraction of all troops. Sadly, they were unsuccessful in locating the body of Arad.
By the time the operation ended, the Lebanese health ministry reported that 41 people had been killed and 40 wounded. Yet, when reporting these casualties, the media failed to acknowledge the obvious likelihood that many of those casualties were Hezbollah operatives — or what Sky News and AP described as “local fighters.”
The narrative that Israel intentionally killed innocent civilians was not limited to the international media, but quickly spread across social media.
Posts circulating online framed the operation as a reckless mission designed to target civilians with no clearly defined operational purpose. This is despite the IDF’s clear intention to limit civilian harm while preserving the dignity of all Israeli soldiers, no matter how long ago they fell in battle.
Israelis can be weird. They sent special forces into Lebanon to retrieve the remains of a dude who died 40 years ago, and this against the wishes of his widow. They randomly killed scores of civilians in the process and failed to find any bone, and yet they are bragging about it. https://t.co/DzEutjWCpP
— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) March 8, 2026
Hezbollah’s strategy of embedding its infrastructure and operatives within civilian areas has long blurred the line between civilians and combatants, resulting in armed terrorists who attack Israeli forces being framed in media coverage as innocent “local residents.” The IDF’s operation in Nabi Chit and the ensuing battle illustrate this strategy in full, exposing just how effectively Hezbollah has manipulated the media.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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In the work of 21 artists, 49 different ways to be Jewish
As I walked through the exhibit, Envisioning the Sacred: Modern Art from the Collection, at the Derfner Judaica Museum and Art Collection, I wondered aloud which was the more defining element in these 20th and 21st century paintings, drawings, prints and linoleum cuts. Was it the modernist sensibility, which encompassed figurative, abstract, symbolic and metaphorical approaches? Or was it the Jewish-themed content?
In the 49 pieces by 21 artists (including two etchings by Marc Chagall), there were illustrated Biblical characters and stories; depictions of traditions and rituals; and a fair number of the works employed the Hebrew alphabet to evoke emotion and inspire the composition.
“The exhibit shows how artists use a modern visual language to express their Jewish identities,” said Susan Chevlowe, chief curator and museum director who guided me through the light-filled gallery, which is part of the Hebrew Home at Riverdale and set on a shallow hill that slopes down to the Hudson River.
“It’s hard to separate the two elements or say which is more defining,” Chevlowe said. “The majority of these artists were artists early on in their lives, drawing and sketching as children. Some grew up steeped in a Jewish tradition and others came to their Jewish identity later in life, especially in the post-Holocaust years. Percival Goodman is an example. An agnostic, he was best known as a modernist architect. But in the post-Holocaust years he became interested in Biblical figures.”
Chevlowe pointed to Goodman’s painting “Rebekah and Jacob,” presenting two large, sharply drawn flat heads. The bold colors outlined in stark black stripes summon forth figures that border on the cartoonish, yet are also strikingly beautiful. Here, the matriarch Rebekah beams at her younger son Jacob with whom she is scheming to steal her older son Esau’s birthright.
A number of the works reflect, in subtle and layered ways, Jewish traumas coupled with homage and pride and in some instances a touch of the elegiac.
Adam Muszka’s “Sabbath Meal,” painted in the 1960’s is a nostalgic look back at the lively Polish shtetl that he grew up in and that no longer exists. With its sentimental tone, the painting evinces distortion. Two figures in the foreground are over-sized, while the homes in the background are shrunken and lopsided — an indication, perhaps, that this is a falsely rosy memory.
In the seemingly more realistic 2003 painting, “Choral Synagogue, St. Petersburg, Russia,” one of the more recent works on display, Joyce Ellen Weinstein brings to life the massive temple entrance and the decorative gate in front of it, “which is slightly off kilter,” Chevlowe pointed out. “Notice the barbed wire on top of the gate. The painting suggests the dignity of the synagogue and its people and also the difficult position of Russian Jews throughout history.”
Chevlowe was hard pressed to pick a favorite, though she admitted a special fondness for Jane Logemann’s 1996 “Alphabet,” a series of pale blue and purple ink wash panels adorned with repeated pairs of Hebrew letters, in pen and ink, which create a vertical pattern from the top of the page to the bottom. The series is poetic, lyrical.
“Logemann is interested in patterns and structures of nature,” said Chevlowe. “Some letters are large, others small. There’s a randomness here. Her choices are intuitive. For many artists the abstract is spiritual. For some mysticism and spiritual quest are essential in their work.”
One of the better known artists in the group is Mark Podwal. In his 2002 “Dreidel Hanukkia,” an acrylic painting, we see a menorah balanced on a dreidel and on the opposite side of the page there’s a less readily definable bench lamp.
“It’s modern and old and very playful,” said Chevlowe. “And each Hanukkah light, the menorah and the bench lamp, is cut off by the frame, cut off by the rest of the world. It’s a fragment. We often see that in Degas too.”
Some of the painters are more deeply embedded in or influenced by particular schools of art than others. In Jacques Yankel’s joyful and expressionistic “Torah,” one can see the Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine lineage. Yankel’s emigre artist father lived in Paris and was very much part of the Paris school of art, which included Chagall and Soutine.
In New York, Ben-Zion, a Russian-born painter who arrived in the United States in 1920, was a recognized member of “The Ten,” abstract painters that consisted of, among others, Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb, though curiously enough Ben-Zion was never really an abstract painter.
Moses was a frequent subject of his. In his 1962 “Moses Looking Down to the Promised Land,” our title character is viewed from the back, an imposing, heavily draped figure perched on a rocky terrain. He is staring out at Jericho, at once so close to and yet so far away from The Promised Land.
Abraham Rattner also employed Moses as the central figure and theme in his vibrant Picassoesque “Moses,” which features the Prophet clutching two blank tablets, devoid of the commandments or, indeed, any writings. His head twisted to the side and an integral element in a wild abstract design is as unsettling as it is thrilling. It is perhaps my favorite in the collection.
“I would like viewers to appreciate the richness in stylistic range and to be aware that these are highly trained, skilled and knowledgeable artists who come from a rich cultural tradition that includes all of art history,” Chevlowe told me. “At the same time they create something that’s original, authentic and beautiful.”
The post In the work of 21 artists, 49 different ways to be Jewish appeared first on The Forward.
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Forverts podcast, episode 8: Israeli voices
דער פֿאָרווערטס האָט שוין אַרויסגעלאָזט דעם נײַנטן קאַפּיטל פֿונעם ייִדישן פּאָדקאַסט, Yiddish With Rukhl. דאָס מאָל איז די טעמע „ישׂראלדיקע שטימעס“.
אין דעם קאַפּיטל וועט איר הערן צוויי אַרטיקלען: מיכאל קרוטיקאָווס רעצענזיע פֿון שירי שאַפּיראַס בוך דערציילונגען, וואָס אַנטפּלעקן דאגות פֿונעם „מילעניאַל“ דור, וואָס איר קענט אַליין לייענען דאָ, און בני מערס פּערזענלעכן עסיי, „דאָס אײַנפּאַקן אַ טאָרבע פֿאַרן לויפֿן אין שוצקעלער האָט עפּעס דערוועקט אין מיר“, וואָס איר קענט לייענען דאָ.
צו הערן דעם פּאָדקאַסט, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
שירי שאַפּיראַס דערצײלונגען
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