Rethinking “No” When Dor Yeshorim Says “Incompatible”

From the COLlive inbox: Should an “incompatible” result always end a shidduch, especially for older singles with fewer options and new medical paths?

By Someone Who Cares

Story 1: Chana Leah Wolfson (not her real name) is a beautiful, talented and kind-hearted girl from a good family. She was sure she’d get married in her early 20s like the rest of her siblings, but it just hadn’t happened and she wasn’t willing to settle just for the sake of getting married. To everyone’s surprise, she spent many years single. By the time she was 36, she was still in shidduchim. 

One day, a friend showed her a boy’s resume (if you can really call a man in his late 30s a ‘boy’ just because he was never married, but that’s another article…). He seemed smart, professional, interesting; they were hashkafically aligned; it was everything she was looking for. It had been a while since her last date and she felt herself getting excited. Her friend reminded her about Dor Yeshorim, and Chana Leah and The Boy duly both sent in their numbers. 

The answer? Incompatible.

“You shouldn’t even bother going out,” everyone told Chana Leah.

But why not?

Dor Yeshorim, an organization aimed to prevent and eliminate Jewish genetic diseases, was created by a man who lost four beloved children to Tay-Sachs disease; he didn’t want others to endure the same agony.  

Today, Dor Yeshorim is a household name. The process is relatively simple. Blood is drawn from thousands of young adults each year, and each participant is given a 9-digit identification number. Blood samples are sent for intensive DNA analysis and results are entered into a centralized database.

When a shidduch is suggested, both the boy and girl call the hotline to enter their ID numbers and are informed if they’re ‘compatible’ or ‘incompatible.’ An incompatible result means both individuals are carriers of the same disease and have a 1 in 4 chance of passing that genetic disease onto potential children. 

An incompatible result from Dor Yeshorim usually means an automatic no to the shidduch. Why should the boy and girl go out, discover they like each other and then have to struggle with the knowledge and pain that they might have unhealthy children?

However, there comes a point when an incompatible result from Dor Yeshorim should be more of a ‘yellow light’ suggesting to proceed with caution, than an automatic red light.

When a 20-year-old boy or girl, in shidduchim for the first time, is told they are ‘incompatible’ with an unknown boy or girl, it is not a big deal. At age 20, as the saying goes, there are plenty of fish in the sea. You get an ‘incompatible’? Not a problem, go on to the next resume. The pool is still quite large. 

But with time, the pool naturally gets smaller as couples partner off. 

And at a certain point, say, by age 32, 35, 38 or even older – the results from Dor Yeshorim can become more of a hindrance than a help. At this point, the pool of appropriate singles is significantly smaller. Older singles in this age bracket are often watching their friends celebrate their children’s bar or bas mitzvahs, even their weddings. The pain and loneliness of being single only increase as people get older. At this point, an ‘incompatible’ result from Dor Yeshorim should not be cause for an automatic no to a potential shidduch, just a warning to proceed with their eyes wide open. 

The information that Dor Yeshorim shares – that the boy and girl are both carriers and could potentially have children with preventable genetic diseases – can be merely that: information. Why shouldn’t older singles meet these ‘incompatible’ options? They are not playing with fire. They are doing their hishtadlus to find their true partner in life. If it turns out they are not each other’s zivug, at least they left no stone unturned in their search. 

And if it turns out that they do like each other, then they can have a conversation about how to proceed about potentially having children with medical intervention to increase the chances that their children will be born healthy.  

That option will always be better than living a life alone. 

Story 2: Tova Kleinman (not her real name) had grown up in a traditional home and went to a modern orthodox school which was mixed. Growing up, she had a tight-knit group of friends and always knew, in the back of her mind, that she would end up marrying one of them, Moshe Jacobs (not his real name). 

Post high school, both Tova and Moshe went to Israel and were drawn to learn more about Yiddishkeit. Even when they spent years becoming more frum, and fell out of touch, they each always remembered the other and hoped their shidduch would one day transpire. 

When the time for shidduchim rolled around, both explained to their respective Rebbeim and Mashpiaim about the other. It seemed like an easy shidduch – both families were similar, liked each other, and both the boy and girl had gone through similar life journeys. All they needed before their first shidduch date was the green light from Dor Yeshorim.

But, alas – their results came back ‘incompatible.’ 

Both Tova and Moshe were crushed. Their families, who had known each other since they were little and had been as invested in their relationship, were also devastated. 

“But how could anyone be more right for me than Moshe?” Tova wondered. 

Moshe said the same. 

Tova and Moshe together went to a Rov who we will not name here as that’s not the point. They explained the situation. The Rov paskened: they should go out. They would get engaged. However, knowing what they know thanks to Dor Yeshorim, they should also take precautions for the entirety of their married lives, never to have a natural pregnancy and, with Rabbinical guidance on how to do so halachically, use science to make sure that their future children would not be saddled with the genetic diseases their parents both carried.  

Today, with the help of this sensitive halachic guidance, Tova and Moshe have a beautiful family with six healthy children kn”h. 

Liba Kornbleuth, a certified genetic counselor at a top fertility clinic in New York City, stated that there are many paths to building a family, and that using IVF with genetic testing of embryos is certainly one option to explore if both partners are carriers of the same genetic condition. She did caution that IVF may be harder as a woman gets older, as a larger percentage of her embryos may not be viable due to a higher incidence of chromosome abnormalities.

“The truth is that every relationship has its challenges and it is up to each to individual to decide what they are willing to take on. It would be a disservice not to allow a couple to explore all of the options prior to making a decision about whether it is something that they feel comfortable working with or not,” said Kornbleuth. 

Kornbleuth also pointed out that Dor Yeshorim is only one of the genetic carrier screening options available today. As of 2022, Dor Yeshorim screens for 52 conditions, conditions that are seriously debilitating or fatal in children, such as Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, Canavan Disease, Familial Dysautonomia, and Fanconi Anemia. Other companies screen for hundreds of conditions that may be less common in the Jewish community but can still be devastating, even if they’re not fatal, for children. Lumi Health, an Australian-based provider, for example, offers one of the world’s most comprehensive expanded carrier screening tests, screening over 1,240 genes for inherited conditions. JScreen is another Jewish genetic screening that identifies risks of hereditary cancers and over 200 genetic conditions. 

Dor Yeshorim is an important and valuable service for the entire Jewish community. This widespread premarital screening has significantly reduced the incidence of some of these genetic diseases by over 90% in tested populations. They have nearly eliminated Tay-Sachs altogether. 

Since its inception, despite its great success, Dor Yeshorim has also received criticism for venturing into a grey area about seemingly trying to ‘play G-d’ or ‘interfere in Hashem’s will.’ Would parents of children with special needs have chosen not to have their beloved children and all their complicated medical needs, if they had been given the choice? 

This is to remind people that great things can be complicated, some things are worth fighting for and that an incompatible result from Dor Yeshorim should always be viewed differently for older singles than for young first-timers in shidduchim. It can be hard enough to match older singles – let’s not make it even harder.

May singles have an easy time finding their zivug and may couples have an easy time growing their families. 

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