Jews and Autoimmune Disease: Ancestry Solves the Mystery
"The pattern is personal, but Jewish identity is not a diagnosis. It is a story of extraordinary endurance and continuity – as well as a reminder to take preemptive actions to protect our health."
By Amy Salman
I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease many years ago. At first, I treated it like an isolated event — something happening to my body that I needed to manage.
But in my family, Hashimoto’s isn’t isolated. My father, sister, and 1st cousin all have it too.
There’s also lupus and Crohn’s disease in my family. When you zoom out, it stops looking random. It starts looking like a pattern.
And if you start talking in Jewish spaces, you hear similar stories.
Research increasingly confirms what many families have observed for decades: certain autoimmune and immune-related diseases appear at higher rates among people of Jewish ancestry, particularly Ashkenazi Jews. This isn’t about religion. It’s about genetics, history, and how survival shapes biology.
The Inheritance We Don’t Always Talk About
Ashkenazi Jews are what geneticists call a ‘founder population.’ Because of centuries of migration restrictions, geographic isolation, and persecution in Central and Eastern Europe, the community remained relatively small for long stretches of history. When a population grows from a limited number of ancestors, certain gene variants become more common.
We’re familiar with this in conversations about Tay-Sachs or BRCA mutations. But immune-related genes are part of this inheritance too.
Variations in the HLA (human leukocyte antigen) system — which regulates how the immune system distinguishes between self and non-self — appear at different frequencies across populations. In some Jewish groups, particular variants are associated with increased susceptibility to autoimmune disease.
Not certainty. Susceptibility.
Inflammatory bowel disease is one of the clearest examples. Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry is among the strongest known genetic risk factors for Crohn’s disease. Lupus and autoimmune thyroid disease also show higher prevalence in certain Jewish populations. Rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and multiple sclerosis appear more frequently as well in some studies.
When Hashimoto’s, lupus, and Crohn’s show up in the same family, it’s difficult to ignore the shared biology.
The Role of Stress and History
Autoimmune diseases rarely develop from genetics alone. It typically requires environmental or physiological triggers – and chronic stress is one of the most powerful.
Jewish history is a history of vigilance. Displacement. Adaptation. Survival under pressure. These are just unfortunate facts. From pogroms to the Holocaust to modern antisemitism, the nervous system has rarely had the luxury of complete ease.
Emerging research in epigenetics suggests trauma can influence gene expression across generations. Studies of Holocaust survivors and their descendants have identified measurable differences in stress hormone regulation and immune-related gene expression.
This doesn’t mean trauma directly causes autoimmune disease. But it underscores something important: the nervous system and immune system are deeply intertwined. A body primed for vigilance may also be primed for inflammation.
For many of us, autoimmune disease may be where genetics, history, and modern stress converge.
The Gut and the Modern Layer
Nearly 70 percent of the immune system resides in the gut. Researchers have identified specific gene variants – including NOD2 mutations – that appear more frequently in Ashkenazi individuals with Crohn’s disease.
Layer onto that the realities of contemporary life: ultra-processed food, antibiotic overuse, chronic sleep disruption, vitamin D deficiency in northern climates. Genes set the terrain. The environment influences what grows there.
Autoimmune disease is rarely caused by one thing. It is an intersection.
Resilience — and a Different Way of Responding
There is something culturally familiar about pushing through symptoms. Many Jewish families normalize fatigue. Digestive issues become jokes. Autoimmune diagnoses are managed quietly.
Resilience is part of our inheritance.
But so is inquiry.
Living with Hashimoto’s – and watching Hashimoto’s, lupus and Crohn’s move through my family – changed the way I understand health. It deepened my curiosity about root causes, about stress physiology, about the connection between environment and immune response. It shaped not just how I care for myself, but how I support others in my work. When autoimmune disease is part of your lineage, prevention and awareness stop being abstract concepts. They become personal responsibility.
Understanding that autoimmune disease may cluster more frequently in Jewish families is not about fear. It’s about informed attention. That means:
Proper thyroid screening.
Taking digestive symptoms seriously.
Not dismissing joint pain.
Recognizing when multiple autoimmune conditions appear in one lineage and asking thoughtful questions.
Jewish identity is not a diagnosis. It is a story of extraordinary endurance and continuity.
Patterns don’t define us. But recognizing them can empower us to respond with knowledge – and with care.
AMY SALMAN is a Holistic Nutritionist, Wellness & Recovery Coach and Founder of The Wellness Map. She is also a coach and board advisor for the Lean In mentoring program.
My question is, what is the evolutionary advantage of having autoimmune issues? My theory is that it potentially helps in fighting diseases from the various environments we were forced into.
Also, it’s not necessarily just an Ashkenazi thing. My mother is Mizrahi and she passed her Hashimoto thyroiditis on me.
Two close cousins of my mother's have had ALS (f/k/a Lou Gehrig's disease) — I guess it goes to show that it's best not to ignore this type of occurrence, especially when patterns seem to emerge.