A North London rabbi has talked movingly of his family’s devastating experience of BRCA — the genetic condition which increases the prevalence of cancer among Ashkenazim.

Rabbi Oliver Joseph — part of the ministerial team at New North London Synagogue — was successfully treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma in his youth. However, his mother Linda died from ovarian cancer in the early 2000s and in 2015, his younger sister Betsy died, aged 30, after a lump in her breast metastasised, moving to her brain — “the worst way to die from cancer.

“A little sister passing away is one of the hardest things anybody might have to face in their life,” he said. “It was a very difficult time for me and my family.”

As part of Hereditary Cancer Awareness Week, Rabbi Joseph on Tuesday joined a panel discussion on “preventing cancer in Jewish communities”, stressing the importance of bringing the conversation about BRCA variations “to our children, to our communities, to our Friday night dinner tables”.

The BRCA genetic fault is more prevalent among the Ashkenazi community, with around one-in-40 carrying the mutation. “We really do seem to be the chosen people,” he observed.

Betsy’s death motivated Rabbi Joseph and his Brighton-based twin sister Kate, who had cared for Betsy in New Zealand, to get tested for the genetic mutation. Both tested positive.

For the rabbi, the result was less concerning for his own health (Ashkenazi men with BRCA are only marginally more likely to get cancer) but for any future children of his who might be potential carriers.

Following the test, Rabbi Joseph and his wife Natalie opted to undergo IVF when starting their family, which included pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) so that no embryos with the BRCA mutation were implanted. They now have a nine-month old daughter.

“Some of my family members have tested positive for it so I know what it entails,” Natalie Joseph explained. “We are absolutely not those people who are having designer babies. We just wanted to be able to have healthy children without the BRCA gene hanging over them.”

Rabbi Joseph said that his own brush with cancer had “buoyed me on to do work that mattered” and that the rabbinate was where he could most help others.

His faith has also assisted him in dealing with the challenges of BRCA. “Religious practice helps. My faith has been shaken many, many times but I found the regularity of prayer, festivals and the year cycle as helpful ways of managing grief.”

And to minimise her chances of developing cancer, his twin elected to have a double mastectomy. “When my sister died, things shifted very quickly from not wanting to have surgery to feeling like that was a sensible thing to do,” she told the JC.

For more information on BRCA, visit the Ovarian Cancer Action website here.