6. For whatever the reasons, there was a lot of marriage between closely related persons among Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe. This increased the chances for a number of genetically passed diseases including Cystic Fibrosis, Gaucher’s Disease & Tay-Sachs Disease. (Like European royalty but without the power & wealth.) My maternal grandparents were quite in love. They were also first cousins. Various auto-immune diseases run through my family. We deal with them as best we can…