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Until 1843, prostitution in the Russian Empire was completely illegal. But were Jewish brothel keepers and prostitutes, in the eyes of both the Jewish community and non-Jewish neighbors, despised marginals or professionals who occupied a specific economic stratum? While Jews who “made indecency into a trade” were tolerated by local officials and the police, the higher authorities periodically demonstrated a readiness to control and persecute deviant sexuality, sometimes even ordering kahals to supervise the morality of the Jews. Jewish brothel keepers and prostitutes were part of multinational and multicultural criminal space. They were distinguished by a considerable degree of acculturation and adaptation to their non-Jewish environment. However, Jewish sexual workers and pimps were not only rejected by “pious” Jews, but were also incorporated into communal life. The fate of a Jew accused of keeping a brothel could become a subject of dispute within the community, which reveal conflicts related to denunciation, military conscription, and economic competition.

Epigenetic mechanisms can stably maintain gene expression states even after the initiating conditions have changed. Often epigenetic information is transmitted only to daughter cells, but evidence is emerging, in both vertebrate and invertebrate systems, for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TEI), the transmission of epigenetic gene regulatory information across generations. Each new description of TEI helps uncover the properties, molecular mechanisms and biological roles for TEI. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has been particularly instrumental in the effort to understand TEI, as multiple environmental and genetic triggers can initiate an epigenetic signal that can alter the expression of both transgenes and endogenous loci. Here, we review recent studies of TEI in C. elegans.

Screens for genes that orchestrate neural circuit formation in mammals have been hindered by practical constraints of germ-line mutagenesis. To overcome these limitations, we combined RNAseq with somatic CRISPR mutagenesis to study synapse development in the mouse retina. Here synapses occur between cellular layers, forming two multilayered neuropils. The outer neuropil, the outer plexiform layer (OPL), contains synapses made by rod and cone photoreceptor axons on rod and cone bipolar dendrites, respectively. We used RNAseq to identify selectively expressed genes encoding cell surface and secreted proteins and CRISPR-Cas9 electroporation with cell-specific promoters to assess their roles in OPL development. Among the genes identified in this way are Wnt5a and Wnt5b. They are produced by rod bipolars and activate a non-canonical signaling pathway in rods to regulate early OPL patterning. The approach we use here can be applied to other parts of the brain.

The importance of transgenerationally inherited epigenetic states to organismal fitness remains unknown as well-documented examples are often not amenable to mechanistic analysis or rely on artificial reporter loci. Here we describe an induced silenced state at an endogenous locus that persists, at 100% transmission without selection, for up to 13 generations. This unusually persistent silencing enables a detailed molecular genetic analysis of an inherited epigenetic state. We find that silencing is dependent on germline nuclear RNAi factors and post-transcriptional mechanisms. Consistent with these later observations, inheritance does not require the silenced locus, and we provide genetic evidence that small RNAs embody the inherited silencing signal. Notably, heritable germline silencing directs somatic epigenetic silencing. Somatic silencing does not require somatic nuclear RNAi but instead requires both maternal germline nuclear RNAi and chromatin-modifying activity. Coupling inherited germline silencing to somatic silencing may enable selection for physiologically important traits.

This article focuses on the election of the so-called deputies of the Jewish people in Vil'na (Vilnius) in 1818. At the time, the Russian government perceived Jewish society as a “state within a state” with its own secret government. Russian rule tried to legalise and control that imagined government or to neutralise and repress it. The Jewish elite used these mental constructs of the Russian ruling circles and positioned themselves as the holders of the “Jewish rule,” demanding the usual prerogatives of nobility.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition in which excess fat accumulates in the liver, is strongly associated with the metabolic syndrome, including obesity and other related conditions. This disease has the potential to progress from steatosis to steatohepatitis, fibrosis, and cirrhosis. The recent increase in the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome is largely driven by changes in diet and activity levels. Individual variation in the response to this obesogenic environment, however, is attributable in part to genetic variation between individuals, but very few mammalian genetic loci have been identified with effects on fat accumulation in the liver. To study the genetic basis for variation in liver fat content in response to dietary fat, liver fat proportion was determined using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging in 478 mice from 16 LG/J X SM/J recombinant inbred strains fed either a high-fat (42% kcal from fat) or low-fat (15% kcal from fat) diet. An analysis of variance confirmed that there is a genetic basis for variation in liver fat content within the population with significant effects of sex and diet. Three quantitative trail loci that contribute to liver fat content also were mapped.

Jewish cultural history of the late 18th to early 19th centuries period tends to be approached either as part of history of "the early Haskalah" or as part of history of Hasidism. This chapter is based on primary sources which make it possible to reconstruct some features of the mode of self-presentation typical of members of the upper class of Jewish society in Tsarist Russia. These materials consist of odes, appeals, proposals, and items of correspondence. Both in content and form, these texts were in many ways dictated by formal considerations, as well as by the preferences of the addressees. The proliferation of "patriotic" rhetoric in texts written or commissioned by Jews was further encouraged by a surge of nationalistic propaganda during the Napoleonic war years. The Jewish petitioners were probably quite clear on the real intent behind the Tsarist edicts, which they often cited in support of their requests. Keywords: "patriotic" rhetoric; "the early Haskalah"; Jewish society; Napoleonic war years; Tsarist Russia