Jack Yufe dies at 82; he was raised Jewish, his identical twin as a Nazi | Hacker News Reader

Jack Yufe dies at 82; he was raised Jewish, his identical twin as a Nazi

latimes.com

65 pointssoundsop10 comments

> “I always thought I picked up my nervous habits from my father – like fidgeting with other people’s rubber bands and pads and paper clips—until I saw [Oskar],” Yufe said in The Times. “He’s the same way.”

They were separated at 6 months, is it possible they picked up this trait by observing their father at such an early age?

There are several explanations that could serve as hypothesis:

- it's inherited genetically

- it's something both their parents transmitted culturally/behaviorally because they themselves converged by living together

- when you search for similarities between two given individuals you always find some and discard the dissimilarities (it's also a mentalist trick

Each hypothesis seems hard to test/falsify especially with such small samples

> it's something both their parents transmitted culturally/behaviorally because they themselves converged by living together

I very much agree and I think there is even more here: The people in charge of their education (mother, father) weren't "drawn independently", they are two people that chose and love eachother (at least for some time).

People who marry each other tend to come from similar cultural background, or they can share some interests. All of this can then be transmitted to their respective kids.

After all Jack & Oskar's parents probably both liked white jackets before they even met.

  'In early 1979, Yufe’s then-wife, Ona, showed him a magazine article
  about the “Jim Twins,” a pair of long-separated Ohio twins who were
  each named Jim by their respective adoptive parents. Like Yufe and his
  brother, Jim Springer and Jim Lewis found each other as adults and were
  astounded by the parallels in their lives, including similar jobs in
  law enforcement and ex-wives with the same first name.

  The two Jims had become the first subjects of the Minnesota twins
  study. Yufe was intrigued and thought he and Oskar should also
  participate.

  ...

  The researchers jumped at the chance and invited them to Minnesota for a
  week. Yufe and Stohr became the seventh set of twins to enter the study.'

The Study was instantiated when a potentially unusual situation occurred. People were then allowed to join the study themselves, after hearing about strange twin coincidences.

This was not a study of a random sample of twins.

There are so many small traits like that they could have shared. This is anecdotal evidence e.g. not very good base for extrapolation. Imo atleast...

Except the headline is not true. One was brought up in Nazi society, knowing his Jewish ancestry but kept it quiet.

The other not brought up Jewish and didn't really become part of his life until he was 15.

That is radically different from what the clickbait headline suggests.

characterizing being raised by a jewish father as 'raised jewish' is reasonable

> Jack knew he was Jewish

Doesn't sound like he spent much time spinning his dreidel

Headline: Jack Yufe dies at 82; he was raised Jewish, his identical twin as a Nazi"

First Paragraph: "It sounded like a tabloid headline: Identical twins separated after birth. One grew up Jewish, the other a Nazi."

Wait, what?

The revelation of this would have made their family gatherings quite awkward.

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