Friday, June 11, 2010

Ashkenazim and Sefardim share many genes

New York Times

Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East share many genes inherited from the ancestral Jewish population that lived in the Middle East some 3,000 years ago, even though each community also carries genes from other sources — usually the country in which it lives.

That is the conclusion of two new genetic surveys, the first to use genome-wide scanning devices to compare many Jewish communities around the world.

A major surprise from both surveys is the genetic closeness of the two Jewish communities of Europe, the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim. The Ashkenazim thrived in Northern and Eastern Europe until their devastation by the Hitler regime, and now live mostly in the United States and Israel. The Sephardim were exiled from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497 and moved to the Ottoman Empire, North Africa and the Netherlands.

The two genome surveys extend earlier studies based just on the Y chromosome, the genetic element carried by all men. They refute the suggestion made last year by the historian Shlomo Sand in his book “The Invention of the Jewish People” that Jews have no common origin but are a miscellany of people in Europe and Central Asia who converted to Judaism at various times.[...]

10 comments:

  1. Most interesting is the part where it shows all Jewish communities (i.e. Ashkenzaz, Sefard, Italian, etc.) are closely related to each other, with the EXCEPTION of the so-called Ethiopian and Indian "Jews" who have no relation to the real Jews.

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  2. An intriguing excerpt:
    "Another explanation [to the genetic similarity], which may be complementary to the first, is that there was far more interchange and intermarriage than expected between the two communities in medieval times."

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  3. We are Am Echad. Now if only we could live like that.

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  4. Joseph....tisk tisk. If you know your Jewish history you would know that there was a period of time when the Roman soldiers would regularly rape a Jewish bride on her wedding night. Hence, the Italian genes.

    The Jews of India and Ethiopia claim to have gotten there after the destruction of the FIRST Temple....before the Romans were raping our people.

    Before saying something racist and idiotic, a little research and knowledge might be advisable.

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  5. Howard,

    You are discussing the wrong nationality. I am discussing the Jewish people.

    Sorry if that offends your modern sensibilities as being racist.

    Our people have no Roman, Ethiopian, or Indian blood in our genes.

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  6. Howard, You must be talking of another nationality. My Jewish people have no Roman, Ethiopian and/or Indian genes in our blood.

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  7. Indeed it was a very stupid comment, Joseph because I'm sure other populations who trace themselves to First Temple exile (as opposed to the Talmudic period dispersion or migration/Second Temple exile), and this ncludes several subpopulations with the Yemenite Jewry, will naturally have less genetically in common with the other populations (Ashkenazi and Sephardi and Mizrahi) who remained conjoined and intermixed longer and who separated into distinct groups at later times in history. All that requires is common sense, much like what was really required to refute Shlomo Sand and the neo-nazi "khazar theory." The facts, as should be expected, tend to support the common sense, and luckily we have seen that bear itself out.

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  8. The study showed all Jews were VERY CLOSELY (i.e. 4th or 5th cousins) related to each other - including Ashkenz to Sefard etc.

    The only exceptions were the Ethiopians and Indians, who recently decided that they are Jewish.

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  9. Even if what Howard said was not true about the customary rapes (source?), there should still be common Roman/Italian genetic lineage because many Romans in 2nd Temple times converted to Judaism. And does the study not show Italian connection among the minority percentage of genes common with goyim as opposed to other Jewish groups?

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  10. We already had enough genetic evidence to refute Sand's hypothesis years ago. I definitely disproved his idea that disparate Jewish populations aren't related in Chapter 10 of the Second Edition of my book "The Jews of Khazaria", published in September 2006, as well as in my article "The Origins of East European Jews" in the journal Russian History/Histoire Russe volume 30 numbers 1-2 (Spring-Summer 2003) on pages 1-22. Sand's book was published after my writings so he has no excuse for his pathetic politically-driven ideas which he clings to against all new evidence.

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