i think of the jews as more of an ethnic group...one that originated in the israelites and went through subsequent evolutions when many of them were expelled from the region between 100-200 AD.

Genetic studies indicate various lineages found in modern Jewish populations, however, most of these populations share a lineage in common, traceable to an ancient population that underwent geographic branching and subsequent independent evolutions.[39] While DNA tests have demonstrated inter-marriage in all of the various Jewish ethnic divisions over the last 3,000 years, it was substantially less than in other populations.[40] The findings lend support to traditional Jewish accounts accrediting their founding to exiled Israelite populations, and counters theories that many or most of the world's Jewish populations were founded entirely by local populations that adopted the Jewish faith, devoid of any actual Israelite genetic input.[40][41]
DNA analysis further determined that modern Jews of the priesthood tribe—"Kohanim"—share an ancestor dating back about 3,000 years.[42] This result is consistent for all Jewish populations around the world.[42] The researchers estimated that the most recent common ancestor of modern Kohanim lived between 1000 BCE (roughly the time of the Biblical Exodus) and 586 BCE, when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple.[43] They found similar results analyzing DNA from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.[43] The scientists estimated the date of the original priest based on genetic mutations, which indicated that the priest lived roughly 106 generations ago, between 2,650 and 3,180 years ago depending whether one counts a generation as 25 or 30 years.[43]
Although individual and groups of converts to Judaism have historically been absorbed into contemporary Jewish populations — in the Khazars' case, absorbed into the Ashkenazim — it is unlikely that they formed a large percentage of the ancestors of modern Jewish groups, and much less that they represented their genesis as Jewish communities.[44]
Male lineages: Y chromosomal DNA
A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that "the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population", and suggested that "most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora".[39] Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the diaspora has become dispersed around the world.[39]
Other Y-chromosome findings show that the world's Jewish communities are closely related to Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians.[42][45] Skorecki and colleague wrote that "the extremely close affinity of Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations observed ... supports the hypothesis of a common Middle Eastern origin".[42] According to another study of the same year, more than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men (inhabitants of Israel and the territories only) whose DNA was studied inherited their Y-chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years. The results are consistent with the Biblical account of Jews and Arabs having a common ancestor. About two-thirds of Israeli Arabs and Arabs in the territories and a similar proportion of Israeli Jews are the descendants of at least three common ancestors who lived in the Middle East in the Neolithic period. However, the Palestinian Arab clade includes two Arab modal haplotypes which are found at only very low frequency among Jews, reflecting divergence and/or large scale admixture from non-local populations to the Palestinians.[46]
Points in which Jewish groups differ is largely in the source and proportion of genetic contribution from host populations.[47][48] The proportion of male indigenous European genetic admixture in Ashkenazi Jews amounts to around 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, and a total admixture estimate "very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%."[39] More recent study estimates an even lower European male contribution, and that only 5%–8% of the Ashkenazi gene pool is of European origin.[39]
Female lineages: Mitochondrial DNA
Before 2006, geneticists largely attributed the genesis of most of the world's Jewish populations to founding acts by males who migrated from the Middle East and "by the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism." However, more recent findings of studies of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, at least in Ashkenazi Jews, has led to a review of this archetype.[49] This research has suggested that, in addition to Israelite male, significant female founder ancestry might also derive from the Middle East.[49] In addition, Behar (2006) suggested that the rest of Ashkenazi mtDNA is originated from about 150 women, most of those were probably of Middle Eastern origin.[50]
Research in 2008 found significant founder effects in many non-Asheknazi Jewish populations. In Belmonte, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Bene Israel and Libyan Jewish communities "a single mother was sufficient to explain at least 40% of their present-day mtDNA variation". In addition, "the Cochin and Tunisian Jewish communities show an attenuated pattern with two founding mothers explaining >30% of the variation." In contrast, Bulgarian, Turkish, Moroccan and Ethiopian Jews were heterogeneous with no evidence "for a narrow founder effect or depletion of mtDNA variation attributable to drift". The authors noted that "the first three of these communities were established following the Spanish expulsion and/or received large influxes of individuals from the Iberian Peninsula and high variation presently observed, probably reflects high overall mtDNA diversity among Jews of Spanish descent. Likewise, the mtDNA pool of Ethiopian Jews reflects the rich maternal lineage variety of East Africa." Jewish communities from Iraq, Iran, and Yemen showed a "third and intermediate pattern... consistent with a founding event, but not a narrow one".[51]
In this and other studies Yemenite Jews differ from other Mizrahim, as well as from Ashkenazim, in the proportion of sub-Saharan African gene types which have entered their gene pools.[47] African-specific Hg L(xM,N) lineages were found only in Yemenite and Ethiopian Jewish populations.[51] Among Yemenites, the average stands at 35% lineages within the past 3,000 years.

Man that is one giant wall of text.

Can you do us a favour, edit it and add a few blank lines so it is easier to read?

Originally Posted by MontyB

Man that is one giant wall of text.

Can you do us a favour, edit it and add a few blank lines so it is easier to read?

Or better still, just pick out the one or two lines of text that are relevant to the discussion and post them.

No one is honestly going to read all that "padding"

Also a source would be handy.

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that "the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population", and suggested that "most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora". Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the diaspora has become dispersed around the world.


Other Y-chromosome findings show that the world's Jewish communities are closely related to Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians. Skorecki and colleague wrote that "the extremely close affinity of Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations observed ... supports the hypothesis of a common Middle Eastern origin". According to another study of the same year, more than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men (inhabitants of Israel and the territories only) whose DNA was studied inherited their Y-chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years.


The proportion of male indigenous European genetic admixture in Ashkenazi Jews amounts to around 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, and a total admixture estimate "very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%." More recent study estimates an even lower European male contribution, and that only 5%–8% of the Ashkenazi gene pool is of European origin.


So you see, Jews really are an ethnic group, in addition to a religion

Selective study and the quotation of that study is a wonderful thing, it, like "statistics" can be used to prove anything the quoter wishes.

This report seemingly goes to great lengths to tie present day Jewish groups together, but it only alludes to common ancestry among the Jewish population, there is no mention of "Race".

I notice that this study of the Cohen Modal Haplotype only goes back to approximately 1000BC. What of their ultimate racial origin, as it is known that this area was inhabited much earlier than that. also, the mention of so many people coming from a very small maternal line, only demonstrates a familial connection it makes no mention of what "race" these common ancestors were.

Studies also show that most Jews are also closely related to Muslim Kurds and Turks, so it is here that the genetic purity and common ancestry argument starts to unravel as there are much earlier common ancestral lines that people are conveniently not mentioning.

"The most-frequent haplotype in all three Jewish groups (the CMH [haplotype 159 in the Appendix]) segregated on a Eu 10 background, together with the three modal haplotypes in Palestinians and Bedouin (haplotypes 144, 151, and 166).

Source: http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

i wasn't claiming they are a race...there are only a few "races" in the world, the main ones being Caucasian, Asian, and Black. There are lots of ethnic groups among those groups. For example, arabs are considered to be caucasian, they are not their own race.

obviously the jews in the diaspora are not 100% "pure". But they still have maintained a very high degree of isolation from the populations they have dwelled among.

i'm not quite sure why you are hung up on race. no one claims the jews are a race. the germans, slovaks, japanese, pashtuns, hutus, etc. are not races. they are ethnic groups. and most geneticists who have studied the jews agree that they are an ethnic group as well (albeit that underwent different evolutions after the expulsion from Judea).

coversion into judaism has been very sparse over the centuries. while there has been some admixture with local populations, overall, the jews have absorbed a small percentage of this "foreign" dna into their population.

that is why jews are thought of as an ethnicity and not just as a religion.

Originally Posted by benaakatz

that is why jews are thought of as an ethnicity and not just as a religion.

but they are clearly not an ethnicity, as they have been so widely spread over scores of locations for over 1200 years. There are German Jews, Polish jews, Romanian Jews Dutch Jews,..... and on and on, and on. It would be the same if I were to choose a few thousand Roman Catholics from every country in which they live, and demand that they have their own country in which they can live and practice their religion un molested. Not only that I would merely give away the best part of a country belonging to someone else and have the hide to demand that they just roll over and give it up. Never Happen!!!

Their only common trait being their religion, Familial decent being of no importance. My relatives are nearly all of the same race, but not the same ethnicity, and they certainly can't demand a country of their very own,.... In fact I suppose they can demand it, but would be locked up as mental cases if they tried.

As for familial ties, if you go back 3000 years nearly half of the earth's population are "related" by blood and/or marriage and would have some common genetic markers. All of these acres of text that you quote are no more than a smoke screen.

Read: http://www.beingjewish.com/identity/race.html

And even if your theories were true, this would not make such a diverse and widely spread group worthy of a country of their own just based on their religion or ethnicity.


It Seems that the message is slowly getting through.

“This year has seen a dramatic shift in American Jews’ attitudes toward Israel,” write Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss in the Nov. 2, 2009 issue of The Nation. “In January many liberal Jews were shocked by the Gaza war, in which Israel used overwhelming force against a mostly defenseless civilian population unable to flee. Then came the rise to power of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose explicitly anti-Arab platform was at odds with an American Jewish electorate that had just voted 4-to-l for a minority president. Throw in angry Israelis writing about the ‘rot in the Diaspora,’ and it’s little wonder young American Jews feel increasingly indifferent about a country that has been at the center of Jewish identity for four decades.”

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From Haaretz. 03/03/2010

Israel's apartheid doesn't stop at the West Bank.
By Salman Masalha

Read more,...



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