The Roots of Jewishness

ScienceNOW ^ | 6 August 2012 | Gisela Telis

[raygunfan]

i believe the OT has a pretty good breakdown of this....

[cripplecreek]

I grew up believing my great grandfather was an Austrian immigrant but it turns out that he was a Polish Jew from Buchovina which I believe is in the Ukraine today.

[SoFloFreeper]

I’d say Abraham.

[elcid1970]

A quick Wikipedia search shows Bukovina in the extreme eastern part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. Many of its inhabitants were German-speaking.

I have family from what is now the Slovene Republic. They spoke both German and Slovenian which is close IIRC to Serbo-Croatian. There were surnames misspelled on Ellis Island, relatives who may or not have been Jewish, and my grandfather who if he hit his thumb instead of the nail was careful to swear in anything but English if there were kids nearby.

One thing’s for sure. They all spoke nothing but English as soon as they were able, served in the Army which they said made them 100% Americans, and blessed the new land that gave them a good life.

[neverdem]

Ping

[Bobalu]

My great grandfather was from German Jewish stock.
Ashkenazim I suppose.

There were large boxes of old photos from Germany in my grandparents attic... many scenes of life during WW1.

[SunkenCiv]

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[jjotto]

It sure seems like this study assumes most Jewish communities were isolated from each other when actually only a few were. Just tracing Jewish religious education shows many points of contact between geographically separated groups.

North African Jews are the second largest Jewish group? Seems wildly inaccurate.

No mention of Jews who never left Israel. Wonder why not?

[cripplecreek]

My granddad was too young to serve in WWI but that was basically what he fled on the horizon in 1912. He came in to Detroit by way of Canada. He sailed from Antwerp on the SS Mount Temple which was sunk by the Germans a few years later. (The Mount temple had a short but eventful service life that can be found online. In fact its at the bottom of the atlantic full of dinosaur bones.)

When prohibition rolled around he worked for the Purple gang in Detroit as a diver. They would strap barrels of whiskey on the hulls of boats and he went under and brought them to the surface. During the winter they drove across or dragged it on sleds behind horses.

His “refusal” to speak german was one of the clues my great aunt gave me. She said that it wasn’t till she was an adult that she realized he couldn’t speak german but he would speak Polish on occasion to poles who didn’t speak english yet.

Buchovina (Bukovina) was one of those constant conflict areas where someone was always being chased around or wiped out.

[cripplecreek]

Being raised a 3rd generation Christian, I guess my “Jew-dar” was busted.

[Carbonsteel]

Blessed be the convert.

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[elcid1970]

I’ll just bet Bukovina is a beautiful place however blood soaked.

Just read a book about German dam builders. Thought I’d be bored but there are vast areas of Eastern Europe that after thousands of years have never been fully settled. Half of this book was about the Pripet Marsh region in eastern Poland. The American Wild West has nothing on this place.

My wife doesn’t understand why I’m reluctant to travel now that we’re retired (both military). My saying “Why should we travel? We’re already here!” won’t cut it.

Must be my immigrant background.

[onedoug]

Get your DNA tested sometime. I bet you’d be surprised.

(But I’ve suspected it all along. Mazel tov!)

[rmlew]

Bukovina is split between Ukraine and Romania and was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918.
My paternal grandfather was an Austrian Jew living in Austrian Galicia. In 1918 having returned from the Austro-Hungarian army, he found it part of Poland and fought to keep it out of Soviet hands in 1921. It was siezed by the Soviets in 1939 and is now part of Ukraine. From 1941-44 it was Nazi occupied, and temporarily given to a pro-Nazi puppet regime in Ukraine. Borders in Eastern Europe are fluid, but Jews are always seen as Jews.

[Karliner]

Farthest I've gone back were jews( Hassidiim) from Kiev. Read a book someone from here wrote, The Jews of Khazaria, detailing alleged migration from about 70 AD to modern times.

I suppose that's as far as I'll get unless I end up mega rich and have the time to do a real thorough search. Maybe if Romney becomes president he'll give us all one free swing through the mormon/Jewish archives.

[jackal7163]

This makes sense as my Yemenite ancestors have a tradition that we left Israel prior to the fall of the first Temple on the orders of the prophet Jeremiah. That is also why our liturgy and pronunciation is different since we were never in the Babylonian captivity

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

No. African Jews: Sephardic. From Morocco to Egypt, esp. Libya, Tunisia. A friend of mine was named Roumani (from “Roman”) and his family dated back 2,000 years in Libya. Most were expelled by King Idrish and then Qaddafi.

Another friend, a leader of the Jewish community in Egypt until expelled in 1967 was named “Romani”. Guess where that came from.

Many Sephardic Jews lived in Spain until expelled in 1492. They had a large, educated community there under the Moslems, though they were still treated as dhimmis (2nd class citizens).

Some went to Israel when it was founded. Others went to Europe or the US.

Re Poland/Ukraine/Austro-Hungarian Empire. Same places, different names. My grandmother/father came from Lemberg, later Lviv and Lvov (now in the Ukraine). This city and others in the “Pale” were trade gateways between Eastern Europe and Western Europe, esp. Austria and Germany. Jewish businessmen/traders moved across these areas with ease and learned to speak several languages so that they could conduct business in the major cities.

My grandfather/mother on my father’s side came from Russia. My grandfather spoke five languages (Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, German, and later, English). When he came to America, immigration changed the family name a bit but we survived it.

Oh, did you here about the Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe who had his named changed to an Irish one by immigration officials? When they asked him what his name was, he thought that they were asking where he was going (it was written on a piece of paper). He told them, in Yiddish, “forgessen” (I forgot). So they wrote it down as “Ferguson”. He then learned to celebrate St. Patty’s Day.