Thanks colorado tanker!
Posted on 10/08/2013 11:57:29 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
The majority of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from prehistoric European women, according to study published today (October 8) in Nature Communications. While the Jewish religion began in the Near East, and the Ashkenazi Jews were believed to have origins in the early indigenous tribes of this region, new evidence from mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on exclusively from mother to child, suggests that female ancestors of most modern Ashkenazi Jews converted to Judaism in the north Mediterranean around 2,000 years ago and later in west and central Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at the-scientist.com ...
In Spain, many Jews and Muslims converted to Christianity in order to continue residing there following King Ferdinand's edict expelling non-Christians.
The reason Andalusians are swarthy and Arab-looking is that many of them are descended from "Moors" (Muslim Arabs) who converted to Christianity.
It's also the case that a disproportionate number of Spaniards who settled the New World were Jewish converts to Christianity, so to this day you find pockets of extensive Jewish ancestry among Hispanics in parts of Mexico and in the mountain communities of New Mexico.
I think that the Middle Eastern features that you see in many Italians may go back even further: to the time that Phoenicians and Carthaginians colonized the area.
I’ll give you a bump because back in earlier times at FR, subjects like this were discussed.
Maybe if you had taken the route of your ancestors and married a (prehistoric) European women... Then she would agree...
Yes, there are variations of that. Generally, it’s 3 times.
There was a very funny Simpsons episode where Homer converted. They followed Halakha pretty precisely, down to the Rabbi turning Homer away 3 times.
“So today’s Zionist Jews are mostly Ashkenazi Jews?”
Aboout 1/2, I think. The remainder are Mizrahim (a semi-subset of Sephardic who were in arab/muslim countries).
Yes. The implication given was that female converts married middle eastern background Jews. No evidence for that, which is what I was trying to point out.
What alternative explanation is there for characteristically European mtDNA in Jews other than conversion of non-Jewish European women to Judaism?
Todays Zionists are from the entire range of Jewish groups.
“Zionist” simply means that you want to live in your historic, indigenous homeland- Israel. I am a Zionist and I am totally Sefardic- I am an Orthodox Jew who’s family is Egyptian, Turkish and Spanish. 3/4 of Israel’s population is Sefardic.
Most folks do not realize that over 900,000 Jews were forced to flee- thrown out with just the clothes on their back - from the Arab nations when Israel declared its rebirth in 1948. They were taken back in by the State of Israel. They make up the majority of the Israeli population.
They can dispute all they want, but they cannot argue with the archeology- the facts in the ground, and there is plenty of it- along with the ancient writings of other nations, and the artifacts, such as the Arch of Titus, and the spoils of the siege, acknowledged by, and still kept in the Vatican.
There were indeed borders back then- very clearly so. And, we know the ancient names. As an example, in the Torah you will find the specific areas, their size and locations of each tribe’s portion of land. One thing that makes the Torah so fascinating is that it contains what are probably the world’s first recorded real estate deeds and land titles.
But for an interesting glance at the old maps, here is a link to an English portion of a Hebrew site that features a good look into the ancient world, the nations, their ancient names, and boundaries of that entire region: http://hashem1.net/?p=361#Magogs_Land_Borders.
The Jewish Diaspora was wide reaching, but it was actually rather well documented. But, there no French kings among them. Some nobility of Europe may have had one of us in the woodpile, but for the most part, that is just nonsense from the Revisionists. The European royalty was too busy persecuting Jews to marry into them. And the Revisionists just want to claim Israel as their own, so they re-write history, can’t read Hebrew, and ignore the facts - like archeology.
Rabbi Ken Spiro produced a 33 part series on Jewish history from Abraham to the present. You may want to look into it:
http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/History/World-History/Crash-Course-on-Jewish-History/18149
No doubt, I was responding to your comment about some Sicilians looking like Vikings.
Regardless of whether the European women actually converted or not, this study does explain why you see a whole spectrum of physical features, from very European-looking to very Arab-looking, among Ashkenazi Jews. If there weren’t some European admixture there, Kirk Douglas and James Caan would probably look more like Yasser Arafat.
“You certainly see it in the people: I’ve known some people from Sicily and Naples who look like Vikings and others who look like Arabs.”
Bari was the capital, for Norman controlled southern Italy. Normans were French speaking Vikings.
My MIL is from Bari, is 5’8” at age 86 after normal shrinkage. Her sister had light brown hair.
My wife’s cousin in Bari, married a pretty local blonde girl.
My motto: Italian women, German cars, Mexican food, Irish music.
The population of the Hellenistic eastern Med including Hellene-occupied Israel and Egypt (Alexandria had a very large Jewish minority), Jews lived in every ancient city in the Mediterranean and not just the ports), including Rome, so Roman conquest brought a lot of Jews under Roman dominion. The Jewish population estimate most will accept is 10 percent, but at its peak it may have been as high as 15 percent, IOW, wow.
The catamite-lovin’ homo Emperor Hadrian despised the Jews for things like what he considered body defacement (circumcision, in this case), but Roman persecution of the Jews probably hit its peak under Diocletian, with the Flavian dynasty right behind. As the Jews kept their Sabbath holy (no one else actually *had* a Sabbath), they were ineligible for service in the Roman army, though they sold the many essentials to keep it running. They had only one God, and the Romans had many (and kept making more by Senate decree), and it wasn’t an idol but an invisible presence; that freaked out the Romans and kinda pissed them off.
Whoops, and thanks Fractal Trader.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3077652/posts?page=24#24
Yet she still calls you Beloved...
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