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 ...
I suppose that explains why you see some Jews with very "European" features and others with very Middle Eastern features. It also explains why so many movies cast Italian actors as Jewish characters, and vice-versa!
Sadly, I always get asked if I am arab.
French/German/Polish Jews in background. Cohen haplotype.
(And I am thinking to the people who ask me if I am arab, “Really, see the little round hat in the back. The suit?)
I seem to also remember that Ashkenazi Jews had the highest IQs of any group on the planet.
ping.
Maybe they just assume that anyone with a long, dark beard is an Arab. Like the idiots who attack Sikhs for being “Muslim terrorists.”
Jewish men dating shiksas. So what this is new?.............
(No sarcasm here.) Please educate my misconception, then.
To my current way of thinking, Arab is a general type of ethnic group, and Jews come from many different ethnic groups.
For instance, I used to get my hair cut by a Jewish lady from Iran. (Yes, I know, Iranian IS NOT Arab, but I'm talking about the general concept here, not the particulars.) She seemed both Jewish and Iranian.
I’d be interested in looking at the genetics of (Christian) southern Europeans in general, especially Greeks and Italians. You’d probably find an interesting mix of characteristic European haplotypes and Middle Eastern ones (thanks to Phoenicians/Carthaginians/Moors, etc). 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.
Should be approached with caution as these claims seem to contradict numerous past DNA studies, but this would lend credence to some indications that as much as 10% of the Roman Empire was Jewish or converts to Judaism.
I knew a Japanese-American fellow that was always being mistaken for Mexican.
The true genetic descendants of the Jews are the Palestinians.
Believe it or not sometimes that little round hat is kind of hard to see - black on black hair.
I can't imagine mistaking a Japanese person for a Mexican. However, on a vacation in northern Minnesota, my first, thoughtless reaction on seeing Ojibwe Indians everywhere was "why are there so many Mexicans in northern Minnesota?" Since most Mexicans have more American Indian than European blood, I guess it's an easy mistake to make.
I can recall being intrigued by how many of the world’s most brilliant physicists were Hungarian Jews from Budapest.
It just about has to be genetics.
Which historians have claimed a number that high? I do remember reading that Judaism was much more active in seeking converts in ancient times than in Medieval or recent history, so it would make sense that many modern Jews are descended from converts.
Not to mention how, in large American cities in the early 20th century, the Italian "ghetto" and the Jewish "ghetto" always seemed to be near each other.
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