Posted on 10/08/2013 11:57:29 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
Sicily was under Arab rule for a period in the Middle Ages (conquered in the 800s) and later was ruled by the Normans (who had Norse ancestry)...although the actual infusion of Arab or Norse blood into the local population may have been limited.
Wilma and Betty could be Jewish...their last names are their married names, after all.
The local arabs are, indeed, are closest genetic relatives to Jewish people, aside from the Samaritans.
Almost seems like the Torah is true or something.
Thanks!
There’ve been converts on both sides. At one point, the Khazar king and many, if not most, of his followers converted to Judaism. There’ve also been rapes and rebellious teenage girls, resulting in children of mixed lineage.
But the female convert thing is understandable. Supposing that a 1st Century French shiksah converted to Judaism. She might have changed her faith, but her prehistoric hotness remains intact, and is passed on to her daughters, who then became desirable matches to all those horny Jewish exile teenage boys, and thus grandma ex-shiksah’s legacy is passed down through the generations in ever-widening ripples, until the original hot genes dissipate at the edges of the gene pool.
As for Italians, like the Arabs, Jews and Italians are related.
“funny, for some reason i thought the orthodox frowned on converts”
Nope.
A Jew-by-choice is no less of a Jew than someone born Jewish.
It’s actually expressly forbidden to treat a Jew-by-choice any different than any other Jew.
Now, is being Jewish a hard road? Do people hate you randomly? Is it sometimes lonely? Yes. And so conversion is discouraged because there is seldom any reason for a good gentile to convert to Judaism. But if one is persistent, he (or she) is welcome.
“That may explain the stereotype that Jews are so miserable. Smart people aren’t the happiest people around.”
No, it’s the gefeltefish.
Your post is slightly mis-informed. See my reply above.
I always thought that that was a function of surviving by one’s wits in a hostile world, plus a cultural tendency to breed smart kids with other, female smart kids, rather than making them take a vow of celibacy.
Thank you.
Yes, and the fact that the mitochondrial haplotype is similar to those of Europeans rather than to Middle Eastern peoples suggests that the maternal ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews were European rather than Middle Eastern.
Something more is needed than mitochondria, though. For about 900 years after the destruction of the Temple, the Gaonim kept up a lively correspondence with the Jews of the diaspora, dealing with a lot of marital issues. Their correspondence has survived and been printed, and are an important primary source of information of Jewish life in early-Mideival Europe and the Middle East. I’d like to see the mitochondria and hypotheses built thereon corroborated with some Gaonic correspondence frequently dealing with issues of conversion, which is a complicated, exacting process in Judaism.
It might well be that the shiksaik mitochondria of a few converts became wide spread due to the carriers’ underlying hotness, as per my previous post.
“I have read that Ashkenazi Jews have a much higher frequency of above genius level IQ than any other group of people on earth.”
That seems true, except for a blind spot related to politics. ;-)
My brother-in-law is mixed German/French/English lineage, but I always thought he looks rather stereotypical Jewish. The Jews apparently think so too - when he vacationed in Israel, everyone insisted on speaking Hebrew to him.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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That’s interesting, but I suspect they’re counting the Jewish population of the Levant in the Empire population. In which case 10% could be low.
The Vikings, the group often referred to as Normans, established a presence in Sicily and southern Italy in the 11th century. Being social people, I presume they socialized with the local population. As did Arabs who arrived later.
A Jewish soul returning to it's roots, in my experience that's not the case. Though in general it's not a big issue, I've on occasion heard commentary from Reform, more accurately non-religious Jews. I'm a real one, so and so isn't
I love the way you put that. I have read that back in the day, for Jewish merchants engaged in long journeys, months at a time, spreading hotness amongst the local populations was not condoned, but understood. Not so for the hotness of the wife left at home.
I thank you for your exhaustive reply.
The census cited was of the entire Empire, probably at least 65 million people total. Seems unlikely that more than 6.5 million of them were Jews.
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