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Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a com
pnas.org — The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population
monsieurginger- 17 diggs
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- foopirata, on 09/22/2008, -1/+4Makuyas FTW!
- monsieurginger, on 09/22/2008, -0/+4huh?
- foopirata, on 09/22/2008, -1/+6You know, those Japanese who say they're the offspring of two of Israel's tribes - they're good people, every year they go thru Jerusalem singing and dancing, very nice, very colorful. Looks like there might be something to their story after all.
- monsieurginger, on 09/22/2008, -0/+4huh?
- sn4ke666, on 09/23/2008, -0/+3This study makes several important points.
1. Jews who's recent ancestry is from Europe are distinct genetically from other European (white) populations.
2. Ashkenazi, Near Eastern, North African, Yemenite, and Kurdish Jews share common genetic features.
3. Jews as whole are genetically close to other Middle Eastern populations.
What does this mean?
1. This supports the the fact that the widely-dispersed Jewish diaspora has a common ancestry, and therefore a common geographic origin.
2. Jews are not Caucasian or Indo-European of origin.
3. Due to the closeness of Jewish genotype to others in the Middle East, there is evidence that their origin is in the Levant, i.e. Palestine.
Now, does this mean that a Jew is someone with Jewish genes? It would be sad and outdated if that were the interpretation. A Jew is Jewish by upbringing and self-association with the Jewish community.
Now when it comes to arguing for legitimacy of a Jewish nationhood, that is, the existence of the diaspora and Israelis as a common people and not the invention of 19th century European racist romantics - "the white European invaders of Palestine" - these sorts of studies support the notion that the Jews have always been a nation and have a common heritage and ancestry.
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