Early Genetic Proof Ashkenazi Jews Are From the Middle East
The Khazar theory refuses to die and every once in a while pro-(so-called)-Palestinians raise the issue in an attempt to diminish Ashkenazi Jewish claims to be returning home to Zion. If the Caucus region is home, and therefore Zion is not, then the European Jews are colonialists. This would mean that the Palestinian Arabs would have a greater claim to the land than we Jews have. That ignores, of course, the pesky problem of the Jews who never left Zion and those from Arab lands. But, let’s put that aside as we look at whether or not Ashkenazi Jews can claim to be coming home to Israel.
Study of Genetic Characteristics of Jews
Image Credit: By brian0918™ (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Their results are only remarkable if you were expected anything different from what they found, and a relief even if this was what you anticipated: Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews were more similar to each other than either of them was to any other group studied. They also share characteristics in common with non-Jewish Mediterranean peoples but are not nearly as close to any of them as they are to each other.
Table showing relatedness for Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews and others. From: Martinez-Laso, et al., 1996.
Also not surprising was that Ashkenazi Jews shared some characteristics with the Europeans who hosted them for centuries and that the non-Ashkenazi Jews seemed to have preserved a purer form of their Mediterranean genetic make-up.
The authors conclude that Ashkenazi Jews, like their non-Ashkenazi co-religionists, originate in the Middle East.
It seems to be accepted by the research community, today, that the male line of Ashkenazi ancestry originates in the Middle East. Technological advances are improving all the time and we are growing more able to tease out finer details; for example, later research suggests four women from southern Europe may be the predecessors of about half of today’s Ashkenazi Jews.
The article described in this post contributes to the debate regarding the origin of the Ashkenazi Jews. However, it turns out that this paper was only a prelude to a study published in 2001 in which the authors sought to establish the origins of the “Palestinians”.
Follow-up Paper Has Grave Historical Blunders
In setting the reader up for the article that will be written a few years hence, they claim that the Philistines, the sea people who occupied Gaza and the southern coast of modern Israel, are the ancestors of today’s “Palestinians”. I find it hard to understand how the Israeli on the research team let slide such a huge error as referring to today’s “Palestinians” as yesterday’s Philistines. This error takes on greater significance in the Spanish team’s next research study, in which the single Israeli scientist is replaced by two Palestinian Arabs.
I examine the follow-up paper in depth in the blog named: Origin of the Palestinians.
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Appendix
J. Martinez-Laso, E. Gazit, E. Gornez-Casado, F! Morales, N. Martinez-Quiles, M. Alvarez, J. M. Martin-Villa, V. Fernandez, A. Arnaiz-Villena. (1996). HLA DR and DQ polymorphsm in Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews: comparison with other Mediterraneans. Tissue Antigens, 47, 63-71.
Abstract: HLA-DR and DQ alleles have been detected by DNA typing in Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews from Israel. Allele frequencies, characteristic DWDQ linkage disequilibria, population distances and their corresponding dendrograrn by using the Neighbor-Joining method were used to study relatedness between Jewish and other Mediterranean and non Mediterranean populations. Closest relatedness is observed between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews, and, in decreasing order, also with Algerians, Spaniards (including Spanish-Basques), French and Italians. Also, particular characteristic Central European alleles are observed in Ashkenazi Jews and Mediterranean/African alleles in non-Ashkenazi Jews. This is consistent with historical data, Jews being an ancient Mediterranean population, who have had a certain degree of admixture with their 2000-3000 years old neighbors in spite of cultural and religious traditions which have preserved identity outside Israel.
“The majority of genetic findings to date concerning Ashkenazi Jews conclude that the male line was founded by ancestors from the Middle East.” (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews)
Keep in mind that this refers to the most common male Jewish haplogroups, largely starting with “J.”. But many of us, myself included, are from other groups. We are “R” and I have perfectly Jewish friends with “G” and other haplogroups.
But the main point is correct. We are not Khazars, as the anti-Semites claim. And we are not interlopers in our land.
Actually, Elhaik’s article that everyone trashes, does not say that the Khazarian Jews are converts but, rather, that they originated from the Levant and migrated along the Silk Road and then north to where they settled for a long time before moving farther north and into Eastern Europe. His theory does not compete with the one saying that Ashkenazi Jews came around through Southern Europe but rather complements it.
I was not referring to Alhaik, who is not well-regarded in the genealogy community. I was going back to Arthur Koestler.
Oh! Koestler! Yup. He did some damage.
Ashkenazic Jews are not primarily European OR Middle-Eastern. We are a mix of Near-Eastern Jews and Pontic-Steppe Peoples.
Hi — our origins are in the Middle East. We arrived by various paths to different parts of the world but our basic origin is the Mid East and we “picked up” genetic materials from the peoples through whose lands we passed over the centuries. Where Israel is today was once referred to as Near East but nobody refers to it as that these days. So you and I are referring to the same place.