Posted on 07/15/2015 2:42:04 PM PDT by Pharmboy
‘Bottleneck’ dates back 600 to 800 years, genome analysis shows; researcher says among population ‘everyone is a 30th cousin.
Illustrative photo of Ashkenazi Jews, taken from Nurit Ben Sheetri's 'The Redheads' exhibit at Dizengoff Center (courtesy Nurit Ben Sheetrit)
A new study concludes that all Ashkenazi Jews can trace their ancestry to a “bottleneck” of just 350 individuals, dating back to between 600 and 800 years ago.
The study, published in the Nature Communications journal Tuesday, was authored by Shai Carmi, a computer science professor at Columbia University, and more than 20 medical researchers from Yale, Columbia, Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and other institutions.
Researchers analyzed the genomes of 128 Ashkenazi Jews and compared them to those of non-Jewish Europeans in order to determine which genetic markers are unique to Ashkenazi Jews. They found that the Ashkenazi Jews’ genetic similarities were so acute that one of the study’s researchers, Columbia professor Itsik Pe’er, told the Live Science website that among Ashkenazi Jews, “everyone is a 30th cousin.”
The findings will enable researchers to catalog nearly all of the genetic variations from the founding population, the study’s authors said. Such thorough genetic cataloging could help clinicians interpret individual genetic mutations, improve disease mapping and provide insight into the histories of Middle Eastern and European populations, the study said.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesofisrael.com ...
The definition has expanded, I guess we should say Hebrew for clarification purposes.
...and don’t forget the Black Death. That wiped out a third to one-half of all Euros. If a significant percentage of Jews back then lived in more urban environments as they do now, they would have suffered more from plagues than the country folk.
Yes...good point. The Jews that I know with red hair have a lighter, more straw-colored orange than the ginger Celts I know.
Good point.
Yes, that’s very true - you know your colors.
lol
I guess it's what I have gone by. Paul was the tribe of Benjamin but I don't think of him as a "Benjaminite" but a Jew.
At first i didn't understand Smittie's comment about Hebrew but I think i do now; it could be used as a synonym for Jew.
If you are a redhead, please accept my offer of Holy Matrimony.
I thought he was Pres-purr-tarian.
Ping
Sorry, Laz, I’m not. My husband loves redheads, too, but he settled for a brunette.
Isaac was a Hebrew. Israelites are descendents of Jacob, so Jacob’s first son Reuben was probably the first Israelite.
“Jew” used to just mean descendants of Judah, or people from the Kingdom of Judah, but since the remainder of the other 10 tribes mixed in with Judah, you can probably say the first Israelite was also the first “Jew” as we use the term today.
Nice one!
But he could have been a Jewish cat named Katz.
If I remember correctly, the literal word “Jew” did not enter the English language until about 1750. The 1611 King James translation does not contain the letter “J” at all.
If I had a Jewish cat, would he be wary of other cats that were Mew-slim?
Regarding Hebrew, it’s a tricky word too. It refers to the language of course, but also was used to describe the tribe or nation that the people of Israel descended from. There is some debate on the etymology and exact definition though.
Some think the word derives from Abraham, and refers only to Abraham’s descendants, but others think it is derived from an older patriarch named Eber, so it could include some other closely related tribes as well, like the Edomites.
LOL!
You *HUSBAND*?
SCREW HIM!
(Oh, wait....)
I’m not a red-head. Your not missing anything!!!
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