Posted on 11/19/2001 3:41:35 PM PST by Sabramerican
This has been dealt with already. Some mixing but as the Hammer test clearly shows VERY LOW admixture considering the diasporas length and breath.
If blacks can have the highest degree of purity in this priestly Y-chromosome gene then I can see no other possible choice but to conclude that there actually has been quite a bit of mixing between Jews and the people amongst which they live with the end result that Jews tend to resemble the populations amongst which they live. If Jewish immigrants mixed with blacks in Africa so as to produce a population of Negroid Jews then surely a similar process may also have happened in Europe and elsewhere. At the same time, the genetic evidence shows that Jews also do have some genetic commonalities among them. But there also has been mixing.
You've moved from Cohen marker on this small group to a general statement about Jews which is false. The Kohathites originally may have had a narrow African intermixture since the ancient Israelites came out of North Africa after being slaves there for hundreds of years. Also, the Kohathites were not one of the 12 Tribes of Israel. Hence their, distinctiveness was related to the fact that Kohath, who was the son of Levi, was the father of Amram, Izher, Hebron and Uzziel (Exod. 6:18; Num 3:19, 27; 1 Chron. 6:3). In other words there were several Kohathite branches of the Levitical families (Num. 3:27). It is NOT necessary to assume some kind of admixture after the diaspora. At the outset, since there were several Kohathite branches there may have been this African connection albeit limited.
Your assumptions were taken broadly unecessarily and you wanted to attenuate the issue beyond other reasonable explanations.
I think the Lemba prove that the Jewish populations are not 100% pure. However the genetic evidence also shows, in my view, that most Jewish populations have some ancestry from the Jews of the Bible. But they are not pure descendants.
Whether that is meaningful or not is a matter of opinion. I'm sure the Gentile populations of Europe and the Middle East also have some ancestry from the ancient Jews, due to conversions by Jews into Christianity or Islam. Should European Gentiles and Arabs claim to be descended from the ancient Israelites? One could just as well claim that black Americans should be considered Anglo-Saxon because they have some English ancestry (Genetic studies show that black Americans have about a 28% admixture rate). A genetic study of Englishmen showed that 1% of English genes are of African origin. Should the English be considered "African" because of this?
What we make of all these facts is a matter of opinion. Surely the Zionists will be prone to claim the modern Jews are 100% pure so as to claim the land of Palestine while the Arabs will be prone to say the Ashkenazim have 0% ancestry from the ancient Jews so as to deny the Zionist claim on Palestine.
So I think the issue is not whether modern Jews are descended from the Biblical Jews but rather to what extent they are descended from the Biblical Jews. Surely modern Jews have some ancestry from the ancient Jews. But the question is exactly how many of the ancestors of modern Jews were the Biblical Jews. It's not a matter of whether modern Jews are descended from ancient Jews or not, it is a matter of to what degree. It is a matter of degree not of "if".
Where did I mention the Kohathites? I have only been talking of the Lemba. Are you arguing that the Lemba are not the result of mixing between Jews and blacks but rather pure descendants of the Kohathites?
Think about this. 2 women, ONE HEBREW, ONE EGYPTIAN. 2 sons, but only ONE Hebraic bloodline. Not Abraham. Sarah.
One Hebraic MOTHER.
Israelites were factors in MOST of Africa before the LAND of Israel was a reality, and during the height of her trading supremacy before the Romans, their influence went far to the north which included Crete, Babylon, and Persia.
Claims of a historic presence of Jewish communities in certain regions of Africa, notably West and Southern Africa, seem esoteric when first mentioned. This presence goes back not just centuries, but even to biblical times.
Of course in two areas such a communal presence on the African continent remains a firmly acknowledged part of Jewish history and experience (North Africa and Egypt/Ethiopia). A Jewish presence in Egypt and the former Kingdom of Kush are described in the Book of Exodus. Yet even after their exodus from Egypt and their settlement in the land of Israel, the Jewish tribes retained certain nomadic characteristics which are reflected throughout their history.
For example, in the 10th and 9th centuries B.C.E. Kings David and Solomon sought to expand Jewish influence and trade throughout the Mediterranean, including North Africa, Egypt, the Arab Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, as well as Persia. Often such trade promotion and colonizing drives were arranged in cooperation with the Cananites and the neighboring Kingdom of Tyre.
These kingdoms often lent their military backing to these colonizing efforts, which led to the establishment of numerous settlements by Jewish artisans and traders throughout these regions.
But the subsequent scattering of a Jewish presence and influence reaching deep into the African continent is less widely acknowledged.
Pressed under sweeping regional conflicts, Jews settled as traders and warriors in Yemen, the Horn of Africa, Egypt, the Kingdom of Kush and Nubia, North African Punic settlements (Carthage and Velubilis), and areas now covered by Mauritania. More emigrants followed these early Jewish settlers to Northern Africa following the Assyrian conquest of the Israelites in the 8th century B.C.E., and again 200 years later, when Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians, leading to the destruction of the First Temple.
This catastrophic event not only drove many Jews into exile in Babylon, but also led to the establishment of exile communities around the Mediterranean, including North Africa. Then, with Israel coming under Greek, Persian and later Roman rule and dependence, renewed waves of Jewish traders and artisans began to set up communities in Egypt, Cyrenaica, Nubia and the Punic Empire, notably in Carthage, whence they began to scatter into various newly emerging communities south of the Atlas mountains. Several Jewish nomadic groups also started to come across the Sahara from Nubia and the ancient kingdom of Kush.
The Jewish presence in Africa began to expand significantly in the second and third centuries of the Christian era, extending not only into the Sahara desert, but also reaching down along the West African coast, and possibly also to some Bantu tribes of Southern Africa (where some 40,000 members of the Lemba tribe still claim Jewish roots). The names of old Jewish communities south of the Atlas mountains, many of which existed well into Renaissance times, can be found in documents in synagogue archives in Cairo.
In addition, Jewish, Arab and Christian accounts cite the existence of Jewish rulers of certain tribal groups and clans identifying themselves as Jewish scattered throughout Mauritania, Senegal, the Western Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana. Among notable Arab historians referring to their existence are Ibn Khaldun, who lived in the 13th century, a respected authority on Berber history; the famous geographer al-Idrisi, born in Ceuta, Spain in the 12th century, who wrote about Jewish Negroes in the western Sudan; and the 16th century historian and traveler Leon Africanus, a Moslem from Spain who was raised by a Jewish woman working in his family's household, who is said to have taught him Hebrew and emigrated with the family to Morocco in 1492. Leon Africanus later converted to Catholicism but remained interested in Jewish communities he encountered throughout his travels in West Africa.
Some evidence can also be derived from surviving tribal traditions of some African ethnic groups, including links to biblical ancestors, names of localities, and ceremonies with affinities to Jewish ritual practices. Moreover, the writings of several modern West African historians and two personal anecdotes indicate that the memories of an influential Jewish historical past in West Africa continue to survive.
I still remember from my assignments in the 1960's as a Foreign Service Officer an encounter with Mr. Bubu Hama, then president of the National Assembly in Niger and a prolific writer on African history. He told me that the Tuaregs had a Jewish queen in early medieval times, and that some Jewish Tuareg clans had preserved their adherence to that faith, in defiance of both Islamic and Christian missionary pressure, until the 18th century. In several of his books Hama even cites some genealogies of Jewish rulers of the Tuareg and Hausa kingdoms.
A related story about surviving memories of Jewish roots in West Africa was told to me around 1976 by former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres. He had just returned from a meeting of the Socialist International, during which he had met with then president Leopold Senghor of Senegal. In the course of their discussion about the possibility of normalizing Senegalese-Israeli relations, Senghor had told him that he too had Jewish ancestors. At that time we both smiled somewhat incredulously. Yet, indeed, there are a number of historical records of small Jewish kingdoms and tribal groups known as Beni Israel that were part of the Wolof and Mandinge communities. These existed in Senegal from the early Middle Ages up to the 18th century, when they were forced to convert to Islam. Some of these claimed to be descendants of the tribe of Dan, the traditional tribe of Jewish gold and metal artisans, who are also said to have built the "Golden Calf".
Jewish presence is said to have been introduced into Senegal, Mauritania and numerous other West African countries south of the Sahara in part through the migration of Jewish Berber groups and later through some exiles who had been expelled from Spain, had first settled in North Africa, and had then crossed the Atlas mountains. Other even earlier arrivals are said to have come from Cyrenaica (now part of Libya, Egypt, the Sudan and Ethiopia), having crossed the Sahara to West Africa and eventually also moved further south.
In addition to the Jewish tribal groups in Senegal who claim to be descendants of the tribe of Dan, the Ethiopian Jews also trace their ancestry to the tribe of Dan. Some of these transmigrants established communities in such still renowned places as Gao, Timbuktu (where UNESCO still maintains notable archives containing records of its old Jewish community), Bamako, Agadez, Kano and Ibadan. A notable number of Berber and African nomad tribal groups joined up with the Jewish communal groups trying to resist aggressive Arab Islamic efforts or as bulwark against Christian proselytizing, sometimes going so far as to convert to Judaism. Notable among these were some Tuareg, Peul and Ibadiya groups.
Another source at the root of this Jewish presence and influence was the spreading gold trade emanating from Persia, with Jews becoming involved as important intermediary traders. These traders came to rely on contacts with scattered Jewish communities they encountered in their West African travels in search for gold, a trade widely prohibited to Muslims as usurious under Islamic law. Thus, for instance, various historical accounts claim that Jewish travelers from Persia had organized exchanges of Chinese silk for gold in the Kingdom of Ghana; the Ashanti needed the silk for weaving Kente cloth. To this day it is said that the Ashanti words for numbers relate to those in Parsi, the language of Persia. Under the impact of this Jewish influence a number of ruling families in Ghana converted to Judaism, and for nearly 200 years the Kingdom of Ghana, which extended at that time far north into western Sudan, was ruled by Jewish kings.
Because of their skills, abilities, and multilingual knowledge, Jews became important intermediaries in regional trade relations and as artisans grouping together as craft guilds. They are said to have formed the roots of a powerful craft tradition among the still-renowned Senegalese goldsmiths, jewelers and other metal artisans. The name of an old Senegalese province called "Juddala" is said to attest to the notable impact Jews made in this part of the world.
Jewish presence is also confirmed by numerous surviving accounts of Portuguese and other European visitors in the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as North African and Arab historical records. Gradually most of these communities disappeared. Since they existed largely in isolation, there was a good deal of intermarriage which for a while reinforced their influence and expansion. As a result they were increasingly viewed as a threat by Muslim rulers, and most of the Jewish communities and nomad groups south of the Atlas mountains were either forced to convert to Islam or massacred; the remainder fled to North Africa, Egypt or the Sudan, and a few also to Cameroon and Southern Africa.
Reviewing the various Jewish and non-Jewish sources on the origins of these Jewish communities involves complicated and at times seemingly contradictory stories about tribal and religious wars and resultant alliances and transformations. These originated with the Roman and Byzantine persecutions of Jews and the promotion of Christianity beginning under the emperors Diocletian and Constantine. There was also a wave of Jewish proselytizing and conversions of nations and tribal groups to Judaism. For instance, the people of Yemen converted to Judaism in the fifth century under King Du-Nuas, as did a major Berber tribal group under their Queen Kahina in the seventh century. These were followed by additional forced conversions of Jewish communities to Christianity and later to Islam, but with some Jewish consciousness and traditions surviving.
These conflicting references to biblical sources by Jewish, Muslim, Berber and Christian sources survive not only to legitimize their respective spiritual claims but also as indicators of their transitions through a common past.
There has been a historical Jewish ambivalence about legitimizing mass conversions to Judaism and to look askance at those who do not "look Jewish". In part such attitudes are reinforced by the fact that certain Jewish communities, for historical reasons or due to prolonged isolation, had evolved ritual and ceremonial standards linked to older sources and traditions, thus becoming somewhat differentiated from those authorized by the dominant rabbinical authorities. These differences may involve such questions as acceptance of talmudic interpretation. This had placed into question at times even the authority of so prominent a Jewish sage as Moses Maimonides.
Even before Maimonides these issues had led to the by now virtually forgotten split by the Karaites, who rejected the Talmud as divine law as well as the hierarchical authority of the rabbinate. Yet, despite their current obscurity, the Karaites played a significant historical role in the expansion of Judaism and also as advocates of a greater religious role for women. Karaite influence extended to Judeo-Berber communities and West African tribal communities such as the Malinke, Peul, Foulani, Mossi, Fanti, Songhay, Yoruba and Hausa.
In addition, you fail to understand Judaism. It is very natural for Jews to keep their heritage intact even for thousands of years by the requirements of the Religion.
If what you say is true then you are saying that Jews do not admit converts? For example, if I decided to convert to Judaism I would never be accepted as a real Jew?
Not being Jewish, I do not have a dog in this fight but have been following your discussion.
Sabramerican, I have a Jewish male friend. He married a Gentile wife. Whether she converted to Judaism or not, I do not know. They have a daughter that is being raised Jewish. The man is a very observant Jew from what I can see.
Are you saying that his daughter is not recognized as Jewish by other Jews?
Editor's Note: This essay was extracted from Velikovsky's forthcoming book The Assyrian Conquest which is Vol. II of the Ages in Chaos series. It was written between the mid 1950s and mid-60s. A superb book on the Khazars which would serve as an excellent pendant to the present article is Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe (N. Y., 1976). - LMG
The following short discourse is not a part of the chronological problem discussed in Ages in Chaos and subsequent volumes of Velikovsky's reconstruction of ancient history; it deals with historical geography - the whereabouts of the places of exile of the Ten Tribes of Israel.
The statement in II Kings 17:6 which relates how "the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" has caused considerable deliberation among historians. The mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes even produced fantastic convictions such as the belief that the Britons are the descendants of the Lost Tribes who, after much wandering, reached Albion.
The information provided by II Kings 17:6 is also repeated almost verbatim in 18:11 . Additionally, in I Chronicles 5:26, the exile of the Transjordanian tribes - Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh - to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan is ascribed to "Pul, king of Assyria" and to "Tilgath-pilneser [Tiglath-pileser], king of Assyria". Modern scholars consider Pul and Tiglath-pileser to be one and the same king, Pul having been his name in Babylonia.(1) It is generally agreed that the location of Halah (in Hebrew with two letters Kheth, transcribed as h in scholarly texts), or Khalakh, is not given to identification.(2) As to Gozan, the texts of II Kings 17:6 and 18:1 1 speak of Habor by the river Gozan; also I Chronicles 5 :26 speaks of the river Gozan. In Isaiah 37:12, Gozan can be understood as a region or a people of a region. However, the correct translation of the two passages in the Second Book of Kings should be: "to the confluence (habor)* of the river Gozan".
*[Cf. Strong's Concordance of the Bible, p. 36 where (Hebrew section) habor is translated from the root word meaning "to join". - WBS]
Biblical scholars who sought the place of exile of, first, the two and a half tribes of Israel by Tiglath-pileser and then of all the tribes of Israel by Sargon, upon the fall of Samaria, decided that the river's name was Habor and Gozan was the region. They have therefore identified Gozan with Guzana, modern Tell Halaf in northeastern Syria. But this interpretation is a violation of the texts. In looking for a river Habor they thought to identify it with a tributary of the river Euphrates mentioned in Ezekiel I: 3 - "The word of the Lord came . . . unto Ezekiel . . . in the land of the Chaldeans by the river, Chebar." However, the spellings in Hebrew of ,Habor and Chebar are different, the river Khvor (Chebar) is not Habor, and the latter is not a river at all. Furthermore, the so-called river Chebar is actually an irrigation canal.**
** [See Atlas of the Bible (ed. by J. L. Gardner, 1981),p. 145; also consult W. Gesenius, Hebrew Lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs), p. 460, "Kebar" - "a river (or perhaps a canal) of Babylonia, not at present identified. . ." - LMG/WBS. ]
In explaining why the misfortune of exile befell the population of the Northern Kingdom, the Book of Kings says that the Children of Israel "worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal" and "caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments" and "therefore, the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah only" (II Kings 17:17, 18).
"Removed them out of his sight" seems to signify that the people of Israel were removed far away out of every contact with the remnant of Judah, not even by chance messenger. When one hundred and thirty-eight years later, in the beginning of the sixth century, the people of Judah were also led into exile - by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon - they did not find the exiled tribes of Israel in Babylonia, though they dwelt by the "river" Chebar (Khvor, i.e., Khabur), which flows in the central region of that country.
It appears that the places to which the Ten Tribes were removed by the Assyrian kings must have been far more remote than northeastern Syria.
Assyria, with its capital cities of Nimrud (Calah), Dur Sharrukin (Khorsabad), and Nineveh - all on the Tigris - expanded greatly in the days of its warrior kings Tiglath-pileser, Sargon, and Sennacherib. Repeatedly, the Assyrian kings led their troops across the Caucasus northward. Not satisfied with the passage along the coastal road of the Caspian Sea, they also explored the mountainous passes. Sargon, the conqueror of Samaria, wrote in his annals: I opened up mighty mountains, whose passes were difficult and countless, and I spied out their trails.
Over inaccessible paths in steep and terrifying places I crossed . . .(3)
The descriptions of Tiglath-pileser and Sargon of their campaigns in the north lead us to recognize that they passed the mountains of the Caucasus and reached the steppes between the Don and the Volga. When the barrier of the mountains was overcome, they could proceed northward in a sparsely populated area barren of natural defenses where they would meet less resistance than in the foothills of the mountains. It is unknown how far they may have let their armies of conquest march across the steppes, but probably they did not give the order to return homeward until the army brought its insignia to some really remote point: it could be as far as the place of the confluence of the Kama with the Volga, or even of the Oka, still farther north. The middle flow of the Volga would be the furthermost region of the Assyrian realm.
The roads to the Russian steppes along the Caspian and Black seas were much more readily passable than the narrow paths along the river Terek and the Daryal Canyon that cut the Caucasus and wind at the foot of Mount Kazbek.
The fact that the "confluence of the river Gozan" is considered a sufficient designation suggests that it must have been a great stream.
A large river in the plain behind the crest of the Caucasus is the Don, and a still larger river - the largest in Europe - is the Volga. If the Assyrians did not make a halt on the plain that stretches immediately behind the Caucasus, and moved along the great rivers without crossing them to conquer the great plain that lies open behind the narrow span where the rivers Don and Volga converge, then the most probable place of exile might be reckoned to be at the middle Volga. The distance from Dur Sharrukin to this region on the Russian (Scythian) plain is, in fact, less than the distance from Nineveh to Thebes in Egypt, a path taken by Assurbanipal several decades later. Under Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, Assyrian armies repeatedly invaded "Patursi and Kusi" - Upper Egypt and Ethiopia (Sudan). But Assyrian occupation of Scythia is not mere conjecture: it is confirmed by archaeological evidence. "The earliest objects from Scythia that we can date," writes a student of the region's antiquities, "referred to the VIIth and VIth centuries B.C., are under overwhelming Assyrian influence. . . ."(4)
The exiles who were removed from Samaria, a city of palaces and temples, no doubt bewailed the capital they had heroically defended for three years against the army of what was, in its time, the world's most powerful nation. Therefore, it is quite plausible that they would call their new settlement Samaria (in Hebrew, Shemer or Shomron; Sumur in the el-Amarna letters).
On the middle flow of the Volga, a city with the name Samara exists and has existed since grey antiquity. It is situated a short distance downstream from the point where the Volga and the Kama join. Russian conquerors of the ninth century found this city in existence. The medieval Arab geographer Yakubi, basing himself on accounts of the ninth-century traveller Ibn Fadlan, speaks of the Khazars who dwelt in Samara.(5) This people dominated southern and eastern Russia possibly as early as the third,(6) but especially during the tenth and eleventh centuries. They passed the Caucasus mountains to participate in the wars of the Romans and the Persians, dominated the Ukraine as far as Kiev, concluded treaties with the emperors of Byzantium, and their influence and suzerainty sometimes reached as far west as Sofia.(7)
The ruling class of the Khazars used Hebrew as its language, and the Hebrew faith was the official religion in the realm of the Khazars. There was a system of great tolerance, unique in the Middle Ages, in respect to other religions. The Supreme Court was composed of two persons of Jewish faith, two Moslems, two Christians, and one idolater of the Russian population. But it was not a confusion of creeds as it had been in old Samaria, which tolerated many creeds, with the monotheism of Yahweh being a protesting ingredient of the confusion.
Were the Khazars or their ruling aristocracy converted to Judaism in a later age? This position was based on what was said in a letter of the Khazar king Joseph, written about the year 961, to the Jewish grandee, Hasdai Ibn-Shaprut, at the court of Cordoba. 'Abd-al-Rahman al-Nasir, the Moorish ruler of Spain, had asked the king of the Khazars to provide any available information about his people, Hasdai's brothers in religion. In the letter of reply, the Khazar king recited a tradition or a legend: advocates of three religions came to some prior king of the Khazars, and he picked the Jewish faith because the Christian and the Mohammedan alike gave preference to the Jewish religion above that of their respective rival.*
*[Cf. A. Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe, pp. 63-64. - LMG]
The story exposes its mythical character. In the seventh or eighth centuries of the present era, the adepts of the Jewish faith were persecuted by the Christians and also by the Moslems, and would hardly be chosen to represent the religion of the state. A similar legend of "choosing" a religion is told about Vladimir of Kiev: in this legend the Khazars were the delegates representing the Jewish faith.
Had the Khazars been converted to Judaism, it would be almost incredible that they would call their city by the name Samara. Samaria was a sinful city from the viewpoint of the nation that survived in Palestine after the fall of Samaria, and out of which eventually grew the rabbinical Judaism of later centuries.
The conversion to the Jewish religion would also not imply the adoption of the Hebrew language. It is remarkable that the state language of the Khazars was Hebrew; the king of the Khazars was quite capable of reading and answering a letter in Hebrew.
Long before the correspondence between Joseph and Hasdai of the tenth century, the Khazar monarchs had Hebrew names. The dynasts previous to king Joseph were: Aaron, Benjamin, Menahem, Nisi, Manasseh II, Isaac, Hannukah, Manasseh, Hezekiah, and Obadiah. A conversion to Judaism in the seventh or eighth century of the present era would bring with it names common to Hebrews in the early Middle Ages, like Saadia or Nachman; the Judaism of the early Christian age was rich in names like Hillel and Gamliel while Hellenistic names like Alexander or Aristobul were not infrequent. Again, the Biblical names of an early period would give prominence to names like Joab, Gideon, or Iftach; and a still older group of names would be Gad, Issachar, Zwulun, or Benjamin.
It is peculiar that some of the kings of the Khazars were called by the names used in Palestine at the time that Samaria was captured by the Assyrians. Hezekiah was the king of Jerusalem at that time (II Kings 18: 10), and the name of his son and successor was Manasseh. Obadiah was one of the most common names at that time and in the preceding century. It does not seem arbitrary to assume that the Khazars absorbed, or even originally were, the remnants of some of the tribes of Israel.
It is most probable that the religious reform among the Khazars, about which some tradition was preserved until the tenth century, is to be interpreted as an act of purification of the half-pagan religion that the exiles from Samaria brought into and developed in their new abodes on the Volga, and as an act of return to the old Hebrew religion of Yahweh. This might have been performed with the help of some Hebrews who perchance left the schools of Sura and Pumbadita, where the Babylonian Talmud was composed. Old Jewish authors(8) actually mention the fact that teachers of rabbinical Judaism were invited to the kingdom of the Khazars as early as the eighth century. Possibly, the name "Khazars", despite a difference in writing, is to be interpreted as "Those Who Return". A long, probably illiterate period, when Hebrew was used only in speech, may have preceded the period of revival of learning and purification of faith.
I would like to express here the belief that excavation in or around Samara on the Volga may disclose Hebrew signs of the eighth and seventh centuries before the present era. Other sites of old settlements on the Volga, too, may disclose remnants of ancient Hebrew culture. The Hebrew (most probably also Assyrian) name for the Volga Gozan - seems to have survived in the name Kazan. The city of Kazan is located to the north of Samara, a very short distance beyond the place of confluence of the Volga and the Kama, two equally large streams. A tributary by the name Kazanka, or "small Kazan", flows there into the Volga.
In the days of the Khazar realm, the river Volga was called not by its Assyrian, nor by its present name, but by the name Etel (the name is given also as Itil or Atil). This name appears to derive from a Semitic root; it is also used by the medieval Arab geographers. Many place names in southern Russia seem to be of Hebrew derivation. The name of the river Don may go back to the name of the Israelite temple-city Dan. The Caspian Sea is best explained as "The Silver Sea" from the Hebrew caspi (of silver). Rostov means "The Good Harbor" in Hebrew.* * [In his original manuscript, Velikovsky had also intended to provide a possible Hebrew meaning for the place names Orel and Saratov. Unfortunately, he failed to do so. As it happens, Orel means "uncircumsised" in Hebrew while Saratov may mean "to make an incision" - names perhaps chosen to describe the inhabitants of the respective areas. LMG]
With our identification of Gozan - one of the places of exile of the Ten Tribes - as the Volga, we may now investigate the question, where is Khalakh, another place of exile mentioned in II Kings 17:6? This place name is generally regarded as unidentifiable.
The eastern coast of the Black Sea was the goal of the Argonaut expedition in its search for the Golden Fleece. This expedition, engineered by Jason, was undertaken on the boat Argo. The land on the eastern coast of the Black Sea was called Colchis in ancient times, and the region is still known by this name. In Russian literature it is called Kolkhida. [*!* Image] Source: After Hammond/
I consider western Georgia - to which Colchis belongs - to be the Biblical Khalakh. Those of the expatriates of Samaria whose destination was Khalakh arrived there some decades after the Argonaut expedition, which was regarded by the later Greeks as an historical event and chronologically placed two or three generations before the Trojan War.(9) In the mountainous region of western Georgia, adjacent to the Colchian coast, live the so-called Georgian, or Mountain Jews. They claim to be of the Ten Tribes of Israel, their ancestors having been exiled there upon the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians. Ben-Zvi (the second president of the modern state of Israel) tells of these people and their claims.(10) He writes that "there is no reason to doubt the existence of a continuous Jewish settlement in both the north and south of Caucasia, whose roots were laid in very ancient times, perhaps as early as the days of the Second Temple, perhaps even earlier". Yet he does not express any suspicion that Khalakh may have been Colchis.
The third place of exile of the Ten Tribes, according to the Book of Kings, was the "cities of the Medes". Is it also possible to locate this last destination? The Medes first appear in Assyrian annals in the time of Shalmaneser III: it was in his days that they started to penetrate across the mountains of Iran to infringe on the boundaries of the Assyrian empire. They appear once again in the annals of Sargon II, who claims to have repelled "the distant Medes on the edge of the Bikni mountain".(11) Some scholars maintain that the homeland of the Medes, before their occupation of the Iranian plateau in the seventh and sixth centuries, was in Turan, that is, West Turkestan. Sargon's reference to "distant Medes" would then designate their homeland in Turan. In this context it is interesting to note that the Jews of Bukhara, the great trading city and metropolis of West Turkestan (Turan), claim direct descent from the Ten Tribes.(12) Some writers are even prepared to admit the possible veracity of this claim,(13) though no one so far seems to have attempted to place the "cities of the Medes" in this region. While the greater part of the Jewish community of Bukhara may well be descended from migrants from the time of the Babylonian Exile or the Diaspora of Roman times or even later, it is not excluded that the oldest group among them are remnants of those tribes dispatched by Sargon to the "cities of the Medes".
I would say that even genealogies are fallible. Consider for example the case of infidelity. A Jewish woman might have an affair with a Gentile man. But such affairs are forbidden so she might claim that the son is actually the son of her own Jewish husband. For this child the official genealogy might say that his father was Jewish whilst in reality his father may have been a Gentile.
"In addition, you fail to understand Judaism. It is very natural for Jews to keep their heritage intact even for thousands of years by the requirements of the Religion."
I don't doubt that but I fail to see how that rules out the possibility of race-mixing. On the contrary I think it could reinforce my claim. A Jewish man might marry a Gentile woman. His Jewish consciousness may force him to make his wife convert and raise his children as Jews and even go so far as to tell his children that their mother is 100% racially Jewish.
I think such a process would take so long that it cannot be reconciled with the observable evidence. It would take longer than 2000 to turn white Jews into Negroid Jews by this process.
Having a Jewish mother, the child is a Jew. If we want to play with hypothetical fantasies regarding geologies then possibly nothing is at it seems. Maybe the Queen of England is really Jewish. Is William really Charles's son?
So you're saying that the Lemba might have been "black" even before they went to Sub-Saharan Africa. If so I very much doubt it. Even the darkest North-Africans and Middle Easterners are not as dark as Sub-Saharans. And well, isn't it convenient that the black Lemba happened to choose to migrate to sub-Saharan Africa instead of Northern Europe, in which case we would have had black Jews amongst a Nordic population?
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