Genetic evidence links Jews to their ancient tribe

Jerusalem Post (originally) ^ | November 20, 2002 | Judy Siegel

[Asher]

Genetic evidence links Jews to their ancient tribe

By Judy Siegel

JERUSALEM (November 20) - Genetic evidence continues to provide additional proof to the claims that the Jewish people are descended from a common ancient Israelite father: Despite being separated for over 1,000 years, Sephardi Jews of North African origin are genetically indistinguishable from their brethren from Iraq, according to The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

They also proved that Sephardi Jews are very close genetically to the Jews of Kurdistan, and only slight differences exist between these two groups and Ashkenazi Jews from Europe.

These conclusions are reached in an article published recently in the American Journal of Human Genetics and written by Prof. Ariella Oppenheim of the Hebrew University (HU) and Hadassah-University Hospital in Ein Kerem.

Others involved are German doctoral student Almut Nebel, Dr. Marina Faerman of HU, Dr. Dvora Filon of Hadassah-University Hospital, and other colleagues from Germany and India.

The researchers conducted blood tests of Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Kurdish Jews and examined their Y chromosomes, which are carried only by males. They then compared them with those of various Arab groups - Palestinians, Beduins, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese - as well as to non-Arab populations from Transcaucasia - Turks, Armenians and Moslem Kurds.

The study is based on 526 Y chromosomes typed by the Israeli team and additional data on 1,321 individuals from 12 populations. The typing of the Jewish groups was performed at the National Genome Center at HU's Silberman Institute of Life Sciences.

The Fertile Crescent of the Middle East was one of the few centers in which the transition from hunting-gathering to permanent settlement and agriculture took place. Genetic studies suggest that migrating Neolithic farmers dispersed their technological innovations and domesticated animals from the Middle East towards Europe, North Africa and Southwest Asia.

Studies of Y chromosomes have become powerful tools for the investigation of the genetic history of males, since these chromosomes are transmitted from fathers to sons.

Surprisingly, the study shows a closer genetic affinity by Jews to the non-Jewish, non-Arab populations in the northern part of the Middle East than to Arabs. These findings are consistent with known cultural links that existed among populations in the Fertile Crescent in early history, and indicate that the Jews are direct descendants of the early Middle Eastern core populations, which later divided into distinct ethnic groups speaking different languages.

Previous investigations by the HU researchers suggested a common origin for Jewish and non-Jewish populations living in the Middle East. The current study refines and delineates that connection.

It is believed that the majority of today's Jews - not including converts and non-Jews with whom Jews intermarried - descended from the ancient Israelis that lived in the historic Land of Israel until the destruction of the Second Temple and their dispersal into the Diaspora.

The researchers say that a genetic analysis of the chromosomes of Jews from various countries show that there was practically no genetic intermixing between them and the host populations among which they were scattered during their dispersion - whether in Eastern Europe, Spain, Portugal or North Africa.

A particularly intriguing case illustrating this is that of the Kurdish Jews, said to be the descendants of the Ten Tribes of Israel who were exiled in 723 BCE. to the area known today as Kurdistan, located in Northern Iraq, Iran and Eastern Turkey. They continued to live there as a separate entity until their immigration to Israel in the 1950s. The Kurdish Jews of today show a much greater affinity to their fellow Jews elsewhere than to the Kurdish Moslems.

(Source: The Jerusalem Post Newspaper)

[PatrickHenry]

It's so difficult for a mere lurker to determine who is making more sense here. You keep providing links to what seems to be solid scholarship, while exposing the false credentials of the "scholars" for the other side. That's impressive. However, the other side keeps ignoring your evidence and they claim that you're an idiot. So who is a lurker to belive?

[tracer]

Thanks for a very interesting and informative post and thread.....

[Sabertooth]

Still on those "Christian Identity" group. As I said before I don't know anymore about them that what you posted.

You posted a list of eleven books by nine authors at #169, to support your claim that the Ten Lost Tribes are the forefathers of European Caucasians. Of your list, eight titles by seven authors also show up in this Aryan Nations Catalog. This is a remarkable degree of correlation, over 75%.

One of the titles that doesn't appear on that site is "The Witness of the Stars," by E.W. Bullinger. This is a book you've obviously never read, as it doesn't address the subject of the Lost Tribes or European Caucasians at all.

What is the source the list of books you posted at #169?

[Just mythoughts]

lol

[PatrickHenry]

I'm no expert in this area, so I can't properly evaluate the site I'm going to link, but the author provides a great deal of scriptural references to the effect that the 10 tribes were never lost at all. What do you make of this? TEN LOST TRIBES FOUND.

[DensaMensa]

}What do you make of this?

Very heavy on spin. Starts out OK then shift to diversion. Parrots the Jewish line which says "only WE are Israelites. Don't mess with our schtik".

[DensaMensa]

What do think of this: Rabbi Speaks out on The Lost Tribes of Israel.

[Swordmaker]

Exactly you "think" you did successfully discredit Capt.

As to the sites I visit, the ONLY reason I visited Aryan Nation's website, Kingdom Ministry's website, or any of the neo-Nazi sites was because YOUR list lead me to them and nowhere else as I tried to learn the provenance of your sources. The only exception for this was E. Raymond Capt... I did not have to research him again, I already felt soiled enough from the research I did on his credibility six months ago (which took me to the same filthy sites and nowhere else!).

Thus far all you have done is to try and associate a list of books that a bunch of idiots now claim as their own as the basis to discredit any and all who think differently than you.

This is funny... by posting the list as "a place to start," thereby implying you felt they were authoritative sources, YOU claimed this list as your own. Had you stayed just with scriptural references, none of this would have been raised. Since YOU posted the list with the implication that they were authoritative, then what, Just, does that make you? I and other will draw their own conclusions.

Tell me, Just, did you buy the books? If so, where? A website search for these books show that aside from two listings on a used book store site, they are available ONLY from the sort of site you profess to have never visited. Did you read them, or just quote someone else who told you what they contained?

Can you explain why Capt lied about his background? What about his breaking of the commandment about "bearing false witness?" Why should I give anything he says about anything any credibility? You have NEVER answered any of these questions and you won't; you will just erect another smoke screen of accusation against me.

Just, I am going to leave you to your delusions. If you choose to believe a proven liar then you will. Your mind is obviously closed.

[Just mythoughts]

lol time will tell if you pull your project off.

[Swordmaker]

Why they promote the books you hate as a part of their agenda...

We do not hate these books... or even their writers. We just think they and the psuedo-science and psuedo-history they present are worthless. It seems the vast majority of other historians and scientists think so as well, since their works do not appear as citations in any other scholarly works.

My question to you is why do you also PROMOTE these discredited books? Doing so lends credibility to the very organizations and ideas we find anethema and you find "demonic."

[Swordmaker]

Answer the questions. You never answer a direct question. You only answer questions that were never asked... one's you make up.

[Just mythoughts]

lol

You have all the answers, you need none from me, so you have fun while you can in building your world view.

[facedown]

bump

[Dark Wing]

You might find this of interest.

[Sabertooth]

I'm no expert in this area, so I can't properly evaluate the site I'm going to link, but the author provides a great deal of scriptural references to the effect that the 10 tribes were never lost at all. What do you make of this?

From the site...

The book of II Chronicles records many times that the members of the northern tribes immigrated to Judah after the kingdom division. This happened from the very moment of the division.

I think the position that there has always been a Lost Tribe presence among the Jews has a lot to recommend it, as far as it goes. I don't think it accounts for everyone who is now descended from the Northern Tribes, any more than the continuous presence of a small number of Jews in the Levant after 70 A.D. accounted for all of the Jews in the world at any given time.

I'm not an expert either, but I've had some curiousity about the Lost Tribes for some time. I think some of the Kurds, the Pashtuns and some Kashmiris. are likely descendents of the Hebrews. However, even if they are, there still remains the question of whether they are the progeny of Israel or Judah.

The Falashas of Ethiopia claimed to be from the Tribe of Dan. There was also speculation that they were descended from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

Over here there's a claim of a Y-chromosome genetic affinity between the Lemba Tribe of Southern Africa and a group of Jews from Yemen.

Just clicking around a little, I found some interesting links about a possible Lost Tribe in Burma. These Burmese believe they are descended from the Tribe of Manasseh, and several hundred have been brought to Israel and have officially converted to Judaism.

There are plenty of other claimants, I'm a bit less inclined to believe some of the New World stories, but who knows? I think it's pretty interesting that we find little enclaves of people with this belief in so many places throughout the world. Given the advances in ethnology, genetics, and linguistics, we have some good tools for testing these claims.

[Sabertooth]

Sorry, I guess I missed the joke. Do you suppose you could tell me where you got your list of sources that you posted at #169?

[Just mythoughts]

lol, broken record, broken record, broken record, one track mind, one track mind, one track mind, one track mind, one track mind, got an agenda, got an agenda, got an agenda, got an agenda, got an agenda, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, get a map, get a map, seek your peers, seek your peers, seek your peers, find a scholar, find a scholar, find a scholar, got a consensus, got a consensus, got a consensus, got a consensus,

I said, I would scatter them into corners,
I would make the remembrance of them
to cease from among man:
Were it not that I feared the wrath of
the enemy
Lest their adversaries should behave
themselves strangley,
And lest they should say, 'Our hand is
high,
And the LORD hath not done all this.'

For they are a nation void of counsel,
Neither is there any understanding in
them.

O that they were wise, that they understood this,
That they would consider their latter end!

How should one chase a thousand,
And two put ten thousand to flight,
Except their Rock had sold them,

And the LORD had shut them up?

For their rock is not as our Rock,

Even our enemies themselves being judges,
For their vines is of the vine of Sodom,
And of the fields of Gomorrah:
Their grapes are grapes of gall,
Their clusters are bitter:
Their wine is the poison of dragons,
and the cruel venom of asps.

Is not this laid up in store with ME,
and SEALED up among My treasures?
To Me belongeth vengeance, and a recompence;

Their foot shall slide in due time:
For the day of their calamity is at hand,

And the things that shall come upon them make haste.
For the LORD shall judge His People, and
repent Himself for His servants,

When He seeth that their power is gone,
And there is none shut up, or left.

And He shall say, 'Where are their gods,
Their rock in whom they trusted,

Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices,
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up and help you,
and be your protection

See now that I, even I, am He,
And there is no god with Me:

I kill, and I make alive;
I wound, and I heal;
Neither is there any that can deliver out of My hand.
For I lift up My hand to heaven,
And say, I live for ever.
If I whet My glittering sword,
And Mine hand take hold on judgment;

I will render vengeance to Mine enemies,
And will reward them that hate Me.

I will make Mine arrows drunk with blood,
And My sword will devour flesh;
And that with the blood of the slain and of the captives,
From the beginning of revengues upon the enemy.

Rejoice O ye nations, with His people;
For He will avenge the blood of His servant,
And will render vengeance to His adversaries,
And will be merciful unto His land, and to

His people."

[Sabertooth]

lol, broken record, broken record, broken record, one track mind, one track mind, one track mind, one track mind, one track mind, got an agenda, got an agenda, got an agenda, got an agenda, got an agenda, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, is lost, get a map, get a map, seek your peers, seek your peers, seek your peers, find a scholar, find a scholar, find a scholar, got a consensus, got a consensus, got a consensus, got a consensus,

Tell you what, your evasions of a simple question have definitely piqued my interest.

You see, since you never read Bullinger (who has some legitimacy though no relevance to your claim), I'm wondering which, if any, of the Aryan Nation-approved books you recommended you actually have read. Since you've only posted titles with disclaimers, and haven't delved into any of the substance they might contain, I've got a hunch that you haven't read them either. I think you got that list of titles from somewhere, not realizing that some of us had seen several of them before from people making the same claims that you have about the Lost Tribes.

Now, with your hand in the kookie jar of anti-Semitism, you're concealing your source. I wonder why?

[TwilightDog]

Thanks to all that have taken the time and expended the intellectual effort trying to impart information and theories. The personal animus evinced by some on both sides
of the debate is a waste of bandwidth and a distraction from the matter at issue.

As far as the connection of Lost Tribe theorizing and "Christian identity"/neo-nazi philosophical outlook, that is something I was unaware of and doesn't logically
follow from the claims or implications of that theory. Bear in mind though the discreditability by association reasoning doesn't really establish or disprove anything(although it is good to have an awareness of such things). A lot of the avowed beliefs of some of the "paleocons" are a few steps of remove from the neo-nazi/white nationalist philosophical outlook, but it shouldn't detract from their
other more sound notions by association(just an argument from analogy aside).

I've long ago resigned myself to accept that most academic scholarship deems "British Israelite" ten lost tribe theorizing as spurious and disputes the historical speculations it is comprised of. There's no doubt of that. My thinking on this has always been that although there is not enough evidence currently to support this theory, if there is any truth to it someday there will be a discovery that will establish this--and blow everyone's minds. After all, the significancy of this rests in the shock value of the revelation if one day some national or ethnic grouping has this applied to them from Hosea: "And it shall come to pass, in the place where it was said unto them Ye are not my people, there it shall be said to them ye are the sons of the living God"(In the context of talking about the nation of Israel/Samaria being disowned, lost, reconciled, and then re-joined to the House of Judah).

As it remains now, the northern kingdom was the more populace of the two kingdoms and were lost to history. It seems unlikely to me, as I said, that this type of people would be fated to end-up in some third-world backwater of humanity in terms of nationhood. And lastly,there are a lot of Old Testament promises left unfulfilled pertaining to them, so clearly we aren't done with them(wherever and whoever they may be). That is why it is interesting to watch new developments and discoveries arise that might have bearing on this question.

I did read one E. Raymond Capt book, "The Great Pyramid Decoded". Surely no one could impeach the veracity of the claims of the "Pyramidologists"(just kidding).

[Swordmaker]

lol

You have all the answers, you need none from me, so you have fun while you can in building your world view.

Another non-responsive reply. We ask for substance, you give us hot air.