I am 1/2 ethnically Jewish. As my father is 100% Ashkenazi (Lithuanian and Romanian). My mother is a Protestant of almost perfectly equally divided Irish, Swedish and German ancestry.
I would say I look Southern European. I’m usually accused of being ‘Italian’ and tan easily but have green eyes. My brother of the same genetic disposition as I has blond hair. My mother’s side has many blonds, my father’s side is what you would expect of Ashkenasim (but athletic!)
I took a DNA test some years ago and without a desire to get too technical here, it looked like a tour of Europe.
My personal belief is that Ashkenazi Jews do have some lineage that traces back to the ancient Israelites, but I believe the vast majority of Ashkenazi blood comes from Europe. The Sepphardic Jews, again in my opinion, are the Jews that most ancestrally tie back to ancient Israel.
Some guy named Richard McCulloch stated of the Jews that:
“All trace their pre-Diaspora (the dispersion of Jews outside of Israel) origins to the ancient Hebrews, who originally belonged to the Orientalid or Arabid subrace of the Mediterranid race. It is likely that by the beginning of the Diaspora they were already hybridized with Armenid elements. Racially, the Diaspora is largely a history of further hybridization with the populations of the different regions in which the various Jewish groups resided. The modern Ashkenazic branch associated with eastern Europe, by far the most numerous, is a primarily Armenid blend including lesser elements of Orientalid, Turanid, Ladogan, Alpine, Dinaric and Nordish origin. (Genetic studies of the Ashkenazic Jews have found that their ancestry is 60-70% Middle Eastern [i.e., Armenid and Orientalid] and 30-40% European, with the European elements derived primarily from the maternal lines.) The Sephardic branch is primarily an Orientalid-Armenid blend hybridized with West Mediterraneans. The Oriental branch remains basically true to the pre-Diaspora type.”
I think that the ancestors of the Jews were basically a Semitic-Caucasic (from the Caucasus) blend, with the Caucasic coming from the Hurrians, then Ashkenazi’s ancestors may have picked up more Caucasic along the trip to Europe.