Inbreeding - Studies Show Jews' Genetic Similarity
Major Debacle
Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East share many genes
inherited from the ancestral Jewish population that lived in the Middle
East some 3,000 years ago, even though each community also carries genes
from other sources � usually the country in which it lives.
That is the conclusion of two new genetic surveys, the first to use
genome-wide scanning devices to compare many Jewish communities around the
world.
A major surprise from both surveys is the genetic closeness of the two
Jewish communities of Europe, the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim. The
Ashkenazim thrived in Northern and Eastern Europe until their devastation
by the Hitler regime, and now live mostly in the United States and Israel.
The Sephardim were exiled from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497 and
moved to the Ottoman Empire, North Africa and the Netherlands.
The two genome surveys extend earlier studies based just on the Y
chromosome, the genetic element carried by all men. They refute the
suggestion made last year by the historian Shlomo Sand in his book �The
Invention of the Jewish People� that Jews have no common origin but are a
miscellany of people in Europe and Central Asia who converted to Judaism
at various times.
Jewish communities from Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus all have
substantial genetic ancestry that traces back to the Levant; Ethiopian
Jews and two Judaic communities in India are genetically much closer to
their host populations.
The surveys provide rich data about genetic ancestry that is of great
interest to historians. �I�m constantly impressed by the manner in which
the geneticists keep moving ahead with new projects and illuminating what
we know of history,� said Lawrence H. Schiffman, a professor of Judaic
studies at New York University.
One of the surveys was conducted by Gil Atzmon of the Albert Einstein
College of Medicine and Harry Ostrer of New York University and appears in
the current American Journal of Human Genetics. The other, led by Doron M.
Behar of the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa and Richard Villems of the
University of Tartu in Estonia, is published in Thursday�s edition of
Nature.
Dr. Atzmon and Dr. Ostrer have developed a way of timing demographic
events from the genetic elements shared by different Jewish communities.
Their calculations show that Iraqi and Iranian Jews separated from other
Jewish communities about 2,500 years ago. This genetic finding presumably
reflects a historical event, the destruction of the First Temple at
Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C. and the exile of many Jews there
to his capital at Babylon.
The shared genetic elements suggest that members of any Jewish community
are related to one another as closely as are fourth or fifth cousins in a
large population, which is about 10 times higher than the relationship
between two people chosen at random off the streets of New York City, Dr.
Atzmon said.
Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews have roughly 30 percent European ancestry,
with most of the rest from the Middle East, the two surveys find. The two
communities seem very similar to each other genetically, which is
unexpected because they have been separated for so long.
One explanation is that they come from the same Jewish source population
in Europe. The Atzmon-Ostrer team found that the genomic signature of
Ashkenazim and Sephardim was very similar to that of Italian Jews,
suggesting that an ancient population in northern Italy of Jews
intermarried with Italians could have been the common origin. The
Ashkenazim first appear in Northern Europe around A.D. 800, but historians
suspect that they arrived there from Italy.
Another explanation, which may be complementary to the first, is that
there was far more interchange and intermarriage than expected between the
two communities in medieval times.
The genetics confirms a trend noticed by historians: that there was more
contact between Ashkenazim and Sephardim than suspected, with Italy as the
linchpin of interchange, said Aron Rodrigue, a Stanford University
historian.
A common surname among Italian Jews is Morpurgo, meaning someone from
Marburg in Germany. Also, Dr. Rodrigue said, one of the most common names
among the Sephardim who settled in the Ottoman Empire is Eskenazi,
indicating that many Ashkenazim had joined the Sephardic community there.
The two genetic surveys indicate �that there may be common origins shared
by the two groups, but also that there were extensive contacts and
settlements,� Dr. Rodrigue said.
Hebrew could have served as the lingua franca between the Ashkenazic
community, speaking Yiddish, and the Ladino-speaking Sephardim. �When Jews
met each other, they spoke Hebrew,� Dr. Schiffman said, referring to the
medieval period.
John Gilmer
> The shared genetic elements suggest that members of any Jewish community
> are related to one another as closely as are fourth or fifth cousins in a
> large population, which is about 10 times higher than the relationship
> between two people chosen at random off the streets of New York City, Dr.
> Atzmon said.
>
That's one way of looking at the data.
But, but ...
With few exceptsions, Jews have been only a few percent of the population
whereever they lived. But Jews also tended to move about. For example,
Jews scattered themselves over most of the Roman Empire.
The effect of all this is that the "Y" chromosone genetic material has been
"integrating" this disperse communities from at least Roman times.
The Alien Krlll
likely that the Reverend Dennis Erlich -- above and beyond freeing the
Scientologists -- can also part the Red Sea.
--
"The giving aspect of Erlich and his InFormer Ministry seem confined to
his graciousness in letting us know who among us are cocksuckers, lying
sacks of shit, and assholes. He gives us this knowledge freely, but
seems to donate nothing else. " --Ted Mayett on Rev. Dennis L Erlich