Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Unmasking the Zionist Propaganda, Ancestry and Deception

SPECIAL REPORT SERIES by Lady Michelle Jennifer Santos – TSR Founder & Publisher, Political Strategist and Strategy/Peace Negotiator with the UN Security Council Special Envoy to the Arab Nations

Aug. 23, 2011 (TSR) – This eye opening long documentary film elaborates on the discovery of American media lies by comparing how news are delivered to the US population and to other countries around the world. The film provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for example. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites–oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others–work in combination with lsraeIi public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported. Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, the documentary carefully analyzes and explains how–through the use of language, framing and context–the lsraeIi occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and lsraeIi colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one. The documentary also explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out lsraeI’s PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics.

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Islamophobia and Democracy: The Historical 200+ Year War Context between the Crescent and the Cross

FAKE TERROR – THE ROAD TO WAR AND DICTATORSHIP

U.S. Foreign Policy – Secret Wars of the CIA

Pulitzer Author: ‘Iran got no nukes, US betrayed trust in the Gulf and US knows that’

Gen. Hamid Gul: US, Arrogant Empire, will start WW3 if war expands to Pakistan

EXCLUSIVE OFFICIAL DOCUMENTED TRUTH: Debunking Biased ICC on Gaddafi

THE BIG PICTURE: Assault on Libya is an Assault on Entire Africa

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THE CURRENT ISRAELI FLAG IS THE STAR OF SOLOMON, THE LUCIFERIAN STAR

The government of Israel is a rogue state which frequently violates international law, human rights, and everyday moral standards uses a Luciferian satanic symbol as its flag.

Today, the Six Pointed Star or Hexagram is the most popular and universally recognized symbol of Jewry. It is known as Star of David, Magen David, or the Jewish Star. Historically, the hexagram faded from Jewish usage for 2,600 years and David had nothing to do with the hexagram. It only resurfaced again in the 17th century.

Let’s go back in Antiquities and biblical studies.

Hexagram is a very ancient symbol. It is present nearly in every culture on Earth.

In the Vedic literature the hexagram is known as Shatkona. It is a very important symbol in Hinduism. The hexagram is a common symbol in Buddhism. It is also prevalent in Islam. In Islam, the hexagram is known as the Seal of Solomon.

Moloch, Chiun and Remphan are all names for the star god, Saturn, whose symbol is a six pointed star formed by two triangles. Saturn was the supreme god of the Chaldeans. The hexagram is related to the worship of Saturn and was also used in Baal worship.

There is no Biblical or Jewish evidence that traces this ancient occult symbol with King David of Israel. However, there is evidence that it was used by King Solomon, after he turned to pagan gods and the occult, late in his life.

The hexagram was brought to the Jewish people by Solomon when he turned to witchcraft and idolatry after his marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter in 922B.C. It became known as the Seal of Solomon in Egyptian magic and witchcraft. David, the ENFJ personality who was a man after God’s own heart, had absolutely nothing to do with the hexagram and that star most certainly did not, in any way, represent God’s people. Solomon gave himself up to Luciferian satanic worship and built altars to Ashtoreth and Moloch (Saturn):

For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, [that] his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as [was] the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as [did] David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that [is] before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice…”

– I Kings 11:4-9

Solomon worshipped, among other gods, Ashtoreth (Eastarte, Isis, Venus, Aphrodite), Milcom or Molech, and Chemosh. These satanic rituals included human sacrifice, witchcraft, and sexual orgies. Solomon built high places, temples, and altars, for these pagan abominations, for all his foreign wives, and joined them to burn incense and do sacrifice to their gods. It was, without any doubt, Solomon, and NOT David, who adopted the Hexagram, which became known as Solomon’s Seal, or Solomon’s Shield. He became a wizard, or consulter of demons, and the walked in forbidden occult powers of darkness, of Lucifer, Satan, the devil. Thus the hexagram became a prominent symbol in ancient Israel which can be traced no farther back than Solomon. He adopted it from the pagan nations around him.

Throughout the centuries, the hexagram is used in magick, witchcraft, sorcery, occultism, alchemy, and astrology. It’s a very important symbol for the LUCIFERIAN SATANIC WORSHIP. According to former Satanist, Bill Schnoebelen, “a hexagram must be present to call forth a demon” and ” it is a very powerful tool to invoke Satan”. In fact, the word hex, as “to put a hex on someone” derives from the word hexagram.

Even today, the hexagram has remained in use within the occult and is prominent in the rituals and worship of Druids, Freemasons, Astrology, New Age, and Wicca. Witches often have this hexagram symbol, of the so-called Star of David, tattooed on the abdomens or palms of witchcraft initiates.

The six pointed star is used by magicians and alchemists. The sorcerers believed it represented the footprints of a special kind of DEMON called a TRUED and used it in ceremonies both to call up demons and to keep them away (O. J. Graham, The Six Pointed Star, New Puritan Library, 1988, p.35).

Bill Schnoebelen, a former Satanist, says, “To the sorcerer, the hexagram is a powerful tool to invoke Satan.” In fact, the word “hex” — as to put a “hex” or “curse” on people — comes from this word.

This ancient occultic figure is also a pagan symbol of sexual union and reproduction. The triangle pointing downward represents the female sexual organ, and the upward pointing triangle represents the male phallus. Joined together in the hexagram, they represent sexual union, to paganism and the occult, the union of the active and passive forces in nature. Thus, the hexagram was a part of the Luciferian’s original “sex worship” rites and symbols of the sexually oriented rites and ceremonies of BA’ALISM — Nimrod and Semiramis — Easter (Astarte) and Baal — Venus (Aphrodite) and Bacchus.

The hexagram was also used in ancient Egypt as a tool to communicate with the dead.

The real symbol of the Jewish people has always been the Menorah. But due to calculated propaganda and social programming,  the masses take it without question that what we see today as Israeli flag is the appropriate symbol.

The hexagram as a symbol of Jewish people was offered by Viennese Jesuits in 1648 on demand of the German Emperor Ferdinand III, who wished to assign flag of honor to the Jews of Prague for their help in the Thirty Years War. After the Jews of Prague received their flag the hexagram began to spread in the Jewish community and was used in synagogues and during festive occasions. In fact, many rabbis strongly opposed to the use of the hexagram because it was a pagan symbol.

But ever since Mayer Rothschild adopted the hexagram to mark his house and as the Rothschild coat of arms, this symbol gained popularity among the Jews. Ironically, the Rothschilds do not have Jewish roots and do not practice Judaism. The Rothschilds bought a great deal of property in “Israel,” from the Turks and Arabs, and were largest financial supporters of the Zionist movement in the early decades. The influence of the Rothschilds and their heavy financial support of Israel, led the Jewish nation to adopt the so-called “Star of David” as their own symbol as a nation.

The earliest Jewish application of the symbol outside the Rothschild banking and financial empire is 1873. That was the year that the Magen David was adopted as a Jewish device by the American Jewish Publication Society. It is not even mentioned in the rabbinic literature searches. Other than that fact, no one, but the Jesuits, seem to know when or how the Occult or Satanic star, became the Star of David.

In 1897, the hexagram became the symbol of the Zionist movement. Zionist movement was funded by the Rothschilds and had a kin relation to Freemasonry. A masonic book called the Second Mile reveals that “the six pointed star is a very ancient symbol, and one of the most powerful”. This symbol is very prevalent in Freemasonry.

Understanding this context and its significance, the great goal of freemasonry is to rebuild Solomon’s temple – The OCCULT ONE and NOT THE HOLY ONE.

This is one of a not-so-discussed reasons behind the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, destabilization of Syria and other neighbors. This is at the heart of the Eretz Israel – to wipe out the real descendants of the Tribes of Israel, which is the Palestinians, and replace it with White Ashkenazi “Jewish” Khazars, who are not Jews at all. The genetics informational breakdown is after I give you of the ‘religious’ driving force of this occultic Zionist movement in this day and Age.

HISTORICAL PERTINENT DETOUR: LUCIFERIANISM ON THE MOVE SINCE EARLY 1900s

Do you know what symbol represents Luciferianism? Helena Blavatsky, who wrote that Lucifer is the true god, incorporated the hexagram in the emblem of the Theosophical Society. She was a 32nd degree Mason.

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“Lucifer represents.. Life.. Thought.. Progress.. Civilization.. Liberty.. Independence.. Lucifer is the Logos.. the Serpent, the Savior.” pages 171, 225, 255 (Volume II)

“It is Satan who is the God of our planet and the only God.” pages 215, 216, 220, 245, 255, 533, (VI)

“The Celestial Virgin which thus becomes the Mother of Gods and Devils at one and the same time; for she is the ever-loving beneficent Deity…but in antiquity and reality Lucifer or Luciferius is the name. Lucifer is divine and terrestrial Light, ‘the Holy Ghost’ and ‘Satan’ at one and the same time.” page 539

– Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 32° Co-Freemason, The Secret Doctrine

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Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891) heralded the dawn of the New Age Movement. Her writings are the foundation for many occult fraternities. After publishing monumental works such as Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, the Theosophical Society (1875) was formed to spread her teachings worldwide. She claimed to receive her revelations from Secret Chiefs, or disembodied Ascended Masters; who claimed to be aiding humanity evolve into a race of supermen.

Beginning in the early to mid-Nineteenth Century, and with the incorporation of Eastern mystical concepts into the existing traditions, the Western Mystery Tradition experienced a major divergence between the esoteric Hermetic rites of the Masonic and Rosicrucian traditions, and the Theosophical schools that came to be grouped under the general rubric of New Age spirituality. Thus, the religion for New World Order was founded AND funded.

Blavatsky soon had a great host of admirers. The Theosophical Society had freemasons Henry Steel Olcott, George H. Felt appointed president and vice-president respectfully. Among the early members were high ranking masons Charles Sothern and Albert Pike.

In 1907 Annie Besant became president of the Theosophical Society. The beginnings of the modern New Age Movement began with search for their “own” messiah, as it were. Along with 33rd degree mason C.W. Leadbeater, Annie Besant promoted a young adept as the messiah: Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Alice Bailey and husband Foster (32° degree mason) continued to interlock the workings of Theosophy with the aims of Freemasonry. Bailey, as founder of Lucis (Lucifer) Trust, worked laboriously to fulfill the plan toward a New World Religion.

Theosophy Basics : Hello “gods and goddesses”!

“Theo-sophy”, means “divine wisdom“; and it is any system of thought concerned with the relationship between God and the creation, specially one intended to help man achieve direct experience of the divine.

The Theosophical Society was founded in New York in 1875 by the Ukraine born, Madame Blavatsky, and the American Col. Henry S. Olcott.  Today they claim 25,000 members in 60 countries, with 6,000 in the USA… but its influence far transcends the boundaries of its own ranks, influencing the New Age Movement, the Rosicrucians, The Anthropological Society, the “I Am” Ascended Masters, New Thought, et cetera.

The 3 Aims of The Theosophical Society: 

• To promote universal brotherhood and world peace, without distinction of race, creed, sex, case, color, or financial status.
• The study of comparative religions, philosophy and science.
• To make a systematic investigation of the mystic potencies of men and nature: Investigate the unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man.

The Doctrine of the Society is a mix of Hinduism, Buddhism, Spiritualism, and Gnostic Christianity, with Masonic rituals, and a systematic criticism of Christianity, Judaism and Islam… all based in the visions and revelations that Mme. Blavatsky had by the “Mahatnas” of Tibet, and the Spiritualism she lived in the USA. Perhaps now my students understand why I am adamant of not using certain terminologies lately? And more to remove as we move along through the narrow path of TRUTH. Don’t expect me to greet you Namaste or Love & Light. EVER. This topic will be much more in depth in the massive report when I tackle how the entire planet and Humanity was demoralized since the early 1900s.

Why the Modern Jews Are Not God’s Chosen People: The Biblical Historical Point of View

World history reveals a remarkable story in which one group of people assumed the identity of another. The vast majority of people who are today called Jews are not, in terms of strict definition of the term, Jews at all.

The term “Jew,” actually a later comer to the Old Testament, originally meant one who can genuinely claim genetic descent from Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob. It is from the Hebrew and “Yhudi,” meaning “of Judah.”

NOTE: The complete total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000. 

Total direct US aid to Israel, 1948-2003 $89.9 billion.

Fiscal Year 2011: At least $8.2 million per day in military aid and $0 in military aid to the Palestinians.

Fiscal Year 2012: $3.075 billion military aid for Israel, $75 million more from 2011.

Fiscal Year 2013-2018: $3.1 billion and will increase.  

Percentage of U.S. foreign aid that goes to Israel — 30%
Israel’s population as a percentage of world population — .01%.

The true people of Judah were a numerous part of the ancient, twelve-tribed Israelites. In time, the Israelites divided into two kingdoms. The southern one was called the “Kingdom of Judah,” and the region it occupied, “Judea.” All of its inhabitants, of whatever tribe, were often called Judeans, and in time “Jews.” As time passed, the Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity and scattered to the north and west (721 B.C.).

The Kingdom of Judah was later taken to Babylon (586 B.C.), where many stayed. Seventy years later a remnant returned, and gradually, with much struggle, regained its status of nationhood. Unfortunately, the religion they returned with had picked up many pagan elements while in Babylon, and this gradually evolved into a system of oral teachings that Scripture condemns as the tradition of the elders. (Matthew 15:2-3)

At this juncture in history, an unusual development occurred that muddled the meaning of the words Judah, Judean, and Jew. In the second century before Christ, a dynamic priest-king of Judah, John Hyrcanus of the Hasmonean dynasty, conquered the people directly to the south of Judah, the Edomites.

The Edomites (or Idumeans) were descended from Esau. Jacob/Israel’s twin brother (Genesis 36:8). Esau had married a woman of a Hittite family, thus destroying forever the pure genetic pedigree of his descendants. For this, Esau essentially was disinherited (his mother saw the need for this before his father; Genesis 26:34; 27:46). These folks had been perennial enemies of both Israel and Judah since ancient times.

After thoroughly subjugating them, Hyrcanus gave the Edomites the choice of either death or conversion to the religion, language, and culture of Judah. This proved to be a catastrophic decision for the people of Judah, and a choice which Hyrcanus should have known as forbidden in Old Testament law (Deuteronomy 7:1-5; Leviticus 20:24, Joshua 23:12-13; Ezra 9:1-4; Nehemiah 13:23-30). But not surprisingly, most chose conversion.

The Jewish (truly of Judah) historian Josephus described this event: “Hyrcanus took also Dora and Marissa, cities of Idumea, and subdued all the Idumeans; and permitted them to stay in that country; if they would circumcise their genitals, and make use of the laws of the Jews; and they were so desirous of living in the land of their forefathers, that they submitted to the use of circumcision, and of the rest of the Jewish ways of living; at which time this therefore befell them, that they were hereafter no other than Jews.” (Jewish antiquities, Book 13, 9:1)

The marginal note in Josephus’ works add this commentary, quoting Ammonius, a writer from 129 A.D.; “…the Idumeans were not Jews from the beginning…but being afterward subdued to buy the Jews.” After editorial comment regarding Josephus’ work adds emphasis: “This account of the Idumeans admitting circumcision, and the entire Jewish law, from this time, or the days of Hyrcanus, is confirmed by their entire history afterward.”

The significance of the Edomite population merging with the Jews is often overlooked. But it is not really any secret. Many modern Biblical scholars admit that the historic event did, indeed, occur. For example: “But during the warlike rule of the Maccabees (Hasmonean dynasty of the jews) they were again completely subdued and even forced to conform to Jewish laws and rites and submit to the government of Jewish perfect. The Edomites were then incorporated into the Jewish nation, and the whole providence was often termed by Greek and Roman writers ‘Idumea’…From this time, the Edomites as a separate people disappear from the pages of history.” (The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, p. 333)

There is Edom [Esau is called Edom in Genesis 36:8]. And Edom is in ‘Modern Jewry’ Jewish Encyclopedia, 1925 edition, Vol. 5, p. 41. Even the encyclopedia on your shelf may inform you of these events, if one is sharp enough to understand the significance: “The Hasmonean dynasty conquered the Idumeans in the 100’s B.C., and converted them to Judaism.” (World Book Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. 6, p. 55)

Over the next century as imperial Rome cast its long shadow over the Middle East, these Edomites or Idumeans were gradually absorbed into Jewish society. Many of them, such as Herod, achieved high status, working their way into the priestly and aristocratic classes. Those who leveraged their way into the priestly professions had a strong proclivity for the pagan oral teachings (traditions of the elders) brought back from Babylon. Dominance in the two mainstream religious parties, the Pharisees and Sadducees, was soon theirs to enjoy and capitalize upon.

This was the situation when Christ lived and walked the lovely hill country of Galilee and Judea. There were two groups of people living check by cheek with each other in the land of Judea. They spoke the same language, practiced the same oppressive yoke of Roman rule, and were together in our time called jews.

In 70 A.D., the city of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah was utterly shattered by the Romans. Many survivors were scattered throughout the Roman world, finding refuge where they could. The Edomite element of these jews, who had utterly rejected Christ, lodged themselves in various enclaves in the Roman Empire including the great city of Byzantium (Constantinople). During the centuries that followed, these people continued to develop and propagate their highly altered form of the ancient Hebrew faith in which the Biblical aspects were almost completely submerged in layers of pagan philosophy and rules. It was during this era that their oral tradition was codified into a written textual form called the Talmud. It has been the touchstone of the religion of Judaism for many centuries.

Rabbi Stephen Wise, one of the main Jewish leaders in the United States a few years ago, stated that when the Jews returned to Jerusalem from Babylon (with the True Israelites), about 536 B.C., they brought with them the teachings which became known as the Babylonian Talmud. “This was the end of Hebraism, and the beginning of Judaism,” the learned Rabbi stated.

Judaism quite possibly would have expired in the tumult of the early Medieval Period had it not been for a single titanic evangelistic coup. In approximately 740 A.D., an entire empire was forcibly converted to Judaism by the decree of its emperor. This was the Khazarian Empire, centered in modern day Ukraine, comprised of a people of mixed Russian, Eastern Europe, and Western Mongolian descent. The Khazarians took to their new faith like ducks to water. Even after their empire dissolved, never to rise again, they retained tenaciously the precepts of Judaism. In time these proselytes to Judaism gradually made their way in Eastern Europe. By the time the Medieval Period closed, they no longer considered themselves Khazarians, but Jews, for it was the religion of Judaism that formed the backbone of their subculture.

Arthur Koestler, a modern Jew and a prize winning author, summarizes these developments in his best selling book, The Thirteenth Tribe: “Thus the Judaization of the Khazars was a gradual process which, triggered off by political expediency, slowly penetrated into the deeper strata of their minds and eventually produced the Messianism of their period of decline. Their religious commitment survived the collapse of their state, and persisted, as we shall see, in the Khazar-Jewish settlements of Russia and Poland.” (The Thirteenth Tribe, p. 74)

Other sources document this important historical event: “The Jews, expelled from Constantinople, sought a home amongst them (Khazars), developed the Khazar trade, and contended with Mohammedans and Christians for the theological allegiance of the pagan people. The dynasty accepted Judaism (740 A.D.).” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911, Vol. 15-16, p. 775)

It is common knowledge that as of a century ago, most Jews in the world were found in Eastern Europe, with the highest percentage concentrated in Poland. How did they get there? A more clear picture has emerged than what was heretofore available. Koestler continues: “…the cumulative evidence makes one included to agree with the consensus of Polish historians that ‘in earlier times the main bulk originated form the Khazar country’; and that, accordingly, the Khazar contribution to the genetic make-up of the Jews must be substantial and in all likelihood, dominant.” (The Thirteenth Tribe, p. 180)

What is most important to remember abut these Khazarian converts to Judaism is this: they have no genetic link to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, Judah or any other Hebrew. Furthermore, the majority of the Jews of today are descended from this Khazarian branch.

ACCORDING TO THE STANDARD JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA 96% OF ALL THE JEWS KNOWN TO THE WORLD TODAY ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF THE KHAZAR TRIBES OF RUSSIA, EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN MONGOLIA; THESE ARE THE ASKNAZI JEWS, THE OTHER MAJOR SECT OF THE JEWS ARE THE SEPHARDIC JEWS, AND THEY ARE A BASTARD PEOPLE FROM THE MIXING OF THE CANAANITES, HITITES, AMORITES, PERIZZITES, HIVITES, JEBUSITES, GIRGASHITES, KENITES, EDOMITES AND SOME TRUE ISRAELITES. THE JEWS HAVE NEVER BEEN ISREALITES; THEY ARE NOT ISRAELITES NOW; AND THEY WILL NEVER BE ISRAELITES. 

Although modern Jews purport the idea that they are descended from ancient Judah, they are lying. Twice in the book of Revelation, the followers of Christ are informed that there exists a group of people who claim to be Judean, but are not: “…and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” (Revelation 2:9; 3:9)

For those who wish to be honest with the totality of Scripture, there is no mistake; somewhere on this emerald blue planet of ours, there is a group of people who claim to be Judean, who are actually not. Are they hard to find? Indeed, no. The twentieth century has seem them migrate from Poland and Eastern Europe to places like New York City and the modern nation of Israel (the United States of America).

Even honest scientific inquiry reveals the truth. Spanish geneticist Professor Antionio Amaiz-Villena recently headed a team of researchers and published a paper entitled “The Origins of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations.” After conducing detailed DNA studies, the report state: “Jews and Palestinians in the middle East share a very similar gene pool and must be considered closely related and not genetically separate.” (The Observer, November 25, 2001)

This is consistent with the fact that modern Jews are either descended from the Khazarians, who were of a mixed background, or from the ancient Edomites. In both cases, they are genetically related to the ancient Hittites, Jebusites, Canaanites, Amorites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Kenites, Edomites; all perennial enemies of the Israelites.

Also, it must be remembered that the Edomites, and the Canaanite nations were blood drinkers, flesh heaters, and so were the Khazars, thus the tradition of Ritual Murder was carried forth from one group of Jews to those Khazars who chose Judaism as their religion.

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Christ then tells the jews they are not of God that they are not His children and not of God.

Thus we have Christ saying: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44)

“He that is of God heareth God’s words: YE (jews) THEREFORE HEAR THEM NOT, BECAUSE YE (jews) ARE NOT OF GOD.” (John 8:47)

Christ is telling the jews that they do not believe Him because they are a perverse, generation of vipers, the children of the devil, and that they are not of His sheep. 

“Jesus answered them, I TOLD YOU, AND YE (jews) BELIEVED NOT: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But YE (jews) BELIEVE NOT, BECAUSE YE (jews) ARE NOT OF MY SHEEP, as I said unto you (jews).” (John 10:25-26)

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READ PALESTINIAN GENETICS: THE REAL BIBLICAL ISRAELITES

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Jewish Genetics: Abstracts, Summaries and References

These are Y-DNA and mtDNA data and analysis related to traditionally Rabbinical Jewish populations of the world, including: Ashkenazim (Jews of Northern and Eastern Europe) • Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese Jews) • Mizrakhim (Middle Eastern Jews) • Italkim (Italian Jews) • Caucasian Mountain Jews (Dagestani and Azerbaijani Jews) • Georgian Jews • Indian Jews • North African Jews • Yemenite Jews • Ethiopian Jews

Gil Atzmon, Li Hao, Itsik Pe’er, Christopher Velez, Alexander Pearlman, Pier Francesco Palamara, Bernice Morrow, Eitan Friedman, Carole Oddoux, Edward Burns, Harry Ostrer. “Abraham’s Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry.”American Journal of Human Genetics (currently in press, June 2010 – exact volume, issue, page numbers, issue date not yet known) and published online June 3, 2010. Abstract:

“For more than a century, Jews and non-Jews alike have tried to define the relatedness of contemporary Jewish people. Previous genetic studies of blood group and serum markers suggested that Jewish groups had Middle Eastern origin with greater genetic similarity between paired Jewish populations. However, these and successor studies of monoallelic Y chromosomal and mitochondrial genetic markers did not resolve the issues of within and between-group Jewish genetic identity. Here, genome-wide analysis of seven Jewish groups (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek, and Ashkenazi) and comparison with non-Jewish groups demonstrated distinctive Jewish population clusters, each with shared Middle Eastern ancestry, proximity to contemporary Middle Eastern populations, and variable degrees of European and North African admixture. Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews. The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry. Rapid decay of IBD in Ashkenazi Jewish genomes was consistent with a severe bottleneck followed by large expansion, such as occurred with the so-called demographic miracle of population expansion from 50,000 people at the beginning of the 15th century to 5,000,000 people at the beginning of the 19th century. Thus, this study demonstrates that European/Syrian and Middle Eastern Jews represent a series of geographical isolates or clusters woven together by shared IBD genetic threads.”

“Common Genetic Threads Link Thousands of Years of Jewish Ancestry.”ScienceDaily (June 4, 2010). Excerpts:

“The genetic, cultural and religious traditions of contemporary Jewish people originated in the Middle East over three thousand years ago. Since that time, Jewish communities have migrated from the Middle East into Europe, North Africa and across the world. … This study shows that although Jewish people experienced genetic mixing with surrounding populations, they retained a genetic coherence along with a religious one. ‘Previous genetic studies of blood group and serum markers suggested that Jewish groups had Middle Eastern origin with greater genetic similarity between paired Jewish populations,’ says senior study author, Dr. Harry Ostrer… ‘More recent studies of Y chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA have pointed to founder effects of both Middle Eastern and local origin, yet, the issue of how to characterize Jewish people as mere coreligionists or as genetic isolates that may be closely or loosely related remained unresolved. … Yet the genomes of the Jewish Diaspora groups have distinctive features that are representative of each group’s genetic history.’ says Dr. Ostrer. ‘Our study demonstrated that the studied Jewish populations represent a series of geographical isolates or clusters with genetic threads that weave them together,’ added Dr. Gil Atzmon… The researchers identified distinct Jewish population clusters that each exhibited a shared Middle Eastern ancestry, proximity to contemporary Middle Eastern populations and variable degrees of European and North African genetic intermingling. … The two major groups, Middle Eastern Jews and European Jews, were timed to have diverged from each other approximately 2500 years ago. Southern European populations show the greatest proximity to Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Italian Jews, reflecting the large-scale southern European conversion and admixture known to have occurred over 2,000 years ago during the formation of the European Jewry. An apparent North African ancestry component was also observed as was present in the Sephardic groups potentially reflecting gene flow from Moorish to Jewish populations in Spain from 711 to 1492. … Dr. Ostrer noted, ‘The study supports the idea of a Jewish people linked by a shared genetic history. Yet the admixture with European people explains why so many European and Syrian Jews have blue eyes and blonde hair.'”

Razib Khan. Genetics and the Jews.”Discover Magazine – Gene Expression (June 6, 2010).

Dienekes Pontikos. “Two Major Groups of Living Jews.”dienekes.blogspot.com (June 3, 2010).

Alla Katsnelson. Jews worldwide share genetic ties: But analysis also reveals close links to Palestinians and Italians.”Nature.com (June 3, 2010). Excerpts:

“Different communities of Jews around the world share more than just religious or cultural practices — they also have strong genetic commonalities, according to the largest genetic analysis of Jewish people to date. But the study also found strong genetic ties to non-Jewish groups, with the closest genetic neighbours on the European side being Italians, and on the Middle Eastern side the Druze, Bedouin and Palestinians. Researchers in New York and Tel Aviv conducted a genome-wide analysis on 237 individuals from seven well-established Jewish communities around the world, hailing from Iran, Iraq, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria and eastern Europe. The team then compared these genetic profiles to those of non-Jews in the same geographic regions based on data from the Human Genome Diversity Project…. The genetic ties identified in the present study… are consistent with the results of previous work, says Sarah Tishkoff, a human geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, ‘but this is, I would say, the first study to put everything together into a big picture by looking at a large number of sites in the nuclear genome’. The researchers analysed single-letter differences in the genome called single nucleotide polymorphisms, longer segments of DNA shared between different Jewish groups, as well as deleted or duplicated stretches of DNA called copy-number variants. Although the groups had strong genetic commonalities, the results also showed a varying degree of genetic mixing with nearby non-Jewish populations. The most genetically distinct Jewish communities, compared both to other Jewish groups and to nearby non-Jews, were those from Iran and Iraq. …one theory proposes that Ashkenazi Jews (of eastern European origin) are largely descended from Khazars in eastern Europe who converted to Judaism, but the genetic closeness between Ashkenazi Jews and other non-European Jews does not support this idea. …Ostrer says… ‘We really see the events of the Jewish diaspora in the genomes of Jewish people.’ … Ostrer says that the researchers are extending their analysis to more Jewish populations. They also hope to apply the findings to medical research…”

Sharon Begley. “The DNA of Abraham’s Children.”Newsweek Web Exclusive (June 3, 2010). Excerpts:

“The latest DNA volume weighs in on the controversial, centuries-old (and now revived in a 2008 book) claim that European Jews are all the descendants of Khazars, a Turkic group of the north Caucasus who converted to Judaism in the late eighth and early ninth century. The DNA has spoken: no. … To sort it out, researchers collected DNA from Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, and Ashkenazi Jews around New York City; Turkish Sephardic Jews in Seattle; Greek Sephardic Jews in Thessaloniki and Athens; and Italian Jews in Rome as part of the Jewish HapMap Project. (All four grandparents of each participant had to have come from the same community.) … Jewish populations, that is, have retained their genetic coherence just as they have retained their cultural and religious traditions, despite migrations from the Middle East into Europe, North Africa, and beyond over the centuries, says geneticist Harry Ostrer of NYU Langone Medical Center, who led the study. Each Diaspora group has distinctive genetic features ‘representative of each group’s genetic history,’ he says, but each also ‘shares a set of common genetic threads’ dating back to their common origin in the Middle East. ‘Each of the Jewish populations formed its own distinctive cluster, indicating the shared ancestry and relative genetic isolation of the members of each of those groups.’ The various Jewish groups were more related to each other than to non-Jews, as well. Within every Jewish group, individuals shared as much of their genome as two fourth or fifth cousins, with Italian, Syrian, Iranian, and Iraqi Jews the most inbred, in the sense that they married within the small, close-knit community. In general, the genetic similarity of any two groups was larger the closer they lived to one another, but there was an exception: Turkish and Italian Jews were most closely related genetically, but are quite separated geographically. Historical records suggest that Iranian and Iraqi Jews date from communities that formed in Persia and Babylon, respectively, in the fourth to sixth centuries B.C.E., and the DNA confirms that. The genetic signatures of these groups show that they remained relatively isolated–inbred–for some 3,000 years. The DNA also reveals that these Middle Eastern Jews diverged from the ancestors of today’s European Jews about 100 to 150 generations ago, or sometime during the first millennium B.C.E.”

Andrea Anderson. “Study Points to Shared Genetic Patterns amongst Jewish Populations.”GenomeWeb News (June 3, 2010). Excerpts:

“The research, scheduled to appear online today in the American Journal of Human Genetics, suggests all Jewish populations tested fall into a large genetic cluster that contains population-specific sub-groups with different levels of Middle Eastern ancestry and European and North African admixture. ‘It’s really cool that Jews have maintained this degree of genetic coherence over time,’ senior author Harry Ostrer, a human genetics researcher with the New York University School of Medicine, told GenomeWeb Daily News. Within this larger Jewish group, the team found two main sub-groups: one representing Jewish populations in Europe and Syria and another containing Jewish populations from Iran and Iraq. …studies of most Jewish populations have relied on relatively limited Y-chromosome or mitochondrial DNA sequence data. For the current study, researchers used the Affymetrix 6.0 microarray platform to genotype 305 Jewish participants… These individuals came from one of seven major Jewish groups, representing Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews from Italy, Greece, and Turkey, and Mizrahi Jews from Iran, Iraq, and Syria. After quality control steps, the team was left with data for 237 Jewish individuals, which they compared with hundreds of non-Jewish samples from the Human Genome Diversity Project… In particular, Ostrer said, the researchers were surprised to see such a high level of genetic relatedness in European Jewry, with Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Italian, and Syrian Jews clustering more closely to one another than to Jewish populations in Iran and Iraq. The results argue against the notion that Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of Eastern European groups such as the Slavs or Khazars, Ostrer noted. ‘There’s just no evidence for that.’ Instead, Ashkenazi Jews seem to be more genetically similar to non-Jewish populations in Northern Italy, France, and Sardinia. Meanwhile, Jewish populations in Iran and Iraq tended to cluster closer to non-Jewish Palestinian, Druze, and Bedouin populations than to Europeans. … Down the road, the team intends to genotype additional populations…”

Naama M. Kopelman, Lewi Stone, Chaolong Wang, Dov Gefel, Marcus W. Feldman, Jossi Hillel, and Noah A. Rosenberg. “Genomic microsatellites identify shared Jewish ancestry intermediate between Middle Eastern and European populations.”BMC Genetics 10:80 (published online only, December 8, 2009). (Mirror) Excerpts:

“We perform a genome-wide population-genetic study of Jewish populations, analyzing 678 autosomal microsatellite loci in 78 individuals from four Jewish groups together with similar data on 321 individuals from 12 non-Jewish Middle Eastern and European populations. … We find that the Jewish populations show a high level of genetic similarity to each other, clustering together in several types of analysis of population structure. Further, Bayesian clustering, neighbor-joining trees, and multidimensional scaling place the Jewish populations as intermediate between the non-Jewish Middle Eastern and European populations. … These results support the view that the Jewish populations largely share a common Middle Eastern ancestry and that over their history they have undergone varying degrees of admixture with non-Jewish populations of European descent. … The Middle Eastern populations included in the study were Bedouin (46), Druze (42), Mozabite (29), and Palestinian (46). The European populations were Adygei (17), Basque (24), French (28), Italian (13), Orcadian (15), Russian (25), Sardinian (28), and Tuscan (8). Middle Eastern and European non-Jewish individuals were taken from the H952 subset of the HGDP-CEPH panel [24]. The Jewish samples included Ashkenazi Jews (20), Moroccan Jews (20), Tunisian Jews (20), and Turkish Jews (20). … Figure 2 illustrates the major clustering solutions for each value of K from 2 to 6. … For K = 4, the Druze, Bedouins and Palestinians are each largely distinct in cluster membership coefficients; the Jewish populations show somewhat greater similarity to these three Middle Eastern groups than do the European populations other than the Adygei, but they also have greater similarity to the European populations than do the Middle Eastern groups. Among the European populations, the Adygei population, from the Caucasus region, shows some similarity in cluster membership coefficients to the Jewish populations, especially to the Ashkenazi population (this similarity is also observable for K = 2 and K = 3). For K = 5, the new cluster produced contains most Palestinian individuals, as well as sizable components of the four Jewish populations, the Adygei and the Bedouins. For K = 6, this cluster is further subdivided, producing one cluster that corresponds mainly to Palestinians and one cluster that corresponds mainly to the Jewish populations and to a lesser extent, the Adygei and Bedouins. … French and Palestinians also provide the most similar pair for Moroccan Jews, with coefficients very nearly equal to the values in the case of Turkish Jews (? = 0.45 for French). The most similar pair for Ashkenazi Jews consists of French and Turkish Jews (? = 0.50), whereas for Tunisian Jews the most similar pair consists of Sardinians and Palestinians (? = 0.42 for Sardinians). For all four Jewish populations, many of the ten closest pairs of populations consist of one Middle Eastern population and either one European population or one of the other Jewish populations. …The Tunisian Jews are located further from the pooled European populations than are any of the other Jewish populations… The plot places the Palestinians closer to the Moroccan and Turkish Jews than to the other Jewish populations… It further suggests that the Tunisian Jews are the most distinctive Jewish population, whereas the Ashkenazi, Turkish, and Moroccan Jewish populations are genetically more similar to each other. … The Turkish Jews are not easily distinguished from the Ashkenazi and Moroccan Jews in the MDS analysis, and are placed in positions overlapping with the Ashkenazi and Moroccan Jewish individuals. … While the ultimate fate of the Khazar population remains unknown, the theory has been advanced that a large fraction of the ancestry of eastern European Jews derives from the Khazars [60,62-64]. This theory would predict ancestry for the eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish population to be distinct from that of the other Jewish populations in the study. Although we did not observe such a distinct ancestry, it is noteworthy that in some analyses … we did detect similarity of the Adygei, a north Caucasian group from the area once occupied by the Khazars, to the Jewish populations. … Among the Jewish populations, the Tunisians were found to be the least variable and most distinctive, and their genotypes could be most easily distinguished from those of the three other Jewish populations. This result suggests a smaller population size and greater degree of genetic isolation for this population compared to the other Jewish groups, or a significant level of admixture with local populations. These explanations are not incompatible, as it is possible that early admixture was followed by a long period of isolation. Some Berber admixture of Tunisian Jews may very well have taken place [61,63], and documentation of rare Mendelian disorders in Tunisian Jews [67-69] supports a view of isolation with relatively few founding individuals. A smaller-scale autosomal study that did not include Tunisian Jews found the neighboring Libyan Jewish population to be distinctive with respect to other Jewish populations [66], and our results concerning the Tunisian Jewish population might reflect a similar phenomenon.”

Judy Siegel-Itzkovich. “Dad was out and about, while Mom stayed home.” Jerusalem Post (June 16, 2002): 9. Excerpts:

“Data on the Y chromosome indicates that the males originated in the Middle East, while the mothers’ mitochondrial DNA seems to indicate a local Diaspora origin in the female community founders…. [Karl Skorecki described the study as] ‘very exciting’ [and] ‘very important’….”

Nicholas Wade. “In DNA, New Clues to Jewish Roots.”The New York Times (May 14, 2002): F1 (col. 1). Excerpts:

“The emerging genetic picture is based largely on two studies, one published two years ago and the other this month, that together show that the men and women who founded the Jewish communities had surprisingly different genetic histories…. A new study now shows that the women in nine Jewish communities from Georgia, the former Soviet republic, to Morocco have vastly different genetic histories from the men…. The women’s identities, however, are a mystery, because, unlike the case with the men, their genetic signatures are not related to one another or to those of present-day Middle Eastern populations…. The new study, by Dr. David Goldstein, Dr. Mark Thomas and Dr. Neil Bradman of University College in London and other colleagues, appears in The American Journal of Human Genetics this month…. His [Goldstein’s] own speculation, he said, is that most Jewish communities were formed by unions between Jewish men and local women, though he notes that the women’s origins cannot be genetically determined…. Like the other Jewish communities in the study, the Ashkenazic community of Northern and Central Europe, from which most American Jews are descended, shows less diversity than expected in its mitochondrial DNA, perhaps reflecting the maternal definition of Jewishness. But unlike the other Jewish populations, it does not show signs of having had very few female founders. It is possible, Dr. Goldstein said, that the Ashkenazic community is a mosaic of separate populations formed the same way as the others…. ‘The authors are correct in saying the historical origins of most Jewish communities are unknown,’ Dr. [Shaye] Cohen [of Harvard University] said. ‘Not only the little ones like in India, but even the mainstream Ashkenazic culture from which most American Jews descend.’…. If the founding mothers of most Jewish communities were local, that could explain why Jews in each country tend to resemble their host community physically while the origins of their Jewish founding fathers may explain the aspects the communities have in common, Dr. Cohen said…. The Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA’s in today’s Jewish communities reflect the ancestry of their male and female founders but say little about the rest of the genome… Noting that the Y chromosome points to a Middle Eastern origin of Jewish communities and the mitochondrial DNA to a possibly local origin, Dr. Goldstein said that the composition of ordinary chromosomes, which carry most of the genes, was impossible to assess. ‘My guess,’ Dr. Goldstein said, ‘is that the rest of the genome will be a mixture of both.'”

Mark G. Thomas, Michael E. Weale, Abigail L. Jones, Martin Richards, Alice Smith, Nicola Redhead, Antonio Torroni, Rosaria Scozzari, Fiona Gratrix, Ayele Tarekegn, James F. Wilson, Cristian Capelli, Neil Bradman, and David B. Goldstein. “Founding Mothers of Jewish Communities: Geographically Separated Jewish Groups Were Independently Founded by Very Few Female Ancestors.”The American Journal of Human Genetics 70:6 (June 2002): 1411-1420. The study collected mtDNA from about 600 Jews and non-Jews from around the world, including 78 Ashkenazic Jews and Georgians, Uzbeks, Germans, Berbers, Ethiopians, Arabs, etc. 17.9% of sampled Iraqi Jews have an mtDNA pattern known as U3, compared to 2.6% of Ashkenazic Jews, 0.9% of Moroccan Jews, 1.7% of ethnic Berbers, 1.1% of ethnic Germans, 0.0% of Iranian Jews, 0.0% of Georgian Jews, 0.0% of Bukharian Jews, 0.0% of Yemenite Jews, 0.0% of Ethiopian Jews, 0.0% of Indian Jews, 0.0% of Syrian Arabs, 0.0% of Georgians, 0.0% of Uzbeks, 0.0% of Yemeni Arabs, 0.0% of Ethiopians, 0.0% of Asian Indians, 0.0% of Israeli Arabs. (According to Vincent Macaulay, U3 is found also among some Turks, Iraqis, Caucasus tribes, Alpine Europeans, North Central Europeans, Kurds, Azerbaijanis, Eastern Mediterranean Europeans, Central Mediterranean Europeans, Western Mediterranean Europeans, and southeastern Europeans.) Another pattern, called Haplotype I, was found among 12.1% of Bukharan Jews, 2.6% of Ashkenazic Jews, 1.8% of Iraqi Jews, 1.3% of Iranian Jews, 1.1% of ethnic Germans, and 2.4% of ethnic Asian Indians, and none of the other groups among individuals tested. (According to Vincent Macaulay, Haplotype I is found also among some Northeastern Europeans, North Central Europeans, Caucasus tribes, Northwestern Europeans, and Scandinavians.) Yet another pattern, called Haplotype J1, was found among 12.5% of Iraqi Jews, 2.7% of Iranian Jews, 9.2% of Yemenite Jews, and 1.7% of Israeli Arabs, and none of the other groups among individuals tested. (According to Vincent Macaulay, Haplotype J1 is found also among some Iraqi Arabs, Bedouins, Palestinian Arabs, and Azerbaijanis.) To compare with Vincent Macaulay’s research on mtDNA, visit Supplementary data from Richards et al. (2000). Abstract:

“We have analyzed the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA from each of nine geographically separated Jewish groups, eight non-Jewish host populations, and an Israeli Arab/Palestinian population, and we have compared the differences found in Jews and non-Jews with those found using Y-chromosome data that were obtained, in most cases, from the same population samples. The results suggest that most Jewish communities were founded by relatively few women, that the founding process was independent in different geographic areas, and that subsequent genetic input from surrounding populations was limited on the female side. In sharp contrast to this, the paternally inherited Y chromosome shows diversity similar to that of neighboring populations and shows no evidence of founder effects. These sex-specific differences demonstrate an important role for culture in shaping patterns of genetic variation and are likely to have significant epidemiological implications for studies involving these populations. We illustrate this by presenting data from a panel of X-chromosome microsatellites, which indicates that, in the case of the Georgian Jews, the female-specific founder event appears to have resulted in elevated levels of linkage disequilibrium.”

Excerpt:

“Unfortunately, in many cases, it is not possible to infer the geographic origin of the founding mtDNAs within the different Jewish groups with any confidence…. || In two cases, however, comparison [of Jewish mtDNA] with the published data does provide some indication of the possible geographic origins of the modal types. The modal type in the Bene Israel is a one-step mutational neighbor of a haplotype present in the Indian sample, as well as being a one-step neighbor of a type previously identified in India (Kivisild et al. 1999a, 1999b). Similarly, the commmonest type in the Ethiopian Jewish sample is also present in the non-Jewish Ethiopian sample and occurs in the worldwide mtDNA database only in Somalia (Watson et al. 1997). Other high-frequency haplotypes in the Ethiopian Jewish sample are also found almost entirely in Africa (data not shown). The lack of an indication of a Middle Eastern origin for these haplotypes, on the basis of the Richards database, makes local recruitment a more reasonable explanation in these two cases.” (pp. 1415, 1417)

Martin Richards. “Beware the gene genies.”The Guardian (February 21, 2003). Excerpts:

“Studies of human genetic diversity have barely begun. Yet the fashion for genetic ancestry testing is booming…. Buoyed by the hype, the private sector has been moving in. Other groups, such as Jews, are now being targeted. This despite the fact that Jewish communities have little in common on their mitochondrial side – the maternal line down which Judaism is traditionally inherited. It’s the male side that shows common ancestry between different Jewish communities – so, of course, that’s what the geneticists focus on.”

Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Bernd Brinkmann, Partha P. Majumder, Marina Faerman, and Ariella Oppenheim. “The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East.”The American Journal of Human Genetics 69:5 (November 2001): 1095-1112.

Abstract:

“A sample of 526 Y chromosomes representing six Middle Eastern populations (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Kurdish Jews from Israel; Muslim Kurds; Muslim Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian Authority Area; and Bedouin from the Negev) was analyzed for 13 binary polymorphisms and six microsatellite loci. The investigation of the genetic relationship among three Jewish communities revealed that Kurdish and Sephardic Jews were indistinguishable from one another, whereas both differed slightly, yet significantly, from Ashkenazi Jews. The differences among Ashkenazim may be a result of low-level gene flow from European populations and/or genetic drift during isolation. Admixture between Kurdish Jews and their former Muslim host population in Kurdistan appeared to be negligible. In comparison with data available from other relevant populations in the region, Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to their Arab neighbors. The two haplogroups Eu 9 and Eu 10 constitute a major part of the Y chromosome pool in the analyzed sample. Our data suggest that Eu 9 originated in the northern part, and Eu 10 in the southern part of the Fertile Crescent… Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin differed from the other Middle Eastern populations studied here, mainly in specific high-frequency Eu 10 haplotypes not found in the non-Arab groups. These chromosomes might have been introduced through migrations from the Arabian Peninsula during the last two millennia…” (Mirror)

Excerpts:

“The most-frequent haplotype in all three Jewish groups (the CMH [haplotype 159 in the Appendix]) segregated on a Eu 10 background, together with the three modal haplotypes in Palestinians and Bedouin (haplotypes 144, 151, and 166). The dominant haplotype of the Muslim Kurds (haplotype 114) was only one microsatellite-mutation step apart from the CMH and the modal haplotype of the Bedouin, but it belonged to haplogroup Eu 9. …. Previous studies of Y chromosome polymorphisms reported a small European contribution to the Ashkenazi paternal gene pool (Santachiara-Benerecetti et al. 1993; Hammer et al. 2000). In our sample, this low-level gene flow may be reflected in the Eu 19 chromosomes, which are found at elevated frequency (12.7%) in Ashkenazi Jews and which are very frequent in Eastern Europeans (54%-60%) (Semino et al. 2000). Alternatively, it is attractive to hypothesize that Ashkenazim with Eu 19 chromosomes represent descendants of the Khazars, originally a Turkic tribe from Central Asia, who settled in southern Russia and eastern Ukraine and converted en masse to Judaism in the ninth century of the present era, as described by Yehuda Ha-Levi in 1140 A.D. (Dunlop 1954).”

Page 1104: “It is worth mentioning that, on the basis of protein polymorphisms [which are not to be confused with Y chromosome polymorphisms], most Jewish populations cluster very closely with Iraqis (Livshits et al. 1991) that the latter, in turn, cluster very closely with Kurds (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994).”

Observations:

In the article “The DNA revolution in population genetics” by Luca L. Cavalli-Sforza, Trends Genet. 14, No. 2: 60-65, we learn that protein polymorphisms were studied in the previous generation of population genetic analysis, hence the term “classical polymorphsisms” is often applied to them, but today the new technologies test Y DNA and mtDNA instead.

At Table 1: Y Chromosome Haplogroup Distribution, it is indicated that 11.6 percent of Muslim Kurds and 9.4 percent of Bedouins also have Eu 19 chromosomes; hence, genetic drift rather than admixture with East Europeans may theoretically explain Eu 19’s presence among Ashkenazi Jews. On the other hand, the origin of Eu 19 (now known as R1a1) is from eastern Europe thousands of years ago, perhaps the kurgan culture, and is found in much higher quantities among Slavs (like Sorbs, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Poles) than any Middle Eastern tribe. For further data consult figure 1 in Ornella Semino, et al., “The genetic legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in extant Europeans: a Y chromosome perspective,”Science 290(5494) (Nov. 10, 2000): 1155-1159, as well as the 2003 Levite study referenced here.

In Figure 3 of Nebel et al.’s 2001 paper, it can be seen that while some Muslim Kurds possess the Cohen Modal Haplotype (at a frequency of 0.011), and even some Palestinian Arabs do (at a frequency of 0.021), more Muslim Kurds (0.095) have a haplotype that is a different Y DNA lineage, with a different allele number in one of the six microsatellite locis. Figure 3 is also interesting since it shows that 0.021 of Palestinian Arabs have the Cohen Modal Haplotype.

Judy Siegel. “Genetic evidence links Jews to their ancient tribe.”Jerusalem Post (November 20, 2001).

Excerpts:

“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… 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.”

“Study: North African, Iraqi Jewry nearly genetic twins.”Jerusalem Post (November 19, 2001). Excerpts:

“Sephardic North African Jews are genetic twins of their Iraq brethren, says a study by researchers [Nebel, Faerman, et al.] at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem…. Although the genetic affinity of Jews to the ancient, Middle Eastern non-Arab populations is greater than to Arabs (as shown in the present study), a substantial portion of Y chromosomes of Jews (70%) and Palestinian Muslim Arabs (50%) belong to the same chromosome pool. An additional 30% of the Muslim Arab chromosomes belong to a very closely related lineage… [because] part – or perhaps the majority – of Muslim Arabs in the Land of Israel descended from local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest of the 7th century A.D.”

Tamara Traubman. “Study finds close genetic connection between Jews, Kurds.”Ha’aretz (November 21, 2001). Excerpts:

“The people closest to the Jews from a genetic point of view may be the Kurds, according to results of a new study at the Hebrew University. Scientists who participated in the research said the findings seem to indicate both peoples had common ancestors who lived in the northern half of the fertile crescent, where northern Iraq and Turkey are today. Some of them, it is assumed, wandered south in pre-historic times and settled on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Professor Ariella Oppenheim and Dr. Marina Feirman [sic: Faerman], who carried out the research at the Hebrew University, said they were surprised to find a closer genetic connection between the Jews and the populations of the fertile crescent than between the Jews and their Arab neighbors… The present study, however, involved more detailed and thorough examinations than previous research. In addition, this was the first comparison of the DNA of Jews and Kurds… The study’s findings are published in the current issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics. The researchers used the DNA of 1,847 Jewish men of Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Kurdish descent; Muslims and Christians of Kurdish, Turkish and Armenian descent; various Arab populations; and Russians, Poles and residents of Belarus.”

“The Jewish World: This Week in Israel.” Global Jewish Agenda (Jewish Agency for Israel, November 22, 2001). Excerpts:

“A new study by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem reveals: the Kurds are the people closest to the Jews genetically. Scientists who carried out the study, including Prof. Ariella Friedman [sic: Oppenheim] and Dr. Marina Fireman [sic: Faerman], say that according to the findings, the Jews and the Kurds share common ancient forefathers, who lived in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent (a part of contemporary Iraq and Syria). Some moved southward in pre-historic times and settled along the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. The researchers say that they were surprised to find that the Jews were closer genetically to the Kurds (and to the Turks) than to their Arab neighbors. The findings of the study, which for the first time included a comparison between DNA samples from Jews and DNA samples from Muslim Kurds, also surprised historians such as Prof. Bezalel Bar-Kochba of Tel-Aviv University and Dr. Gunner Lehman of Ben-Gurion University in the Negev, who said: “`It is difficult to explain the findings within the context of the knowledge we have about material and historic culture.'”

“Evrei i kurdi – brat’ya po genam.” MIGnews.com (Media International Group)

Max Gross. “‘A Certain People’: Study Confirms Deep Similarities Among Jews.” Forward (August 16, 2002): B11. Excerpts:

“Professor Ariella Oppenheim of Hebrew University, a geneticist of mixed Ashkenazic and Sephardic descent and one of six scientists who authored the study, called the results surprising. ‘I expected a few more admixtures,’ Oppenheim told the Forward. Almost all the researchers expected to see a greater link between Ashkenazic Jews and non-Jewish Eastern Europeans. They thought they would see in the bloodlines the results of Eastern European pogroms, when many Jewish women were raped, producing offspring whose biological fathers were not Jewish…. ‘It had an effect,’ Oppenheim said, but it didn’t significantly alter the gene pool. Ashkenazic Jews are still closer, genetically, to Sephardic and Kurdish Jews than to any other population…. ‘Part of [the study] was financed by [the government of] India,’ Oppenheim said…. The scientists looked at Y-chromosomes, which come from the male, ‘Mostly because [they] give us a bit of a simpler picture,’ Oppenheim said. Oppenheim said that a more thorough study, involving mitochondrial DNA, which comes from the female, will soon get under way.”

Almut Nebel, Ariella Oppenheim, Dvora Filon, Mark G. Thomas, D. A. Weiss, M. Weale, Marina Faerman. “High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews.”Human Genetics 107(6) (December 2000): 630-641. Abstract excerpts:

High-resolution Y chromosome haplotype analysis was performed in 143 paternally unrelated Israeli and Palestinian Moslem Arabs (I&P Arabs) by screening for 11 binary polymorphisms and six microsatellite loci. At the haplogroup level, defined by the binary polymorphisms only, the Y chromosome distribution in Arabs and Jews was similar but not identical. At the haplotype level, determined by both binary and microsatellite markers, a more detailed pattern was observed. Single-step micro-satellite networks of Arabs and Jewish haplotypes revealed a common pool for a large portion of Y chromosomes, suggesting a relatively recent common ancestry. The two modal haplotypes in the I&P Arabs were closely related to the most frequent haplotype of Jews (the Cohen modal haplotype). However, the I&P Arab clade that includes the two Arab modal haplotypes (and makes up 32% of Arab chromosomes) is found at only very low frequency among Jews, reflecting divergence and/or admixture from other populations. (Mirror)

“Jews and Arabs Share Recent Ancestry.”Science Now (American Academy for the Advancement of Science, October 30, 2000). In the last sentence, it is admitted that European Jews mixed with groups residing in Europe. Excerpts:

“More than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men whose DNA was studied inherited their Y chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years. The results match historical accounts that some Moslem Arabs are descended from Christians and Jews who lived in the southern Levant, a region that includes Israel and the Sinai… Intrigued by the genetic similarities between the two populations, geneticist Ariella Oppenheim of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who collaborated on the earlier study, focused on Arab and Jewish men. Her team examined the Y chromosomes of 119 Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews and 143 Israeli and Palestinian Arabs. The Y chromosomes of many of the men had key segments of DNA that were so similar that they clustered into just three of many groups known as haplogroups. Other short segments of DNA called microsatellites were similar enough to reveal that the men must have had common ancestors within the past several thousand years. The study, reported here at a Human Origins and Disease conference, will appear in an upcoming issue of Human Genetics. Hammer praises the new study for ‘focusing in detail on the Jewish and Palestinian populations.’ Oppenheim’s team found, for example, that Jews have mixed more with European populations, which makes sense because some of them lived in Europe during the last millennium.”

Judy Siegel. “Experts find genetic Jewish-Arab link.”Jerusalem Post (November 6, 2000). Despite its merits, this study uses a small sample size and an improbable set of test subjects. It is puzzling that the Northern Welsh were tested, because it’s obvious that they are farther away from European Jews than Arabs. Why were they tested instead of the Serbs, Romanians, Italians, or Austrians – groups which, unlike the Welsh, had significant contact with Jews over the centuries? The selection of groups influences the results of any genetics study. Notice, however, that even according to this test, somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of the Jews do NOT have paternal-line ancestry from Israel. Excerpts:

“DNA research carried out at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School and University College in London has shown that many Jews and Arabs are closely related. Over seven out of 10 Jewish men and half of Arab men whose DNA was studied inherited their Y chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors – who lived in the Middle East in the Neolithic period in prehistoric times. The research, to be published soon in the journal Human Genetics… was carried out by Prof. Ariella Oppenheim, a senior geneticist in the Hebrew University’s hematology department. Dr. Marina Faerman, Dr. Dvora Filon of the Hadassah-University Hospital in Jerusalem, HU doctoral student Almut Nebel, and Mark Thomas and others at the British university assisted. The work was also reported last week in the journal Science. Oppenheim and her colleagues tested blood from 143 Israeli and Palestinian Moslem Arabs whose great-grandfathers were not related. Chromosome set data were compared with that of 119 Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, and to that of non-Jewish residents of northern Wales. The researchers found that the Arabs are more closely related to Jews than they are to the Welsh, indicating a more recent common ancestry. Arabs and Jews had about 18 percent of all their chromosomes in common… ‘Our findings are in good agreement with historical evidence and suggest genetic continuity in both populations despite their long separation and the wide geographic dispersal of Jews,’ Oppenheim wrote.”

Nicholas Wade. “Scientists Rough Out Humanity’s 50,000-Year-Old Story.” The New York Times (November 14, 2000). Excerpts:

“Analysis of the Y chromosome has already yielded interesting results. Dr. Ariella Oppenheim of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem said she had found considerable similarity between Jews and Israeli and Palestinian Arabs, as if the Y chromosomes of both groups had been drawn from a common population that began to expand 7,800 years ago.”

Tamara Traubman. “A new study shows that the genetic makeup of Jews and Arabs is almost identical, and that both groups share common prehistoric ancestors.” Ha’aretz (2000). Excerpts:

“About two-thirds of Israeli Arabs and Arabs in the territories and a similar proportion of Israeli Jews are the descendents of at least three common prehistoric ancestors who lived in the Middle East in the Neolithic period, about 8,000 years ago. This is the finding of a new study conducted by an international team of scholars headed by Prof. Ariella Oppenheim, a senior geneticist in the Hebrew University’s hematology department and at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. In the study, soon to be published in the scientific journal ‘Human Genetics,’ the researchers probed the history of Jewish and Arab men by analyzing the genetic changes in the Y chromosome… The study was conducted by doctoral student Almut Nebel, with the participation of Dr. Dvora Filon and Dr. Marina Faerman of the Hebrew University and Dr. Mark Thomas of the University College of London. The results of the study, says Prof. Oppenheim, ‘support the historical documentation according to which the Arabs are descendents of an ancient population of the country and that a large proportion of them were Jews who converted to Islam after Islam reached Eretz Israel in the seventh century CE.’… They examined 134 Palestinians from Israel and the Palestinian Authority and 119 Ashkenazi and Sepharadi Jews. Unlike the previous study, they also traced changes in DNA that occur more frequently, at a rate of about once in 1,000 generations. In this way, they discovered that Jews and Arabs have common prehistoric ancestors who lived here until just the last few thousand years…. In view of the small geographical area of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the researchers were surprised to discover that some Palestinians on the West Bank have a unique genetic trait that is reflected in a relatively high frequency of certain genetic signs. This fact indicates that they are the descendents of people who have lived here for a few hundred years at least. The unique genetic feature of the Palestinians from the West Bank became even more explicit when the researchers studied a genetic defect that may cause a blood disease known as thalassemia. There are many genetic defects that can cause thalassemia, but 50 percent of the mountain dwellers examined carried the identical defect, compared to only 10 percent of Galilee dwellers and 15 percent of Gaza residents. Dr. Filon says that the unique genetic trait is characteristic of a population that has lived in the same place for many generations.”

Rachel Fléaux. “Chercher ses racines par l’ADN: En qu?te d’identité.” Sciences et Avenir No. 650 (April 2001). Excerpts:

“La diaspora juive est l’autre communaut? directement int?ress?e par les technologies ADN. Family Tree DNA en a fait son point fort. Il est vrai que cette compagnie texane, qui se flatte d'” offrir les tests du chromosome Y les plus pr?cis de toute l’industrie “, est associ?e au g?n?ticien Mike Hammer de l’universit? d’Arizona, dont c’est pr?cis?ment la sp?cialit?. Le chercheur a ainsi publi? il y a quatre ans, dans la revue Nature, une ?tude portant sur les Cohanim ou Cohen, ces grands pr?tres juifs qui se transmettent leur titre de p?re en fils depuis 3300 ans, selon la tradition biblique. Analysant le chromosome Y des derniers Cohanim, Mike Hammer a montr? que l’on pouvait bel et bien remonter leur lign?e paternelle jusqu’? un anc?tre m?le, peut-?tre cet Aaron d?crit dans la Bible comme le premier des grands pr?tres. Finalement, tant chez les S?farades que chez les Ashk?nazes, les Cohen portent la m?me signature chromosomique, tr?s distincte des autres. Le g?n?ticien d’Arizona a ?galement ?lucid? le myst?re des Khazars (lire p. 123), d?montant la th?orie selon laquelle cette tribu d’Europe centrale pourrait ?tre ? l’origine des Ashk?nazes. Sourd aux critiques d’une fraction de la communaut? juive, qui redoute un fichage g?n?tique, Mike Hammer a lanc? en collaboration avec le Dr Harry Ostrer, de l’Ecole de m?decine de l’universit? de New York, le projet ” Jewish Genetic Origins “. Son ambition est de suivre la diaspora ? la trace, de permettre ? chacun de ses membres de retisser, depuis le XVIIIe si?cle au moins, l’histoire et l’origine d’une famille ?clat?e. Huit cents hommes et femmes ont d?j? fait don de leur ADN accompagn? de l’arbre d?taill? de leur famille (2).”

Nadine Epstein. “Family Matters: Funny, We Don’t Look Jewish.”Hadassah Magazine 82:5 (January 2001). Excerpts:

“…As the fair-haired, blue-eyed daughter of a woman who looks more Nordic than Jewish, I always wondered if I was really Semitic. My siblings and I didn’t look much like most other Jews – Ashkenazic or Sefardic… As a child, I blamed our looks on Cossack rapes. When I read Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe, I bought his theory that Ashkenazim were descended from the Khazars, a Caucasian people who had converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages. The search for genetic knowledge strikes a deep chord among Jews. Last year, through my local genealogy society, I met Dr. Harry Ostrer, head of the Human Genetics Program at the New York University School of Medicine… The study of evolutionary and genetic history through DNA analysis is transforming what we know about ourselves… In 1997, Karl Skorecki in Haifa, Michael Hammer in Tucson and several London researchers surprised everyone by finding evidence of the Jewish priestly line of males, the Kohanim. Half of Ashkenazic men and slightly more than half of Sefardic men who claimed to be Kohanim were found to have a distinctive set of genetic markers on their Y chromosome, making it highly possible that they are descendants of a single male or group of related males who lived between 1180 and 650 B.C.E., about the time of Moses and Aaron. The Kohen marker is but a fragment of the information gleaned from DNA analysis… A study published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science looked at the Y chromosomes of 1,371 males from seven Jewish population groups and came up with a profile of Jewish genes. They found 13 major Y-chromosome patterns or signatures, called haplotypes. ‘The haplotypes of all but Ethiopian Jews shared a similar pattern,’ says Ostrer, a member of the study team led by Hammer and Batsheva Bonne-Tamir of Tel-Aviv University. ‘This means we are not descended from one person or 12 tribes but 13 founder males.’ The same 13 haplotypes, by the way, are common among Middle Eastern Arabs including Palestinians and Syrians. They also show up in Greeks and other ancient Mediterranean lines, who may date from the time before Jews emerged as a people… ‘We are definitely Jews,’ says Ostrer. ‘We share Jewish haplotype patterns.’ Ostrer estimates the European admixture over 80 generations is an extremely low 0.5 percent. The study also found that male Jews of Russian and Polish ancestry do not have a chromosome profile similar to Russian and Polish non-Jews. Haplotypes have also helped the identity seekers to retrace the path of the wandering Ashkenazic Jew. We who hail from East Europe most likely migrated there from Alsace and Rhineland, says Ostrer, as confirmed by Yiddish, a form of low German. Based on his study of Roman Jews, Ostrer concludes that Ashkenazim lived in Italy for a thousand years before they migrated into Alsace and Rhineland. ‘There’s no genetic difference between Ashkenazic and Roman Jews, who say they have lived in Italy for 2,000 years,’ he observes. Ostrer and Hammer are now conducting the largest study of Jewish genetics so far, trying to determine how we are all related, and tracing the migrations that formed communities during the 2,000 years of diaspora… ‘Being Jewish is a spiritual, metaphysical state and DNA is a physical characteristic, like nose size,’ said Skorecki in an interview in The Jerusalem Report. ‘But we wouldn’t dare go around saying we’re going to determine who is Jewish by the length of their nose. Similarly we’re not going to determine who is Jewish by the sequence of their DNA.’… And so for me, the positives of Y-chromosome analysis far outweigh the possible negatives. We are an ancient group of clans descended from 13 polygamous men, and our genetic history is part of the redefinition of humanity… ‘Blonde genes occur in Middle Eastern groups as well,’ he [Ostrer] explains. ‘There is no evidence that white skin and blue eyes originated in northern Europe. That is a Nordic myth. Semitic people had the whole range.’… Researchers have only begun to study the mitochondria of Jewish women… Mitochondria will likely reveal different data: Women were more likely than men to relocate and convert due to marriage… My father and brother are descendants of the clan known as Haplotype Four, the second largest group of Ashkenazim, and common among Middle Eastern and southern European populations. My son is descended from a clan that is part of Haplotype One, which has a Y-chromosome pattern common in central and western Asian populations… ‘These clans were formed a long time ago,’ says Ostrer. ‘They all ended up in the Middle East and landed in Ur where Abraham lived. He convinced some of them to adopt [the God of Israel] and when they did, they brought their Y chromosomes with them. Their next-door neighbors waited for Allah. They brought their chromosomes with them, too.'”

The assertion of Ostrer that Yiddish comes from Alsace and Rhineland has been debunked by solid research showing that Yiddish derives from Bavaria. Yiddish is clearly a form of High German, too, and not Low German. Epstein’s article demonstrates a lack of linguistic knowledge.

Christopher Hitchens. “The Part-Jewish Question: Double the Pleasure or Twice the Pain? Of ‘Semi-Semites’ and Those Who Fear Them.”Forward (January 26, 2001). Excerpts:

“Recent advances in DNA testing have either simplified or complicated the claims of holy books and founding texts. A riveting recent essay in Commentary described the results of a match-up between the genetic database of the Kohanim – those whose Jewish ancestry is supposedly the strongest and best-attested – and that of a “lost tribe” in Namibia that has long claimed Jewish descent. The fit was amazingly close. So it is with other groups in the Asian diaspora, many of whose folk stories had been thought to be merely legendary. It also turns out that there is a close DNA affinity between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs… How long before we can codify Khazar DNA and find out if Koestler was right or if the Ashkenazim have any genetic claim to Gaza? (The learned author of the Commentary article, eventually concluded that enough was enough already, and that better uses could be found for the research money than the infinite theoretical expansion of the prolific seed of Abraham.)”

Hillel Halkin. “Wandering Jews — and Their Genes.”Commentary 110:2 (September 2000): 54-61. Excerpts:

“Finally, published in last June’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Science were the results of a study conducted by an international team of scientists led by Michael Hammer of the University of Arizona and Batsheva Bonné-Tamir of Tel Aviv University… Based on genetic samples from 1,371 males… its main conclusions are: 1. With the exception of Ethiopian Jews, all Jewish samples show a high genetic correlation… 3. In descending order after these Middle Easterners, Ashkenazi Jews correlate best with Greeks and Turks; then with Italians; then with Spaniards; then with Germans; then with Austrians; and least of all with Russians… And on the other hand again: whereas the traditional explanation of East European Jewish origins was that most Ashkenazi Jews reached Poland and Russia from… the Rhineland; Rhineland from northern France… this version has come under increasing challenge in recent years on both demographic and linguistic grounds. Most Jews, the challengers maintain, must have arrived in Eastern Europe not from the west and southwest but from the south and east – that is, via northern Italy and the Balkans; Asia Minor and the Greek Byzantine empire; the Volga kingdom of the Khazars…; or a combination of all three. Now comes the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science report, which appears to bear out the newer version of events. Ashkenazi Jews, it informs us, have a more significant admixture of Italian, Greek, and Turkish genes than of Spanish, German, or even Austrian ones. Of course, things are not so simple. Even without questioning the study’s highly technical procedures, different interpretations could be put on them. It could be argued, for example, that the resemblance of Jewish to Greek and Italian Y chromosomes is traceable to proselytization in the Mediterranean world during the period of the Roman Empire… What must also be remembered is that Y chromosomes tell us only about males. But we know that in most societies, women are more likely to convert to their husband’s religion than vice-versa… If true, this might also explain a number of differences between the Hammer/Bonné-Tamir study and earlier research on the geographical distribution of specific Jewish diseases, blood types, enzymes, and mitochondrial DNA… a predominance of female converts might provide the answer. It might also explain opposed findings on Jews from Yemen, who in earlier tests matched poorly with other Jews. This particular result was understood to support the theory that Yemenite Jewry originated in the widespread conversion of non-Jews under the Himyarite kings of southern Arabia in the first centuries of the Common Era. But now the Hammer/Bonné-Tamir report shows that the Y chromosomes of Yemenite Jews have typically Jewish haplotypes. The contradiction could be resolved by positing that Jewish men… reached Yemen… married local women…”

Multiple letters in response to Hillel Halkin’s article were published in Commentary’s December 2000 issue.

Michael F. Hammer, Alan J. Redd, Elizabeth T. Wood, M. R. Bonner, Hamdi Jarjanazi, Tanya Karafet, Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, Ariella Oppenheim, Mark A. Jobling, Trefor Jenkins, Harry Ostrer, and Batsheva Bonn?-Tamir. “Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish Populations Share a Common Pool of Y-chromosome Biallelic Haplotypes.”, PNAS 97:12 (June 6, 2000): 6769-6774. Summary:

This study alleges that Jews around the world, both Sephardic and Ashkenazic, are more closely related to one another than to non-Jews tested in the study, and that converts and intermarriages played little role in Jewish population history. But the study does not test peoples who are at all related to the Khazars, so the genetic distance between European Jews and Khazars was left untested, and the focus is on paternal rather than on maternal lines.

According to Mark Jobling, “Jews are the genetic brothers of Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians”.

Some revealing comments from the study’s geneticists: Dina Kraft’s May 9, 2000 article in the Associated Press quotes Hebrew University geneticist Howard Cedar who “said even though Y chromosomes are considered the best tool for tracing genetic heritage, researchers still don’t know what the history is behind the variations. As a result, it is difficult to draw conclusions about genetic affinity..” The article also quotes Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, a Tel Aviv University geneticist, who “cautioned that the techniques were new and that until the human genome is mapped, it will be difficult to be certain about the conclusions.”

“To say that Jews are somehow homogeneous across the entire diaspora is completely fallacious,” says Ken Jacobs of the University of Montreal. “There is so much incredible genetic heterogeneity within the Jewish community — any Jewish community.” Jewish people simply don’t exhibit the genetic homogeneity that [Kevin] MacDonald ascribes to them, Jacobs says. According to an Jacobs’ views as summarized in an article in the New Times Los Angeles Online (April 20-26, 2000), “Witness For The Persecution” by Tony Ortega: “The only Jewish subgroup that does show some homogeneity — descendants of the Cohanim, or priestly class — makes up only about 2 percent of the Jewish population. Even within the Cohanim, and certainly within the rest of the Jewish people, there’s a vast amount of genetic variation that simply contradicts MacDonald’s most basic assertion that Jewish genetic sameness is a sign that Judaism is an evolutionary group strategy.” In H-ANTISEMITISM, Ken Jacobs added: “Hammer’s Jewish samples are heavily skewed towards the Kohanim… This is bound to reduce within-population variance in the Jewish sample… I pointed out solely that the data reported for the Jewish samples in the recent PNAS were remarkably similar to those published previously in studies of which Hammer was a co-author, the focus of which was the Kohanim… There is an ahistorical aspect to this work, as well as a serious conflation of genes, ethnicity, and religious belief. For example, as used in Hammer’s study, the distinction between ‘Syrian’ and ‘Palestinian’ is based on fairly recent geo-political constructs that have little or no bearing on the patterns of gene flow in the region prior to 1000 CE…. In the original Lemba study, the complex of Y-chromosome genes was found in 45% of Kohanim among Ashkenazim, the percentage was 56% of Kohanim among the Sepharad, and 53% among the Buba clan of the Lemba. Among non-Kohanim the average Jewish % for this gene complex is less than 5%. One does not have to understand the lingo to see that there was inbreeding in one part of the dispersed Jewish communities and a certain level of outbreeding in the rest.”

John Tooby, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is quoted in an article for Slate‘s “Culturebox” by Judith Shulevitz as saying: “The notion that Jews are a genetically distinct group doesn’t make it on the basis of modern population genetics.”

Chris Garifo. “U of A researcher heads breakthrough genetic study.”Jewish News of Greater Phoenix 52:37 (May 19, 2000). Excerpts:

“‘Our work definitely refutes a lot of that discussion of alternate origins for Jewish populations,’ Hammer says. ‘It shows that we really are a single ethnic group coming from the Middle East. Even if you look like another European with blue eyes and light skin, your genes are telling that you’re from the Middle East.’…. Hammer says one reason he began the research was his curiosity about his own Jewish roots.”

Ivan Oransky. “Tracing Mideast Roots Back to Isaac and Ishmael: Study of Y Chromosome Suggests a Common Ancestry for Jews and Arabs.” The Forward (May 19, 2000). Excerpts:

“The study also found the degree of intermarriage by the Askenazi Jewish population over the past 2000 years to be remarkably small. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by University of Arizona geneticist Michael Hammer and colleagues from Italy, Israel, England and America, refutes some earlier studies which suggested that modern Jews were mainly descendants of converts — paticularly the Turkish Khazars — with high rates of intermarriage…. The director of the human genetics program at the New York University School of Medicine and a co-author of the paper, Harry Ostrer, told The Forward that… the story provides a useful allegory for the roots of Jews and Arabs. `We’re the children of a discrete number of founders who lived in the Middle East, where these Y chromosomes originated and became concentrated.’, Dr. Ostrer said…. Dr. [Arno] Motulsky, who was not involved with the study, said that the results suggest that genes from non-Jewish males have not entered the Jewish population to any great extent…. The study could raise important questions about who is a Jew. For example, the results suggest that Ethiopian Jews, thought to be long separated from other Jewish groups, may be more closely related to North African non-Jews than to other Jews. Follow-up studies are already being planned. Dr. Ostrer is hoping to collect genetic information from 1000 Askenazi Jews to study migrational patterns across Europe. Dr. Hammer said he will study the DNA for mitrochondria… This will shed light onto the rate than which women intermarried into Jewish communities, since these genes are strictly passed by the mother.”

Hillary Mayell. “Genetic Link Established Between Jews and Arabs.” National Geographic News (May 10, 2000).

“Jews and Arabs are ‘genetic brothers’.”BBC News (May 10, 2000). Excerpts:

“…The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that Jewish men shared a common set of genetic signatures with non-Jews from the Middle East, including Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. These signatures were significantly different from non-Jewish men outside of the Middle East. This means Jews and Arabs have more in common with each other, genetically speaking, than they do with any of the wider communities in which they might live. Dr Mark Jobling of Leicester University, UK, one of the authors of the new study, told the BBC: ‘The kind of DNA we have used to analyse this question is the human Y chromosome. This represents only 2% of our genetic material and it is passed down from father to son… The fact that we don’t see it [signals of genetic mixture between Jews and non-Jews] suggests that after the Diaspora these populations really have managed to maintain their Jewish heritage.”

Nicholas Wade. “Y Chromosome Bears Witness to Story of the Jewish Diaspora.”The New York Times (May 9, 2000): F4 (col. 1). Excerpts:

“The analysis provides genetic witness that these communities have, to a remarkable extent, retained their biological identity separate from their host populations, evidence of relatively little intermarriage or conversion into Judaism over the centuries…. The results accord with Jewish history and tradition and refute theories like those holding that Jewish communities consist mostly of converts from other faiths, or that they are descended from the Khazars, a medieval Turkish tribe that adopted Judaism…. But present-day Ethiopian Jews lack some of the other lineages found in Jewish communities, and overall are more like non-Jewish Ethiopians than other Jewish populations, at least in terms of their Y chromosome lineage pattern…. Roman Jews have a pattern quite similar to that of Ashkenazis, the Jewish community of Eastern Europe. Dr. Hammer said the finding accorded with the hypothesis that Roman Jews were the ancestors of the Ashkenazis. Despite the Ashkenazi Jews’ long residence in Europe, their Y signature has remained distinct from that of non-Jewish Europeans.”

Norton Godoy. “Judeus e árabes: irmãos.”IstoÉ (2000).

R. Highfield. “Jews, Arabs share ancestral link, study says.” Calgary Herald (May 9, 2000): A19.

Marilynn Larkin. “Jewish-Arab affinities are gene-deep.”The Lancet 355 (2000): 1699.

Maggie Fox. “Middle Eastern Roots: Shared Y Chromosome Illustrates Genetic Map of the Past.”Reuters (May 9, 2000).

Joel J. Elias. “The Genetics of Modern Assyrians and their Relationship to Other People of the Middle East.”Assyrian Health Network (July 20, 2000). Excerpts:

“Based on earlier studies using classical genetic methods⁷, Cavalli-Sforza et al. came to the conclusion ‘that Jews have maintained considerable genetic similarity among themselves and with people from the Middle East, with whom they have common origins.’ Evidence for the latter concept was very convincingly made and extended by an international team of scientists [Hammer et al.] in a very recent research article⁸, widely reported in the press, in which the genetics of different Middle Eastern populations were studied using a completely different method than the classical methods that form the great majority of papers in the Cavalli-Sforza et al book. The research involved direct DNA analysis of the Y chromosome, which is found only in males and is passed down from father to son. Seven different Jewish groups from communities in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East were compared to various non-Jewish populations from those areas. The results showed, first of all, that ‘Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level.’ Furthermore, the genetic characteristics of Jews were shown to be distinctly different from (non-Jewish) Europeans, suggesting that very little admixture occurred between Jews and Europeans, even after about 80 generations of Jews in Europe…. In fact, the Palestinians and Syrians were so close to the Jews in genetic characteristics that they ‘mapped within the central cluster of Jewish populations.'”

Carmelli, D. and Cavalli-Sforza, L.L. The genetic origin of the Jews: A multi-variate approach. Hum. Biol., 51:41-61. 1979.

Hammer, M.F. et al. [12 authors]. Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes. Proceedings National Academy Sciences USA…

Doron M. Behar, Bayazit Yunusbayev, Mait Metspalu, Ene Metspalu, Saharon Rosset, Jüri Parik, Siiri Rootsi, Gyaneshwer Chaubey, Ildus Kutuev, Guennady Yudkovsky, Elza K. Khusnutdinova, Oleg Balanovsky, Ornella Semino, Luisa Pereira, David Comas, David Gurwitz, Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, Tudor Parfitt, Michael F. Hammer, Karl Skorecki, and Richard Villems. “The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people.”Nature, published online 9 June 2010. Among the tested populations were Ashkenazic Jews from eastern Europe, Sephardic Jews from Bulgaria and Turkey, Bukharan Jews of Central Asia, Jews of India, Ethipian Jews, and Yemenite Jews. They were compared to peoples such as Italians from Tuscany and Sardinia, Russians, Chuvashes, Lithuanians, Adygeis, Lezgins, Georgians, Armenians, Basques, French, Romanians, Syrians, Palestinians, Jordanians, Turks, Cypriots, and several others. Abstract:

Contemporary Jews comprise an aggregate of ethno-religious communities whose worldwide members identify with each other through various shared religious, historical and cultural traditions. Historical evidence suggests common origins in the Middle East, followed by migrations leading to the establishment of communities of Jews in Europe, Africa and Asia, in what is termed the Jewish Diaspora. This complex demographic history imposes special challenges in attempting to address the genetic structure of the Jewish people. Although many genetic studies have shed light on Jewish origins and on diseases prevalent among Jewish communities, including studies focusing on uniparentally and biparentally inherited markers, genome-wide patterns of variation across the vast geographic span of Jewish Diaspora communities and their respective neighbours have yet to be addressed. Here we use high-density bead arrays to genotype individuals from 14 Jewish Diaspora communities and compare these patterns of genome-wide diversity with those from 69 Old World non-Jewish populations, of which 25 have not previously been reported. These samples were carefully chosen to provide comprehensive comparisons between Jewish and non-Jewish populations in the Diaspora, as well as with non-Jewish populations from the Middle East and north Africa. Principal component and structure-like analyses identify previously unrecognized genetic substructure within the Middle East. Most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster that overlies Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine populations or paired Diaspora host populations. In contrast, Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini) cluster with neighbouring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant. These results cast light on the variegated genetic architecture of the Middle East, and trace the origins of most Jewish Diaspora communities to the Levant.

Agence France-Presse. “Study confirms Jewish Middle East origins.”Sydney Morning Herald, June 11, 2010. Excerpt:

“‘We found evidence that Jewish communities originated in the Near East,’ said molecular scientist Doron Behar of the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, who led an investigation gathering experts in eight countries. ‘Our genetic findings are concordant with historical records.'”

Alla Katsnelson. “Genes link Jewish communities, take 2.”Nature: The Great Beyond (June 9, 2010). Excerpt:

“…the study showed that all of the Jewish communities share some common genetic features, and for the most part, the Jewish groups are more similar to each other than to the non-Jews in the same regions. ‘These two studies are the first pair of genome-wide studies of SNP variations in collections of multiple Jewish populations,’ says Noah Rosenberg, a population geneticist at the University of Michigan who was not involved in either study. … Because of their large panel of populations, the researchers were able to dive more deeply than ever before into fine scale relationships between different populations. The closest genetic clustering, both among Jewish and non-Jewish groups, is seen in the eastern Mediterranean area known as the Levant, including Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and surrounding regions, the study finds.”

Razib Khan. “Genetics and the Jews (it’s still complicated.)”Discover Magazine – Gene Expression (June 10, 2010). Excerpts:

“Ashkenazi Jews are roughly between European and Middle Eastern populations, as one would expect if they were in some sense an admixture between the groups. … This paper seems to confirm the east-west division evident in the earlier paper [by Ostrer et al.], whereby Ashkenazi & Sephardic groups form a natural cluster, as do the Mizrahi Jews of Iraq and Iran. … The Yemeni Jews… seem to shake out as just another Middle Eastern population. They’re a subset of the Saudis in both plots. … From this figure it looks as if the Moroccan Jews are fundamentally distinctive in some way from the non-Jewish population of Morocco. … What likely occurred in India was that generations of admixture between Jews and non-Jews resulted in the elision of differences between the two groups, despite the persistence of a cultural distinction. … Non-Jews could, and did, move into the Indian Jewish community, while this was taboo in the Islamic or Christian world.”

Doron M. Behar, Ene Metspalu, Toomas Kivisild, Saharon Rosset, Shay Tzur, Yarin Hadid, Guennady Yudkovsky, Dror Rosengarten, Luisa Pereira, Antonio Amorim, Ildus Kutuev, David Gurwitz, Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, Richard Villems, and Karl Skorecki. “Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora.”PLoS ONE 3:4 (April 30, 2008): e2062. (mirror) 1142 mtDNA samples were gathered from Jews of non-Ashkenazi origin (including Georgian Jews, Indian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Tunisian Jews, Bulgarian Jews, and others) plus 253 samples from Near Eastern non-Jews. These data were compared with data from 583 Ashkenazi Jews. Abstract:

The history of the Jewish Diaspora dates back to the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests in the Levant, followed by complex demographic and migratory trajectories over the ensuing millennia which pose a serious challenge to unraveling population genetic patterns. Here we ask whether phylogenetic analysis, based on highly resolved mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogenies can discern among maternal ancestries of the Diaspora. Accordingly, 1,142 samples from 14 different non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities were analyzed. A list of complete mtDNA sequences was established for all variants present at high frequency in the communities studied, along with high-resolution genotyping of all samples. Unlike the previously reported pattern observed among Ashkenazi Jews, the numerically major portion of the non-Ashkenazi Jews, currently estimated at 5 million people and comprised of the Moroccan, Iraqi, Iranian and Iberian Exile Jewish communities showed no evidence for a narrow founder effect, which did however characterize the smaller and more remote Belmonte, Indian and the two Caucasus communities. The Indian and Ethiopian Jewish sample sets suggested local female introgression, while mtDNAs in all other communities studied belong to a well-characterized West Eurasian pool of maternal lineages. Absence of sub-Saharan African mtDNA lineages among the North African Jewish communities suggests negligible or low level of admixture with females of the host populations among whom the African haplogroup (Hg) L0-L3 sub-clades variants are common. In contrast, the North African and Iberian Exile Jewish communities show influence of putative Iberian admixture as documented by mtDNA Hg HV0 variants. These findings highlight striking differences in the demographic history of the widespread Jewish Diaspora.

Excerpts:

“It is now possible to address the question of the matrilineal origin of these [non-Ashkenazi] communities using phylogenetic resolution at maximum depth, and also to extend phylogeographic comparisons with a much wider range of reference populations. … The Jewish community of the Caucasus also known as Mountain Jews is believed to have been established during the 8th century C.E. in the region corresponding to Dagestan and the current state of Azerbaijan as a result of a movement of Jews from Iran. Indeed, this community shows a striking maternal founding event, with 58.6% of their total mtDNA genetic variation tracing back to only one woman carrying an mtDNA lineage within Hg J2b. … The Georgian Jewish community, considered to have been established in the 6th century C.E., similarly shows a founding event with 58.1% of its total mtDNA variation tracing back to one woman. … Multiple theories exist regarding the establishment of the Ethiopian Beta Israel community… The four most frequent lineages belonged to Hgs R0a1b, L3h1a2a1, L5a1a and M1a1c (Table 2) all frequent in the region [10] suggesting East Africa and not the Levant as their likely geographic origin. The Indian Jewish community of Mumbai (known as B’nei Israel) oral history claim to have descended from Jews who reached the shores of India in the 2nd century C.E. MtDNA analysis for this community shows a strong maternal founding event, with 41.2% of its total mtDNA genetic variation tracing back to one woman and 67.6% tracking back to four women (Table 2). The Indian Jewish community of Cochin myth claims the community to have emanated in the times of King Solomon and has had no documented contact with the B’nei Israel of Mumbai. This community also shows a strong maternal founding event, with 44.4% of its total mtDNA genetic variation tracing back to two women (Table 2). In both Indian Jewish communities, their mtDNA gene pool is dominated by Hg M sub-branches specific for the subcontinent [11], and therefore appears to be of clearly local origin. It is important to note that in agreement with an oral tradition of the two independent founding events for the respective communities, the prevailing sub-branches among B’nei Israel Hg M samples belong to Hgs M39a1 and M30c1a1, while the Cochin Hg M sub-branches belong to Hgs M5a1 and M50 (Table 2). … The Libyan and Tunisian Jewish communities share, as their two most frequent mtDNA variants, lineages in Hgs X2e1a1a and H30 (Table S4). It is important to note that the Hg H30 is split by the coding region information into 2 sub-lineages, one restricted to Libyan Jews and one primarily to Tunisian Jews. … The Yemenite Jewish community is thought to have been established in the second century CE. Here we found that 42.0% of the mtDNA variation in this community can be attributed to 5 women carrying mtDNAs that belong to sub-branches of Hgs R0a1c, R2a, HV1b, L3x1a and U1a2. While these Hgs, except L3x1a, can be considered as a part of the general West Asian mtDNA genetic pool, they have higher frequencies in East Africa and Yemen [10]. … The Libyan and Tunisian Jewish communities shared among them an X2e1a1a lineage as the most frequent. We examined the two Libyan-Tunisian Jewish lineage-specific coding region mutations 9380 and 13789… Position 13789 appears uninformative, while 9380 was shared among Hg X samples from the Near East and Africa, but not from Europe, suggesting Near Eastern/ North African origin of the particular founder lineage. … The Iranian Jewish mtDNA is particularly rich in Hg H (30.5%, see Tables S1 and Table S3)-the variant of maternal lineages that constitutes on average more than 40% of the mtDNA variation in Europe. Hg H is also well represented in the Iraqi Jewish community with an overall frequency of 11.8% (Tables S1 and Table S3). Meanwhile, Hg H frequency in Ashkenazi Jews of recent European ancestry is 20.4% [4]. This raises an interesting question regarding the possible source of Hg H lineages among the various Jewish communities. Recent progress in the understanding of mtDNA variation in East and West Europe [16]-[18], as well as in the Near East [12] fits with the inference that at least three quarters of Iranian and Iraqi Jewish Hg H genomes belong to sub-Hgs H6, H13 and H14, characteristic of the Near Eastern-Central Asian variants of Hg H. In view of the historical records claiming the establishment of the North African Jewish communities from the Near Eastern Jewish communities, it is noteworthy that the communities do not share their respective major founding lineages. … African-specific Hgs-variants of largely sub-Saharan Hg L(xM,N)-as well as more northern and eastern Hgs M1 and U6, do occur within the gene pools of some, though not all non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities (Table S3). …they were found in Ethiopian and Yemenite Jews (Tables S1 and Table S3), perhaps reflecting the mtDNA population structure of the host countries. In contrast, it is intriguing to find that the North African Jews (Moroccan, Tunisian, Libyan) possess only a very small fraction of Hg L(xM,N) lineages (2.2%) and, even more unexpectadly, seem to lack typically North African Hg M1 and U6 mtDNAs (Tables S1 and Table S3). In striking contrast, sub-Saharan L lineages are prevalent in North African Arab and Berber populations at frequencies around 20-25% (25.5% in Moroccans, 24.9% in Tunisians, 30.2% in Libyans; our unpublished data), yielding a difference exceeding an order of magnitude. Curiously, the Ashkenazi mtDNA pool of recent European descent includes Hg L(xM,N) at a frequency comparable to that among North African Jewry [4], [5]. Hence, the lack of U6 and M1 chromosomes among the North African Jews and the low frequency of Hg L(xM,N) lineages, renders the possibilty of significant admixture between the local Arab and Berber populations with Jews unlikely, consistent with social restrictions imposed by religious restrictions. … The second [case study] example highlighted the Georgian Jewish HV1a1a1 haplotype (Table 4, Figure 2b) and showed that it existed only in Georgian Jews. While it is clear that the ancestry of this lineage can be traced to the broad geographic swathe encompassing the Near and Middle East as well as the Caucasus region, even the level of resolution generated from the complete mtDNA analysis could not provide greater phylogeographic specificity, since equidistant ancestral lineages could be found in each of the three geographic locations. The third case study addresses the shared Libyan-Tunisian X2e1a1a haplotype. Again, it became clear that the ancestry of this lineage can be similarly attributed to the broad geographic region encompassing the Near and Middle East and the Caucasus region (Table 5, Figure 2c), but unlike the Georgian case study, the particular haplotype was shared with non-Jewish Tunisians, encompassing 0.8% to the overall Tunisian mtDNA pool. In addition, no HVS-I variation was observed in non-Jewish Tunisians, while such variation was clearly observed in Jews, suggesting the possibility of gene flow into the host population from Jews.”

Miscellaneous studies

Alkes L. Price, Johannah Butler, Nick Patterson, Cristian Capelli, Vincenzo L. Pascali, Francesca Scarnicci, Andres Ruiz-Linares, Leif Groop, Angelica A. Saetta, Penelope Korkolopoulou, Uri Seligsohn, Alicja Waliszewska, Christine Schirmer, Kristin Ardlie, Alexis Ramos, James Nemesh, Lori Arbeitman, David B. Goldstein, David Reich, and Joel N. Hirschhorn. “Discerning the Ancestry of European Americans in Genetic Association Studies.”Public Library of Science Genetics (PLoS Genetics) (January 2008). Sampled Southern Italians (Sicilians as well as those on the mainland), and other Europeans – 4,198 individuals in all. Excerpts:

“Important work has already shown that northwest and southeast Europeans can be distinguished using as few as 800-1,200 ancestry-informative markers mined from datasets of 6,000-10,000 markers. Here we mine much larger datasets (more markers and more samples) to identify a panel of 300 highly ancestry-informative markers which accurately distinguish not just northwest and southeast European, but also Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. […] Our results are consistent with a previous study in which Ashkenazi Jewish and southeast European samples occupied similar positions on the northwest-southeast axis, although there was insufficient data in that study to separate these two populations[7]. A historical interpretation of this finding is that both Ashkenazi Jewish and southeast European ancestries are derived from migrations/expansions from the Middle East and subsequent admixture with existing European populations [12,13].”

Chao Tian, Roman Kosoy, Rami Nassir, Annette Lee, Pablo Villoslada, Lars Klareskog, Lennart Hammarström, Henri-Jean Garchon, Ann E. Pulver, Michael Ransom, Peter K. Gregersen, and Michael F. Seldin. “European Population Genetic Substructure: Further Definition of Ancestry Informative Markers for Distinguishing among Diverse European Ethnic Groups.”Molecular Medicine vol. 15(11-12) (November 2009), pages 371-383. Sampled people from Italy (Lombards, Tuscans, Sardinians, Southern Italian-Americans living in New York) and Ashkenazi Jews to genotype them for 300,000 autosomal SNPs. Excerpts:

“The current study extends the analysis of European population genetic structure to include additional southern European groups and Arab populations. Even within Italy, the relative position of northern Italians compared with subjects from Tuscany is consistent with the general geographic correspondence of PCA results. Interestingly, the majority of Italian Americans (NYCP four grandparents defined) appear to derive from southern Italy and overlap with subjects of Greek heritage. Both of these observations are consistent with previous historical information. Possible exceptions to this observation of geographic correspondence include the Ashkenazi Jewish population. While the Ashkenazi are clearly of southern origin based on both PCA and STRUCTURE studies, in our analyses of diverse European populations, this group appears to have a unique genotypic pattern that may not reflect geographic origins.”

Chao Tian, Robert M. Plenge, Michael Ransom, Annette Lee, Pablo Villoslada, Carlo Selmi, Lars Klareskog, Ann E. Pulver, Lihong Qi, Peter K. Gregersen, and Michael F. Seldin. “Analysis and Application of European Genetic Substructure Using 300 K SNP Information.”Public Library of Science Genetics (PLoS Genetics) (January 2008). Abstract excerpt:

“European population genetic substructure was examined in a diverse set of >1,000 individuals of European descent, each genotyped with >300 K SNPs. Both STRUCTURE and principal component analyses (PCA) showed the largest division/principal component (PC) differentiated northern from southern European ancestry. A second PC further separated Italian, Spanish, and Greek individuals from those of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry as well as distinguishing among northern European populations. In separate analyses of northern European participants other substructure relationships were discerned showing a west to east gradient.”

Michael F. Seldin, Russell Shigeta, Pablo Villoslada, Carlo Selmi, Jaakko Tuomilehto, Gabriel Silva, John W. Belmont, Lars Klareskog, and Peter K. Gregersen. “European Population Substructure: Clustering of Northern and Southern Populations.”Public Library of Science Genetics (PLoS Genetics) 2(9) (September 2006). Abstract:

Using a genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panel, we observed population structure in a diverse group of Europeans and European Americans. Under a variety of conditions and tests, there is a consistent and reproducible distinction between “northern” and “southern” European population groups: most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Greek) have >85% membership in the “southern” population; and most northern, western, eastern, and central Europeans have >90% in the “northern” population group. Ashkenazi Jewish as well as Sephardic Jewish origin also showed >85% membership in the “southern” population, consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups.

Talia Bloch. “One Big, Happy Family: Litvaks and Galitzianers, Lay Down Your Arms; Science Finds Unity in the Jewish Gene Pool.”Forward (August 22, 2007). Excerpts:

“… A year ago, Michael Seldin, a geneticist at the University of California Davis School of Medicine, and his research team made a remarkable discovery: Studying how Europeans grouped genetically, they found that Ashkenazic Jews formed their own distinct subgroup. Northern and Southern Europeans fell into two clearly separable genetic cohorts, and although the Ashkenazic Jews had more in common with the Southern Europeans, they formed a recognizable, relatively homogenous group of their own. … Through a series of collaborations with labs around the world, Seldin and his lab began exploring something called ‘ancestry informative markers,’ specific areas of a person’s genetic code that reveal which part of the globe most of his ancestors came from. The study on those of European ancestry, which looked at both Europeans and European Americans, was also an international collaboration. In September 2006, it was published in the Public Library of Science Genetics journal. Since then, Seldin said, he has pursued a second study of an even larger sample of the genetic code, and his original findings for Ashkenazic Jews have only been confirmed. Seldin’s work is emblematic of a rapidly expanding phenomenon within genetics: research of the genetic roots of diseases that end up revealing something about the history of a particular population.”

Anna C. Need, Dalia Kasperaviiute, Elizabeth T. Cirulli, and David B. Goldstein. “A genome-wide genetic signature of Jewish ancestry perfectly separates individuals with and without full Jewish ancestry in a large random sample of European Americans.”Genome Biology 10(1) (2009): R7 (electronically published on January 22, 2009). Excerpts:

“We also included Palestinian (n = 46), Druze (n = 42) and Bedouin (n = 45) samples as groups that might be similar to ancestral Jewish ‘source’ populations [10]. We found that the Middle Eastern populations clustered separately from the European and European-American populations, as expected, and the subjects with four Jewish grandparents clustered close to (but separate from) the Adygei and lay between the Middle Eastern and the European and European-American populations (Figure 3). This is an important finding for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Jewish subjects remain in a separate cluster when mixed with both European and Middle Eastern populations… Secondly, the Jewish cluster lies approximately midway between the European and the Middle Eastern clusters, implying that the Ashkenazi Jews may contain mixed ancestry from these two regions. This is consistent with the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA genetic evidence that has been interpreted by some to suggest a stronger paternal genetic heritage of Jewish populations from the Middle East and stronger maternal genetic heritage from the host populations of the Diaspora [10]. Finally, the proximity of the Jewish cluster to the Adygei is of interest, but the small sample size of the Adygei and sparse availability of Central Asian populations makes interpretation of this proximity difficult.”

Doron M. Behar, Ene Metspalu, Toomas Kivisild, Alessandro Achilli, Yarin Hadid, Shay Tzur, Luisa Pereira, Antonio Amorim, Llu?s Quintana-Murci, Kari Majamaa, Corinna Herrnstadt, Neil Howell, Oleg Balanovsky, Ildus Kutuev, Andrey Pshenichnov, David Gurwitz, Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, Antonio Torroni, Richard Villems, and Karl Skorecki. “The Matrilineal Ancestry of Ashkenazi Jewry: Portrait of a Recent Founder Event.” American Journal of Human Genetics 78 (2006): 487-497. Abstract:

“Both the extent and location of the maternal ancestral deme from which the Ashkenazi Jewry arose remain obscure. Here, using complete sequences of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), we show that close to one-half of Ashkenazi Jews, estimated at 8,000,000 people, can be traced back to only 4 women carrying distinct mtDNAs that are virtually absent in other populations, with the important exception of low frequencies among non-Ashkenazi Jews. We conclude that four founding mtDNAs, likely of Near Eastern ancestry, underwent major expansion(s) in Europe within the past millennium.”

Judy Siegel. “40% Ashkenazim come from matriarchs.”Jerusalem Post (January 13, 2006). Excerpts:

“…four Jewish “founding mothers” who lived in Europe 1,000 years ago have been credited with being the ancestors of nearly half of all Ashkenazi Jews… …40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews currently alive – are descended from these matriarchs, who were among a small group, probably after migrating from the Middle East, according to the Israeli researchers, who also provide evidence of shared maternal ancestry between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi (Sephardi and Oriental) Jews. The studies that led to these findings were performed by Dr. Doron Behar as part of his doctoral thesis, and were done under the supervision of Prof. Karl Skorecki of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. … Researchers from universities in Italy, Estonia, Portugal, France, the US and Russia contributed to the important study, which was published on-line by the prestigious American Journal of Human Genetics on Thursday and will appear in print in the March. … The researchers’ conclusions are based on detailed comparative analysis of DNA sequence variation in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) region of the human genome. … Non-Ashkenazi Jews also carry low frequencies of these distinct mtDNA types, thus providing evidence of shared maternal ancestry of Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews. This is consistent with previous findings based on studies of the Y-chromosome, pointing to a similar pattern of shared paternal ancestry of global Jewish populations, originating in the Middle East. The researchers concluded that the four founding mtDNA – likely of Middle Eastern origin – underwent a major overall expansion in Europe during the last millennium.”

Nicholas Wade. “New Light on Origins of Ashkenazi in Europe.”The New York Times (January 14, 2006): A12. Excerpts:

“Until now, it had been widely assumed by geneticists that the Ashkenazi communities of Northern and Central Europe were founded by men who came from the Middle East, perhaps as traders, and by the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism. But the new study, published online this week in The American Journal of Human Genetics, suggests that the men and their wives migrated to Europe together. The researchers, Doron Behar and Karl Skorecki of the Technion and Ramban Medical Center in Haifa, and colleagues elsewhere, report that just four women, who may have lived 2,000 to 3,000 years ago, are the ancestors of 40 percent of Ashkenazis alive today. The Technion team’s analysis was based on mitochondrial DNA… inherited only through the female line. … Looking at other populations, the Technion team found that some people in Egypt, Arabia and the Levant also carried the set of mutations that defines one of the four women. They argue that all four probably lived originally in the Middle East. … David Goldstein, now of Duke University, reported in 2002 that the mitochondrial DNA of women in Jewish communities around the world did not seem to be Middle Eastern, and indeed each community had its own genetic pattern. But in some cases the mitochondrial DNA was closely related to that of the host community. Dr. Goldstein and his colleagues suggested that the genesis of each Jewish community, including the Ashkenazis, was that Jewish men had arrived from the Middle East, taken wives from the host population and converted them to Judaism, after which there was no further intermarriage with non-Jews. The Technion team suggests a different origin for the Ashkenazi community: if the women too are Middle Eastern in origin, they would presumably have accompanied their husbands. … Dr. Hammer said the new study “moves us forward in trying to understand Jewish population history.” His own recent research, he said, suggests that the Ashkenazi population expanded through a series of bottlenecks – events that squeeze a population down to small numbers… But Dr. Goldstein said the new report did not alter his previous conclusion. The mitochondrial DNA’s of a small, isolated population tend to change rapidly as some lineages fall extinct and others become more common, a process known as genetic drift. In his view, the Technion team has confirmed that genetic drift has played a major role in shaping Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA. But the linkage with Middle Eastern populations is not statistically significant, he said. Because of genetic drift, Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA’s have developed their own pattern, which makes it very hard to tell their source. This differs from the patrilineal case, Dr. Goldstein said, where there is no question of a Middle Eastern origin.”

Malcolm Ritter. “Study: Most Ashkenazi Jews from four women.”Associated Press (January 12, 2006). Excerpts:

“…about 40% of the total Ashkenazi population ? are descended from just four women, a genetic study indicates. Those women apparently lived somewhere in Europe within the last 2,000 years, but not necessarily in the same place or even the same century, said lead author Dr. Doron Behar of the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel. … Each woman left a genetic signature that shows up in their descendants today, he and colleagues say in a report published online by the American Journal of Human Genetics. Together, their four signatures appear in about 40% of Ashkenazi Jews, while being virtually absent in non-Jews and found only rarely in Jews of non-Ashkenazi origin, the researchers said. Ashkenazi Jews are a group with mainly central and eastern European ancestry. Ultimately, though, they can be traced back to Jews who migrated from Israel to Italy in the first and second centuries, Behar said. Eventually this group moved to Eastern Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries and expanded greatly, reaching about 10 million just before World War II, he said. The study involved mitochondrial DNA, called mtDNA, which is passed only through the mother. … Mike Hammer, who does similar research at the University of Arizona, said he found the work tracing back to just four ancestors “quite plausible… I think they’ve done a really good job of tackling this question.” But he said it’s not clear the women lived in Europe. “They may have existed in the Near East,” Hammer said. “We don’t know exactly where the four women were, but their descendants left a legacy in the population today, whereas … other women’s descendants did not.” Behar said the four women he referred to did inherit their genetic signatures from female ancestors who lived in the Near East. But he said he preferred to focus on these later European descendants because they were at the root of the Ashkenazi population explosion.”

Maggie Fox. “Study finds why Jewish mothers are so important.”Reuters (January 13, 2006). Excerpts:

“Four Jewish mothers who lived 1,000 years ago in Europe are the ancestors of 40 percent of all Ashkenazi Jews alive Friday, an international team of researchers reported Friday. The genetic study of DNA paints a vivid picture of human evolution and survival, and correlates with the well-established written and oral histories of Jewish migrations, said Dr. Doron Behar of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, who worked on the study. … For their study, Behar and geneticist Karl Skorecki, with collaborators in Finland, France, Estonia, Finland, Portugal, Russia and the United States sampled DNA from 11,452 people from 67 populations. … “I think there was some kind of genetic pool that was in the Near East,” Behar said in a telephone interview. “Among this genetic pool there were four maternal lineages, four real women, that carried the exact specific mitochondrial DNA markers that we can find in mitochondrial DNA today.” They, or their direct descendants, moved into Europe. “Then at a certain period, most probably in the 13th century, simply by demographic matters, they started to expand dramatically,” Behar said. “Maybe it was because of Jewish tradition, the structure of the family that might have been characterized by a high number of children.” But these four families gave rise to much of the population of European Jews – which exploded from 30,000 people in the 13th century to “something like 9 million just prior to World War II,” Behar said. … Behar said as they sampled people from Ashkenazi communities around the world, the same mitochondrial genetic markers kept popping up. They did not find the markers in most of the non-Jewish people they sampled, and only a very few were shared with Jews of other origin.”

Donald Macintyre. “3.5 million Ashkenazi Jews ‘traced to four female ancestors’.”The Independent (January 14, 2006).

“‘Four mothers’ for Europe’s Jews.”BBC News (January 13, 2006). Excerpts:

“The Ashkenazis moved from the Mid-East to Italy and then to Eastern Europe, where their population exploded in the 13th Century, the scientists say. … The four women are thought to have lived in the Middle East about 1,000 years ago but they may not have lived anywhere near [an]other, according to the study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. However, they bequeathed genetic signatures to their descendents, which do not appear in non-Jews and are rare in Jews not of Ashkenazi origin.”

Hillel Halkin. “Jews and Their DNA.”Commentary Magazine (September 2008). Excerpts:

“Early studies of mitochondrial DNA reported that Jewish women, unlike Jewish men, did not correlate well with one another globally. …Jewish males with antecedents in such widely separated places as Yemen, Georgia, and Bukhara in Central Asia are far more likely to share similar Y-chromosome DNA with one another than with Yemenite, Georgian, or Bukharan non-Jews. Jewish females from the same backgrounds, on the other hand, yield opposite results: their mitochondrial DNA has markedly less resemblance to that of Jewish women from elsewhere than it does to that of non-Jewish women in the countries their families hailed from. … In the absence of rabbis to perform conversions, they [Jewish immigrants to new lands] married local women who, while consenting to live as Jews, were not halakhically Jewish. … In a class by itself is the mitochondrial DNA of Ashkenazi women. It does not correlate closely with the DNA of non-Jewish women in Western, Central, or Eastern Europe and it has a large Middle Eastern component. …the Y chromosomes of Ashkenazi Jews have more in common with those of Italians and Greeks than with those of West Europeans. … An 11.5-percent incidence of R-M117 among Ashkenazi Jews in general is easily explainable: the mutation could have entered the Jewish gene pool slowly, in small increments in every generation, during the thousand years of Ashkenazi Jewry’s existence. … But the 52-percent rate among Levites is something else. Here we are dealing not with a gradual, long-term process (for no imaginable process could have produced such results), but with a one-time event of some sort. … Both of our studies, therefore, raise the possibility that the original R-M117 Levites were Khazarian Jews who migrated westward upon the fall of the Khazar kingdom. … Analyzing the data, the American-Israeli-British study concludes that the number of R-M117 Levites absorbed by Ashkenazi Jewry ranged from one to fifty individuals. … Nor do we know the percentage of Khazars possessing M117, which is found in 12 or 13 percent of Russian and Ukrainian males today. If these were also its proportions among the Khazars, there would have been seven non-M117 Khazars joining or founding Ashkenazi Jewry for every Khazar who had the mutation. In sum, even if the R-M117 Levites are traceable to Khazaria, the total flow of Khazarians into the East European Jewish population could have been anywhere from a single person to many thousands. If it was the latter, the Khazar input was significant, as David Goldstein suspects it was; if the former, it was trivial, as Jon Entine believes. … I myself have long suspected, starting far before I knew anything of historical genetics or Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe, that I have Khazar blood in me. One of my father’s sisters had distinctly slanty eyes. In one of her daughters, these are even more pronounced. The daughter’s daughter has features that could come straight from the steppes of Asia.”

David B. Goldstein. “In Jewish Genetic History, the Known Unknowns.”Forward (August 28, 2009). Excerpts:

“… We have learned that Jewish populations from around the world — with a few exceptions — have a remarkable degree of genetic connectedness with each other and with the Near East. … But many unknowns about Jewish history remain, leaving geneticists with an interest in Jewish origins with plenty of sleuthing work to do. … A recent study looking at hundreds of thousands of variable sites in the genome revealed a clear genetic signature for Jewish ancestry among randomly selected university students in America. When this Jewish signature was compared with the genetic makeup of other populations, it became clear that Ashkenazic Jews have a genetic makeup more similar to Near Eastern populations than do other Northern European populations. Yet despite sharing an origin point in the Near East, individual Jews today tend to look markedly different from one another in terms of their physical appearance, depending upon which part of the world their ancestors resided in during recent centuries. Clearly, this diversity of physical appearance is the result of a degree of intermingling with the populations among which Jews have lived. But we don’t know precisely when or how this intermingling took place. Did large numbers of gentiles join the Jewish population through mass conversion in the ancient world? Was there a steady trickle of intermarriage? Was there some combination of these? … One hint we do have is that research shows — in multiple Jewish groups from Ashkenazic Jews to Georgian Jews — more genetic continuity with Near Eastern populations on the paternal side (indicated by the Y chromosome) than on the maternal side (indicated by mitochondrial DNA). … And findings by genetic researchers of significant Near Eastern ancestry among Ashkenazic Jews put to rest the notion that this population originated with or is predominantly descended from the Khazars. Be that as it may, there is one odd and tantalizing feature of Ashkenazic Jewish Y chromosomes that may lead us back to Khazaria. … There is no Y chromosome link that unites Ashkenazic and Sephardic Levites. Among the Ashkenazic Levites, however, there is a particularly common Y chromosome type that is not often found in other Jewish groups. But it is found among people who now live where the Khazars once did. … One way to answer this question might be to try to develop a fuller picture of the genetics of the Turkic-speaking peoples, particularly modern-day speakers of Chuvash, a Turkic language related to that spoken by the Khazars. Then we could compare their genes to the Ashkenazic genes we suspect may be of Khazar origin.”

Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Marina Faerman, Himla Soodyall, and Ariella Oppenheim. “Y chromosome evidence for a founder effect in Ashkenazi Jews.”European Journal of Human Genetics 13:3 (March 2005): 388-391. Preceded by advance electronic publication on November 3, 2004. This study focuses on one of the two main non-Mideastern Y-DNA lineages among Ashkenazic Jewish men: haplogroup R1a1 (the other is haplogroup Q). Abstract:

“Recent genetic studies, based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, showed that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to their host populations in Europe. However, Ashkenazim have an elevated frequency of R-M17, the dominant Y chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europeans, suggesting possible gene flow. In the present study of 495 Y chromosomes of Ashkenazim, 57 (11.5%) were found to belong to R-M17. Detailed analyses of haplotype structure, diversity and geographic distribution suggest a founder effect for this haplogroup, introduced at an early stage into the evolving Ashkenazi community in Europe. R-M17 chromosomes in Ashkenazim may represent vestiges of the mysterious Khazars.”

Doron M. Behar, Daniel Garrigan, Matthew E. Kaplan, Zahra Mobasher, Dror Rosengarten, Tatiana M. Karafet, Lluis Quintana-Murci, Harry Ostrer, Karl Skorecki, and Michael F. Hammer. “Contrasting patterns of Y chromosome variation in Ashkenazi Jewish and host non-Jewish European populations.” Human Genetics 114:4 (March 2004): 354-365. 442 Ashkenazi Jews were sampled for this study and differentiated according to geographic, religious, and ethno-historical subcategories like “Byelorussian Jews” and “Dutch Jews”. In Table 2 on page 357 we see that the mutation lineage designation R-M17, corresponding to haplogroup R1a1 (most often found among Ashkenazi Levites), is found at a frequency of 0.075 among the Ashkenazi Jews as a whole in this study, and at a frequency of 0.264 among the Non-Jewish Europeans (French, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, and Russians) in the study. Excerpts:

“Haplogroups J and E were by far the most prevalent haplogroups in AJ populations. Haplogroup J was present at similar frequencies in western AJ (41.1%) and eastern AJ (37.0%) populations, whereas haplogroup E-M35 was present at lower frequencies in western AJ than in eastern AJ populations (7.1% versus 19.1%, respectively). …. This survey of variation at 32 binary (SNP) and 10 STR markers in a sample of 442 Ashkenazi males from 10 different western and eastern Europe communities represents the largest study of Ashkenazi paternal genetic variation to date. …. The best candidates for haplogroups that entered the AJ population recently via admixture include I-P19, R-P25, and R-M17. These haplogroups were thought to represent the major Paleolithic component of the European paternal gene pool… Because haplogroups R-M17 and R-P25 are present in non-Ashkenazi Jewish populations (e.g., at 4% and 10%, respectively) and in non-Jewish Near Eastern populations (e.g., at 7% and 11%, respectively; Hammer et al. 2000; Nebel et al. 2001), it is likely that they were also present at low frequency in the AJ founding population. The admixture analysis shown in Table 6 suggests that 5%-8% of the Ashkenazi gene pool is, indeed, comprised of Y chromosomes that may have introgressed from non-Jewish European populations. In particular, the Dutch AJ population appears to have experienced relatively high levels of European non-Jewish admixture. … However, Dutch Jews do not appear to have increased levels of European mtDNA introgression (Behar et al. 2004), suggesting that admixture in this population is mainly the result of higher rates of intermarriage between Jewish woman [sic] and non-Jewish men.”

Doron M. Behar, Michael F. Hammer, Daniel Garrigan, Richard Villems, Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, Martin Richards, David Gurwitz, Dror Rosengarten, Matthew Kaplan, Sergio Della Pergola, Lluis Quintana-Murci, and Karl Skorecki. “MtDNA evidence for a genetic bottleneck in the early history of the Ashkenazi Jewish population.”European Journal of Human Genetics 12:5 (May 2004): 355-364. (Advance online publication on January 14, 2004.) An observer who read the study indicates that the study shows that approximately 60 percent of European Jewish maternal roots come from European sources, with the other 40 percent from Middle Eastern or Asian roots. Abstract excerpt:

To test for the effects of a maternal bottleneck on the Ashkenazi Jewish population, we performed an extensive analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) hypervariable segment 1 (HVS-1) sequence and restriction site polymorphisms in 565 Ashkenazi Jews from different parts of Europe. These patterns of variation were compared with those of five Near Eastern (n=327) and 10 host European (n=849) non-Jewish populations. Only four mtDNA haplogroups (Hgs) (defined on the basis of diagnostic coding region RFLPs and HVS-1 sequence variants) account for approximately 70% of Ashkenazi mtDNA variation. While several Ashkenazi Jewish mtDNA Hgs appear to derive from the Near East, there is also evidence for a low level of introgression from host European non-Jewish populations.

Dror Rosengarten. “Y Chromosome Haplotypes Among Members of the Caucasus Jewish Communities.” Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Ancient DNA and Associated Biomolecules, July 21-25, 2002. Abstract excerpt:

“…buccal swab genomic DNA samples were collected from 51 unrelated males from the Mountain Jewish community and from 55 unrelated males from the Georgian Jewish community… Corresponding haplotype frequencies in other Jewish communities and among neighboring non-Jewish populations were derived from the literature. Based on a variety of genetic distance and admixture measures we found that majority of Kavkazi Jewish haplotypes were shared with other Jewish communities and were consistent with a Mediterranean origin. This result strengthens previous reports, which indicated a shared ancestral pool of genetic haplotypes for most contemporary Jewish communities. In the case of the Georgian Jewish samples, both Mediterranean and European haplotypes were found. This could indicate either a Mediterranean origin with a European genetic contribution or a European source with a Mediterranean contribution. Generally, Georgian Jews were found to be closer to European populations than to Mediterranean populations. Despite their geographic proximity, there was a significant genetic distance between the Mountain and Georgian Jewish communities, at least based on Y-haplotype analysis…”

Noah A. Rosenberg, Eilon Woolf, Jonathan K. Pritchard, Tamar Schaap, Dov Gefel, Isaac Shpirer, Uri Lavi, Batsheva Bonné-Tamir, Jossi Hillel, and Marcus W. Feldman. “Distinctive genetic signatures in the Libyan Jews.”Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS) 98:3 (January 30, 2001): 858-863. (Mirror) Excerpts:

“It is consistent with historical sources that the Libyan Jews should separate from and show strong differentiation from the other populations of our study. This population has a unique history among North African Jewish communities, including an early founding, a harsh bottleneck, possible admixture with local Berbers, limited contact with other Jewish communities, and small size in the recent past…. Ethiopian Jewish Y-chromosomal haplotypes are often present in Yemenite and other Jewish populations…, but analysis of Y-chromosomal haplotype frequencies does not indicate a close relationship between Ethiopian and other Jewish groups…. However, the evidence of an African contribution to the ancestry of Ethiopian Jews and the evidence of communication across the Red Sea suggest that gene flow between these populations would be a more plausible explanation for our clustering of some Yemenite Jews with some Ethiopian Jews. Recent studies suggest that the Lemba of southern Africa derive partly from Yemenite Jews or other Semitic peoples of this region (17), and that Ethiopians share a combination of African and Middle Eastern genotypes and languages…. Although gene flow between the Ethiopian and Yemenite Jewish populations is one explanation of our results, it is also possible that gene flow did not occur directly between these two populations, but rather took place between non-Jewish populations of Ethiopia and Arabia, between Ethiopian Jews and Ethiopian non-Jews, and also between Yemenite Jews and Yemenite non-Jews.”

Aleza Goldsmith. Jews and Arabs share genes, Stanford research scientist says.”Jewish Bulletin of Northern California (March 9, 2001). Excerpts:

“Peter Underhill, a senior research scientist in the department of genetics at Stanford University, has a reality check for the Middle East: ‘No matter how you define yourself today — whether Palestinian, Israeli, Syrian, Turkish — Middle Easterners share much of the same gene pool.’ Based on research on the Y chromosome, published by Underhill and Stanford colleagues in a recent issue of Nature Genetics…. Underhill, along with Stanford colleagues and geneticists in the United States, Europe, Israel and Africa, have been working with the paternally transmitted Y chromosomes of more than 1,000 men from 22 geographical areas….”

Peter A. Underhill, P. Shen, A. A. Lin, L. Jin, G. Passarino, W. H. Yang, E. Kauffman, Batsheva Bonné-Tamir, J. Bertranpetit, P. Francalacci, M. Ibrahim, T. Jenkins, J. R. Kidd, S. Q. Mehdi, M. T. Seielstad, R. S. Wells, A. Piazza, R. W. Davis, M. W. Feldman, Luca L. Cavalli-Sforza, and P. J. Oefner. “Y chromosome sequence variation and the history of human populations.”Nature Genetics 26 (2000): 358-361. Sequence information for the 167 Y chromosome markers.

Nicholas Wade. “Studies Show Jews’ Genetic Similarity.”The New York Times (June 10, 2010): A14. Excerpts:

“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… 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… 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. … 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.”

Mayrav Saar. “Genetic testing raises an age-old question – are the Jews a people, or a religion?”New York Post (June 13, 2010). Excerpts:

“‘The debate is over,’ said Dr. Edward R. Burns, one of the lead authors of the study. ‘The Jewish people are one people with a common genetic thread that evolved in the second or third century BC.’ The study, ‘Abraham’s Children in the Genome Era,’ compared the genetic analyses of 237 Jews, including Sephardic (Middle Eastern) and Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews – as well as an analysis of 418 non-Jews worldwide, and found that the Jews were more closely related to each other than to their fellow countrymen. Past studies have reached similar conclusions, but they looked at smaller populations and considered only blood groups, mitochondrial DNA (a type of DNA passed down by mothers) or Y chromosomes (passed down by fathers). … The study – and a second genetic study published Friday in the journal Nature – scientifically undermines arguments made by those who challenge Jews’ historical relationship to Israel… ‘It seems that most Jewish populations, and therefore most Jewish individuals, are closer to each other [at the genetic level], and closer to the Middle Eastern populations, than to their traditional host population in the Diaspora,’ Israeli geneticist Doron Behar, author of the Nature study, told the BBC. … That the new data also seemed to follow the Jews’ historical and Biblical narrative was particularly exciting to Burns, who is Jewish. ‘I, along with my co-authors, went to these different populations, Iraqis, Iranians, etc. We talked to these people, and they had a certain hopefulness that the genetic analysis would establish for them a type of universal Jewish pride,’ he said. ‘My own personal feeling is that (among Jews) differences in culture and geography become meaningless because we’re all sisters and brothers.’ … ‘My sister-in-law is Filipino. She practices Judaism – which is more than I do – but I can’t call her a fellow Jew in that same sense,’ said Sandy Malek, president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles… ‘There is a peoplehood for Jewish people that is separate from the religion.’ … While the new research says much about Jews, it doesn’t have any bearing on Judaism, said David Wolpe, the rabbi, who explained that he is ‘not moved’ by the effort to scientifically link and define Jews. … ‘Spiritually this is a pleasant and welcome reinforcement of what I already knew, but the bottom line is Torah trumps genome,’ said David Wolpe, the rabbi. … The analysis by Burns and his colleagues provides the first detailed genetic map of the major Jewish groups, information that can be used as a kind of dictionary to study the genetic origins of commonly acquired diseases such as cancer and heart disease. This information can benefit not only Jews, but the population as a whole, as researchers use the data better understand possible genetic components of diseases, researchers said. The study could also yield valuable information for a host of conditions already thought to have a genetic component, from near-sightedness to breast cancer – just don’t call any of those diseases ‘Jewish.’ Even the host of ailments that are considered ‘Jewish genetic diseases,’ including Tay-Sachs Disease and Bloom’s Disease, occur in the general population, said Paul Wolpe, the bioethicist, who is also on the board of the Victor Centers for Jewish Genetic Diseases.”

Lea Winerman. “Is Being Jewish All in the Genes?” New Voices: National Jewish Student Magazine 9:3 (January 2001): 8-13. Excerpts:

“The studies of the past several years have provided fascinating insights into Jewish history, but they’ve hardly closed the book on the question of modern Jews’ ancestry. Right now, two separate research groups are taking a more in-depth look at the origins and migration patterns of Eastern European Jews. Michael Hammer and Harry Ostrer are leading one study; Dr. Vivian Moses and Dr. Neil || Bradman are conducting the other at the Center for Genetic Anthropology at University College-London. Vivian Moses suggests that the results of his study might diverge somewhat from what Hammer and his colleagues presented last June. ‘I think perhaps we are using more DNA markers than they did,’ he says, ‘and therefore the results might not be exactly the same. We already have some preliminary indications of a link between [Eastern European Jews and] Slavs.'”

Nathaniel Pearson. “My Blood Brother in Samarkand.”Stanford Magazine (May/June 1999). Nathaniel Pearson, a scientist who has studied at Stanford University and the University of Chicago, conducted research on genetics as part of the Human Genome Project. He traveled to Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East collecting genetic data using blood samples and cheek swabs. Some of his test subjects were North Caucasians, Turks, and Sino-Tibetans. (However, it needs to be noted that the haplotype Pearson describes has also been found among Moroccan Jews, and thus not only among Jews, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Indians. So the origin of the haplotype remains mysterious.) Excerpts:

“As population geneticists, Spencer Wells and I were working with Stanford emeritus professor Luca Cavalli-Sforza and others to study DNA variation among different groups… Our expedition eventually took us through the forests, steppes and deserts between the Black Sea and Central Asia’s Altai Mountains. We collected hundreds of samples from people whose ancestors included nomads, farmers, sultans and serfs and whose genetic makeup had been shaped for millennia by waves of conquest and trade in this region of the Silk Road… [O]ur expedition rolled into the old oasis city of Samarkand… Back at Stanford, my labmates and I had compared hundreds of DNA samples from men around the world, focusing on about a dozen sites along the Y chromosome… Out of curiosity, I submitted my own sample to the database — and discovered that I matched with four other donors. One was a Turkic-speaking man in western Uzbekistan, two lived in New Delhi, and one was a Tajik living in Samarkand… Sharif’s Tajiks are Persian-speakers who moved east to Samarkand well before the arrival of Islam there about 1,300 years ago and the heyday of overland trade. They mixed with people already there and, later, with Turkic immigrants and others. My recent ancestors were Ashkenazi Jews in Ukraine; that population likely moved by several routes from the Middle East to Eastern Europe over the past couple of thousand years, mixing with Indo-European and Turkic people along the way. The common influence of Indo-European, Semitic and Turkic ancestry is one clue to how we might share a recent ancestor. That both Jews and Tajiks plied the Silk Road about a thousand years ago is another.”

See also Pearson’s “St. Louis to Samarkand — A Tale of Two Chromosomes”. Also see his message here where he revealed he belongs to Y-DNA haplogroup Q1b (“Here’s a little piece I wrote a few years ago about my own little branch of the Q1b tree:”). Q1b is the same as Q-P36 and is found among about 5% of Ashkenazic men.

Stephen Magagnini. “DNA helps unscramble the puzzles of ancestry.”The Sacramento Bee (August 3, 2003). This article mentions several cases of individualized genetic testing by companies like Trace Genetics and Family Tree DNA. Of interest to us is the case of an Ashkenazi woman whose mtDNA bears the marker of the transversion at np16257, which may have originated among the Han Chinese people and travelled westward along the Silk Road into Uzbekistan. This marker is not likely to have been common among the Khazars. Excerpts:

“The brave new world of DNA roots-quests — barely three years old — sometimes produces surprising results. … And a Jewish schoolteacher from Oakland learned at least one of her forebears came out of China. … Alanya Snyder, a [Ashkenazi] Jewish middle school teacher in Oakland [with maternal-line ancestry from Moldova], had her [mt] DNA tested [by Trace Genetics of Davis, California] as a wedding present and discovered she matches people from central Asia [including some Uzbekistani Jews near Bukhara, plus some Han Chinese inhabitants of eastern China and some Mongolians]. The news thrilled Snyder’s mother, Carel Bertram, a San Francisco State professor with a lifelong love of Turkic art and culture. Bertram suspects she and Snyder are descendants of the Khazars, a Turkic-speaking group that converted to Judaism about A.D. 750 and later was conquered by the Kiev Rus, or early Russians. ‘Maybe there was this wonderful, Turkic-speaking Jewish woman,’ she mused. ‘It’s so enriching, something added to my life that I had not expected.'”

Marc Perelman. “Palestinian Gene Study Breeds Scandal.”Forward (November 30, 2001).

Robin McKie. “Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians.”The Observer (November 25, 2001).

Lila Guterman. “Science Journal Retracts Paper That Veered Into Geopolitical Speculation.” The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 16, 2001).

Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, Nagah Elaiwa, Carlos Silvera, Ahmed Rostom, Juan Moscoso, Eduardo Gómez-Casado, Luis Allende, Pilar Varela, and Jorge Martínez-Laso. “The Origin of Palestinians and Their Generic Relatedness With Other Mediterranean Populations.” Human Immunology 62(9) (September 2001): 889-900. Published by Elsevier Science Inc. Recalled by editors after publication. Retraction in Human Immunology 62(10) (October 2001): 1063. Abstract excerpts:

“The genetic profile of Palestinians has, for the first time, been studied by using human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene variability and haplotypes. The comparison with other Mediterranean populations by using neighbor-joining dendrograms and correspondence analyses reveal that Palestinians are genetically very close to Jews and other Middle East populations, including Turks (Anatolians), Lebanese, Egyptians, Armenians and Iranians. Archaeologic and genetic data support that both Jews and Palestinians came from the ancient Canaanites, who extensively mixed with Egyptians, Mesopotamian and Anatolian peoples in ancient times…”

Excerpts:

“Both Jews and Palestinians share a very similar HLA genetic pool (Table 3, Figures 4, 5 and 6) that support a common ancient Canaanite origin…. Jews, Cretans, Egyptians, Iranians, Turks and Armenians are probably the closest relatives to Palestinians…” (p. 897)

Harry Ostrer. “A genetic profile of contemporary Jewish populations.”Nature Reviews Genetics 2(11) (November 2001): 891-898. Excerpt:

“Studies of Y-chromosal markers have provided an opportunity to assess gene flow into Jewish populations from non-Jewish males. Contemporary Jews and Middle Eastern Arabs have 13 common Y-chromosomal haplotypes that are shared both within and across groups, indicating that the original Jews might have arisen from local peoples [Canaanites, Sumerians, etc.] and are not the offspring of a single patriarch [Abraham]. The most common Y-chromosomal haplotypes are thought to be of Middle Eastern and North African origin, and the less common haplotypes of Asian origin, indicating that gene flow had a role in the formation of the Jewish people.”

Carole Oddoux, Encarnacion Guillen-Navarro, C. M. Clayton, H. Nelson, H. Peretz, U. Seligsohn, L. Luzzatto, M. Nardi, M. Karpatkin, C. DiTivoli, E. DiCave, Felicia Axelrod, and Harry Ostrer. “Genetic Evidence for a Common Origin among Roman Jews and Ashkenazi Jews.” American Journal of Human Genetics 61:4 (1997): A207. Abstract excerpts:

“The present Ashkenazi Jewish population is believed to be derived from an initial group of 10,000 founders who moved to Eastern Europe 1000 years ago, possibly from Rome. In order to test the hypothesis that these two populations originated from a common founder population we collected samples from a group of 107 Roman Jews representing 176 unique chromosomes and analyzed them for specific mutations known to be prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews…. The FXI type III mutation has previously been observed exclusively among Ashkenazi Jewish populations suggesting a common origin for the Roman and the Ashkenazi Jews and dating the mutation to between 1,000 and 2,000 years ago.”

“Genetic Road May Lead to Rome: Scientists Discover Ties Between Ashkenazim and Roman Jews.” Forward (August 29, 1997): v. C1, p. 22.

Steve Sailer, “Q&A: Tracing Jewish history through genes.” (UPI, May 15, 2003). Published in that day’s edition of The Washington Times. Excerpts:

“From a historical perspective, however, this current era of Jews marrying gentiles is not unique, according to author Jon Entine. While other peoples have come and gone over the millennia, the world Jewish community has survived both through eras of horrific persecution and eras of high rates of intermarriage. … Entine said: ‘Biblical literalists have long contended that Jews are a ‘race apart,’ citing Deuteronomic Law: ‘You shall not intermarry with them (non-Jews).’ As a result, some Jewish populations, such as the Ashkenazi from Eastern Europe, are among the more genetically distinct in the world… Under the Roman Empire, the Jewish community in Italy was quite sizable for a time, with lots of flow in and out. During the early Christian period in the Roman Empire, Jewish males who had left the Mideast often took on Gentile wives. Their offspring probably became the core of Ashkenazi Jewry. However, some time around the fall of Rome is when the taboos on intermarriage (imposed by both Jews and Gentiles) became stringent. The real end to Ashkenazi Jewish out-marrying did not come until the Middle Ages as the economic and social position of Jews worsened considerably. This historical trend is reflected in the genetic data, which suggests that the genetic core of modern Ashkenazi Jewry was not formed until this period. The core consisted mostly of Jewish men with Middle Eastern roots marrying a high percentage of local Gentile women, then forming Jewish communities.'”

Gerard Lucotte and G. Mercier. “Y-chromosome DNA haplotypes in Jews: comparisons with Lebanese and Palestinians.”Genetic Testing 7:1 (Spring 2003): 67-71. Abstract:

One Y-specific DNA polymorphism (p49/Taq I) was studied in 54 Lebanese and 69 Palestinian males, and compared with the results found in 693 Jews from three communities (Oriental, Sephardic, and Ashkenazic). Lebanese, Palestinian, and Sephardic Jews seem to be similar in their Y-haplotype patterns, both with regard to the haplotype distributions and the ancestral haplotype VIII frequencies. The haplotype distribution in Oriental Jews is characterized by a significantly higher frequency of haplotype VIII. These results confirm similarities in the Y-haplotype frequencies in Lebanese, Palestinian, and Sephardic Jewish men, three Near-Eastern populations sharing a common geographic origin.

Gerard Lucotte and Pierre Smets. “Origins of Falasha Jews studied by haplotypes of the Y chromosome.”Human Biology 71:6 (December 1999): 989-993. (mirror) Abstract:

“DNA samples from Falasha Jews and Ethiopians were studied with the Y-chromosome-specific DNA probe p49a to screen for TaqI restriction polymorphisms and haplotypes. Two haplotypes (V and XI) are the most widespread in Falashas and Ethiopians, representing about 70% of the total number of haplotypes in Ethiopia. Because the Jewish haplotypes VII and VIII are not represented in the Falasha population, we conclude that the Falasha people descended from ancient inhabitants of Ethiopia who converted to Judaism.”

A. Amar, O. J. Kwon, U. Motro, C. S. Witt, Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, R. Gabison, and C. Brautbar. “Molecular analysis of HLA class II polymorphisms among different ethnic groups in Israel.” Human Immunology 60(8) (August 1999): 723-730. This study failed to study Slavic populations, yet the study apparently showed that Israeli Arabs are closer to Sephardic Jews than either group is to Ashkenazi Jews. Excerpts:

“Genetic studies classify the Israeli Jewish population into two major groups: Ashkenazi from Central and Eastern Europe and Sephardic or non Ashkenazi, from the Mediterranean and North Africa… Ethiopian Jews were found to be closer to the Blacks than to any of the Israeli Jewish groups. We have shown that Jews share common features, a fact that points to a common ancestry. A certain degree of admixture with their pre-immigration neighbors exists despite the cultural and religious constraints against intermarriage.”

J. Martinez-Laso, E. Gazit, E. Gomez-Casado, P. Morales, N. Martinez-Quiles, M. Alvarez, J. M. Martin-Villa, V. Fernandez, and A. Arnaiz-Villena. “HLA DR and DQ polymorphism in Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews: comparison with other Mediterraneans.” Tissue Antigens 47(1) (January 1996): 63-71. Excerpts:

“HLA-DR and DQ alleles have been detected by DNA typing in Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews from Israel. Allele frequencies, characteristic DR/DQ linkage disequilibria, population distances and their corresponding dendrogram by using the Neighbor-Joining method were used to study relatedness between Jewish and other Mediterranean and non Mediterranean populations. Closest relatedness is observed between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews, and, in decreasing order, also with Algerians, Spaniards (including Spanish-Basques), French and Italians. Also, particular characteristic Central European alleles are observed in Ashkenazi Jews and Mediterranean/African alleles in non-Ashkenazi Jews. This is consistent with historical data, Jews being an ancient Mediterranean population, who have had a certain degree of admixture with their 2000-3000 years old neighbors in spite of cultural and religious traditions which have preserved identity outside Israel.”

Robert Pollack. “The Fallacy of Biological Judaism.”Forward (March 7, 2003): Op-Ed section. Excerpt:

“Though there are many deleterious versions of genes shared within the Ashkenazic community, there are no DNA sequences common to all Jews and absent from all non-Jews. There is nothing in the human genome that makes or diagnoses a person as a Jew.”

Leonard B. Glick. Abraham’s Heirs: Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999. Glick is a cultural anthropologist and historian. Excerpt from page xi:

“In the earliest period of Jewish settlement in Gaul… Jews were relatively well accepted, and Jewish men appear to have intermarried frequently enough with local non-Jewish women (probably all of whom converted) to create a Jewish population of decidedly mixed genetic origins. Modern physical anthropological studies of European Jews have demonstrated conclusively that the term ‘Semitic’ masks the large European component in the Jewish genetic pool.”

Shmuel A. Cygielman. (Article about Jewish settlement in Poland in medieval times) in Medieval Jewish History: An Encyclopedia, ed. Norman Roth. Routledge, 2003. Excerpt:

“…the Jews… in Poland… employed local Slavic slaves who aided them in developing their enterprises. The Jews were mostly single men, from Jewish centers in western and southern Europe… As by Jewish law, after seven years they were required to free their slaves, often, the owner, when his female slave continued working with him after her release, proposed that she remain with him as his wife, and undertake the management of the household as an equal partner, all on condition that she convert to Judaism. This could also explain the Slavic cast which often manifests itself on the faces of Jews from this region.”

Steve Jones. In the Blood: God, Genes, and Destiny. Flamingo, 1997. Excerpts:

“Ashkenazim are quite distinct from their Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern co-religionists in the incidence of the disease and in the mutations responsible… The genetic family tree of Jews from different parts of Europe shows that they are not a unique group, biologically distinct from other peoples around them. There is, though, evidence of common ancestry that gives Jews at least a partial identity of their own. In most places, there is overlap between the genes of the Jewish population and those of local non-Jews. There has been interchange; sometimes through recent marriage, but more often as a result of mating long ago…. The Y chromosomes of Jews are – unsurprisingly – not all the same; the idea of the sons of Abraham is a symbolic one. They do show that many males, some only distantly related to each other, have contributed to the genes of European Jewry. On the average, most Jewish populations contain more diversity for male lineages than for female (whose history is recorded in mitochondrial DNA). This means that there has been more invasion of the Jewish gene pool by the genes of non-Jewish men than of women. The Y chromosomes of Jewish men from the Balkans are rather unlike those of other European Jews, perhaps because there was more admixture in this unstable part of the world.”

Judit Beres and C. R. Guglielmino. “Genetic Structure in relation to the history of the Hungarian ethnic group.” Human Biology 68:3 (June 1996): 335-about 356. Summary:

Studies multiple nationalities: Magyars, Jews, Gypsies, Germans, Slovaks, Kuns, Romanians, etc. In this very large study, Hungarian Jews were found to be highly distinct from all other groups residing in Hungary.

U. Ritte, E. Neufeld, M. Broit, D. Shavit, and U. Motro. “The Differences Among Jewish Communities: Material and Paternal Contributions.”Journal of Molecular Evolution 37:4 (October 1993): 435-440.

E. S. Poloni, Ornella Semino, G. Passarino, A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, I. Dupanloup, A. Langaney, and L. Excoffier. “Human Genetic Affinities for Y-Chromosome P49a,f/TaqI Haplotypes Show Strong Correspondence with Linguistics.”American Journal of Human Genetics 61 (1997): 1015-1035. Excerpts:

“Afro-Asiatic and Indo-European samples differentiate along the second axis of the multivariate analysis. The Sephardim Jews, the Ashkenazim Jews, the Turks, and the Lebanese samples are genetically located at the intersection of these two linguistic groups, the Ashkenazim samples being somewhat closer to Indo-Europeans…. Although the overall pattern of population differentiation globally appears to be very similar for male- and female-transmitted markers (fig. 3), some populations clearly show different affinities for their maternal and paternal genetic components, as already noticed for Ethiopian Jews (Zoosmann-Diskin et al. 1991), Arab tribal groups in the Sinai Peninsula (Salem et al. 1996), Finns (Zerjal et al. 1997), and Basques (as discussed above).”

Graph of Y-chromosome clusters derived from this study (Leb = Lebanese, Ash = Ashkenazic Jews, NAS = North African Jews, NES = Near Eastern Jews, Sep = Sephardic Jews, SoS = South Sardinian, Tur = Anatolian Turkish, Ita = Italian)

A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, Ornella Semino, G. Passarino, A. Torroni, R. Brdicka, M. Fellous, G. Modiano. “The common, Near-Eastern origin of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews supported by Y-chromosome similarity.” Annals of Human Genetics 57 (January 1993): 55-64 (part 1). Excerpts:

“About 80 Sephardim, 80 Ashkenazim and 100 Czechoslovaks were examined for the Y-specific RFLPs revealed by the probes p12f2 and p49a,f on TaqI DNA digests. The aim of the study was to investigate the origin of the Ashkenazi gene pool through the analysis of markers which, having an exclusively holoandric transmission, are useful to estimate paternal gene flow. The comparison of the two groups of Jews with each other and with Czechoslovaks (which have been taken as a representative source of foreign Y-chromosomes for Ashkenazim) shows a great similarity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim who are very different from Czechoslovaks. On the other hand both groups of Jews appear to be closely related to Lebanese. A preliminary evaluation suggests that the contribution of foreign males to the Ashkenazi gene pool has been very low (1% or less per generation).”

Jared Diamond. “Who Are the Jews?” Natural History 102:11 (November 1993): 12-19. Summary:

Diamond argues that Ashkenazic Jews are connected to “their ancient Arab and Egyptian neighbors.” (p. 18). Yet he admits: “Although the Jews have been scattered for only a few thousand years, their faces often reflect their scattered homelands.” (p. 12). Diamond’s explanations are somewhat bizarre. While he is willing to consider Indian Jews, Yemenite Jews, and Ethiopian Jews descendants of converts and mixed marriages (p. 18), he seems to think Ashkenazic Jews are more purely Israelite than other Jewish groups. He suggests that natural selection, rather than intermarriage and conversion, explains how Jews resemble their non-Jewish neighbors (p. 16). In other words, Jews move to Europe, speed up the process of evolution that usually is slower among other human groups, and somehow magically start to look like Russians, Poles, Italians, and Germans, without any genetic contact with them. Skin color and ABO blood group studies contradict the notion that Jews are all homogeneous Middle Easterners (Diamond p. 14, 16) and “G6PD deficiency” genetics is common to Ashkenazim, Russians, and Germans (p. 16-17). But Diamond keeps insisting that this was not due to mixing. “In their fingerprints, Rhesus blood group frequencies, haptoglobins, and several enzyme markers, Ashkenazic Jews resemble Sephardic and Yemenite Jews and differ from Eastern European Gentiles. Furthermore, in these respects Jews resemble many Gentile peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, such as Samaritans, Armenians, Egyptian Cops, and Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian Arabs.” (p. 16) “Thus, judging by neutral markers, the non-Jewish contribution to the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewish gene pool has been low. These groups of Jews may really be transplanted Semites, not converted Khazars or products of massive intermarriage.” (p. 18). But this does nothing to explain the magical way in which Jews come to resemble their neighbors. It is as if a Dutchman moving to South Africa would have descendants who would at least be beginning to look more like native Africans, or descendants of the Mayflower starting to adopt American Indian facial characteristics, or Englishmen in Australian turning Aboriginal. Are such things happening absent intermarriage? Obviously not. And how and why would a minority group drastically change its physical appearance (e.g. lightening skin) in order to blend in with the majority? Is this idle speculation? His article contains the typical Koestler-bashing, which shows that one of his intentions was to use genetics research to “disprove” any sort of connection between Khazars and Russian Jews. While he provided a valuable service in summarizing some scientific studies for the general public, his overall explanation is not credible. (In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel he indicated that he believes that geography determined historical patterns much more than human action.) UPDATE: In December 2005 it was revealed in a study by Keith C. Cheng that the light skin color of Europeans (particularly in northern Europe), a genetic suppression of the production of melanin, probably originated at one time, after the geographical separation of Africans and others. Most Africans and most Asians do not share this suppressing gene. Thus, the claim is debunked that European Jews underwent a separate (!) process of lightening their skin within a short amount of time (!!), absent intermarriage (!!!), a process which its proponents do not pretend to claim happened to other Jewish groups. In reality, European physical traits came from a certain degree of intermarriage with Europeans. Deal with reality, folks. They don’t just “happen”. There is no separate gene that brought about the same lightening process in Ashkenazic Jews. I do not believe Ashkenazic Jews are primarily Europeans, but by the same token we cannot deny that there was some substantial intermarriage with Europeans among Ashkenazim.

Batsheva Bonné-Tamir (editor). Genetic Diversity Among the Jews: Diseases and Markers at the DNA Level. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Batsheva Bonné-Tamir. Indian Anthropologist (1985). Claims that Yemenite Jews are descended from Arabic tribes that converted to Judaism.

Batsheva Bonné-Tamir, S. Ashbel, and S. Bar-Shani. “Ethnic communities in Israel: the genetic blood markers of the Moroccan Jews.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 49 (1978): 465-472. The authors state that different North African Jewish communities exhibit genetic differences and should not be lumped together into one group.

Avshalom Zoossmann-Disken, A. Ticher, I. Hakim, Z. Goldwitch, A. Rubinstein, and Batsheva Bonné-Tamir. “Genetic affinities of Ethiopian Jews.”. Israel Journal of Medical Sciences 27:245 (1991). Ethiopian Jews are Ethiopian Africans who converted to Judaism.

L. L. Field, J. A. Lowden, and A. K. Ray. “Immunoglobulin (Gm) allotypes in a sample of Canadian Ashkenazic Jews.”American Journal of Physical Anthropology 48(2) (February 1978): 159-164. This is an old study which may not be using current techniques. Abstract:

“Gm typing on the serum specimens of 507 Ashkenazic Jews (pre-dominantly of Polish-Russian ancestry) from Toronto, Canada has established the presence of haplotypes Gm3;5, Gm1;21, Gm1,2;21, and Gm1,17;5, and the absence of haplotypes Gm1;13,15,16, Gm1;5,6, and Gm1;5,6,24 which have been found in other Jewish peoples. It is suggested that Ashkenazic populations have lower frequencies of haplotype Gm1,17;5 than non-European Jewish populations, and that some eastern European Jewish populations have acquired the Gm1;13,15,16 haplotype through gene flow from Central Asia. Thus Jewish populations show differences in the Gm system; many of the differences may be in the direction of similarities to neighbouring non-Jewish populations.”

JUST A LITTLE BIT ABOUT CHRISTIANS, DEAD SEA SCROLLS, etc

The following are excerpts from the “White Man’s Bible” and “Nature’s Eternal Religion” both written by Ben Klassen. Though written from an atheist perspective, one can readily see truths concerning the hoax of Christianity. The trouble is, atheists are unaware of psychic powers and how they can be used to make people fall for this lie:

About 100 B.C. a small Jewish sect, called the Essenes, originated around the area of the Dead Sea. This sect promoted ideas of self-debasement that were highly suicidal to those who embraced this creed. Toward the end of the first century C.E. this teaching evolved into Christianity, but still a purely Jewish cult. It was regarded as a subversive and destructive movement by the mainstream of the Jewish leaders and was opposed and persecuted by them. Among the persecutors of the Christian cult was one Saul of Tarsus, a Jew, who later became Christianity’s St. Paul. One day while persecuting (Jewish) Christians, he conceived the brilliant idea of humbling and destroying the mighty Roman Empire by selling this suicidal creed, Christianity, to the Gentiles.

This idea was the most significant turning point in history. No plague, series of plagues, wars, or disasters during the next two thousand years has wreaked more horrible calamity on the White Race of the world than what happened next. So well did Saul of Tarsus do his job that he was soon joined and backed by the entire Jewish network in selling these suicidal teachings to the Romans. The Jews went about it with a vengeance, feeding the Romans such idiotic and self destructive ideas as “love your enemies”, “turn the other cheek”, “sell all thou hast and give it to the poor”, “resist not evil”, “judge not” and much other suicidal advice.

[To add to this, the Jews kept the ancient knowledge of mind power and energy manipulation and used this to further push the ludicrous xian ideas on the gentile peoples, while all of the time working to remove this knowledge from the gentile populace and cut us off from our Gods. The Nazarene was invented to distract and nothing more. People put their faith in the idea of salvation through the Nazarene while forfeiting all of their own powers. Through generations, the Gentile soul has been stripped of all psychic power while those Jews and their Catholic/Jesuit gentile stooges at the top have kept theirs and the ancient knowledge that enables them to use these powers to enslave the masses.]

Christ Never Existed. Jesus Christ did not invent or found Christianity. All evidence that can be gleaned from a scholarly examination of authentic history points to an obvious conclusion: there never was any Jesus Christ roaming about in 30 A.D. or thereabouts teaching a new religion. The whole story was invented and concocted much later. It was patched together out of fables, myths, bits and pieces of other religions, until finally they had a movement going that pulled in the Roman Emperor Constantine. It was this Roman Emperor, who had the mind of a criminal, (he murdered his own wife and son, and thousands of others) who in the year 313 A.D. really put Christianity into business. The Romans, who had always been extremely tolerant to all religions, were now told by an edict of Emperor Constantine that Christianity was now the supreme religion of the empire to the exclusion of all others.

The beginning of the Christian era found Rome near the height of her civilization. Her supremacy, in the then known world, was pretty much unchallenged and it was the beginning of a long period of peace. To be specific, Pax Romana (Roman Peace) lasted approximately 200 years beginning with the reign of Caesar Augustus. Rome was highly literate, there were many great writers, scholars, historians, sculptors and painters, not to mention other outstanding men of philosophy and learning. Yet it is highly strange that despite the great commotion and fanfare that supposedly heralded the birth of Christ and also his crucifixion (according to the bible), we find not a single historian nor a single writer of the era who found time to tale note of it in their writings. Outside of the fabricated biblical writings, no Roman historian, no Roman writer, and no Roman play-writer, has left the slightest hint that he had the faintest awareness that this supposedly greatest of all greats was in their very midst and preaching what is claimed the greatest of all the new gospels. Whereas Caesar left voluminous writings that are still extant today and can be studied by our high school boys and girls, Christ himself, who had supposedly the greatest message to deliver to posterity that the world has ever known, left not the slightest scrap of paper on which he had written a single word. This, in fact, the biblical literature itself confirms and mentions only that once he did write in the sand.

Today we can still study Cicero’s great orations and writings. He has left over 800 letters behind that we can study to this day. We can study whole books of what Marcus Aurelius wrote, we can study what Aristotle wrote, what Plato wrote, and scores of others wrote that were contemporary with the first beginning of the Christian era, or preceded it. But strangely there is not a word that is in writing that can be attributed to Jesus Christ himself. Furthermore, the Greeks and the Romans of that era, and even previously and afterwards, had developed the art of sculpturing to a fine state. We can find busts of Cicero, of Caesar, Of Marcus Aurelius and innumerable other Greek and Roman dignitaries and lesser lights, but nor one seemed to think it important enough to sculpture a likeness of Jesus Christ. And the reason undoubtedly is there was none to model at the time. There were undoubtedly numerous skilled artists and painters at that time, but again strangely enough none took the time or the interest to paint a likeness of this purportedly greatest of all teachers, who in fact was proclaimed the “Son of God” come to earth. But no painting was ever made of this man, who, we are told, gathered great multitudes around him and caused great consternation and fear even to King Herod of Judea himself. Now all of this is very, very strange, when, if, as the Bible claims, the birth of Jesus Christ was ushered in with great fanfare and great proclamations. Angels proclaimed his birth. An exceedingly bright star pointed to his place of birth. In Matthew 2:3, it says, “When Herod, the king, had heard of these things he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.” We can hardly gather from this that no one was aware of the fact that the King of the Jews, the great Messiah, was born, for we are told in the preceding verse that the Wise Men came to King Herod himself saying, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the East and we are come to worship him.” Evidently the event was even lit up with a bright star from heaven.

In any case, King Herod, we are told in Matthew 3, was so worried that he sent the Wise Men to Bethlehem to search diligently for the young child to bring it to him so he undoubtedly could have him put to death. As the story further unfolds we learn that Joseph heard of this and quietly slipped out in the night taking with him his wife, the young child and a donkey and departed for Egypt. When Herod found out that he had been tricked it says that he “was exceedingly wroth and sent forth and slew all children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under.” Now this is a tremendously drastic act for a King to take, that is, to have murdered all the children in the land that were under two years of age. Again we can hardly say that the birth of Jesus was unheralded, unannounced and unobserved, according to the story in the bible. However, it is very, very strange that this act of Herod, as drastic and criminally harsh as it is, is nowhere else recorded in the histories or writings of any of the other numerous writers of the times. All we have is the claims of those people who wrote the New Testament. In fact, whoever wrote the New Testament invented so many claims that are inconsistent with the facts that they even made a rather glaring error by pulling King Herod into the story. History tells us that in the year 1 C.E. When Christ was supposedly born, Herod had already been dead for four years. He could hardly been disturbed or very wroth about the birth of anybody in the year 1 C.E. There is further great evidence that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John never wrote any of those chapters that are supposedly attributed to them.

What historical evidence can be dug up reveals that they were written much later, not at the time that Jesus supposedly said all those things, but somewhere around 30 to 50 years later by a person or persons unknown. Furthermore, when we compare the first four books of the gospel with each other, which supposedly tell more or less the same story, we find that they contradict each other in so many details that one need only read them for himself to pick them out. I neither have the time, the space, not the inclination to go into all these contradictions. They are too numerous.

Still No Bible at 300 C.E. At this time the Christian movement, although purportedly nearly 300 years old, still did not have a written text or “Bible.” Under the powerful and dictatorial direction of Emperor Constantine a convocation of church fathers was called at Nicaea, a town in Asia Minor. At this meeting a number of scripts and writings were dragged together and a heated controversy ensued over a period of several months. Many writings were considered, discussed, argued over, and reviewed. Some were revised, some were rewritten, some were rejected. The final package that emerged from the Council of Nicaea was what was called the New Testament, a contradictory, demented conglomeration of far-out nonsense. To it was patched the Jewish “Old Testament.” The Christian movement now had a “Bible,” with Constantine as final arbiter. When the gathered bishops would or could not agree, he would threaten to bring in his army, which was standing by outside, to enforce compliance. Ready to Crush All Opposition. Constantine exercised the full powers of his position, financially, militarily and in terms of legal enforcement to now promote Christianity and crush all opposition. Christianity was now on its way.

Jews Concocted Christianity. Where did the ideas of Christianity come from? The Jews, who were scattered throughout the Roman Empire, have been Master Mind-manipulators of other peoples from the earliest beginnings of their history. They have always been at war with the host peoples they have infested like a parasite. When during the Jewish Wars of 68-70 C.E., Rome put down the Jewish rebellion in Judea and leveled Jerusalem to the ground, the Jews were thirsting for revenge. They were looking for a way to destroy Rome, the Roman race and its total empire. They had tried military opposition and failed miserably, being no match for the superlative Romans. They looked for an alternative— mind manipulation through religion— and they found the right creed in a relatively unimportant religious sect called the Essenes.

The Essenes. Nevertheless, the evidence is overwhelming that these ideas long preceded the Christian era and it was not Christ who came out with them but a Jewish sect called the Essenes who lived on the border of the Dead Sea. It was they who had already evolved the ideas contained in the Sermon on the Mount but have been attributed to Christ. Not only had they evolved the same ideas as set forth in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but the wording, the phraseology and the sentences were the same and they preceded the supposed time of the Sermon on the Mount by anywhere from 50 to 150 years. The Essenes were a Jewish religious group living in approximately the first century BCE And the first century CE We have important sources of their contemporary writings in the historian Josephus and also in the philosopher Philo. They are also mentioned by various other Roman and Greek writers of those times in which their religious teachings are revealed in considerable detail. However, in the last twenty years the thousands of Dead Sea Scrolls, many of which were written by the Essenes themselves, reveal a tremendous amount of insight into their religious teachings, and above all, reveal that they preceded and preempted the Sermon on the Mount word for word, so that the so-called “new” teachings of a figure supposedly appearing from heaven in the year 1 C.E., and preaching during the years 3- to 33 C.E. were neither original nor were they new. Furthermore, we learn that the Essenes were notable for their communistic society, their extreme piety and purity and their practice of celibacy. They possessed all their worldly goods in common and looked upon private property as an evil which might divert them from sanctity. They engaged in agriculture and handicrafts, considering these occupations less sinful than others. They also practiced baptism, and this practice preceded the Christian era by at least one hundred. So the Christian apostles can hardly be credited with having instituted the ritual of baptism, as is claimed.

Why, the average reader might ask, haven’t we been told more about the Essenes if they were the original practitioners of Christianity? There are two good and overriding answers for that. The Christians on their part, although the early Christian fathers were well aware of the Essene teachings and writings, took every measure possible to destroy them and purge them from circulation. The reason being they did not want their presence known because it would undermine their dogma that Christ was the originator of the New teaching. It would make impossible the claim that this was a great new revelation sent forth by God himself amid the hosannas and singing of angels. The Jews, on the other hand, did not want to reveal the presence of the Essenes because they wish to completely hide any connection between the Jews and the new religious teaching that they were about to administer unto the Gentiles. They even went to great lengths to appear hostile to it. Before I go further into the highly illuminating and highly interesting Dead Sea Scrolls I want to make just one further point that is that the original manuscripts on which the New Testament supposedly based is always alluded to being translated from the “Original Greek.” Since the New Testament repeats over and over again and again that Paul spoke to his flock in Jewish and that Jesus spoke in Jewish and that the Apostles were Jewish, why, then, is it that the manuscripts were all in Greek? The historical facts add up to this: the Jewish hierarchy and undoubtedly the whole conspiracy was well coordinated and had many, many members and co-workers. It was not written at the time of Christ at all, but the movement was given great promotion by the combined efforts of the Jewish nation. As they organized and promoted their ideas further, these were reduced to writing considerably later than the years 30 to 33 C.E. when Christ supposedly came out with these startlingly and “new” revelations. The conclusions are that they were written by Jewish persons whose identity we shall never know and were written by collectively by many authors, were revised from time to time and not only in their original formation and formulation but have been revised time and time again throughout the centuries to become more effective and persuasive propaganda. However, we want to go further into the teachings of the Essenes and who they were and why their particular teachings were pounced upon by the Jews to be formulated into a well distilled poisonous brew and then fed to the Gentiles.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, which are more numerous and much more revealing than the Jewish press of today has informed us tell us much about the teachings and the life of the Essenes. One of the important things that they tell us about the Essenes is that they vanished from the face of the earth after about two centuries of existence and the termination date being somewhere around the year 100 C.E. They were, needless to say, only a very small sect of the Jewish tribes and not a part of the Jewish conspiracy as such. Being outside of the mainstream of Jewish activity and thought, the Jews nevertheless observed from them that this kind of teaching could ruin and destroy a people. The Jews, looking for a way to destroy the Roman nation, who in the year 70 C.E. had destroyed and leveled Jerusalem to the ground, noted well what these teachings were and decided to perpetuate them on the Romans.

Essenism was really a revolutionary new form of social order, an ideal cooperative commonwealth in miniature. Instead of the Messiah, the ideal of the Essenes was the “Teacher of Righteousness.” They established a new cooperative communitarian brotherhood and they were the first religious society to establish and observe the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharistic meal. Furthermore, the “Teacher of Righteousness” as promulgated by the Essenes may not have been the first pacifist in history, but he was the first to implement his pacifist theories with an overall practical measure, which if generally adopted, would abolish war. This, of course, was a wonderful religion for the Jews to sell to the Romans, for if they convert the Romans into submissive pacifists they could certainly soon thereafter dominate them in full. And this they did. The Essenes lived in the area of Qumran near the Dead Sea and according to Philo, the Jewish Philosopher and writer contemporary of that age, “the Essene brotherhood would not allow the manufacture of any weapons or allow within their community any maker of arrows, spears, swords or any manufacture of engines of war, nor any man occupied with a military avocation, or even with peaceful practices which might easily be converted to mischief.” Not only does Philo tell us about the Essenes, but also Josephus and Pliny, both contemporary historians, tell us much about the Essenes. As mentioned before, much is emerging also from the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The overriding fact that emerges from the study of the writings of the historians of that time and the Dead Sea Scrolls is this tremendously significant fact: ?Namely that the beliefs, teachings, and practices attributed to Jesus Christ,although not exactly identical in all respects with those of the Essene school, were nevertheless, closer to those of the Essenes than to those of the Bishops of the Ecumenical Council which determined the Nicene Creed of orthodox Christianity.

So we can come to the obvious conclusion that the Christian beliefs and doctrines as supposedly enunciated by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount did not originate at all at that time but at least 100 years earlier from a Jewish sect called the Essenes living near the Dead Sea; that the Elders of Sanhedrin recognized this teaching as being deadly and suicidal; that they further took this doctrine and distilled and refined it into a working creed; the Jews then, with a great deal of energy and tremendous amounts of propaganda (in which they excel), promoted and distributed this poisonous doctrine among the Romans. Setting this creed down in writing in what is now called the New Testament evolved over the next several centuries. It was written by persons unknown to us today but undoubtedly of Jewish origin. Furthermore, to give it a mystical and heavenly sent deification, they invented the person of Jesus Christ, and claimed that he was the “Son of God”. Then, having laid the ground work for this new church, they consolidated that power at a meeting in Nicene, where the creation of the new church was solidified, the creed formalized and given official sanctification. Thus, in short, was launched the new church and the new religion of “Jesus Christ” which was fabricated out of thin air. Not a single trace of the Jesus Christ personage can be found in authentic history. Nevertheless, this newly fabricated hoax of Jesus Christ, the Son of God this idea, with all its suicidal doctrines, was soon to pull down in ruins the great Roman Empire and the great White civilization that went with it. Never again did the White Race shake off the control if the Jews. Never again did the White Man regain control of his own thinking, of his own religion, his own finances, nor his own government. Unto this day the White Race has not regained control of its own destiny.

Death of the Romans. We all know what happened to the Romans shortly after they were “converted” to Christianity. With their instincts deadened and their thinking perverted into worrying about the spooks in the sky instead of struggling for their own survival and advancement, they soon shrank into oblivion. They faded from the scene of history. They paid the penalty of allowing themselves to be mongrelized and not recognizing their eternal enemy, the Jew. ?Such are the consequences of not recognizing your enemy, and, of course, you can’t defend yourself against an enemy you can’t, or won’t, recognize.

The Jewish-Christian bible is a mass of contradictions that has something to say positively and negatively on all sides of every issue. It is like a musical instrument— you can play on it any tune you choose. By picking out those particular passages that suit your argument and ignoring all other passages that contradict it, you can have God and the bible on your side to back up your argument, any argument, whatever it may be. As the Jews have often pointed out, they always first enlist the aid of the stupid preachers to help spread their corrosive ideas. The passages that were now emphasized were that “we are all God’s children”, that “we are all equal in the eyes of the Lord”, that “we all have a soul”, that Jesus came to “save all sinners”, and a lot of similar drivel.

[The Jews are masters of argument. They capitalize in teaching argument tactics to their young in their Yeshivas (Jewish religious schools.]

Infiltration of the Jews.?At about this time Rome itself was infiltrated by an alien people that were to prove more deadly, more treacherous and more tenacious than the Carthaginians. According to a Jewish Encyclopedia, the first accounts of Jewish settlement in Rome date to 139 B.C.E., but they undoubtedly were there much earlier. It states that Rome is the oldest continuous Jewish settlement in the world. Unlike the Carthaginians, the Jews were not a military threat, but more like an internal disease or virus, they undermined and sickened the whole body politic, culturally, economically, religiously, morally and racially.

Jews had Racial Religion. The answer to the question is this: the Jews then, as now, possessed a strong racial religion, and they have rallied around their religion with race as the core, for the last five thousand years. We have already studied the importance of a racial religion in the previous chapter and will have more to say about this in subsequent chapters. In their rebellion against the Romans, the Jews were utterly devastated militarily. They realized that they could never match the Romans in a contest of arms.

Dispersion. But they had a number of other factors going for them. Unlike Carthage they were not congregated in a specific geographic area. In fact, they were dispersed all over the Roman world, specializing even then in the slave trade, in finance, and feeding on the trade routes. Then as now, they covered all the nerve centers of power. The dispersion out of Jerusalem and Judea did not weaken but only reinforced the Jewish infection on the lifelines of the Roman Empire.

Planned Revenge. Collectively they planned revenge on the Romans, for whom they harbored an intense and pathological hatred. In fact, the Jews always hate that which is best in the Aryan Race and instinctively set about to destroy the best. ?Since the Jews knew they had no chance of destroying the Romans militarily, they conspired to use their most powerful weapon— mind manipulation, and they chose religion as the vehicle to do it with.

The Christian Churches. Every creed and tenet that Christianity has espoused for the last 17 centuries has influenced our thinking towards down-breeding of our race. Christianity continuously and perpetually agitates against the fit and the competent and directs our interest and sympathy towards helping the halt, the lame, the blind, the poor in spirit, the morons and the idiots, by such teachings as “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (morons); “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The very idea that we are all equal in the eyes of an imaginary spook is just another re-hash of the old Jewish equalitarian hoax all over again and must inevitably lead to race-mixing.

The White Man’s Innate Tendency towards Compassion is the Achilles heel that has been his own worst enemy ever since Jewish Christianity conquered and destroyed the Romans. Whereas every other species in Nature instinctively rejects and culls out the misfits, the White Race stupidly does just the opposite.

Ancient Greeks Practiced Eugenics. The idea of eugenics is not new. The Spartans of ancient Greece back in the fifth century B.C.E. were already aware of it and practiced much of what we are proposing today.

Jews Supreme Racists. Whereas all this race-mixing propaganda is aimed at the [Gentiles], the Jews push a completely opposite line to their own people. The Jews being yellow Semites, being racially aware and fanatically loyal to their own, preach racial aloofness to their own people. Through their synagogues, through their own Jewish press, through the thousands of exclusively Jewish organizations they warn strongly against inter-racial marriages, against inter-faith marriages. No Race-Mixing for Jews. In short, the Jew, while viciously promoting the bastardization of the White Race, fervidly guards his own against it. In Israel anyone not born of a Jewish mother is a goy, a non-Jew, an outsider, and can’t be married or buried in Israel, nor can they become a citizen or enjoy any of the other civil rights of a born Jew. Racial solidarity is the order of the day, whether a Jew lives in Israel or anywhere else in the world.

The Jew carries the alien reptilian gene through the mother which is recessive. The gargoyle like features of Jewish celebrities Rodney Dangerfield, Larry King, Bela Abzug, Don Rickles and many others are obvious. To be accepted among orthodox (knowing jews), one must have a jewish mother. The Genes do not match up and the Jewish people are plagued by a host of rare diseases such as “Tay Sachs,” Berger’s Disease, multiple sclerosis, and many others. The Jews themselves even admit there is a common gene they can all be traced to. LINK

Mind police.?Since the Jews for the last several thousand years have been carrying on the most vicious conspiracy in history, namely the destruction and take-over of all other peoples— they have been fanatic to the point of being paranoid about spying and gathering information on their enemies. And this is understandable. Since the hideous crime they are perpetrating is all based on secrecy and deceit, holding the lid on their conspiracy is a highly precarious business. So they frantically enter into all kinds of devices, spy organizations and means of gathering intelligence that would stagger the limits of the Gentile mind. The Jews not only want to know what their enemies (everybody is their enemy) are doing, they also want to know what they might be planning. In fact, as far as is possible they want to know what everybody is thinking before such thinking might be translated into action.

The A.D.L. The A.D.L., short for Anti-Defamation League, is in America. Ostensibly, it pretends to safeguard Jewish interests and prevent the spread of “anti-Semitism.” Why the Jews should find this necessary when the English, the Germans, the Italians or other ethnic groups find such safeguards unnecessary, they have never explained. But in reality the A.D.L. is much, much more than that. Presumably an offshoot of the Jewish B’nai B’rith, it is really the main powerhouse of this Jewish outfit. In reality it is a powerful, well financed spy operation inside our own borders that not only gathers information on politicians, civic organizations, diverse individuals, but on anything and everything that they so much as even suspect might blow the lid on the Jewish conspiracy. They have huge files and electronic computers that rival the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. itself, and any information the F.B.I. or C.I.A. might have that is considered useful to the A.D.L. is readily fed to the latter.

Censorship Operation. The A.D.L.’s activities extend much further. They are extremely active in politics— promoting those useful to the Jews and destroying those that might be deemed uncooperative. They also monitor all books, magazines, newspapers, all news media, movements or whatever— anything that might effect the Jewish conspiracy— and this includes just about everything of any significance that happens in this country. Plant Propaganda. They aggressively invent, if necessary, news stories and plant them into the mainstream of the news media— T.V., newspapers, etc. They not only publish a great number of articles for dissemination, but they also publish a large number of books that are either favorable to Israel and the Jews or viciously attack their enemies.

OK, that’s the atheist version. Here is some of mine and how it really BRILLIANTLY messed up all our lives.

JESUS’ DIVINITY DEBATE was ‘sanctioned’ at the First Council of Nicaea in Bithynia (present-day ?znik in Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I, as first effort to attain consensus on the idea of the divinity of Christ along with the idea of Christ as a messenger from the one God (“The Father”) had long existed in various parts of the Roman empire. The divinity of Christ was already widely endorsed by the Christian community in the otherwise pagan city of Rome.

This history lesson is important because it is where all the modern Christian ‘sects’ arose from. This Council declared that the Father and the Son are of the same substance and are co-eternal, basing the declaration in the claim that this was a formulation of traditional Christian belief handed down from the Apostles. Under Constantine’s influence, this belief was expressed by the bishops in what would be known thereafter as the Nicene Creed. With the creation of the creed, a precedent was established for subsequent general (ecumenical) councils of Bishops (Synods) to create statements of belief and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy— the intent being to define unity of beliefs for the whole of Christendom. You see, several creeds were already in existence; many creeds were acceptable to the members of the council, including Arius. From earliest times, various creeds served as a means of identification for Christians, as a means of inclusion and recognition, especially at baptism. In Rome, for example, the Apostles’ Creed was popular, especially for use in Lent and the Easter season. In the Council of Nicaea, one specific creed was used to define the Church’s faith clearly, to include those who professed it, and to exclude those who did not.

TRUTH: Constantine was a Mithra (Sun god) worshipper all his life. Mithra was a Persian savior. The worship of Mithra became common throughout the Roman Empire, particularly among the Roman civil service and military. The Mithraism and Christianity were competitors until the 4th century. Constantine’s headache then was not splitting the empire between the two, therefore, he called THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA into order, just like a President would do today. ) He retained the title of pontifex maximus until his death, a title emperors bore as heads of the pagan priesthood, as would his Christian successors on to Gratian (r. 375–83). According to Christian writers, Constantine was over 40 when he finally declared himself a Christian. Throughout his rule, Constantine supported the Church financially, built basilicas, granted privileges to clergy (e.g. exemption from certain taxes), promoted Christians to high office, and returned property confiscated during the Diocletianic persecution. His most famous building projects include the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Old Saint Peter’s Basilica. (And yet ‘they’ say Peter was the first Pope. Ehrm, NOT.)

Technically, this was the first Ecumenical council of the Christian Church. Derived from Greek oikoumenikos, “ecumenical” means “worldwide” but generally is assumed to be limited to the Roman Empire in this context as in Augustus’ claim to be ruler of the oikoumene/world; the earliest extant uses of the term for a council are Eusebius’ Life of Constantine 3.6 around AD 338, which states “he convoked an Ecumenical council”; Athanasius’ Ad Afros Epistola Synodica in 369; and the Letter in 382 to Pope Damasus I and the Latin bishops from the First Council of Constantinople.

POLITICALLY MOTIVATED, EVEN THE METHOD USED:

Constantine organized the Council along the lines of the Roman Senate. He was present as an observer, and did not vote (Uhm, VP Richard Cheney comes to mind like in US Congress. Will only vote if NEEDED in case of a tie).

The agenda of the synod included:

1. The Arian question regarding the relationship between God the Father and Jesus; i.e. are the Father and Son one in divine purpose only or also one in being

2. The date of celebration of the Paschal/Easter observation

3. The Meletian schism

4. The validity of baptism by heretics

5. The status of the lapsed in the persecution under Licinius

The council was formally opened May 20, in the central structure of the imperial palace at Nicaea, with preliminary discussions of the Arian question. In these discussions, some dominant figures were Arius, with several adherents.

Constantine had invited all 1800 bishops of the Christian church (about 1000 in the east and 800 in the west), but a lesser and unknown number attended. Eusebius of Caesarea counted 250, Athanasius of Alexandria counted 318, and Eustathius of Antioch counted 270 (all three were present at the council). Later, Socrates Scholasticus recorded more than 300, and Evagrius, Hilarius, Jerome and Rufinus recorded 318. Delegates came from every region of the Roman Empire except Britain.

The participating bishops were given free travel to and from their episcopal sees to the council, as well as lodging. These bishops did not travel alone; each one had permission to bring with him two priests and three deacons; so the total number of attendees could have been above 1800. Eusebius speaks of an almost innumerable host of accompanying priests, deacons and acolytes.

A special prominence was also attached to this council because the persecution of Christians had just ended with the February 313 Edict of Milan by Emperors Constantine and Licinius.

The Eastern bishops formed the great majority. Of these, the first rank was held by the three patriarchs: Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Macarius of Jerusalem. Many of the assembled fathers—for instance, Paphnutius of Thebes, Potamon of Heraclea and Paul of Neocaesarea—had stood forth as confessors of the faith and came to the council with the marks of persecution on their faces. Other remarkable attendees were Eusebius of Nicomedia; Eusebius of Caesarea, the first church historian; Nicholas of Myra; Aristakes of Armenia (son of Saint Gregory the Illuminator); Leontius of Caesarea; Jacob of Nisibis, a former hermit; Hypatius of Gangra; Protogenes of Sardica; Melitius of Sebastopolis; Achilleus of Larissa (considered the Athanasius of Thessaly) and Spyridion of Trimythous, who even while a bishop made his living as a shepherd. From foreign places came a Persian bishop John, a Gothic bishops Theophilus and Stratophilus, bishop of Pitiunt in Egrisi (located in the western part of modern-day Georgia outside of the Roman Empire).

The Latin-speaking provinces sent at least five representatives: Marcus of Calabria from Italia, Cecilian of Carthage from Africa, Hosius of Córdoba from Hispania, Nicasius of Dijon from Gaul, and Domnus of Stridon from the province of the Danube. Pope Sylvester I declined to attend, pleading infirmity, but sent two Papal legates.

Athanasius of Alexandria, a young deacon and companion of Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, was among the assistants. Athanasius eventually spent most of his life battling against Arianism. Alexander of Constantinople, then a presbyter, was also present as representative of his aged bishop.

THE ARIANISM CONTROVERSY:

The Arian controversy was a Christological dispute that began in Alexandria between the followers of Arius (the Arians) and the followers of St. Alexander of Alexandria (now known as Homoousians). Alexander and his followers believed that the Son was of the same substance as the Father, co-eternal with him. The Arians believed that they were different and that the Son, though he may be the most perfect of creations, was only a creation of God the Father. A third group (now known as Homoiousians) later tried to make a compromise position, saying that the Father and the Son were of similar substance.

For about two months, the two sides argued and debated, with each appealing to Scripture to justify their respective positions. According to many accounts, debate became so heated that at one point, Arius was slapped in the face by Nicholas of Myra, who would later be canonized and became better known as “Santa Claus”.

Much of the debate hinged on the difference between being “born” or “created” and being “begotten”. Arians saw these as essentially the same; followers of Alexander did not. The exact meaning of many of the words used in the debates at Nicaea were still unclear to speakers of other languages. Greek words like “essence” (ousia), “substance” (hypostasis), “nature” (physis), “person” (prosopon) bore a variety of meanings drawn from pre-Christian philosophers, which could not but entail misunderstandings until they were cleared up. The word homoousia, in particular, was initially disliked by many bishops because of its associations with Gnostic heretics (who used it in their theology), and because it had been condemned at the 264–268 Synods of Antioch.

The supporters of Arius included Secundus of Ptolemais, Theonus of Marmarica, Zphyrius, and Dathes, all of whom hailed from Libya and the Pentapolis. Other supporters included Eusebius of Nicomedia, Maris of Chalcedon, Eusebius of Caesarea, Paulinus of Tyrus, Actius of Lydda, Menophantus of Ephesus, and Theognus of Nicaea.

The orthodox bishops won approval of every one of their proposals regarding the Creed. After being in session for an entire month, the council promulgated on June 19 the original Nicene Creed.

One purpose of the council was to resolve disagreements arising from within the Church of Alexandria over the nature of Jesus in relationship to the God the Father; in particular, whether Jesus was the literal son of God or was he a figurative son, like the other “sons of God” in the Bible. St. Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius took the first position; the popular presbyter Arius, from whom the term Arianism comes, took the second. The council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly (of the estimated 250–318 attendees, all but two voted against Arius.

NOTE: ARIANISM is now what we call Jehovah’s Witness.

The Emperor Constantine carried out THE VERDICT (Modern term: VOTE). Everybody who refused to endorse the Creed would be exiled. Arius, Theonas, and Secundus refused to adhere to the creed, and were thus exiled to Illyria, in addition to being excommunicated. The works of Arius were ordered to be confiscated and consigned to the flames while all persons found possessing them were to be executed.Nevertheless, the controversy continued in various parts of the empire. Later on, the Creed was amended to a new version by the First Council of Constantinople in AD 381. Yes, folks. Jesus as GOD came from HUMAN VOTE.

Let’s play PUT THE PUZZLE TOGETHER (THIS IS ONE PEBBLE. I got a FULL GLASS JAR of it) and pick on Mithra.

Now let’s look at the much older Persian supernatural being: Mithra. The earliest known examples of Mithra worship date back over four thousand (4000) years ago into the Persian Empire. Mithra was the son of Ahura-Mazda, the divine God of the heavens.

Mithra and Ahura-Mazda were strong influences on early Babylonian beliefs. Along came the Zoroastrians in the 6th century BC who absorbed Mithra and Ahura-Mazda into their own culture where, – Ahura-Mazda – became the supreme holy God of goodness and – Ahriman – became the God of Evil.

Soon after this Zoroastrian / Babylonian takeover around 580-BC, the Babylonians were holding the Jews in captivity. The Jews were Henotheists at this time but became heavily influenced by the concept of one god of goodness and one god of evil.

1. Mithra was sent by the Father God down to Earth to confirm his contract with Man.

2. Mithra was born of a Virgin through – Immaculate Conception – He was born of Anahita, an immaculate virgin mother.

3.Mithra was born in a stable – We celebrate his birth on December 25th -.

4. Mithra was visited by wise men bearing gifts.

5. Mithra had 12 disciples – He was called the Messiah -.

6. Mithra was also the god of Darius, conqueror of Babylon, He was called – – Messiah – – or Christos by Jews during their Captivity.

7. Mithra made a (Contract) or (Covenant) with Man confirming an older contract with God – The Persian word Mithra literally means –Contract.

8. Mithra celebrated a last supper with his disciples before his death.

9. Mithra died to atone for the sins of Man.

10. Mithra was resurrected on a Sunday.

11. Mithra ascended into Heaven to rejoin his Father.

12. Mithra will return to pass judgment on Man – He was known as the judger of souls.

13. On judgment day, the dead will arise and be judged by Mithra.

14. Mithra will send sinners to HELL.

15. Mithra will send the faithful to HEAVEN.

16. On judgment day there will be a final conflict between Good and Evil – The forces of Evil will be destroyed and the saved will live in paradise forever.

17. Mithra is part of a Holy Trinity the – (Father, Son, And Holy Spirit) , that took human form.

18. Mithra is depicted as having a halo, (a circular band of light around his head).

19. Mithra followers drink wine and eat bread, which represent his blood and flesh.

20. Mithra followers are baptized.

21. Saturday and Sunday, the two (2) days of the week to rest and celebrate.

That is a whole lot of remarkable coincidences, all from thousands of years before ISSAH or Jesus was born. The Holy book of Zoroastrian was called the Avesta of Zarathustra, (Zoroaster is the Greek word for the Persian – – Zarathustra ). The Jews were well aware of this book.

Mithra worship declined with the arrival of the strong Zoroastrian philosophy of – One True God – in the Roman Empire. Mithra worship increased again and became very popular during the late Roman Empire. When did this happen? Yes. The first Century AD, another remarkable coincidence. From what race did the mythical Jesus allegedly come from? – The Jews. – Who had already been influenced by the Mithra cult for centuries and have adopted many other Zoroastrian beliefs. Who convened the Great Christian Council of Nicea in 325-AD? The Roman Emperor Constantine. Who did he worship before his conversion? Mithra.

The large number of similarities between the Persian / Zorastrian God Mithra and the Judeo / Christian Jesus are just too many to be mere coincidences. The two stories are just too much alike– even down to the gifts brought by the wise men to the stable for the infant Mithra, born of a virgin, the son of God, savior of mankind who died to save us from evil.

Christianity has always practiced this art of absorbing other people’s beliefs and calling them their own Easter from the pagan festival of Easter, High Mass, Sunday Sabbath, Holly and Ivy, Decorating trees, Monotheism, The Eucharist… All of it is taken from Mithra. The bread disks that the Mithra worshipers ate during their Mass to symbolize the flesh of their God was marked with a cross, hundreds of years before it became a Christian symbol. DECEMBER 25 is Mithra’s BIRTHDAY. Maybe I should be grateful I never grew up with Christmas trees.

A spiritual reinterpretation of Persian Mithraism was suppressed when Constantine I decided to transform Mithraism from a Persian originated religion into a Roman version. Pursuant to his command, historians changed the name from Mithraism to Christianity and ISSAH replaced Mithra and was named Jesus. Roman historians began plagiarizing a new book of lies. Soon after, Constantine I converted to Christianity in AD 312.

* The Dead Sea Scrolls–The enormously important collection of thirteen ancient codices contain over fifty texts, including previously unknown gospels of Thomas and Philip, which has mostly been examined by the media as a simple scholarly feud. It is scandal enough that scroll researchers have restricted access by “outsiders” to the scrolls for over forty years. (The history and politics of the scrolls’ acquisition is long, complex, and well known, and I will not go into it now. Expect more in my future books…these takes MASSIVE undertaking…THETA help me.)

* If it were merely yet another academic “turf” war or simple scholarly egoism, the controversy would not merit as much attention. The problem is that the scrolls deal with very pertinent matters surrounding the development of modern Christianity and Judaism. The position that the scroll researchers have tried to bulwark for forty years is that the Essenes of Qumran were external to “normative” Judaism or Christianity, a fringe sect with little connection to events of the time. (Recently, the theory has been raised that the Qumranites may have been Sadducees instead, as the word “Essene” does not appear anywhere in the documents. This theory has been summarily dismissed, but the difference may have been nothing more than semantic. The first time I have seen these scrolls was at 18 yrs old at the British Museum and spent an entire day stuck at the manuscript section as well as the Egyptian one, but I hope now that I am grown up…and hopefully at some point with much more influence, I would have like to HANDLE these manuscripts with my own translators…so we shall see). The text is perhaps most famous as a very early source for the idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. Tantalizingly, crucial pages are illegible, though she is described as Jesus’ “lover” in some translations (Watch Da Vinci Code as there so MANY historical facts within the fiction. You have to know what to look for). The Gospel of Philip is one of the Gnostic Gospels, a text of New Testament apocrypha, dating back to around the third century, but lost to modern researchers until it was rediscovered in 1945, the same year as the nuclear bomb was deployed in offense. Although this gospel may at first appear similar to the Gospel of Thomas, it is not a sayings gospel, but a collection of gnostic teachings and reflections.

* Based on Josephus’ accounts, a popular image of the Essenes has been that they were pacifist, ascetic, celibate, separatist, and apolitical mystics. This image is at least partially true: but Josephus contradicts himself at various points. He adds, almost as an afterthought, the observation that some of the Essenes were married, participated in Zealot revolutionary activities, and lived within the city of Jerusalem. It is also curious that the speech at Masada delivered by the surviving Zealot commander seems remarkably Essene in orientation, at least as recorded by Josephus. Archaeological evidence found at Qumran points out some interesting facts: a forge for weapons was found, as well as many Roman and non-Roman arrowheads, and evidence of fortifications. This suggests that Qumran may have been more of a fortress than a monastery. It is curious as to why the Romans appear to have driven out these harmless mystics somewhere around AD 68, right in the middle of the Jewish Revolt. Also found at Qumran were graves for women and children; and coins minted in Jerusalem as well as artifacts produced there. Family life and commercial integration appear to have been very “mainstream” for the Qumran community.

* But the internal evidence of the scrolls does not make the Essenes “ordinary joes.” The so-called Temple Scroll suggests that they had a dream of rebuilding a new Temple of visionary dimensions after razing Herod’s to the ground. The Copper Scroll suggests they had knowledge of the whereabouts of many Temple treasures and connections to some elements of the priesthood, although they had fierce opposition to the wealthy, elite, pro-Roman, Hellenizing Sadducean Temple establishment. They had a very particular Messianic expectation of the arrival of two “twin Messiahs”: the “Aaronic Messiah” would be the legitimate anointed high priest and he would herald the “Davidic Messiah” who would restore the true sacred kingship. The War Scroll suggests that they had a vision of a cosmic conflict between the forces of light and darkness: the Gentile “kittim” or Romans against the “sons of light,” namely, the Essenes. Other scrolls interpret biblical prophecies to describe current political events, offer strange apocalyptic and eschatological predictions, and incorporate some of the “pseudepigraphal” and “apocryphal” material of the Inter-testamental Period. And the “Damascus” Document suggests that their leader, the Teacher of Righteousness, was persecuted by an illegitimate member of the priesthood they called the Wicked Priest, and put to death.

* The scholarly team controlling the scrolls has kept a lid on the explosive contents of the Damascus Document by an interesting trick. Using poor philological and graphological analysis, they date that scroll to the 2nd century BCE — hence it becomes a missive against one of the Maccabean kings, who illegitimately assumed the kingship and priesthood and became Hellenizers toward the end of their reign. But it also could be as much an indictment of Herodian rule as Maccabean… and there are some indications that it may be a 1st century CE document instead. As to the name of the document, it is a curiosity — there were no Essenes that lived in Damascus in Syria — unless one realizes that “Damascus,” as described geographically by the scroll, can be nowhere else but on the Dead Sea. The objectivity of the scroll researchers on these controversial questions is itself questionable, as de Vaux and many others are members of the Ecole Biblique, an institution formed to combat Modernist tendencies in Catholicism and promote pro-Catholic readings of scripture. The one agnostic on the team, John Allegro, tried to release early reports of scroll contents, and was subsequently hounded off the team in the 1970s. (Allegro is the one who asserted authoritatively that Jesus may have been a MUSHROOM, based on some speculative translations of various Aramaic words. Certainly explains my love for mushrooms now, ain’t it? 😉

* What are the scroll researchers really afraid of? Some scholars note that more may be at stake than just academic defensiveness. They say that many of the names used by the Essenes to refer to themselves — Zadokim (the Just), Ebionim (the Poor), Nazoreans (the Pure), Hasideans (Zealous for the law), etc. — are also some of the appellations used by the entity known as the “early Church” or “Jewish-Christians” or “Jerusalem Church”. Here is a bold hypothesis: It is believed that the Zealots, Essenes, Nazoreans, etc. were all just names for one single movement with different aspects, but very specific goals: restoration of the legitimate anointed (Meshiach) king and high priest, expulsion of the Roman occupation and the pro-Roman Herodians and Sadducees, and religious reconstruction. Jesus, then, may have been a legitimate dynast (his genealogy from the line of David is given in two of the Synoptic Gospels), and a real political threat to the Romans , not the religious authorities of the Sanhedrin. After his death, Jesus’ followers coalesced behind his brother James the Just, who may well have been the Essene Teacher of Righteousness; he was put to death by the pro-Roman high priest Phinehas, who is an excellent candidate for the Wicked Priest.

* Let me poke your minds further: If early Christianity was really a revolutionary political movement fully within the sphere of Judaism at the time… whence the Christianity of today? That story can be traced to a certain Saul of Tarsus. This tentmaker, who apparently had very influential friends among the Sadducees, was sent to “Damascus” to root out “Christians” there. Of course, he would have had no authority to carry out those orders in a different part of the Empire than Palestine. But if “Damascus” is “Qumran” a new picture begins to emerge… along the way Saul has a “conversion” and becomes Paul, a “Christian.” Shortly after this experience, as recorded in the Acts of the New Testament, the very vigorous Paul travels all over the Roman Empire and preaches Christ. Except… James and members of the Jerusalem “Church” complain he is preaching “another Christ,” telling people to be “apostates from the law,” and promoting “deviation.”

* Imagine this scenario: James and his followers attempt a Messianic crusade focusing on returning the “lost sheep” of Israel to the fold. (The key to successful revolt would be the enlistment of Jews all over the Empire — many Jews lived in Persia, Babylonia, and Egypt at the time.) Along comes this Paul, who claims he wants to assist them in their efforts for revolutionary recruitment. Only… he seems to be preaching a new religion which is distinct from, and even inherently opposed to Judaism: proclaiming that a very holy but earthly man was also divine, recruiting among the Gentiles using pagan concepts (the dying-and-resurrected god and virgin birth are features of the Mithras and Attis cults), and betraying Jewish nationalist aspirations by focusing on a very otherworldly “kingdom of heaven” rather than a concrete political restoration.

* So who was Paul? Some scholars suggests he may have been an agent provocateur. He may have even been the individual that the Damascus Document identifies as “the Liar” and “the Apostate.” And as to why he went to the effort to found a new religion, it is suggested that it was a brilliantly conceived means to defuse the very this-world, political significance of Jesus and his Davidic bloodline. As an agent of the pro-Roman Sadducee establishment, he found a perfect way to deflect anti-Roman agitation into yet another Roman mystery cult. He apparently succeeded very well. When Bar Kochba revolted yet again against the Romans in 132 CE, he turned to the “Christians” for help, and became extremely angry when they declared opposition to his goals. The Roman authorities still remained concerned about potential threats: Eusebius records that the Emperor went to special efforts to assure that members of Jesus’ family, the so-called Desposyni — in the 2nd century CE! — remained loyal to the Empire and were not planning rebellion. The Romans may have had more reasons to throw “Christians” to the lions than merely worrying that the moralistic folk might cancel their orgies and parties, especially if early Christianity were an anti-Roman political movement.

* (Point of Clarification: Saul/Paul read and learned a lot from Hillel…which explains WHY he used it a lot, re-branded it as Jesus’ sayings.)

* In a sense, Emperor Constantine completes our story. His efforts to make “Roman” Christianity the religion of the Empire (which suggests that the “bishops” of cities such as Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem may have had another “brand”) and to impose uniformity through the Council of Nicaea essentially cut off the stream of “Nazorean Christianity” from history. The New Testament has clearly been altered (if the accounts of Mark, etc. thirty years after the fact are even accurate) to provide a pro-Roman bias. The Sanhedrin, rather than Roman authorities, are blamed for Jesus’ death, as are the “Jews” in some vague way. There are clearly Zealots in Jesus’ entourage and John the Baptist appears to be an Essene; some of Jesus’ sayings are borrowed from prominent Pharisees such as Hillel. Yet the New Testament seems to condemn all these groups. Incidents suggesting violent resistance, revolutionary activity, dynastic marriage, and political alliance seem to be hinted at but quietly hushed up. And everywhere attention to Rome and the real situation in Palestine are deflected to otherworldly concerns; Jesus is transformed into some kind of divine figure, though he himself REPUDIATES those who believe such a thing. The New Testament seems to be a sort of fairy tale situated in a very bloody, turbulent time.

* NOW, you know why I must go to Syria. Ooh, SEE why they want to destroy that country right now? There are manuscripts hidden from the world about what REALLY Jesus taught…and these manuscripts in essence tells the world, that he is just a MAN. These are written by his family and those who know him PERSONALLY. That he LOVED Mary Magdalene. That she is not a prostitute, in fact from a royal bloodline. That ‘repentant prostitute’ is just another add there to make sure women are suppressed. Throughout history, free-thinking women are killed, raped, etc…and you can historically go back to 591 CE…and then you can then understand WHY the Catholic Church started teaching CELIBACY with the priests etc…Not the concocted version of Paul (as I have explained above) and anyone else out there. Therefore, I MUST see these manuscripts for myself. I MUST read them for Jesus NEVER wanted to be followed or worshipped as a GOD. Sure, he had a message. But WHAT IS HIS MESSAGE? And now, we are on this journey…I ask then, WHAT IS THE TRUE MESSAGE FROM GOD? Jesus got his “GOD” status in Greece. This is why the manuscripts they translated everything from Greece. Ask any Theology schools. I went to one. What many do not know about Jesus is that he went to study mysticism in Egypt and in India, and got kicked out of Persia for blasphemy.

* Moses Hess wrote an important book in the 19th century entitled Rome and Jerusalem. He examined the twin roots of modern Western civilization, Hebraic and Hellenistic, monotheistic and pagan, and examined their opposition. It was clear that, for a while, the two poles struggled mightily against one another. The result was a victory of one and then a curious fusion of the two … and through “Christendom” and the rule of the Catholic Church the West was nurtured on this admixture. Rome won that conflict, perhaps through historical accident as much as anything else. The West is a curious blend of Roman values — hierarchy, martial rule, imperialism, bread and circuses — and the Hebraic prophetic tradition of justice, law, and equality. Nietzche knew that and so have others. One might reflect on our “Judaeo-Christian” tradition in light of that.

* Most of you don’t know that the New Testament was mostly written by Luke and Paul. BOTH pretty much have the same ‘agendas’ to fill.

NOTE: In the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) teaching, they say Jesus and Lucifer are BROTHERS. 

Now, my STUDENTS– The Illuminati contend that what they mean with “Luciferian path,” or the “energies of Lucifer,” they were referring to the Morning Star, the light bearer, the search for light; the very antithesis of dark, satanic evil. PAY ATTENTION to all the play in words. Lucifer’s identification as the Morning Star (Venus) equates him with Lumiel, whom is regarded as the Archangel of Light, and among Satanists he is seen as the “Torch of Baphomet” and Azazel. DEVIL is fear trigger character evolved in time.

Lucifer is a Latin name. So how did it find its way into a Hebrew manuscript, written before there was a Roman language?

In the original Hebrew text, the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah is not about a fallen angel, but about a fallen Babylonian king, who during his lifetime had persecuted the children of Israel. It contains no mention of Satan, either by name or reference. The Hebrew scholar could only speculate that some early Christian scribes, writing in the Latin tongue used by the Church, had decided for themselves that they wanted the story to be about a fallen angel, a creature not even mentioned in the original Hebrew text, and to whom they gave the name “Lucifer.”

Why Lucifer? In Roman astronomy, Lucifer was the name given to the morning star (the star we now know by another Roman name, Venus). The morning star appears in the heavens just before dawn, heralding the rising sun. The name derives from the Latin term lucem ferre, bringer, or bearer, of light.” In the Hebrew text the expression used to describe the Babylonian king before his death is Helal, son of Shahar, which can best be translated as “Day star, son of the Dawn.” The name evokes the golden glitter of a proud king’s dress and court (much as his personal splendor earned for King Louis XIV of France the appellation, “The Sun King”).

The scholars authorized by … King James I to translate the Bible into current English did not use the original Hebrew texts, but used versions translated … largely by St. Jerome in the fourth century. Jerome had mistranslated the Hebraic metaphor, “Day star, son of the Dawn,” as “Lucifer,” and over the centuries a metamorphosis took place. Lucifer the morning star became a disobedient angel, cast out of heaven to rule eternally in hell. Theologians, writers, and poets interwove the myth with the doctrine of the Fall, and in Christian tradition Lucifer is now the same as Satan, the Devil, and — ironically — the Prince of Darkness.

So “Lucifer” is nothing more than an ancient Latin name for the morning star, the bringer of light. That can be confusing for Christians who identify Christ himself as the morning star, a term used as a central theme in many Christian sermons. Jesus refers to himself as the morning star in Revelation 22:16: “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

And so there are those who do not read beyond the King James version of the Bible, who say ‘Lucifer is Satan: so says the Word of God’….”

Therefore, Lucifer wasn’t equated with Satan until after Jerome. Jerome wasn’t in error. Later Christians (and Mormons) were in equating “Lucifer” with “Satan”.

So why is this a problem to Christians? Christians now generally believe that Satan (or the Devil or Lucifer who they equate with Satan) is a being who has always existed (or who was created at or near the “beginning”). Therefore, they also think that the ‘prophets’ of the Old Testament believed in this creature. The Isaiah scripture is used as proof (and has been used as such for hundreds of years now).

The concept of Satan has evolved over the years and the early Bible writers didn’t believe in or teach such a doctrine.

Let me give you a replica pattern that goes in ALL sects of religion that has evolved through the centuries.

Here is the Mormon side: Mormons claim that an ancient record (the Book of Mormon) was written beginning in about 600 BC, and the author in 600 BC supposedly copied Isaiah in Isaiah’s original words. When Joseph Smith pretended to translate the supposed ‘ancient record’, he included the Lucifer verse in the Book of Mormon. Obviously he wasn’t copying what Isaiah actually wrote. He was copying the King James Version of the Bible! Just like the Prophet Mohammed did, when he was copying from the one they got in Rome. Messy, huh? And NO ONE admits that everyone copied from each other and just REBRANDED primitive beliefs. This “plagiarism” I was taught when I was 9 yrs by an ex-Jesuit priest and Illuminati infiltrator who got assassinated a few years back. I have a unique childhood going into adulthood curriculum. We have a lot of clean up around here.

Personal Remarks: St. Jerome was an idiot! He was told by the Pope at the time to go to Bethlehem, learn Hebrew (which he did in a month)…and have the darn manuscripts translated to Latin??! His translation was so whacked! And everything was based on his skewed translations…then they TRIED to correct it in 16th Century…then enter gay flaming Queen…ehrrmmm King James…who needed to APPEASE the people in England…be a ‘good’ king…want to give access to the Bible in English…since only Bishops could read the book…plus you got mostly 10% literate in entire continent of Europe (this is why they managed to suppressed A LOT to the people…and use their own interpretation…and BINGO! MASTER/SLAVE PROGRAMMING GALORE! We will discuss Patriarchy later and the attack on women. That became cemented in 12th Century. We also need to talk about how they demonized the homosexual, that came 20th Century.)

My apologies that I have officially ruined Christmas and Valentine’s Day for all of you. When it comes to spirituality, this is my heart. I can talk about this for days until everyone on the planet falls asleep.

The history of mankind is filled with wars and conflict, but of all the conflicts that have ensued between the different nations and the different races, there is only one race that has aroused the most violent antagonisms no matter where they settled — that race is the Jewish race.

The central theme of the Jewish religion is hatred, hatred for the Gentiles, that is all other races. The other overwhelmingly powerful facet of the Jewish religion is racial loyalty, loyalty to its own kind. Whereas to the average Gentile, sadly enough, it matters very little with whom he does business, whether it is another White Man or not. Nor is the average Gentile too interested in whether the person next door or the person he meets is one of his own kind. But to a Jew, whether he is doing business with a Jew, living next door to a Jew, or meets a Jew, this means everything. Now you should understand this:

Operation Facebook IS a Cyber Geopolitical War; 96% world news are all HALF-TRUTHS for a reason

The main center of power of the Jewish world-wide conspiracy now resides in the New World. In fact, in New York is the largest center of Jewish population in the world, and New York is the central financial powerhouse, not only of the United States, but also the rest of the world.

As you can see, I am building a HUGE DEFENSE CASE for our entire civilization. There is a reason why I had to put this because it was a Zionist Jew (with a whole group of accomplices) who instigated the war on Libya and the Middle East. I just need to explain genetics now because I want to take you all on a journey on how to find real enemies with evil motives. I am not a racist. I love and care for everyone. I just don’t have affection towards those people who would smile in a meeting, give sweet diplomatic words and when we turn our backs, he sends assassins, and almost AUTOMATICALLY triggered a World War in March.

But it was my birthday. I can only handle few country genocide at a time, not a planetary death

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AUTHOR: Lady Michelle-Jennifer Santos

Lady Michelle-Jennifer Santos is the Founder & Publisher of The Santos Republic. She is also political strategist and analyst, investment consultant and advisor, and the Strategy/Peace Negotiator with the UN Security Council Special Envoy to the Arab Nations involved in brokering peace in the Middle East since 2011. She is also the Principal of MJS Global Group whose core competency is strategy, image/media, branding, geopolitics, international trade and development, communications, intelligence and security, aerospace, technology, entertainment, wealth management, mining, energy, infrastructure, commodities (gold, diamonds, oil and gas, sugar, cement, edible oils, rice, et al), and capital markets. also serves as a Senior Consulting Advisor for DeMatteo Monness LLC, a specialized agency brokerage with equity trading operations in New York and Boston and a member firm of the NASD and clears trades through Goldman Sachs Execution; Clearing LLC. With a background in working for international political campaigns, she is also a public speaker and lecturer on politics and motivational topics. Lady MJ has appeared and been featured in international media outlets (radio, television, print and internet) in Europe and USA such as Fox Business News, NRK, CNBC, CBS and AOL News. You can follow her on Facebook and on Twitter (@mj_santos). You can read more about her here.

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