Are Ashkenazi Jews from Persia? The Ashkenazi-Levite Jews Iranian origin theory

[Anglojew]

Ashkenazi-Levite Jews and their Iranian origin

Ashkan

This is an Iranian name that is still in existence, for thousands of years. And I believe the term "Ashkenazi" is ultimately derived from the Iranian name "Ashkan".


More than 2000 years ago after the eastern conquests and death of Alexander the Great, the Parthian Empire emerged stretching from Balochistan to the Levant.




The Parthian Empire is also known as the 'Arsacid Empire' named after the first Parthian king Arsaces I of Parthia. In Iranian languages (Farsi/Kurdish), his name was Ashk (اشک) or Ashkan (اشکان) and his Parthian Empire is still called 'Ashkanian' (اشکانیان) in Iranian languages.

According to the bible a 'Kingdom of Ashkenaz' existed. Together with Ararat, Minni (Mannaeans), and the Medes they prepared for war against Babylon (Jeremiah 51:27-28). It is possible that 'Ashkenazi' became a generic term for Jews who migrated northward into the Parthian Empire, given the assumed location of the Kingdom of Ashkenaz.
The proposed lineage tree of the Ashkenaz is also described in the bible: Ashkenaz belongs to the "Japhetic" branch, not to the Semitic one. BTW, the Hebrew language belongs to the Semitic language family.

In the bible Noah had three sons: Shem (Semitic), Ham (Hamitic), and Japheth (the rest of the known world). So, the word Shem refers to both, Noah's son and the father of all Semitic people. Gen.10 declares the following nations as semitic.

"Gen10:22 The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram. "

Asshur and Aram refer to Assyrians and Arameans, respectively.

Noah's other son Japheth had also children.
Gen10:
2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.
3 And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah."

So Ashkenaz is Gomer's son, and Gomer is Japheth's son.

Gomer is regarded as a synonym for people who lived in Anatolia in that time, either Cimmerians, Gauls in Anatolia (Galatians/Celts) or people from Cappadocia, the literature has not decided yet.
Ashkenaz is also regarded as synonym for Skythians or Saka. Much much later in Medieval Times, 'Ashkenaz' was the Hebrew word for 'Germany'.

The ancestors of Ashkenazim may actually lived in Northern Mesopotamia for many centuries before moving into Europe, especially into the Rhineland as merchants. Given that most Ashkenazi Jews left Israel after the Roman conquest and they do not seem to appear in Europe until Charlemagne's time (800 AD), they must have lived somewhere else prior to that. I think it is reasonable that the ancestors of Ashkenazim were Aramaic speakers who lived in the Parthian Empire.

So, is it possible to see some Iranian admixture in Ashkenazi Jews of today?

Let's take a look at the 2. C2 Ashkenazi-Levite (Type "A" / "AJ") modal haplotype, R1a1a Z93+ L342+ L657-:

I will take a first look using 37 STRs:
DYS393 DYS390 DYS19 DYS391 DYS385a DYS385b DYS426 DYS388 DYS439 DYS389i DYS392 DYS389ii DYS458 DYS459a DYS459b DYS455 DYS454 DYS447 DYS437 DYS448 DYS449 DYS464a DYS464b DYS464c DYS464d DYS460 Y-GATA-H4 YCAIIa YCAIIb DYS456 DYS 607 DYS 576 DYS 570 CDY a CDY b DYS 442 DYS 438

Here are the Top30 matches for this R1a1a Ashkenazi-Levite modal haplotype (excluding all actual Ashkenazi-Levite Jews).

Within the Top30 you can find plenty Iranians including the Iraqi Kurdish individual H1483 that was also described here.



Conclusion:

The Ashkenazi-Levite modal haplotype for R1a1a Z93+ L342+ L657- may be Iranian in origin.

http://kurdishdna.blogspot.com.au/20...an-origin.html


Part 2:

Previously (above), I mentioned that I believe that the term "Ashkenazi" is ultimately derived from the Iranian name "Ashkan", the founder of the Parthian Empire (still called 'Ashkanian' (اشکانیان) Empire in Iranian languages).

I already showed that the Ashkenazi Jews share a lot genetic markers with Kurds:

mtDNA HV1b2 was found within Ashkenazi Jews and one Yezidi Kurd;
the Y-haplogroup of the Kurd N91920 is J1c3 and he shares the SNP L817+ with the J1c3* Jewish Cluster A. Thus, the closest and the only Middle Eastern relative of the J1c3* Jewish Cluster A is a Kurdish individual.
The R1a1a Ashkenazi-Levite cluster shows similarities to the STR data of a Kurdish individual.


A new publication in Nature comes to the same conclusions about the R1a-M582 Ashkenazi-Levite cluster, it is not East European, it is not Khazarian, it is Iranian.

From the paper:

Phylogenetic applications of whole Y-chromosome sequences and the Near Eastern origin of Ashkenazi Levites

...

Considering the historical records of Ashkenazi Jews, three potential geographic sources should be considered: the Near East, which was the geographic location for the ancient Hebrews; Europe, which was the residence of the Ashkenazi Jewish Diaspora and the region in which they evolved for nearly two millennia; and the region overlapping with the no longer extant mid-11th Century Khazarian Khaganate, whose ruling class has been suggested to have converted to Judaism18. Our data render the latter source highly unlikely since the Khazarian Khaganate overlapped with the Northern Pontic-Caspian steppe and the North Caucasus region, in which just one Nogay sample carried the R1a-M582 haplogroup (Table 1). Furthermore, the Nogays, formerly a powerful Kipchak Turkic-speaking nomadic confederation, are relatively recent inhabitants of the Caucasus, and the STR haplotype of the sole R1a-M582 Nogay sample lies outside of the Levite cluster. Had the Caucasus region been the source for the Ashkenazi modal lineage, we likely would have found R1a-M582 Y-chromosomes in some of its 20 local populations examined in our sample of more than 2,000 Y-chromosomes (Table 1). As previously suggested, the European and particularly, the Eastern European paternal gene pool was seen as a natural and highly plausible source for the Ashkenazi Levite lineage as both the Ashkenazi community and haplogroup R1a frequencies peak in this region. But surprisingly, haplogroup R1a-M582 was not detected in non-Jewish Eastern European samples and was found only in singleton samples in various Central and Western European populations (Table 1).

...

Near Eastern populations are the only populations in which haplogroup R1a-M582 was found at significant frequencies (Table 1). Moreover, the representative samples displayed substantial diversity even within this geographic region (Fig. 1b). Higher frequencies and diversities often suggest lineage autochthony. Hence, we can assess whether or not the origin of haplogroup R1a-M582 is in present-day Iran and eastern Anatolia, or rather the broader region of the Near East. Our data demonstrate the occurrence of R1a-M582 among different Iranian populations, among Kurds from Cilician Anatolia and Kazakhstan, and among Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews. These observations, and the STR network delineating an internal R1a-M582 structure, might attest to a broad Near Eastern distribution range of this minor haplogroup that survived to the present day at low frequencies among Iranian Kerman, Iranian Azeri, Kurds and Jews. Haplogroup R1a-M582 was not detected in samples from Iraq or among Bedouins, Druze and Palestinians sampled in Israel.


One thing the paper did not address well is to highlight the frequency of R1a-M582 within R1a1 individuals of each population. From all tested non-Jewish population Kurds have the highest frequency of R1a-M582 within R1a1 individuals. Caution, the number of tested R1a individuals is pretty low, so percentages might be off.

Here is the ranking based on the data of the publication:


100% (2/2) Jews from Israel (Non-Ashkenazi)
100% (2/2) Jews from Algeria (Non-Ashkenazi)
100% (2/2) Jews from Slovenia (Non-Ashkenazi)
92% (80/87) Ashkenazi Jews*
73% (90/123) Jews
67% (6/9) Jews from Spanish Exile (Non-Ashkenazi)
67% (2/3) Jews from Bulgaria (Non-Ashkenazi)
50% (2/4) Jews from Turkey (Non-Ashkenazi)
43% (3/7) Kurds (Turkey and Kazakhstan)
40% (2/5) Jews from North Africa (Non-Ashkenazi)
29% (2/7) Jews from Near East (Non-Ashkenazi)
28% (10/36) Non-Ashkenazi Jews
19% (9/48) Iran (Azeri)
13% (3/24) Iran (Kerman)
10% (2/21) Iran
9% (1/11) Nogays
6% (18/303) Near East
6% (1/17) Iran
5% (1/21) Hungary
2% (1/42) Germany
1% (1/106) Western/Northern Europe
1% (1/119) Slovakia
1% (22/2711) Non-Jewish populations

http://kurdishdna.blogspot.com.au/20...r-iranian.html

[Yehiel]

Interesting read, not sure if i agree but still interesting.

[Shah-Jehan]

no but, Iranian Jews are (obviously) as well as Bukharan Jews.

[Anglojew]

Interesting read, not sure if i agree but still interesting.

Yes, that's what I thought.

From the information presented, might easily ask the reverse question, Are Persians Jews?

[Emmanuel Goldstein]

IMO this is a huge misinterpretation/Gish gallop. The similarity must be more ancient than that. Persians and Kurds, like Jews have very significant North Mesopotamian ancestry, probably since prehistoric ages. Ashkenaz is the term for Germany in Hebrew. I just find this very unlikely. What kind of relationship we have with this Persian king Ashkan?

[Yehiel]

Yes, that's what I thought.

From the information presented, might easily ask the reverse question, Are Persians Jews?

I always wondered the origins of the Persians but never bothered to look lol, do i think many persians have Jewish ancestry? A good amount yes. Over the Shabbat that just ended I was thinking of the book of Genesis and trying to match up the Japheth, Shem, & Ham lines with modern populations, but it would take to long to explain over a post and I think i came up with some good ideas without using a computer.

[Longbowman]

The answer is

no.

[sql]

A few AJs have Iranic or European Y-DNA, due to ancient and modern admixture, respectively. Our origin is still Semitic.

[Sally the first]

I can't help but disagree with your article as well