The Chosen Genes

[Kamal900]

The story of Jewish origins, once the province of historians and religion scholars, is now being told by DNA, April 15, 2012

Adolf Hitler would not have been particularly proud of him, Harry Ostrer says, though he, like the architect of the Holocaust, has developed systematic ways to separate Jews from non-Jews.

The powerful genetic markers of Jewish ancestry that Ostrer has found don't imply racial inferiority, yet when the population geneticist first published his findings two years ago, one historian told Science magazine that "Hitler would certainly have been very pleased."

"That comment really bugged me," says Ostrer, a professor of genetics here at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and a Jew himself. It came from Shlomo Sand, a professor at Tel Aviv University whose 2009 book, The Invention of the Jews (Verso Books), argued that Jews arose from converting many local communities in Europe and elsewhere. His argument is contradicted by Ostrer's work, which shows that geographically and culturally distant Jews still have more genes in common than they do with non-Jews around them, and that those genes can be traced back to the Levant, an area including modern-day Israel.

That reaction isn't the only misconstruction of this fraught topic, Ostrer says. The DNA that he found also tightly linked Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, two prominent culturally and geographically distinct groups; commenters immediately began to say this showed the groups were not separate at all. "And that wasn't what I was saying either," Ostrer says. Also, the deeply rooted Middle Eastern markers could be used to support Zionist territorial claims—except, Ostrer points out, the same markers can be found in Palestinians as well.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Chosen-Genes/131481/

[StonyArabia]

It make sense Palestinians are basically Israelite/Levantine with Arab ancestry.

[curupira]

The whole article:


April 15, 2012

The Chosen Genes
The story of Jewish origins, once the province of historians and religion scholars, is now being told by DNA
The Chosen Genes 1Mark Abramson for the Chronicle Review
At the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Harry Ostrer, author of a new book on Jewish genetics, sits next to a bust of the college's namesake.
By Josh Fischman

The Bronx, N.Y.

Adolf Hitler would not have been particularly proud of him, Harry Ostrer says, though he, like the architect of the Holocaust, has developed systematic ways to separate Jews from non-Jews.

The powerful genetic markers of Jewish ancestry that Ostrer has found don't imply racial inferiority, yet when the population geneticist first published his findings two years ago, one historian told Science magazine that "Hitler would certainly have been very pleased."

"That comment really bugged me," says Ostrer, a professor of genetics here at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and a Jew himself. It came from Shlomo Sand, a professor at Tel Aviv University whose 2009 book, The Invention of the Jews (Verso Books), argued that Jews arose from converting many local communities in Europe and elsewhere. His argument is contradicted by Ostrer's work, which shows that geographically and culturally distant Jews still have more genes in common than they do with non-Jews around them, and that those genes can be traced back to the Levant, an area including modern-day Israel.

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"It shows we share in a biological tapestry, and are connected by these genetic threads," Ostrer says. "Bringing up Hitler was overheated and misconstrues my work." Sand, however, remains an implacable opponent today. "It is a shame for somebody who defines himself as a Jew to look for a Jewish gene," he writes in an e-mail.

That reaction isn't the only misconstruction of this fraught topic, Ostrer says. The DNA that he found also tightly linked Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, two prominent culturally and geographically distinct groups; commenters immediately began to say this showed the groups were not separate at all. "And that wasn't what I was saying either," Ostrer says. Also, the deeply rooted Middle Eastern markers could be used to support Zionist territorial claims—except, Ostrer points out, the same markers can be found in Palestinians as well.

This month during the Passover holiday, as he and other Jews celebrate their escape from a pre-Hitler enslavement, Ostrer is trying to set the record straight in a new book, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People (Oxford University Press). In it, he traces efforts by himself and others to map both the genes and the culture of Jews as they spread throughout the world, and he shows how the approaches can complement one another. He also takes on the volatile topic of population traits, arguing that it is extremely difficult to ascribe things like higher IQ to Jews.

He gets various reactions. Geneticists who are familiar with his work have been enthusiastic. Ostrer's research is very solid, says Mary-Claire King, a professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington who was the first scientist to use molecular analysis to date the evolutionary split between humans and chimpanzees. "The approach that Harry uses ... lets the data speak for itself," she writes in an e-mail. "It does not group people from different traditions a priori. The result is that people sort out, based on their genetics."

Historians are a little more cautious. "It's possible there was an ancient genetic marker in common to both Ashkenazi and Sephardic worlds," says David N. Myers, professor of Jewish history at the University of California at Los Angeles. "But I don't think biological commonality stands in the way of cultural traditions. Minhag, the Hebrew word for customs, is an important part of identity and history. So Jews in France may eat certain foods during Passover and Jews in Spain may eat different things."

Ostrer is quick to agree with this last point. One of those traditions is on display at the Einstein kosher cafeteria, where diners can tuck into a pastrami burger rather than a bacon cheeseburger. Over lunch, Ostrer points out that he has been drawn to genetics by its capacity to reveal things about populations, not rewrite their history.

Less than a year ago, in fact, that desire pulled him to Einstein, where he is starting a large center for genomic medicine, and away from New York University Medical School, where he had worked for decades but which "has little interest now in genomics," he says. Ostrer has a tremendous interest. He has been lobbying the New York City Council for half a million dollars to buy four gene-sequencing machines for the medical college. They would be used, he says, to analyze genetic risk factors for diseases like prostate cancer or diabetes in the African-American and Hispanic populations that surround the college in the East Bronx. "The council seemed very receptive to my argument, which is that the poorer people in New York should have access to the most modern medicine," he says.

His interest in the genetics of Jews also originated in medicine and attempts to understand why certain populations have higher risks of particular diseases, like specific forms of breast cancer. Years ago, while a professor at NYU, Ostrer started a project to identify DNA sequences that marked such populations. The sequences could also indicate how closely such groups were related, a kind of Jewish family tree.

The differing DNA stretches are called haplotypes, and what Ostrer initiated, with several colleagues, was called the Jewish HapMap Project. This kind of genetic tracking is a tricky prospect among a people to whom the word "wandering" is often applied as prefix, a group found throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the New World.

But other researchers had used DNA successfully to trace aspects of Jewish lineages. Most notably, Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona, had used DNA from the Y chromosome—the one that men have and women don't—to show genetic support for the Bible's account of a Jewish male priestly caste, the Cohanim. In 1997, Hammer's team reported that a particular DNA sequence on the Y chromosome could be found in more than 98 percent of men who identified themselves as Cohanim descendents—in America the last name today is usually Cohen—showing that they were indeed related.

One marker on one chromosome, however, isn't a very powerful way to track a whole population. Yet gene-sequencing technology has come a long way in 15 years. Computers now can swiftly run through hundreds of thousands of DNA markers on all 23 pairs of chromosomes, and do this in different people to identify variations and similarities. That's the approach Ostrer and his team employ.

Basically, they use these comparisons to build a tree of population groups. If people in two groups share lots of DNA markers, and people in a third group share fewer, odds are that the first groups are more closely related. The third group branched off earlier.

Do this not just for three groups but for many—and with the help of specialized computer programs—and you get a "nearest neighbor joining tree." It looks a lot like its name: pairs of branches, each close pair representing the closest genetic neighbor, presumably groups that split more recently than the pairs that are widely spaced. The pairs further apart have accrued more genetic variation, both through random mutations that occur over time and through mixing with other populations.

What Ostrer; Gil Atzmon, an assistant professor of genetics at Einstein; and their colleagues described in a 2010 paper, in The American Journal of Human Genetics, was a tree of 17 groups, both Jews and non-Jews. Jews who identified themselves as of Sephardic heritage, from southern Mediterranean ancestry, were nearest genetic neighbors. And Jews who identified themselves as of Ashkenazic heritage, from Eastern Europe, formed another nearest-neighbor group. A study by other researchers published the same month in Nature but with a smaller sample found the same thing.

But those two groups themselves were nearer neighbors, genetically, than they were to their actual geographic neighbors: non-Jewish Italians, for example, or Cypriots or non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations like the Druze. All European Jews seem connected on the order of fourth or fifth cousins, Ostrer says. (More recent work in the HapMap project may have identified this European Jewish signature in North African Jews from places like Morocco and Libya, who also have their own distinct DNA, as well as the European markers.)

"Then people began to use this European data to rewrite history," Ostrer says. "One thing was that if Ashkenazi and Sephardim were so closely related, there had to be admixture among the populations." But that isn't what the genetics was saying. Each group, remember, clustered most closely together. Common DNA markers to both groups were on the next tree branch down. Probably, Ostrer says, the DNA uniting them persisted from a much older split, thousands of years ago, and was not shared between them by more recent intermarriage.

And that makes sense given the cultural history of the two groups, Ostrer says. "There wasn't that much mobility. They were separated by long distances, and there were language barriers. The Ashkenazi people spoke Yiddish and the Sephardic people spoke Ladino, another language. They weren't necessarily mutually comprehensible."

What is more intriguing to scholars, according to Myers, the UCLA historian, is that the two groups are more closely linked to one another than to geographic neighbors. "These people lived in different places for hundreds of years and interacted in different ways with host societies," he says. "And they saw themselves as different. Actually, both had superiority complexes. Sephardim, for example, thought themselves as very cosmopolitan because of their interactions with the people surrounding them." They lived in Spain and Portugal in the Middle Ages until they were kicked out during the Inquisition, and they have deeply rooted connections to local culture. The Ashkenazi, on the other hand, had a completely opposite approach to their surroundings. "Ashkenazi felt themselves superior because they resisted interactions. They were not polluted by local influences," Myers says.

Still, the notion of a shared Jewish biology isn't going to shock historians, he says. It tracks the historical and cultural traditions of a group that originated in the Middle East and then spread out.

The only people it would shock, says Seth Schwartz, associate director of Columbia University's Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, are those who believe that Judaism was created through conversion and intermarriage in many places outside the Middle East. "I think that paper blew Shlomo Sand's arguments out of the water," he says.

That argument, Schwartz says, is a modern reflection of a mid-19th century view among some Jews in the reform branch of the religion that Jewish identity had become secondary to the rise of the nation-state. "That view didn't deny the genetics of Jews. It just said it wasn't important. It said that now we are part of nations like Italy or Germany, and that's our primary national identity and affiliation. Judaism is our religion." But it was not a widely held view. Traditionally, most Jews believed in a shared Middle Eastern origin. "Now we have a biological translation of the traditional story," says Schwartz.

Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist at Barnard College, says these echoes actually highlight a basic problem with attempts to use genetics to write history: circularity. The ideas that drive collection of data actually come from historical narratives, and then reinforce those narratives.

In her own new book this month, The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology (University of Chicago Press), she argues that genetics is a pretty limited source of information. "There are, of course, many other ways to imagine both individual and collective selves, and there are many other kinds of histories," she wrote in an e-mail, "and they often cannot be 'recognized' in and through genetic data." She says that Ostrer's work may have avoided the worst of these problems, but other studies have not.

Sand doesn't think Ostrer has avoided problems at all, though. "I still think that it is rubbish," he writes.

Ostrer, not surprisingly, disagrees, The data were not collected to show old genetic links between Ashkenazi and Sephardim, he argues. They simply turned out to reveal such connections. "We don't know where the studies are going to take us," he says, adding that El-Haj does not appear to understand his field, and that Sand is simply lost.

But he does concur with El-Haj's last point: that genes and religion are far from identical. The Jewish populations he studied, for instance, contained between 30 and 60 percent non-Middle Eastern markers. So it's easy to imagine unsettling arguments in a future Israel, based on those percentages, about just how many markers a group has to have to make claims about the right to live in the country. Current Israeli law gives that right to people of Jewish ancestry, but doesn't take into account genetic evidence. If it ever does, such arguments could give claims to non-Jewish Middle Eastern groups, too.

Then there is the Hitler worry, that Ostrer is making it easier for the next genocidal maniac to come along. It's something that Ostrer takes seriously. "It's important to do this work to make sure the differences in markers are real," he says. "But the flip side is, sure, Hitler can come along and say, 'You're full Ashkenazi,'" and mark that person for death.

But, Ostrer points out, people have been very successful at defining groups for genocidal assaults without DNA analysis. They don't need it. "Presumably if you compare Serbs and Bosnians, they are awfully similar genetically," Ostrer says. "But one happens to be Orthodox Christian and the other is Muslim," and those were the differences that spurred attacks. "I bet if you compare Hutus and Tutsis they are similar genetically. But they look at each other and know which is which, without genetics, and find reasons for knocking each other off."

For the Jewish geneticist, DNA is not an instrument for destruction, but a way to help tell a story, one thread of an origins tale that has been unfolding for thousands of years.
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Chosen-Genes/131481/

[Longbowman]

Old news old research.

[Kamal900]

Old news old research.

Whats your opinion on that?

[Smeagol]

The only people it would shock, says Seth Schwartz, associate director of Columbia University's Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, are those who believe that Judaism was created through conversion and intermarriage in many places outside the Middle East. "I think that paper blew Shlomo Sand's arguments out of the water," he says.

Not exactly true. Ashkenazi, and Sephardic Jews being closely related is just to be expected, but we shouldn't forget that around 10% of the Roman Empire was Jewish, and Jews were much more open to converts at the time. I think the Jews probably did a lot of mixing in the ancient Mediterranean world, and in general, Ashkenazi, and Sephardic Jews are close to other non-Jewish East Mediterranean populations (S.Italians/Sicilians, Cypriots, Greek Islanders..)

[randomguy1235]

It make sense Palestinians are basically Israelite/Levantine with Arab ancestry.

You can't keep on claiming that dude.

[Longbowman]

Whats your opinion on that?

Which part?

[Kamal900]

Which part?

The last paragraph.

[Longbowman]

The last paragraph.

Ostrer is right.

[Kamal900]

Not exactly true. Ashkenazi, and Sephardic Jews being closely related is just to be expected, but we shouldn't forget that around 10% of the Roman Empire was Jewish, and Jews were much more open to converts at the time. I think the Jews probably did a lot of mixing in the ancient Mediterranean world, and in general, Ashkenazi, and Sephardic Jews are close to other non-Jewish East Mediterranean populations (S.Italians/Sicilians, Cypriots, Greek Islanders..)

Thats true. They dont seem to cluster with the genetic isolates of the levant like the Druze, and they seem to cluster with the Southern italians and etc since that both southern italians and jews have similar genetic compotents coming from admixture between middle easterners and europeans, and jews genetically are half european half middle easterners.

“An analysis of the gene database shows that the original Ashkenazi Jews were about half European and half Middle Eastern,” the report continued.

“Our analysis shows that Ashkenazi Jewish medieval founders were ethnically admixed, with origins in Europe and in the Middle East, roughly in equal parts,” said Shai Carmi, a post-doctoral scientist who conducted the analysis.

“[The] data are more comprehensive than what was previously available, and we believe the data settle the dispute regarding European and Middle Eastern ancestry in Ashkenazi Jews.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/ashkenazi-jews-descend-from-350-people-study-finds/

[Anglojew]

You can't keep on claiming that dude.

A "Palestinian" like a "Jew" is just a term for someone indigenous to the land of Israel (Palestine/Judea). We now have scientific proof we not just both belong in the land of Israel BUT we are both brothers. Once united our combined strength will be lead to peace and prosperity for all of us.

[Anglojew]

Thats true. They dont seem to cluster with the genetic isolates of the levant like the Druze, and they seem to cluster with the Southern italians and etc since that both southern italians and jews have similar genetic compotents coming from admixture between middle easterners and europeans, and jews genetically are half european half middle easterners.

“An analysis of the gene database shows that the original Ashkenazi Jews were about half European and half Middle Eastern,” the report continued.

“Our analysis shows that Ashkenazi Jewish medieval founders were ethnically admixed, with origins in Europe and in the Middle East, roughly in equal parts,” said Shai Carmi, a post-doctoral scientist who conducted the analysis.

“[The] data are more comprehensive than what was previously available, and we believe the data settle the dispute regarding European and Middle Eastern ancestry in Ashkenazi Jews.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/ashkenazi-jews-descend-from-350-people-study-finds/

Clustering doesn't matter as it represents admixture (whether European in Jews or Arabian in Palestinians) rather than our shared genetic heritage. It just displays that Jews drift towards Europe and Palestinians towards Arabia.

[Anglojew]

Neither pan-Arabism nor Islamism represent movements for Palestinian independence. Hamas views Palestine (and Israel) as part of Sham within the Islamic caliphate and not as an independent state. Pan-Israelism (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?125117-Pan-Israelism-Israelites-of-the-World-Unite) is the answer.

Judaism is the indigenous religion but we will have freedom of religion.

Hebrew is the indigenous language but we will recognise Arabic also.

[Kamal900]

Neither pan-Arabism nor Islamism represent movements for Palestinian independence. Hamas views Palestine (and Israel) as part of Sham within the Islamic caliphate and not as an independent state. Pan-Israelism is the answer.

No, i dislike all forms of nationalism which brought nothing but sorrow and despair for my people and others in the middle east. The nation shouldn't be ruled under any ideology that elevates one group of people above others which seeks in dominating them through hatred and supremacy. Zionism isnt all that different from supremacist ideologies like Baathisim, Islamism, or whatever there is -ism at the end. Peace shouldn't be written in a piece of paper for us in not pulling the triggers of our guns pointing at each others heads(like Jordan and Israel). Real peace is first by admitting our own faults and mistakes and we should come clean of our actions that we did on one another that is based on hatred and etc, and then we should fight against hatred and supremacy that is deeply rooted in both our peoples in both sides of the river(in this case anti-arabism in Israel and anti-semitism in arab world) and bring our peoples to understand each other instead. In other words, Israel and Palestine should change their ideologies(whether its zionism, baathism, arabism and etc) and hatred by putting parties and people who are advocating violence and killing away from power over our livelihoods, break down the wall and talk to one another instead. Thats REAL peace.

[Dr. Robotnik the Subbotnik]

Chosen my ass. I like Jews but there's nothing special about them.

[Anglojew]

No, i dislike all forms of nationalism which brought nothing but sorrow and despair for my people and others in the middle east. The nation shouldn't be ruled under any ideology that elevates one group of people above others which seeks in dominating them through hatred and supremacy. Zionism isnt all that different from supremacist ideologies like Baathisim, Islamism, or whatever there is -ism at the end. Peace shouldn't be written in a piece of paper for us in not pulling the triggers of our guns pointing at each others heads(like Jordan and Israel). Real peace is first by admitting our own faults and mistakes and we should come clean of our actions that we did on one another that is based on hatred and etc, and then we should fight against hatred and supremacy that is deeply rooted in both our peoples in both sides of the river(in this case anti-arabism in Israel and anti-semitism in arab world) and bring our peoples to understand each other instead. In other words, Israel and Palestine should change their ideologies(whether its zionism, baathism, arabism and etc) and hatred by putting parties and people who are advocating violence and killing away from power over our livelihoods, break down the wall and talk to one another instead. Thats REAL peace.

Well said. Officially recognising our shared heritage will help cement peace and unity in a Palestinian-Israeli federation.

[Anglojew]

Chosen my ass. I like Jews but there's nothing special about them.

With study and a quick operation you too can be chosen.

[Dr. Robotnik the Subbotnik]

With study and a quick operation you too can be chosen.

What?

[Anglojew]

What?

You can join the tribe.

[Loki]

It make sense Palestinians are basically Israelite/Levantine with Arab ancestry.

Not all Palestinians are the same, though. If I'm correct then the inhabitants of Gaza are quite different from those in the West Bank. Right?

[randomguy1235]

Not all Palestinians are the same, though. If I'm correct then the inhabitants of Gaza are quite different from those in the West Bank. Right?

Some in Gaza are mixed, but not all. There isn't a quantifiable statistic, but when you look at Gazan Palestinians, you can find a variety of phenos.

[Loki]

Some in Gaza are mixed, but not all. There isn't a quantifiable statistic, but when you look at Gazan Palestinians, you can find a variety of phenos.

Are they in general (on average) darker than West Bankers?

[randomguy1235]

Are they in general (on average) darker than West Bankers?

Yes, and I'm sure other Palestinians have noticed this as well.

[Anglojew]

Yes, and I'm sure other Palestinians have noticed this as well.

I think a lot are probably Egyptian but I'd be interested to see more research done on the subject.

[Longbowman]

Some in Gaza are mixed, but not all. There isn't a quantifiable statistic, but when you look at Gazan Palestinians, you can find a variety of phenos.

Well, Jordanians have a comparable amount of SSA admixture to the average Palestinian. Muslim Lebanese people score over 4% and Syrians close to 6%. I'm not sure how unmixed you expect some Palestinians to be.

[randomguy1235]

Well, Jordanians have a comparable amount of SSA admixture to the average Palestinian. Muslim Lebanese people score over 4% and Syrians close to 6%. I'm not sure how unmixed you expect some Palestinians to be.

The Palestinian samples are skewed, which is why they score substantially higher SSA than West Bank samples I've provided. Ethnic Palestinian shouldn't score higher SSA than Saudis or Jordanians (although your averages don't account for where they obtained their Palestinian samples AND it doesn't mention what Jordanians they used considering that Jordan is an extremely diverse country). It's apparent when you look at the phenotypes of some Gazans that they aren't indigenous.

[Longbowman]

The Palestinian samples are skewed, which is why they score substantially higher SSA than West Bank samples I've provided. Ethnic Palestinian shouldn't score higher SSA than Saudis or Jordanians (although your averages don't account for where they obtained their Palestinian samples AND it doesn't mention what Jordanians they used considering that Jordan is an extremely diverse country). It's apparent when you look at the phenotypes of some Gazans that they aren't indigenous.

Just bear in mind the 4-6% of Northern Levantines.

[randomguy1235]

Just bear in mind the 4-6% of Northern Levantines.

Did you ignore what I said?

[Dr. Robotnik the Subbotnik]

You can join the tribe.

Oh. Well, we'll see.

[Longbowman]

Did you ignore what I said?

No, why?

[Yuffayur]

Interesting, btw I don't think Jews are related to Palestinians, the first are basically a mix of Slavic, Med and Levants what makes them plot with Southern Italians, the last are indigenous levantine with some Egyptian and Arabic.

[Longbowman]

Interesting, btw I don't think Jews are related to Palestinians, the first are basically a mix of Slavic, Med and Levants what makes them plot with Southern Italians, the last are indigenous levantine with some Egyptian and Arabic.

Answered your own question there really bro.

[Beit El]

Answered your own question there really bro.

Yeah... What the fuck was that all about?

"I don't think these people consisting of A, B and C are related to people consisting of C, D and E."

[LightHouse89]

A "Palestinian" like a "Jew" is just a term for someone indigenous to the land of Israel (Palestine/Judea). We now have scientific proof we not just both belong in the land of Israel BUT we are both brothers. Once united our combined strength will be lead to peace and prosperity for all of us.

Palestinians claim they are the real Jews though. Personally I think White Americans can be the real Jews :cool: the garden of eden is this way baby :thumbs up

[Sikeliot]

Jews might share genes with Palestinian "Arabs" (I put that in quotations because other than people from Arabia proper, everyone else is mostly Arabized), but their overall genetic ancestry is closer to southern Italians than to any pure Middle Eastern people.

[Yuffayur]

Answered your own question there really bro.

When I say related I mean very close, I don't think that AJ or SJ are related to Palestinians as the same way of Egyptians for example even if the last have a different genetic structure (not semitic etc).

btw I think Samaritans are the purest Jews (Israelite) and Levantines.

[Longbowman]

When I say related I mean very close, I don't think that AJ or SJ are related to Palestinians as the same way of Egyptians for example even if the last have a different genetic structure (not semitic etc).

They share ancestry.


btw I think Samaritans are the purest Jews (Israelite) and Levantines.

They are.

[randomguy1235]

When I say related I mean very close, I don't think that AJ or SJ are related to Palestinians as the same way of Egyptians for example even if the last have a different genetic structure (not semitic etc).

btw I think Samaritans are the purest Jews (Israelite) and Levantines.

Egyptians and ethnic Palestinians are substantially different populations. Although, it is fair to point out that Egypt itself is quite diverse. Anyways: many Palestinians (from Nablus especially) are simply Islamized and Arabized Samaritans.

[Longbowman]

Egyptians and ethnic Palestinians are substantially different populations. Although, it is fair to point out the Egypt itself is quite diverse. Anyways: many Palestinians (from Nablus especially) are simply Islamized and Arabized Samaritans.

After Samaritans the Palestinians are the most endemic, for sure. Maybe tied with some Arabic Jews.

[Kamal900]

After Samaritans the Palestinians are the most endemic, for sure. Maybe tied with some Arabic Jews.

Palestinians, like many people around the globe, aren't pure levantines either. Jews are indeed of Levantine ancestry no doubt, but at the same time they are admixed with Europeans for centuries, and genetically, they cluster the closest to people who have similar genetic components found in Jews from admixture between West Asians and Euros like south Italians, Cypriots and etc. Palestinians are no exception to that rule, and they are also admixed with different peoples as well. If you think about it, neither the Palis or the Jews represent pure levantine look and etc but that dosent mean they're arent natives to the levant. I think the pure israelite/levantine in the area happen to be the Samaritans.

[Anglojew]

The Palestinian samples are skewed, which is why they score substantially higher SSA than West Bank samples I've provided. Ethnic Palestinian shouldn't score higher SSA than Saudis or Jordanians (although your averages don't account for where they obtained their Palestinian samples AND it doesn't mention what Jordanians they used considering that Jordan is an extremely diverse country). It's apparent when you look at the phenotypes of some Gazans that they aren't indigenous.

I totally agree.

[Anglojew]

Palestinians, like many people around the globe, aren't pure levantines either. Jews are indeed of Levantine ancestry no doubt, but at the same time they are admixed with Europeans for centuries, and genetically, they cluster the closest to people who have similar genetic components found in Jews from admixture between West Asians and Euros like south Italians, Cypriots and etc. Palestinians are no exception to that rule, and they are also admixed with different peoples as well. If you think about it, neither the Palis or the Jews represent pure levantine look and etc but that dosent mean they're arent natives to the levant. I think the pure israelite/levantine in the area happen to be the Samaritans.

A lot of Palestinians are Islamised Samaritans.

[Kamal900]

A lot of Palestinians are Islamised Samaritans.

They are but they aren't genetically 100 percent pure or anything like that.

[Anglojew]

They are but they aren't genetically 100 percent pure or anything like that.

The Levant is literally the crossroads of three continents so no surprise not many are racially "pure" or to put more accurately retain the same racial make-up as their ancestors thousands of years ago. The bigger surprise is that Jews, Palestinians and other related peoples still share so much shared ancestry given the history of the region and both groups.

[Kamal900]

The Levant is literally the crossroads of three continents so no surprise not many are racially "pure" or to put more accurately retain the same racial make-up as their ancestors thousands of years ago. The bigger surprise is that Jews, Palestinians and other related peoples still share so much shared ancestry given the history of the region and both groups.

Indeed, we are cousins in the end :)

[Anglojew]

They are but they aren't genetically 100 percent pure or anything like that.

I doubt many groups are.

[Longbowman]

My YDNA line goes back to pre-Judaic Southern Levant and is found in its highest numbers amongst Jordanian people living around the Dead Sea.

[Anglojew]

Palestinians, like many people around the globe, aren't pure levantines either. Jews are indeed of Levantine ancestry no doubt, but at the same time they are admixed with Europeans for centuries, and genetically, they cluster the closest to people who have similar genetic components found in Jews from admixture between West Asians and Euros like south Italians, Cypriots and etc. Palestinians are no exception to that rule, and they are also admixed with different peoples as well. If you think about it, neither the Palis or the Jews represent pure levantine look and etc but that dosent mean they're arent natives to the levant. I think the pure israelite/levantine in the area happen to be the Samaritans.

The ethnogenisis of European Jewry was typically initially Judean men with European women but afterwards married amongst themselves for centuries until the modern era.

[Anglojew]

My YDNA line goes back to pre-Judaic Southern Levant and is found in its highest numbers amongst Jordanian people living around the Dead Sea.

I'm a friggin' Central Asian

[Longbowman]

Palestinians, like many people around the globe, aren't pure levantines either. Jews are indeed of Levantine ancestry no doubt, but at the same time they are admixed with Europeans for centuries, and genetically, they cluster the closest to people who have similar genetic components found in Jews from admixture between West Asians and Euros like south Italians, Cypriots and etc. Palestinians are no exception to that rule, and they are also admixed with different peoples as well. If you think about it, neither the Palis or the Jews represent pure levantine look and etc but that dosent mean they're arent natives to the levant. I think the pure israelite/levantine in the area happen to be the Samaritans.

Sephardics plot between Cypriots and Italians, Ashkenazis plot with Italians, particularly Southern Italians and Sicilians.

[Longbowman]

I'm a friggin' Central Asian

By way of the Levant I think, though yes, my YDNA probably goes back to the very founding of Jericho and before, and yours probably came with that first wave of ANE. Still, 2,000 years ago I reckon your male line ancestor was in Judaea, considering the spread of Q1b amongst various Jewish populations and Palestinians.

[curupira]

^ You're right. I've shared with a Moroccan Jew whose yDNA was Q1b, and if I'm not mistaken I've shared with a Mizrahi Jew who was also Q1b.

[Longbowman]

^ You're right. I've shared with a Moroccan Jew whose yDNA was Q1b, and if I'm not mistaken I've shared with a Mizrahi Jew who was also Q1b.

Quite. Also found in Palestinians. Ergo dated to the Levant by 500BC, probably earlier.

E1b1b1c, though, might go back 10,000 or even 15 or 20 thousand years.

[Yuffayur]

They share ancestry.



Sure, me too I share ancestry with them, and a lot of other people but we don't claim to be Levantines like some Jews do(ps some Jews can claim it since they cluster with Levantines, but AJ and SJ no).




Egyptians and ethnic Palestinians are substantially different populations. Although, it is fair to point out that Egypt itself is quite diverse. Anyways: many Palestinians (from Nablus especially) are simply Islamized and Arabized Samaritans.

I'm not saying that Egyptians and Palestinians are the same, but I'm saying that Palestinians are pretty much closer to Egyptians than to AJ or SJ.

[Longbowman]

Sure, me too I share ancestry with them, and a lot of other people but we don't claim to be Levantines like some Jews do(ps some Jews can claim it since they cluster with Levantines, but AJ and SJ no).

European Jews are like 40-45% Levantine, they're as Levantine as mulattoes are black. I agree Jews shouldn't pretend their European half-and-a-bit doesn't exist.

[Sikeliot]

Sephardics plot between Cypriots and Italians, Ashkenazis plot with Italians, particularly Southern Italians and Sicilians.

If you removed the Visigoth, Norman, Swabian and whatnot influences from southern Italians, minor as they are, southern Italians today would probably be closer to Sephardis, with Ashkenazis plotting collectively north of southern Italians. Just some food for thought!

I have seen a few Sicilians who drift into the Sephardi cluster. They may have some Jewish ancestry that converted though.

[Longbowman]

If you removed the Visigoth, Norman, Swabian and whatnot influences from southern Italians, minor as they are, southern Italians today would probably be closer to Sephardis, with Ashkenazis plotting collectively north of southern Italians. Just some food for thought!

I have seen a few Sicilians who drift into the Sephardi cluster. They may have some Jewish ancestry that converted though.

Even if they did I doubt it would be recent enough to be the reason.

I'm not pure but on K8 my Oracle 4 is Samaritan, Samaritan, Hinxton (old English find) and Polish Estonian (pseudo-Baltic). Two Judaean, two Northern.

[Yuffayur]

European Jews are like 40-45% Levantine, they're as Levantine as mulattoes are black. I agree Jews shouldn't pretend their European half-and-a-bit doesn't exist.

+1 this is my viewpoint.

[Anglojew]

By way of the Levant I think, though yes, my YDNA probably goes back to the very founding of Jericho and before, and yours probably came with that first wave of ANE. Still, 2,000 years ago I reckon your male line ancestor was in Judaea, considering the spread of Q1b amongst various Jewish populations and Palestinians.

It's only one line of descent anyway. My Jewish family all look very Levantine. I've embraced my Central Asianess too.

[Anglojew]

^ You're right. I've shared with a Moroccan Jew whose yDNA was Q1b, and if I'm not mistaken I've shared with a Mizrahi Jew who was also Q1b.

Yes, there's a few although rarer than Ashkenazis.

[Anglojew]

Even if they did I doubt it would be recent enough to be the reason.

I'm not pure but on K8 my Oracle 4 is Samaritan, Samaritan, Hinxton (old English find) and Polish Estonian (pseudo-Baltic). Two Judaean, two Northern.

Mine:


1 Armenian + French + North_Swedish + Spanish_Extremadura @ 1.957

Armenian is replaced with Mandean on the other ones.

Basically the 4 corners of Europe.

[Anglojew]

Ironic the Palestinians and some of the Muslims (Nabatea) on this forum, are as "chosen" as the Jews, if not more so. (Faeriequeen's Dad has a specifically Jewish YDNA haplogroup subclade for example).

[Longbowman]

Ironic the Palestinians and some of the Muslims (Nabatea) on this forum, are as "chosen" as the Jews, if not more so. (Faeriequeen's Dad has a specifically Jewish YDNA haplogroup subclade for example).

Her dad and I share the same YDNA clade, it's specifically Levantine more than Jewish.

[Anglojew]

Her dad and I share the same YDNA clade, it's specifically Levantine more than Jewish.

I remember reading something more specific and commented on a thread here. But that's interesting you share presumably common ancient ancestry.

[Longbowman]

I remember reading something more specific and commented on a thread here. But that's interesting you share presumably common ancient ancestry.

Doubtless we all do, Anglojew.

The clade is most common amongst Dead Sea Jordanians at around 1/3 of the population.

[Anglojew]

Doubtless we all do, Anglojew.

The clade is most common amongst Dead Sea Jordanians at around 1/3 of the population.

True. This is why I wish to include Palestinian Hebrews into the Zionist fold.

[Kamal900]

Doubtless we all do, Anglojew.

The clade is most common amongst Dead Sea Jordanians at around 1/3 of the population.

Its not surprsing concerning that the Jordanians living in the Levant region of the country are of Pali origins. Take the city, Al-Salt, as an example. The modern city is mostly inhabited by traders from Nabulus in the 19th century.

[Anglojew]

Its not surprsing concerning that the Jordanians living in the Levant region of the country are of Pali origins. Take the city, Al-Salt, as an example. The modern city is mostly inhabited by traders from Nabulus in the 19th century.

Where is your family from?

[Kamal900]

Where is your family from?

Acre.

[Kamal900]

Where is your family from?

Acre.

[curupira]

This article by "the Forward", a Jewish newspaper from the US, sums it up well IMO (Gil Atzmon and Ostrer took part, among others, in that study):


We Are One, Genetically

Editorial

Published June 02, 2010

The Jewish communal world is obsessed with the notion of peoplehood and how to define it, promote it, strengthen it — especially how to encourage younger, unaffiliated Jews to feel part of a sprawling but interconnected global family. A new scientific study may offer some help. Turns out that Jews the world over share many genetic traits that are distinct from other groups and date to ancient times. We are, said Gil Atzmon, an assistant professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the study’s lead author, “identical by descent.”

Researchers have already shown the prevalence of, say, a Y chromosome shared by many kohanim, but Atzmon said that his study — published June 3 in The American Journal of Human Genetics — may be the most comprehensive study of genetic linkage to date. It examined three major groups of Jews in the Diaspora: Ashkenazim from Eastern Europe; Sephardim from Italian, Greek and Turkish ancestry, and Mizrahi Jews from Iraq and Syria. Participants were recruited from the New York region, Seattle, Athens, Rome and Israel, and must have had four grandparents from the same Jewish community.

The study did find some of what researchers call “admixture,” the mixing of Jewish genetic markers with those of non-Jews, through intermarriage and conversion. Still, “the Italian Jew is closer to the Iraqi Jew than to his Italian neighbor,” Atzmon told the Forward.

Scientifically, these findings are significant because they provide a context to further study the genetic origins of disease. While there are other people with genetic similarities caused by geographic isolation — the Amish and Sardinians are two examples — the Jewish genetic connection goes beyond geography, enforced by centuries of cultural and religious isolation.
Among Jews concerned about continuity, which these days means just about anyone in communal leadership, the findings of this study raise an uncomfortable question. If a similar genetic structure bound Jews together for centuries, provided concrete evidence of a tribal connection, of peoplehood, what will happen in the free-for-all that is America? “This is a very delicate question,” Atzmon acknowledged. “Assimilation can dilute the genomic sharing among Jews. It can take a couple of generations, but [at some point] the genomic is shuffled so much, it can’t be recognized.”

In an age when exclusivity is frowned upon and multiculturalism prized, some Jews may celebrate if the genetic distinctions fade away and are replaced by a more pluralistic definition of who we are — or at least, who our genes say we are. But breaking down the cultural and religious isolation that has characterized Jewish life since ancient times also contains risks. Science tells us that we have, indeed, been one people. Will we remain so?

http://forward.com/articles/128497/we-are-one-genetically/#ixzz3PpijYcPa

[Anglojew]

Acre.

Yes, you look northern.