What is the currently accepted explanation for the Sicilian/Ashkenazi genetic similarity?

[Sikeliot]

Which is it?

a) Ashkenazis are primarily descended from southern Italian or Sicilian converts? This would suggest that Israelites, when expelled from Israel, first landed in Italy and then intermarried so much and converted so many people before moving north, and the descendants of these converted Italians became the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews,

or

b) there is no direct admixture between the two groups, but Sicilians and Ashkenazis are of similar genetic components by chance (Greco-Roman, Levantine, NW European) and happen to come out similarly?


To me it would be highly coincidental and up to chance, to assume that two ethnicities that did not intermix with one another could develop nearly identical rates of admixture. Ashkenazi Jews on many DNA tests and admixture runs get their first match as Sicilian, and I've yet to see one that does not. But I notice that on different Gedmatch calculators, if both Ashkenazi and Cretan are reference samples, people from eastern Sicily and Calabria get "Cretan" as their first non-Sicilian match, and western Sicilians get "Ashkenazi".

[Anglojew]

I think that Sicilians and Jews share links due to:

1. Ancient Phoenician/Israelite settlements in Sicily

2. Refugees from the "Jewish Wars" settling in Italy during the Roman Era

3. Refugees from Spain (I've read at once stage 11-14% of Sicily was Sephardi).

4. Similarity in components i.e. Levantine + European (to put it simply).

5. Some Italian genetic input into the Ashkenazi ethnogenesis which seems to have originally taken place in Italy before most of the population migrated to the Rhineland (as well as Crimea in my opinion) leaving the Italkim Jews as proto-(West) Ashkenazis (my theory is there were also "East" Ashkenazis who's ethnogenesis was in Crimea speaking Gothic).

[Anglojew]

I know two friends (one's of southern Italian heritage and one Ashkenazi) and people always think they're sisters.

[Sikeliot]

Other thoughts?

[Black Wolf]

I think that Sicilians and Jews share links due to:

1. Ancient Phoenician/Israelite settlements in Sicily

2. Refugees from the "Jewish Wars" settling in Italy during the Roman Era

3. Refugees from Spain (I've read at once stage 11-14% of Sicily was Sephardi).

4. Similarity in components i.e. Levantine + European (to put it simply).

5. Some Italian genetic input into the Ashkenazi ethnogenesis which seems to have originally taken place in Italy before most of the population migrated to the Rhineland (as well as Crimea in my opinion) leaving the Italkim Jews as proto-(West) Ashkenazis (my theory is there were also "East" Ashkenazis who's ethnogenesis was in Crimea speaking Gothic).

All of these are probably responsible for the similarity of Southern Italian and Ashkenazi genes but numbers 3 and 4 are probably the main reasons.

[dawson]

I know you have a fetish for Sicilians/Southern Italians BUT I never read these converts necessarily came from South Italy. It's the contrary..

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/science/ashkenazi-origins-may-be-with-european-women-study-finds.html?_r=0

"Another recent study, also based on whole genomes, found that a mixture of European ancestries ranged from 30 percent to 60 percent among Ashkenazi and Sephardi populations, with Northern Italians showing the greatest proximity to Jews of any Europeans. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews

"Although the Jewish people in general were present across a wide geographical area as described, genetic research done by Gil Atzmon of the Longevity Genes Project at Albert Einstein College of Medicine suggests "that Ashkenazim branched off from other Jews around the time of the destruction of the First Temple, 2,500 years ago ... flourished during the Roman Empire but then went through a 'severe bottleneck' as they dispersed, reducing a population of several million to just 400 families who left Northern Italy around the year 1000 for Central and eventually Eastern Europe."

http://jfjfp.com/?p=50147

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.

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2010/06/kevin-macdonald-ted-sallis-on-jewish-genetics/

"First, the fact that Jews are most closely related to Northern Italians does not imply that this was due to conversion in the ancient world. He points out that “the relatively greater similarity of Jews to southern rather than central/eastern Europeans may also to some extent reflect the greater Neolithic ancestry in the southern European groups that is shared by various Jewish groups as one component of their ancestry.”

[Roy]

2nd option seems more likely to me. There had to be converts too who were absorbed but this could not be the most of their ancestry either way.

[Longbowman]

I misclicked, but Dawson is right - North Italians with some Levantine is probably the most accurate.

[Not a Cop]

I misclicked, but Dawson is right - North Italians with some Levantine is probably the most accurate.

Have there been found any traces of German-Polish genetic influence in Ashkenazis?

[Longbowman]

Have there been found any traces of German-Polish genetic influence in Ashkenazis?

Some Eastern European influence, namely the relatively high incidence of R1a1a in AJs (but not in SJs) particularly amongst Leviites.

[Taiga Lake]

Jews are Middle Eastern and Sicilians have Middle Eastern genes (mostly from the Muslim invasions).

[Styrian Mujo]

Southern Italians have plenty of Jewish ancestry.

[Longbowman]

Jews are Middle Eastern and Sicilians have Middle Eastern genes (mostly from the Muslim invasions).

Not wholly and probably not even majorly.

Jews don't plot with other Jewish groups.

[Sikeliot]

I misclicked, but Dawson is right - North Italians with some Levantine is probably the most accurate.

This would place them in Sicily then. Because Sicilians come up half Levantine half North Italian on calculators.

[dawson]

This would place them in Sicily then. Because Sicilians come up half Levantine half North Italian on calculators.

Do you like feeding trolls with your silly threads? Check out reliable sources before starting something.

[Sikeliot]

Do you like feeding trolls with your silly threads? Check out reliable sources before starting something.

Credible sources back me up actually.

[Hamlet]

Longbowman what do you think about the idea that AJs and SJs are ultimately from different ancestors - maternally we know AJs are from 4 Italian women - three of haplogroup K and one of haplogroup N1b. Incidentally, K has been associated with higher brain pH levels, which supposedly strengthens/increases neural connectivity - thereby increasing intelligence. Don't know how credible that is. Paternally, AJs are Levantine, as are SJs, so the current theory is that the group split when some male Jews married some non-Jews et viola - Ashkenazi was born. However, AJs and SJs vary dramatically in terms of cephalic index - with Sephardim having low and Ashkenazim having high cephalic indexes respectively. Moreover, facial features seem rather different, with Ashkenazi Jews having more hooked noses with a noticeably thicker bottom lip (as with mine) whilst Sephardi Jews have straighter noses with far thinner lips. Could it be, that Sephardi Jews are true Hebrews (with admixture however), whilst Ashkenazi Jews are Jews who - on the way, during, and on the way back from the exile in Babylonia - mixed an awful lot with some kind of group, potentially Armenoids. However, some guys found skulls of the Hebrews and of very old AJs, and both were brachycephalic. Maybe the AJs are the true Hebrews, and SJs are merely Arabs. Whatever the case, in my opinion, it is clear the AJs and SJs are not from the same parent race - due to general appearance but also a stark contrast in cephalic index. If I had to guess, I would say that AJs are more related to Kurds and Druze (and Greco-Romans, who shared Northern Middle-Eastern DNA (Syria, Armenia, Eastern Turkey etc.)) due to the sharing of Haplogroup K, and that SJs are more related to true Middle-Easterners due to the similar appearances. I'm likely wrong. However, one of the four haplogroups of AJs was N1b, which is of Turkic origin. Could this haplogroup be of Khazarian origin? I have no clue - I just want to know what you think, Longbowman (I am anticipating that you correct me A LOT; you know a lot more about this than me). Thanks! :)

[Hamlet]

And dawson - I have long been an admirer of the Northern Italian type - in my opinion the best type of European you can get* (for sure in IQ, but also the North Italians are VERY creative). At my school there are a couple of Italians (Northern) and they always come up with the best ideas, but Ashkenazi Jews would still beat them in an IQ test :P

*IMO best type of European is the one you get in central central europe - i.e. bavaria, austria, northern italy and switzerland. they also produce the best scientists inventors etc. of all the europeans. no offence sikeliot lol

[Sikeliot]

Sicilians are just as smart as Jews but they don't use that gift as wisely.

[Hamlet]

hmm. i don't know about that. sicily averages an IQ of 90, whilst AJs average around 115 (more like 112 but whatever). however, i guess you could have pride in being clustered closely with what we think the greco-romans were (as well as some of the modern greeks and cypriots), as the romans and mainly the greeks are like the wet dream of europe

[Sikeliot]

Sicilians just don't apply themselves but in school I outperformed almost every Jew I know.

[Longbowman]

Longbowman what do you think about the idea that AJs and SJs are ultimately from different ancestors - maternally we know AJs are from 4 Italian women - three of haplogroup K and one of haplogroup N1b. Incidentally, K has been associated with higher brain pH levels, which supposedly strengthens/increases neural connectivity - thereby increasing intelligence. Don't know how credible that is. Paternally, AJs are Levantine, as are SJs, so the current theory is that the group split when some male Jews married some non-Jews et viola - Ashkenazi was born. However, AJs and SJs vary dramatically in terms of cephalic index - with Sephardim having low and Ashkenazim having high cephalic indexes respectively. Moreover, facial features seem rather different, with Ashkenazi Jews having more hooked noses with a noticeably thicker bottom lip (as with mine) whilst Sephardi Jews have straighter noses with far thinner lips. Could it be, that Sephardi Jews are true Hebrews (with admixture however), whilst Ashkenazi Jews are Jews who - on the way, during, and on the way back from the exile in Babylonia - mixed an awful lot with some kind of group, potentially Armenoids. However, some guys found skulls of the Hebrews and of very old AJs, and both were brachycephalic. Maybe the AJs are the true Hebrews, and SJs are merely Arabs. Whatever the case, in my opinion, it is clear the AJs and SJs are not from the same parent race - due to general appearance but also a stark contrast in cephalic index. If I had to guess, I would say that AJs are more related to Kurds and Druze (and Greco-Romans, who shared Northern Middle-Eastern DNA (Syria, Armenia, Eastern Turkey etc.)) due to the sharing of Haplogroup K, and that SJs are more related to true Middle-Easterners due to the similar appearances. I'm likely wrong. However, one of the four haplogroups of AJs was N1b, which is of Turkic origin. Could this haplogroup be of Khazarian origin? I have no clue - I just want to know what you think, Longbowman (I am anticipating that you correct me A LOT; you know a lot more about this than me). Thanks! :)

Well, just for one personal example - I'm Sephardic along the maternal line, but you might have noticed I have a typically Ashkenazi clade. The groups certainly have at least some shared ancestry. It is true that my K1a1b1a has some unusual mutations - 2,000 years will do that to you - but Sephardics share Ashkenazi clades (except R1a1a and the like).

K is unusually common amongst AJs at around 1/3 but it's pretty high throughout Europe, particularly the UK, and also the Middle East, in particular - frequency of K alone doesn't help much, it's a very common subgroup of U found throughout Western Eurasia and into North Africa. What matters is the relevant subclades. And what matters more is SNP sharing.

Paternally both AJs and SJs are primarily Levantine in origin, though AJs in particular have picked up quite some non-Levantine clades - around 12.5% of the total if you believe Behar, which I don't, but it's true that R1a1a is about 8% in AJs and probably Eastern European, perhaps even Khazar (no, not Turkic, no more non-European than the Hungarians are) in origin, as it's most prominent amongst Levites. Mark has R1a1a, for example. Other clades are less common but present in AJ populations. Conversely, SJs also have admixture, both Iberian (Iberian R1b clades are almost 30% amongst Belmonte Jews, but less amongst other Sephardics) and to a lesser extent North African, Balkanic, Turkic and others depending on where they settled.

The general understanding is that the AJ, SJ and Italqim were originally one group that broke into three when the proto-Sephardics moved to Spain and the Ashkenazi later moved to the Rhine. But it's likely there were previous Jewish groups, both converts and immigrants, in Spain, and there were certainly Kana'anim, 'Slavic Jews,' pre-Ashkenazi that were assimilated, and perhaps also the remnants of the Khazars. Plus there were population exchanges, with documented examples of Iraqi Jews fleeing to Spain during the Golden Age, and Sephardics fleeing to the East after 1492.

However, of course, these groups, whilst related - closely, I might add - are not the same. Ashkenazis are significantly more European-shifted than Sephardics - probably due to minor later admixture, post-relocation, I would say, due to aforementioned probability of admixture with Eastern Europeans. Bear in mind the population of Ashkenazis was only a few hundred into the second millennium. It would have taken only about ten gentiles to shift their population a few percentage points more towards Europe. But Sephardics aren't 'true Hebrews.' They might be less European-shifted but they're still heavily European shifted. When compared to, say, Samaritans - not a perfect proxy, but a group that shows no strong evidence of admixture - or even other Levantine groups, you can see their WHG (for example) is double any other Near Eastern group and three or four times the Samaritans'. For them to be 'true Hebrews' a lot of population shifting would have had to have gone down in what is now Israel.

The return from the first Exile happened 400 years before Christ and probably about 700 before the AJs and SJs (and Italqim) split. Furthermore there is a serious problem with trying to synch up populations by using skull measurements - genetics is a much safer bet. Paternally, anyway, most major Jewish groups have similar ancestry, with some influence from their surroundings. Maternally, they seem to mainly have married native women. Also, N1b isn't Turkic.

There is also no reason to believe any Jewish group has maintained complete or near-complete homogeneity since Moses' time. First, they all plot differently to one another, so at least all but one of them have to be at least partially admixed. Considering that Jews proselytised a lot - the historical record is full of Roman converts, and some counts say 10 million in the centuries after Christ - and the only groups to have prohibited conversion are the Syrian Jews and Karaites, and neither of them for all of their history, it is, I think, wishful thinking to imagine any Jew is a good example of an ancient Judaean. Ashkenazis are no more Jewish than Beta Avraham or Subbotniks.

Also, 'Arab' is a linguistic more than a genetic term; Moroccans aren't Yemenites and Yemenites aren't Lebanese and Lebanese aren't Maltese.

[Longbowman]

Sicilians just don't apply themselves but in school I outperformed almost every Jew I know.

It's the Polish blood ;)

[Dylan]

I can't comment on genotype since I don't know much on that but...

From my experiences, most Ashkenazis do not look like Southern Italians. I grew up in a town where close to half of the people in my high school classes were Askhenazi Jewish including a lot of my close friends. However there is definitely a visible minority of Ashkenazis who look like Southern Italians in terms of phenotype. I know my uncle who is Abruzzese was often thought to be Jewish when he lived in New York for example.

But overall most Ashkenazi didn't look Italian. Most of them descended from immigrants in Germany, Russia, and Poland. I think there must have been a decent amount of admixture in some Ashkenazi communities with these nationalities in some, but not all cases.

Most Ashkenazi that I know look different from other groups. I find it a lot easier to see if someone is ashkenazi or not than any other ethnic group in the world. But this is probably because this is the ethnic group I've been most exposed to.

[Hamlet]

I hardly call that proof, with the sample size population of sicilians being 1 - yourself. I am talking about intelligence here - the stuff evaluated by IQ tests. In terms of creativity, i think europeans may potentially pip AJs, as from my knowledge, although AJs absolutely crush other ethnic groups in fields such as physics, maths etc., in terms of inventors, the best are europeans. moreover, your statement can apply to anybody - i could be a nigerian with an iq of 180 and say what you said, replacing sicilian with nigerian. you cannot prove that sicilians are smarter, excluding creativity, as IQ tests are reasonably accurate, and any errors would not transcend the 25 point difference between sicilians and AJs. you can however prove creativity, and i'm sure, due to the clustering with the ancient romans and greeks, there are plenty of creative sicilians (e.g. inventors etc.)

[Sikeliot]

I can't comment on genotype since I don't know much on that but...

From my experiences, most Ashkenazis do not look like Southern Italians. I grew up in a town where close to half of the people in my high school classes were Askhenazi Jewish including a lot of my close friends. However there is definitely a visible minority of Ashkenazis who look like Southern Italians in terms of phenotype. I know my uncle who is Abruzzese was often thought to be Jewish when he lived in New York for example.

But overall most Ashkenazi didn't look Italian. Most of them descended from immigrants in Germany, Russia, and Poland. I think there must have been a decent amount of admixture in some Ashkenazi communities with these nationalities in some, but not all cases.

Most Ashkenazi that I know look different from other groups. I find it a lot easier to see if someone is ashkenazi or not than any other ethnic group in the world. But this is probably because this is the ethnic group I've been most exposed to.

What do southern Italians look like to you?

[Dylan]

What do southern Italians look like to you?

There's a wide variety of southern italian phenotypes so I can't describe a single type and be accurate.
Some Ashkenazis and some Southern Italians as well as other Italians definitely overlap. But for the most part this is not the case from my observations

[Hamlet]

Looking at appearances seems very unreliable - look at values that are independent of human perception

[Dylan]

Looking at appearances seems very unreliable - look at values that are independent of human perception

What do you mean by values independent of human perception?

[Longbowman]

What do you mean by values independent of human perception?

He means quantifiable values such as IQ.

[Hamlet]

Also, longbowman, what makes skull measurements so bad. AJs are very clearly brachycephalic, and the curve is very steep, indicating a very homogenous race - this of course can be explained by all the inbreeding. Every ashkenazi is, at most, 30th cousins, which is astounding. Anyway, why is skull measurement a bad method - it is obvious that SJs are dolicho- and AJs brachy- cephalic, and to me that is decent proof that something is very different (unless inbreeding instigates brachycephaly, which I doubt)

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/jewishgenetics-141008063636-conversion-gate02/95/jewish-genetics-14-638.jpg?cb=1419126341

[Longbowman]

Also, longbowman, what makes skull measurements so bad. AJs are very clearly brachycephalic, and the curve is very steep, indicating a very homogenous race - this of course can be explained by all the inbreeding. Every ashkenazi is, at most, 30th cousins, which is astounding. Anyway, why is skull measurement a bad method - it is obvious that SJs are dolicho- and AJs brachy- cephalic, and to me that is decent proof that something is very different (unless inbreeding instigates brachycephaly, which I doubt)

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/jewishgenetics-141008063636-conversion-gate02/95/jewish-genetics-14-638.jpg?cb=1419126341

Because it correlates terribly with actual ancestry:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/PSM_V50_D611_Europe_cephalic_index_map.jpg/430px-PSM_V50_D611_Europe_cephalic_index_map.jpg

Kelto-Slavic? Is this a term that has been used apart from this map? No. There is a reason phrenology has been discarded in favour of autosomal DNA and SNP sharing.

Ashkenazis are homogenous but genetically diverse, the most genetically diverse of all European ethnicities. Imagine a black person and a white person having kids, but those kids marry each other for 20 generations. Inbred but still mixed race.

[Sikeliot]

There's a wide variety of southern italian phenotypes so I can't describe a single type and be accurate.
Some Ashkenazis and some Southern Italians as well as other Italians definitely overlap. But for the most part this is not the case from my observations

Describe some of the southern Italian looks you see?

[Hamlet]

Yes, it correlates terribly with ancesty. That much is clear, when the Scottish are closer in cephalic index to africans than to the swiss. however, if sephardim and ashkenazim were of the same kin before the went separate directions from northern italy, why did the cephalic index between the two groups change. Imagine if the english killed all the icelandic and settled for say 1,500 years, but once these 1,500 years are done, there is a difference in cephalix index of near 10 points. that's what i don't get - if SJs and AJs are ultimately of the same kin, why is the CI so different. Is it because SJs mixed with dolichocephalic iberians whilst AJs mixed with brachycephalic slavs? or are they from two different groups?

[Longbowman]

Yes, it correlates terribly with ancesty. That much is clear, when the Scottish are closer in cephalic index to africans than to the swiss. however, if sephardim and ashkenazim were of the same kin before the went separate directions from northern italy, why did the cephalic index between the two groups change. Imagine if the english killed all the icelandic and settled for say 1,500 years, but once these 1,500 years are done, there is a difference in cephalix index of near 10 points. that's what i don't get - if SJs and AJs are ultimately of the same kin, why is the CI so different. Is it because SJs mixed with dolichocephalic iberians whilst AJs mixed with brachycephalic slavs? or are they from two different groups?

Actually insularity would quickly change their physique.

They're not from two different groups, so if there is an ancestral reason for it, it'd be recent. There was certainly some degree of admixture with those groups, as I have demonstrated. It could also be 1,700 years of independent development or drift - remember, there were once only about 250 AJs, which is why Tay-Sachs and other diseases are so prevalent. Numerous factors. Either way, cephalic index is a relict of a bygone era. It's no more relevant to ancestry than measuring the average size of the big toe, or the average curve of the penis.

Yes, these things are determined by genetics (unless you're an ancient Mayan and you're into head-binding) but why bother? DNA is so much better and cephalic index changes in a generation. Look how patchworky Sicily and France are on that map. That's not 1,700 years, either.

[Hamlet]

Last thing, do you think Ashkenazi intelligence is a result of the larger race(s) that comprise AJs (as in, the Roman influence) or a result of eugenics (you know what I mean - richer jews had more children, jews gene pool full of higher IQs)

[Dylan]

Describe some of the southern Italian looks you see?

Varying Skin and hair color, but usually darker
Varying Eye color, but usually brown.

Usually pointier larger noses (I don't have a very good vocabulary)

I notice that a lot of Italians usually have tall heads in general, but I find that Sicilians often have rounder skulls and wider faces. This is also common in my family (Abruzzese)

Bushier eyebrows than your average European, but this is hard to judge since so many people wax or pluck

Overall I haven't been exposed to lots of southern Italians and I have a pretty shitty vocabulary, but that's the best I can say at the moment.

Italians and Ashkenazis have a lot of traits that are slightly similar, but if you look close enough are different.
E.g. The Roman nose is similar to that of a lot of Ashkenazi at first sight, but is different.

[Sikeliot]

Do you think Ashkenazis and southern Italians look European?

[Longbowman]

Last thing, do you think Ashkenazi intelligence is a result of the larger race(s) that comprise AJs (as in, the Roman influence) or a result of eugenics (you know what I mean - richer jews had more children, jews gene pool full of higher IQs)

Probably mainly Ashkenazi culture, plus a bit of the latter. IQ isn't 100% inheritable anyway, if you give your kids to be homeschool by people with down syndrome it doesn't matter how clever their biological parents are, they won't end up particularly bright. Sephardics have average IQs but are of the same Roman stock, as are Italians themselves.

There has been around 1,200 years of pressure on Ashkenazis - but not Sephardics - to do white-collar work. In many cases they've been prohibited from manual labour (though my father's family were farmers, manual labourers and soldiers). That, coupled with putting literacy on a pedestal, probably accounts for most of the AJ IQ superiority (which remember, only applies to verbal IQ; AJ spatial IQ is average to only very slightly above average at 98-105, perhaps showcasing how it's a cultural thing).

[Dylan]

Probably mainly Ashkenazi culture, plus a bit of the latter. IQ isn't 100% inheritable anyway, if you give your kids to be homeschool by people with down syndrome it doesn't matter how clever their biological parents are, they won't end up particularly bright. Sephardics have average IQs but are of the same Roman stock, as are Italians themselves.

There has been around 1,200 years of pressure on Ashkenazis - but not Sephardics - to do white-collar work. In many cases they've been prohibited from manual labour (though my father's family were farmers, manual labourers and soldiers). That, coupled with putting literacy on a pedestal, probably accounts for most of the AJ IQ superiority (which remember, only applies to verbal IQ; AJ spatial IQ is average to only very slightly above average at 98-105, perhaps showcasing how it's a cultural thing).

"if you give your kids to be homeschool by people with down syndrome it doesn't matter how clever their biological parents are, they won't end up particularly bright"


such a funny way to put it! had me laughing

[Dylan]

Do you think Ashkenazis and southern Italians look European?

Yes i think they both look European.
I rarely find Ashkenazis who don't look European

To put it this way, i think Ashkenazis look more Italian than most other ethnicites. E.g. Germans, English, Russians, etc. But they don't look that similar usually. And a lot of the time its completely obvious they aren't italian. Although sometimes it is almost impossible to tell which.

[Hamlet]

two things:

when you say Ashkenazi culture, what do you mean
also, do you not think that the fact that verbal&mathematical iq is higher is not a coincidence. watch/read these - i believe its pretty decisive in describing why jews have such high verbal and mathematical iqs but an average spatial iq:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R-hTToDRzs

http://www.aei.org/publication/the-2011-nobel-prize-and-the-debate-over-jewish-iq/

and for some amazing figures

http://immortallife.info/articles/entry/why-is-the-iq-of-ashkenazi-jews-so-high

[Hamlet]

basically, AJs were banned from owning land, so they lent money. those who had high mathematical and verbal IQs prospered, and earned more money, and had more children. the gene pool now has a higher verbal and mathematical iq. over many generations, this effect becomes significant, and has thus resulted in the roughly 125 verbal and mathematical IQ. spatial iq is slightly below average, and this is because a spatial iq is not needed to banking

[Longbowman]

basically, AJs were banned from owning land, so they lent money. those who had high mathematical and verbal IQs prospered, and earned more money, and had more children. the gene pool now has a higher verbal and mathematical iq. over many generations, this effect becomes significant, and has thus resulted in the roughly 125 verbal and mathematical IQ. spatial iq is slightly below average, and this is because a spatial iq is not needed to banking

I did say this succinctly in my post. Ashkenazi culture is orientated towards white-collar work and/or intensive comprehension (of liturgical works).

[Sikeliot]

Yes i think they both look European.
I rarely find Ashkenazis who don't look European

To put it this way, i think Ashkenazis look more Italian than most other ethnicites. E.g. Germans, English, Russians, etc. But they don't look that similar usually. And a lot of the time its completely obvious they aren't italian. Although sometimes it is almost impossible to tell which.

Can you tell Italians and Jews from Greeks?

[Dylan]

Can you tell Italians and Jews from Greeks?

Greeks and Italians are often hard to tell. If my grandmother weren't my grandmother for example, I would have thought she was Greek.
I notice that Greeks a lot of the times have rounder ocular bones with archy eyebrows and this is less common in italians.

I can generally tell if someone is Ashkenazi.

So I guess you could say I can tell Ashkenazis apart from Greeks and Italians, but I often times I can't tell Italians from Greeks and vice versa.
Although there are some Italians who are very clearly Italian and not Greek.


And obviously this is extremely subjective stuff.
I can't tell every time, but I'm pretty good at it. For example when I met the guy who is now my best friend at college, I had one look at him and I could tell he was Ashkenazi before he told me his name or anything.

And obviously theres always those people who just don't have the phenotype even thought they have the genotype.
E.g. You saw the picture of my dad, he doesn't look French. Most people think he's Lebanese, but he's nearly full french.