Two opposing articles on Eastern Ashkenazim. Do they differ within along this line?

[Pine]

http://whitmanic.com/litvak-galitzianer/

VS

https://avotaynuonline.com/2007/10/galitzianer-litvak-divide-demolished-by-y-dna-studies-by-saul-issroff/

[Peterski]

There is also this:

"Substructured Population Growth in the Ashkenazi Jews Inferred with Approximate Bayesian Computation":

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/molbev/msz047/5370180

"Abstract
The Ashkenazi Jews (AJ) are a population isolate sharing ancestry with both European and Middle Eastern populations that has likely resided in Central Europe since at least the tenth century. Between the 11th and 16th centuries, the AJ population expanded eastward leading to two culturally distinct communities in Western/Central and Eastern Europe. Our aim was to determine whether the western and eastern groups are genetically distinct, and if so, what demographic processes contributed to population differentiation. We used Approximate Bayesian Computation to choose among models of AJ history and to infer demographic parameter values, including divergence times, effective population sizes, and levels of gene flow. For the ABC analysis, we used allele frequency spectrum and identical by descent-based statistics to capture information on a wide timescale. We also mitigated the effects of ascertainment bias when performing ABC on SNP array data by jointly modeling and inferring SNP discovery. We found that the most likely model was population differentiation between Eastern and Western AJ ∼400 years ago. The differentiation between the Eastern and Western AJ could be attributed to more extreme population growth in the Eastern AJ (0.250 per generation) than the Western AJ (0.069 per generation)."

^^^
This Western AJ vs. Eastern AJ divide should more or less correspond to HRE vs. PLC Jews. The data on population size:

http://www1.idc.ac.il/Faculty/Eckstein/pdf/Appendix%20A%20population%203sept2018.pdf

[Pine]

There is also this:

"Substructured Population Growth in the Ashkenazi Jews Inferred with Approximate Bayesian Computation":

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/molbev/msz047/5370180

"Abstract
The Ashkenazi Jews (AJ) are a population isolate sharing ancestry with both European and Middle Eastern populations that has likely resided in Central Europe since at least the tenth century. Between the 11th and 16th centuries, the AJ population expanded eastward leading to two culturally distinct communities in Western/Central and Eastern Europe. Our aim was to determine whether the western and eastern groups are genetically distinct, and if so, what demographic processes contributed to population differentiation. We used Approximate Bayesian Computation to choose among models of AJ history and to infer demographic parameter values, including divergence times, effective population sizes, and levels of gene flow. For the ABC analysis, we used allele frequency spectrum and identical by descent-based statistics to capture information on a wide timescale. We also mitigated the effects of ascertainment bias when performing ABC on SNP array data by jointly modeling and inferring SNP discovery. We found that the most likely model was population differentiation between Eastern and Western AJ ∼400 years ago. The differentiation between the Eastern and Western AJ could be attributed to more extreme population growth in the Eastern AJ (0.250 per generation) than the Western AJ (0.069 per generation)."

^^^
This Western AJ vs. Eastern AJ divide should more or less correspond to HRE vs. PLC Jews. The data on population size:

http://www1.idc.ac.il/Faculty/Eckstein/pdf/Appendix%20A%20population%203sept2018.pdf

The 400 year estimate is fairly consistent with the migration of Ashkenazim into the commonwealth. The interesting thing about the 2nd link is that the 2nd division suggested (German-Austrian, which includes Galitzia etc) vs (Polish-Lithuanian) is roughly how AncestryDNA divides its genetic communities.

[Peterski]

As for, quote: "more extreme population growth in the Eastern AJ (0.250 per generation)".

Polish professor Sebastian Miczyński in year 1598 indeed wrote, that: "Jews marry at age 12, they don't fight in wars, and multiply extremely fast":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Miczy%C5%84ski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_of_the_Polish_Crown

Kind of like modern Orthodox Jews. Here is a good example of such extreme reproduction:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/nyregion/21yitta.html

"(...) When Yitta Schwartz died last month at 93, she left behind 15 children, more than 200 grandchildren and so many great- and great-great-grandchildren that, by her family’s count, she could claim perhaps 2,000 living descendants. (...)"

[Pine]

As for, quote: "more extreme population growth in the Eastern AJ (0.250 per generation)".

Polish professor Sebastian Miczyński in year 1598 indeed wrote, that: "Jews marry at age 12, they don't fight in wars, and multiply extremely fast":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Miczy%C5%84ski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_of_the_Polish_Crown

Kind of like modern Orthodox Jews. Here is a good example of such extreme reproduction:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/nyregion/21yitta.html

"(...) When Yitta Schwartz died last month at 93, she left behind 15 children, more than 200 grandchildren and so many great- and great-great-grandchildren that, by her family’s count, she could claim perhaps 2,000 living descendants. (...)"

Miczyński isn't the most credible source, but the fact alone may be true. I know that my ancestors fought in Eastern Europe since at least the 1800's.

[Peterski]

I know that my ancestors fought in Eastern Europe since at least the 1800's.

But Orthodox Jews generally believe in pacifism, right? The 1800s is already the era when conscription became common.

IIRC, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Jews had some privileges which made them exempt from military service.

[Pine]

There is also this:

Have you noticed a difference in Litvak vs Galitzianer kits? Say, those from Lviv/Krakow vs those from Minsk/Vilna?

[Pine]

But Orthodox Jews generally believe in pacifism, right? The 1800s is already the era when conscription became common.

IIRC, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Jews had some privileges which made them exempt from military service.

My ancestors were Orthodox/Ultra-Orthodox till the Russian Revolution. I'm not familiar with any steadfast belief in pacifism. Maybe it's more typical amongst certain chassidic groups. However, I can think of voluntary examples in Belarus: self-defense units in the Gomel Pogrom and the Jewish Cossack regimen formed in Krichev under Potemkin. There are further examples in Poland, that I can't recall fully off the top of my head.

edit: The Shulchan Aruch in fact demands military action in certain circumstances.

[Peterski]

Miczyński isn't the most credible source

Miczynski's books were censored and he was punished for antisemitism:

Quote: "(...) Reprimended many times and threatened with expulsion from the University, Sebastian Miczynski especially fell into disfavor of the public opinion and of academic authorities in 1618 when he published his antisemitic booklet 'Mirror of the Polish Crown expressing the profound insults and great anxieties it receives from the Jews'. He gathered in that booklet nearly all points made by the antisemitic journalism of that time, going as far as even accusing the Jews of collaboration with the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Publication of the book caused intense protests by the Jewish community and by the Qahal of Cracow, who obtained from the Royal Chancellery a decree issued by King Zygmunt III on 20.08.1618, which censored and forbade the printing and distribution of Miczyński's book, as antisemitic and causing social unrest. Miczynski was removed from his professorial chair and expelled from the University in 1622. In 1626 he became a priest. (...)"

Here are some of accusations against Jews from Miczynski's 1618 book:

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Miczy%C5%84ski#Zarzuty_przeciw_%C5%BBydo m_w_Zwierciadle

- they are blasphemers, they laugh at portraits of Christian saints
- they steal from churches at night (sacrilege)
- they do not observe Christian holidays
- they are black marketeers and support bands of robbers who attack Christian merchants
- they steal from Christians in their own towns, then escape to hide among Jewish communities in other towns
- they instigate apprentices to steal resources from master craftsmen and then sell them to Jews on a low price
- they counterfeit coins, agreements, documents, receipts
- they counterfeit food (Hungarian wine), clothes (fur coats), gold (melting gold with copper) and jewellery
- they are speculators (they store up goods to cause rising prices and market shortages)
- they take over trade through dumping, fraud, they try to economically destroy craftsmen
- they don't do hard jobs such as: farming, blacksmithing
- they are pimps and promote prostitution
- they want the destruction of Christianity
- they are a threat to national security
- they promote alcoholism among ethnic Poles and sell alcohol to soldiers before battles
- espionage: Jews spy for foreign powers and betray national secrets of the Polish Kingdom to its enemies
- they are natural allies of the Muslims due to religious reasons (pork, hatred of the Holy Trinity, circumcision)
- they avoid paying taxes for military expenses
- they do not serve in the military, not even as auxiliaries
- they try to take over economic and political power

Recommendations by Miczynski to the government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth:

- the nobility should cooperate with their Christian subjects rather than with the Jews
- Jews should be discriminated against by the laws
- Jews should be deported from Poland like they had been expelled before from all Western European countries

^^^ Of course none of that was ever implemented and Jews were allowed to stay in Poland.

[Pine]

- they do not observe Christian holidays


He's not wrong...