Are Ashkenazi just an isolated, endogamous population of Sicilian jewish converts?

As anyone who has read about European genetic clustering should know, Ashkenazi jews cluster very closely with Sicilian Italians and certain Greeks. There has been a lot of discussion over what the "mysterious" origin of Ashkenazi jews is, where their ancestry composition could be placed from around roman times, and if they are, or are not, Europeans. But isn't the simplest explanation that they are just southern Italians that became nomadic as a result of their religion? If G25 is to be trusted, Ashkenazi come up as close to southern Italians as an Old Stock American does to any one European population.

Distance to: Ashkenazi_Germany
0.01321694 Italian_Jew
0.01801459 Maltese
0.02033291 Italian_Calabria
0.02035722 Italian_Campania
0.02117626 Sephardic_Jew_o
0.02254849 Romaniote_Jew
0.02382730 Sephardic_Jew
0.02445781 Greek_Crete
0.02453768 Sicilian_East
0.02533199 Italian_Basilicata


Distance to: South_scaled:AncestryDNA
0.01647729 Welsh
0.01679356 French_Brittany
0.01714784 Dutch
0.01817407 Afrikaner
0.01828431 German
0.01849434 English_Cornwall
0.01872883 English
0.01981588 Belgian
0.02094741 Scottish
0.02125801 French_Pas-de-Calais

AFAIK the haplogroup distribution among Siciliand and Ashkenazi Jews suggest different ancestries, but given the fact that both people are a mix of European and old Levantine, they got "fake" proximity

I'm no genetic specialist but I think IBD sharing tests and haplogroups can answer much better real genetic affinity than just autosomal score

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RogueState

AFAIK the haplogroup distribution among Siciliand and Ashkenazi Jews suggest different ancestries, but given the fact that both people are a mix of European and old Levantine, they got "fake" proximity

I'm no genetic specialist but I think IBD sharing tests and haplogroups can answer much better real genetic affinity than just autosomal score

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Wouldn't you expect them to get a much further distance in that case? If I gave you autosomal coords for an ashkenazi, would you be able to tell that he wasn't Sicilian if I told you that he was? What are the odds that a perfect replication of the Sicilian genetic cluster is created through a new-mix Levantine and Italian population? I'm just wondering how this is possible because in every other case in the world, populations that are very similar autosomally are simply assumed to be that way by the simplest and most reasonable explanation: they share the same ancestry.

No, ashkenazi jews are not sicilian nor that similar to them, the similarity is greater with cypriots and druzes.

Most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster that overlies Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine populations or paired Diaspora host populations.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09103

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SouthDutch7991

If G25 is to be trusted, Ashkenazi come up as close to southern Italians as an Old Stock American does to any one European population.

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An individual has higher distances to averages, while averages have lower distances to other averages. They should not be equated in my opinion. Example:

Code:

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Distance to:        SouthDutch7991_AncestryDNA_scaled
0.01647729        Welsh

Distance to:        Welsh
0.00666391        English
0.00715940        English_Cornwall
0.00919005        Scottish
0.00968487        French_Brittany
0.01109619        Orcadian
0.01256714        Irish
0.01356472        Dutch
0.01671907        Danish

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by SouthDutch7991

As anyone who has read about European genetic clustering should know, Ashkenazi jews cluster very closely with Sicilian Italians and certain Greeks. There has been a lot of discussion over what the "mysterious" origin of Ashkenazi jews is, where their ancestry composition could be placed from around roman times, and if they are, or are not, Europeans. But isn't the simplest explanation that they are just southern Italians that became nomadic as a result of their religion?

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As for Ashkenazi Jews, I highly doubt that they are Christian South Italians who converted to Judaism. They have different origins than southern Italians, although they are very similar because both have Levantine ancestry. Ashkenazi Jews are essentially Italian Jews with an 8 to 14% share of Central-Eastern European DNA and a little bit of Asian ancestry.

Code:

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Ashkenazi_Germany,0.0973188,0.1423773,-0.014406,-0.0499358,0.010925,-0.0187694,-0.001974,-0.0017538,0.0098579,0.0188432,0.0039622,-0.0011239,0.0025123,-0.0026699,-0.0050489,0.0030892,0.0022035,-0.0016977,-0.0007794,-0.0011255,-0.0033441,-0.0026957,0.0008751,0.0013857,0.0008143
Ashkenazi_Eastern_Europe,0.100339449,0.134661756,-0.007020282,-0.040714564,0.010565987,-0.014641795,-0.001048462,-0.0006065,0.007163628,0.013880321,0.001334526,-0.000438051,0.002527218,7.23077E-05,-0.003763577,-6.46026E-05,-0.001893923,-0.000102282,0.000116013,-0.003508128,-0.003185128,-0.002343026,0.001667026,0.002399141,0.000372987

Distance to:        Ashkenazi_Germany
0.01321694        Italian_Jew
0.01801459        Maltese
0.02033291        Italian_Calabria
0.02035722        Italian_Campania
0.02254849        Romaniote_Jew
0.02382730        Sephardic_Jew
0.02445781        Greek_Crete
0.02453768        Sicilian_East
0.02533199        Italian_Basilicata
0.02734138        Greek_Kos
0.02775236        Italian_Apulia
0.02801131        Greek_Dodecanese
0.02878019        Sicilian_West

Distance to:        Ashkenazi_Eastern_Europe
0.01771348        Ashkenazi_Germany
0.02046245        Maltese
0.02154651        Italian_Campania
0.02264976        Italian_Basilicata
0.02268741        Sicilian_East
0.02306170        Italian_Calabria
0.02341853        Sicilian_West
0.02361708        Greek_Crete
0.02405216        Italian_Apulia
0.02603781        Italian_Abruzzo
0.02736491        Italian_Jew
0.02890239        Italian_Molise
0.02925047        Greek_Izmir

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2-way models

Code:

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Target: Ashkenazi_Germany
Distance: 0.0082% / 0.00822956 | R2P
91.6        Italian_Jew
8.4        Bosnian

Target: Ashkenazi_Eastern_Europe
Distance: 0.0091% / 0.00906519 | R2P
85.6        Italian_Jew
14.4        Moksha

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Table of ancestral components. As you can see they are quite similar, the Italians however differ in having a larger EEF contribution and a smaller Middle Eastern and North African component.

https://i.imgur.com/JaJWit2.png

What makes them resemble the Italians is also the shift towards the north due to the mixing with the Central-Eastern Europeans.

https://i.imgur.com/HGnDv1X.png

In case you're wondering how much Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Judean Jews before the Diaspora, I would say that the percentage depends mainly on which proxy is used as the Levantine ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews. With Samaritans: 38%, with Lebanese Christians: 50%, with Roman period Lebanese: 44%, and so on. Samaritans of all people have the most continuity with ancient populations, there is good reason to believe that in the 2nd century AD Judeans had a profile similar to theirs. Then I honestly don't know, we don't have ancient DNA from Judea from that period.

Code:

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Distance to:        Samaritan
0.02163410        Levant_Sidon_MBA
0.02287706        Levant_Ashkelon_LBA
0.02463971        Levant_Megiddo_MLBA
0.02483747        Levant_Beirut_IAIII

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There is a possibility that Jews in Judea had already mingled with other peoples, ending up looking more like today's Christian Lebanese rather than the more conservative Samaritans. Christian Lebanese are more shifted towards Anatolia, they have less Levant_N, more EEF and Steppe, this is also why if they are used as proxy the percentage explodes reaching 50%.

https://i.imgur.com/ziVrvd8.png

They are not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RogueState

AFAIK the haplogroup distribution among Siciliand and Ashkenazi Jews suggest different ancestries, but given the fact that both people are a mix of European and old Levantine, they got "fake" proximity

I'm no genetic specialist but I think IBD sharing tests and haplogroups can answer much better real genetic affinity than just autosomal score

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And from what I understand, there is very little IBD sharing between Italians and Ashkenazi Jews.

I think Ashkenazi Jews may be the result of a first mixing with southern Italians and a second mixing with Germans in the Rhineland (ashkenaz in medioeval hebrew means rhineland, so ashkenazi jews are german jews, they even have german surnames). They later emigrated to eastern europe but didn't intermix with the slavs. From there they massively emigrated to the US and Israel.

They could be mainly South Italian converts as well as just displaying a fake proximity. Imo none of these possibilities are yet ruled out. As for not fitting haplogroups: AJ have experienced a strong genetic drift, so the haplogroup proportions are not very enlightening.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ajeje Brazorf

As for Ashkenazi Jews, I highly doubt that they are Christian South Italians who converted to Judaism. They have different origins than southern Italians, although they are very similar because both have Levantine ancestry. (...)

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Not from Christians, but from pagans before Christianity spread. I'm aware of that the following is just anecdotal. But have a look at the pagan Roman banker (!) Lucius Caecilius Iucundus from Pompei:

https://i.imgur.com/yGCU0JH.jpg

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ajeje Brazorf

In case you're wondering how much Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Judean Jews before the Diaspora, I would say that the percentage depends mainly on which proxy is used as the Levantine ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews. With Samaritans: 38%, with Lebanese Christians: 50%, with Roman period Lebanese: 44%, and so on. Samaritans of all people have the most continuity with ancient populations, there is good reason to believe that in the 2nd century AD Judeans had a profile similar to theirs. Then I honestly don't know, we don't have ancient DNA from Judea from that period.

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I consider this usual approach actually somewhat biased and too narrow. Because it requires that AJ do not also descend from Syrians, people from the Asia Minor coast, Cypriots and Greek islanders.
(Pauls letter to the Ephesians implies that there were bulks of indigenous people that had converted to Judaism (and that were now targeted for Christian mission). He figuratively writes that it should be well possible to convert these notable proportions of people who already live "under the law" which in that context just can be understood as the laws of the Old Testament.)
If you also allow such people in the modelling, you can do well with close to zero Judeans/Samaritans.

I personally imagine Jews in the Roman Empire in 200 AD to be a basically similar population to the Christians in 200 AD. Both do in the initial core hail from Judea, personally and spiritually. And both do comprise followers from predominantly the eastern part of the Roman Empire.

If anyone has any qpAdm models for Ashkies, now would be the thread to post them in.