Do Poles have some Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry?

[Cernunnos]

Until World War II and the Holocaust, the Jews in Europe mostly lived in Eastern Europe in particular in Poland and the former USSR states. Poland was then famous for it's strong Jewish community, to the point where some towns and areas reaching a Jewish majority. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world, so I wonder if that didn't impact the genetics of the Slavic Polish majority during all that time.



G25 suggests so, but it just might be confusing some common ancestral elements of both ashkenazis and poles.

[cass]

Note that Ashkenazi were mostly European and partly Polish so the estimation for Poles in the opposite direction could be confusing.
But yes there was some conversion of Jews. One particularly big ca. 40.000 so called Frankists in Podolia (Ukraine) late 18c.

Overall it is genetically elusive.

[Jana]

Yes. Ethnic Poles often score trace levels of AJ ancestry (0.1-2%). You can see that very well especially at 23andme.

[Tooting Carmen]

Quite likely - Poland was effectively the main centre for European Jewry for a long time, and a good number would have intermarried. (By contrast, nowadays at least 95% of the Polish population is composed of ethnic Poles, making it one of the more relatively homogeneous countries in Europe).

[rothaer]

(...) I wonder if that didn't impact the genetics of the Slavic Polish majority during all that time. (...)

G25 suggests so, but it just might be confusing some common ancestral elements of both ashkenazis and poles.

From my observation at 23andMe a majority of Poles (70%?) do have a small contribution (kind of 0.1% - 2.5%), but notably smaller than what you display in that model and it's regularly beneath 1.0%. As an average of all Poles I'd guess something like 0.3%.

Maybe Roy or Tomenable can enlight by having a look at full Polish matches.

[cass]

Quite likely - Poland was effectively the main centre for European Jewry for a long time, and a good number would have intermarried. (By contrast, nowadays at least 95% of the Polish population is composed of ethnic Poles, making it one of the more relatively homogeneous countries in Europe).

Intermarriages were not popular or rather almost impossible due to difference of religion (and language) until 20c. It was rather limited conversion of Polonized families into Christian society and to some degree informal relationships the other way.
Its well visible in Ashkenazi DNA. They are much more similar to Italians and possibly Rhineland then Poles. Although previous intermixtures appeared 800y and 600y earlier.

[Hasien]

maybe you are a right candiate for this thread.


https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...37#post7424437

[Peterski]

What about Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians - do they also have small AJ admixtures?

[Russki]

Note that Ashkenazi were mostly European and partly Polish so the estimation for Poles in the opposite direction could be confusing.
But yes there was some conversion of Jews. One particularly big ca. 40.000 so called Frankists in Podolia (Ukraine) late 18c.

Overall it is genetically elusive.

This picture with 5% Indian in Romanians always made me wonder if Gypsies played a role in ethnogenesis of Romanians.

I also added Estonians from another chart for easier comparison.

[Dunai]

I wonder why didn't Jews in Poland assimilate into Poles, like adopting their language? In Historic Hungary Jews almost completely adopted Hungarian in the age of the Dual Monarchy and even lost their Yiddish language in great parts. It looks to me that in Poland Jews kept more distance to Polish culture.