Jewish people, where they are from?

Both males and females have Mtdna, females can pass their lineages on to their offspring but males can't. Autosmal DNA exists in both sexes, it's made up of the 21 chromosomes besides the Y and X chromosomes and thus it has more meaning, problem is, it doesn't pass intact through the generations due to genetic recombination, unlike the Y chromosome which passes mostly intact.

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/10/08/ashkenazi-jewish-women-descended-mostly-from-italian-converts-new-study-asserts/


[url]http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/131008/ncomms3543/full/ncomms3543.html



[/URL]
 
Really? I wasn't aware of that. This helps reinforce the idea that ancient Jews weren't necessarily darker than the average Cretan.

That's Benjamin Netanyahu but I get your point.

Thanks, John. Brain freeze. That or early onset Alzheimers :)

"Two key factors could not be determined from the skull—Jesus's hair and coloration. To fill in these parts of the picture, Neave's team turned to drawings found at various archeological sites, dated to the first century. Drawn before the Bible was compiled, they held crucial clues that enabled the researchers to determine that Jesus had dark rather than light-colored eyes. They also pointed out that in keeping with Jewish tradition, he was bearded as well."

They actually used three skulls. Still, I'm sure there was variation among them.

He most probably did indeed have dark hair and eyes. Exact skin color, when tan or not tan, is another question, as is hair texture. I also think that nose shape is difficult to determine even with the current software.

It would be nice if they could go back and get some actual dna from those skulls.
 
The most recent 2015 study ("The time and place of European gene flow into Ashkenazi Jews") says that Ashkenazi Jews are:

- 50% Middle Eastern
- 35% Southern Euro
- 12% Eastern Euro
- 3% Western Euro

It says that Southern Euro admixture is +/- 2000 or more years old (Roman-Hellenistic times), while Eastern Euro is younger.

Eastern Euro admixture could be from various Slavic-speaking peoples or / and from Khazars converted to Judaism.
 
Johannes said:
rabbi said that Jews "whitened" themselves by passing through the Rhine.

Really? Palestinian Arabs have +/- 15% Sub-Saharan African admixture, which is why they are darker than Jews.

It is not like Ancient Hebrews were as dark-skinned as modern Palestinian Arabs. They were closer to modern Jews.

Jews did not need to "whiten" themselves. Look at skin of Samaritans or Druzes - they never left the Middle East:

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

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

Some Samaritans (alongside Druzes & Cypriots, they are among groups most closely related to Jews):

1024px-Flickr_-_Government_Press_Office_%28GPO%29_-_Samaritans_praying_during_Passover_holiday_ceremony_on_mount_Grizim.jpg


1024px-Samaritans_on_Mount_Gerizim%2C_West_Bank_-_20060429.jpg


Samaritans and Druzes - or Assyrians for that matter (see the photo of Assyrian child below) - are rather white:

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

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

The history of the Assyrian people begins with the formation of Assyria circa 2500 BC, followed by rise of the Akkadian Empire during the 24th century BC, in the early bronze age period. Sargon of Akkad united all the native Akkadian-speaking Semites and the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (including the Assyrians) under his rule. After the fall of the Akkadian Empire, the Akkadians split into two nations, Assyria in the north and much later, Babylonia in the south. However, Babylonia unlike Assyria, was founded and originally ruled by non indigenous Amorites, and was more often than not ruled by other waves of non indigenous peoples such as Kassites, Hittites, Elamites, Arameans and Chaldeans. (...)

Photo described as "Iraqi Assyrian child":

Assyrianclothes23.jpg


Photo described as "Iraqi Arab child":

29125513sr9.jpg


=================================

West African admixture in Palestinian Arabs is +/- 10% (and this does not include East African admixture, I guess):

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/6201/westafricanadmix.png

westafricanadmix.png
 

Those findings from Costa et al are very controversial, and subsequent studies have shown that such broad conclusions were unwarranted, as John Doe has already pointed out.

There is a whole discussion about it at Anthrogenica and here on various threads.

Many of these so called "European" mtDna lineages are actually lineages from the Near East that arrived in Europe with the Neolithic farmers (EEF). You would have to get to very specific subclade differentiation to determine if the "Ashkenazi" lineages were newly arrived in Europe during the Classical period or the first centuries AD with the Jewish migrants, or if they arrived in Europe with the farmers and were only then incorporated into the Ashkenazi ethnogenesis in these later periods. Costa et al didn't drill down far enough into the mtDna to determine which of these possibilities is correct.
 
Johannes said:
I told him that the word "Ashkenazi" meant "Germany" in Hebrew

Jews often tend to adopt languages of people among whom they live (for instance, English in the USA).

Germany's Medieval Jewish community came from two main sources - one part were Jews who had settled in areas which were western parts of the Frankish Empire and later East Francia (they eventually developed the Western Yidish language), and the other part were Jews who had settled in West Slavic lands such as Bohemia, Lusatia, Polabia, Pomerania, Silesia, etc., which later became parts of the HRE during its political expansion eastward.

That latter part initially spoke Judeo-Slavic language, so-called Leshon Knaan.

Interactions between Western Yidish and Leshon Knaan led to development of early Eastern Yiddish. The last known written texts in Leshon Knaan language date back to the late 1500s, from areas then belonging to the kingdom of Poland. After that Leshon Knaan got extinct, due to increased expulsions and flight of Yiddish-speaking Jews to the east, where they mixed with Knaan-speaking Jewish communities:

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

"The last evidence of usage of the [Judeo-Slavic] language (written with Hebrew script) come from the 16th century."

That Judeo-Slavonic language was spoken not only by Jews living in Bohemia and Poland, but also by Jews living in Lusatia and areas inhabited by Polabian Slavs. But indeed out of West Slavic lands, the oldest presence of Jews was in the Kingdom of the Czechs (which was established earlier than the Kingdom of Poland), and perhaps also in lands of Lusatian Sorbs. Only later Judeo-Slavic Jews came to Poland - long after Christianization of Poland. But those were relatively small communities, and many of them converted to Christianity throughout time.

There was no numerically significant presence of Jews in Poland - at least not compared to countries such as Spain, Italy, Germany, or even much smaller Portugal, where numbers of Jews were large before expulsions - until the second half of the 16th century.

Most likely Jews settled already in Great Moravia, and were later "inherited" by the Czech Kingdom and other lands of former Great Moravia.

There were also few Jews in the Principality of Halych-Volhynia, and those Jews likely spoke Leshon Knaan. For a short period of time, Western Ukraine belonged to the early Czech Kingdom of the Premyslid dynasty. Perhaps that's when first Jews settled there.

==================

So Ashkenazi Jews refers to Jews speak Yiddish, or to Jews who came from Germany.

Despite being called Ashkenazi, some 90% of modern Ashkenazi Jews descend from people who - at one point in time or another - lived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which became the only safe refuge for Western European Jews during the pogroms and expulsions of the 1300s-1500s.

Judeo-Slavonic language got extinct in the 1500s as the result of mass immigration of Yiddish-speaking Jews from the west.

But Jews increased their numbers so much in Poland-Lithuania not only due to immigration, also due to high fertility rates.

Already in year 1598 certain Sebastian Miczyński noted the following about Jewish fertility:

"Jews marry at age 12, they don't fight in wars, they don't die from bad air, and so they breed like rabbits."

That Early Modern Era Jews had so high fertility rates is not so surprising - just look at modern Orthodox Jews in Israel. They also have very high fertility rates, even higher than Arabs. And now we must realize, that back in the Early Modern Era, virtually 100% of all Jews were Orthodox Jews.

Stanislaw Plater, a Polish noble descended from Polonised Germans of Livonia, did not have sympathy for Jews.

In his 1825 book, xenophobic Plater described the Jews of the Congress Kingdom of Poland in the following way:

"(...) Polish burghers are no longer in majority. In most of smaller towns Jews have outnumbered them by now. Many cities to which 300 years ago entrance for Jews was forbidden, now have around 50% of Jews among their population. In some other towns Jews already outnumber Christians. Wherever Jews move in, they ruin the locals with their selfish trading-monopolistic solidarity. Polish burghers, who are recently affected by the plague of alcoholism just like Polish peasants, cannot resist this. (...) With this method, Polish cities are becoming more and more Jewish. The look of Jewish-inhabited districts, for people who know how cities look in other countries, is not very nice. (...) Only in southern part of the Congress Kingdom of Poland, in the vicinity of Kielce and Bodzentyn, few dozen towns are still free from Jews. (...) Jews, living in Poland for few centuries, now belong to the most striking phenomena of this country. In no other countries have they become so numerous, nowhere have they preserved so much of a separate nationality. Elsewhere, they are now just a religious sect, but in Poland they are a nation within a nation, which is preserving their own language, their own traditional costumes and customs. Hebrew is for them what Latin is for Catholics and Old Church Slavonic for Eastern Christians, that is - the language of religious rituals. Their vernacular is strange and wild, a macaronic mix of German and Polish - it proves, that they came to Poland not from the east, but from the west. (...)"

Apart from immigration, Jews indeed had a higher fertility than Non-Jews. Z. Guldon and K. Krzystanek in book "Jewish population in towns of the left-bank part of the Sandomir Voivodeship in 16th-18th centuries. Settlement-demography study", Kielce 1990, wrote that percent of Jews among inhabitants of towns of Sandomir Voivodeship west of the San River increased from 7,4% by the end of the 1600s, to 22% by the end of the 1700s.

In the Congress Kingdom of Poland, which was described above by Plater, percent of Jews among the population increased from 6,3% in 1816 - shortly after the Kingdom was created - to around 15% in 1913, shortly before WW1. Not all of that growth was due to natural increase, as there was also westward immigration of Jews to Congress Poland, mostly from Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. Those were so called "Litvaks".

By contrast Jews from the Grand Duchy of Poznan and from Galicia emigrated westward, as the result of which percent of Jews in the Grand Duchy of Poznan decreased from 7,8% in 1816 (as you can see, in 1816 percent of Jews was higher in the Grand Duchy of Poznan, than in Congress Poland) to just 1,9% in 1900. That was due to westward emigration to Germany (including Berlin) and to the USA.

In Galicia percent of Jews among the population was also decreasing, but not as fast.

In modern Israel, Orthodox Jews are the fastest growing ethno-religious group thanks to their high fertility rates. In the Early Modern Era all Jews were Orthodox, and they were also characterized by very high rates of natural growth. That's how Poland-Lithuania became home to by far the largest Jewish diaspora in Europe at one point in time (the second largest one was in the Ottoman Empire) - due to immigration from countries from which Jews had been expelled, combined with high natural increase.

The Russian Empire had no Jewish inhabitants within its 1719 borders. Until 1762 the number of Jews there increased to 66,100 due to annexation of formerly Polish-Lithuanian Livonia, as well as some immigration.

In Prussia and Austria the same was the case. Before 1648, there existed no Jewish communities there as far as I know, all had been expelled by that time. However, some Jewish immigration from Polish-controlled Ukraine to lands controlled by the Habsburg dynasty and to Prussia-Brandenburg started already in 1648, during the rebellion by Chmiel the Wicked (as he was called by Nathan Hanover in "Abyss of Despair"). In Berlin first Jews showed up in 1671 (after one century since last group of Jews had been expelled in 1573), and first synagogue was built in 1712.

That said, the bulk of their Jews was acquired by Prussia and Austria - just like in case of Russia - in the partitions of Poland-Lithuania. Prussia acquired around 70,000 Jews in 1773, then 74,000 more Jews in 1793, and finally 76,000 Jews in the third partition (1795), but lands of the Prussian third partition were later lost, and ultimately acquired by Russia in 1815.

After 1772-1795 Jews gradually emigrated from areas acquired in the partitions, to other parts of Prussia / Germany, Austro-Hungary and Russia.

For example, in year 1850 still as much as 72,3% of all Austrian Jews lived in Galicia, while in 1900 only 66,2% lived there. Similar Jewish emigration from Polish lands acquired by Prussia to western parts of Germany and to the city of Berlin took place.

In 1670 there were no Jews living in Berlin, while in 1925 the Jewish community in Berlin numbered 173,000 people.

So vast majority if not all of ancestors of Russian, German and Austrian Jews had lived in Poland-Lithuania at some point in time between year 1647 and year 1795. During that period, Poland-Lithuania was one of perhaps only three countries in Europe - alongside the Ottoman Empire and the Netherlands - that were tolerant for Jews.

Of course there was also emigration across the ocean, to the USA. In period 1830 to 1930 in total some 3,060,000 Jews emigrated from Europe to North America, ncluding 2,900,000 just to the USA (of them 2,447,438 in period 1881 - 1932, around 1,500,000 in period 1900 - 1914, while 296,852 in period 1919 - 1925, and only 65,841 in period 1925 - 1932).

There were a few Jews in the USA also before 1830, for example in 1790 Jews were 0,25% of the U.S. population.

========================

In the first half of the 20th century, Jews in Poland were a group of large social contrasts.

There was both a large group of rich Jews (compared to Non-Jews) and a large Jewish underclass (compared to Non-Jewish).

In 1921 Jews (believers of Judaism) were 10.5% of the population, but as many as 22.2% of all unemployed people, 18% of all employed people who did not reveal in the census what was their exact occupation, just 0.9% of people employed in agriculture, 23.5% of people employed in industry and mining, 73.8% of all people employed in commodity trade, 13.8% of employed in currency trade, 81.4% of employed in factoring.

In 1931 Jews (believers of Judaism) were 9,8% of the population (a decrease compared to 1921), but 27.3% of urban population and 3.2% of rural population, 21% of people employed in industry and mining, 59% of employed in commodity trade (a large decrease compared to 1921), 1% of employed in agriculture, 12% of employed in communication, finally 12% of employed in various other occupations.

High Jewish unemployement (in 1921 they were 10.5% of the population but as many as 22.2% of the unemployed population) resulted from the abnormal and highly monolithic character of their occupation profile - most of them were employed in commodity trade, usually those were small-scale traders. They were reluctant to move on to other occupations, and there was simply not enough room for so many traders.

They also faced increasing competition from Christian traders, who were supported by Christian population (i.e. "Christians buy from Christians"). And instead of changing their employment profile due to that competition, many Jews continued to do what they did, and slided into poverty. There emerged a large Jewish working class (industrial and mining workers) - still not as large as Christian, though.

In the USA, where % of Jews among population was much smaller, there was enough room for "traditional Jewish occupations". In Poland there was no room for "traditional Jewish occupations", as Jews were a very large % of the population. It was only in Palestine (and later in the state of Israel), where Jews finally realized, that they needed to start working as farmers and industrial workers as well. And indeed, Jewish colonists who moved to Palestine, learned how to farm, and started to diversify their occupational profiles. As the result, they could build a normally functioning state - Israel - where Jewish people are employed in various types of occupations - unlike in the past in Europe.

Back to pre-war Poland:

Jews were - on average - better educated than Christians, but reasons for that were: 1) that most of Jews lived in urban areas and 2) that there was poor education of Christians who lived in the countryside (especially Orthodox and Greek Catholic Christians). By contrast, if we take into consideration just urban population, then urban Christians were actually better educated than urban Jews (source in the link below):

http://www.stanford.edu/~ranabr/Abramit ... aburda.pdf

From pages 4 to 6 of the paper in the link posted above:

"(...) Since during both censuses about 3/4 of Jews resided in urban areas and 3/4 of the total population lived in rural areas, a general comparison without distinction into urban and rural areas compares mostly urban Jews to mostly rural non-Jews. Population in urban areas was signicantly more literate than that in rural areas, for both the Jewish minority and the non-Jewish population. Urban Jews - even though less literate than urban non-Jews - are still more literate than rural non-Jews. Thus, in the aggregate statistics, Jews are more literate than non-Jews. (...)"

And:

"(...) Jews attained higher levels of education than non-Jews, but lower levels in urban areas (...)"

Now some pieces of data from year 1921:

Group - active in the workforce / economically inactive population

Jews - 33.9% / 66.1%

Roman Catholics - 54.4% / 45.6%
Protestants - 53.2% / 46.8%
Greek Catholics - 63.9% / 36.1%
Orthodox people - 62.5% / 37.5%
others - 57.4% / 42.6%

Christians in total - 56.5% / 43.5%

S. Pawlowski in "On Emigration of Jews from Poland" commented that in the following way:

"(...) Number of Jews active in the workforce is in general two times lower than number of Jews economically inactive, especially in trade and isurances it is almost three times lower. (...) Such a situation was in 1921, while nowadays [1937] it must be even worse. There is no doubt that the percent of economically inactive Jews is rather increasing than decreasing. (...) Out of all Jews only 1/3 make a living, while among Non-Jews 5/9. (...) Under these conditions pauperization among Jews is progressing fast, and is becoming one of main reasons of their emigration. Jews, locking and limiting themselves to just a few occupations, are losing with each day job opportunities and opportunities to make a living. (...)"

=======================

While of those in "trade and insurances" sector (in 1921):

Group - active in the workforce / economically inactive population

Jews - 324,615 (28.6%) / 812,316 (71.4%)
Roman Catholics - 169,026 (40.6%) / 246,877 (59.4%)
Protestants - 15,309 / 21,140
Greek Catholics - 4,861 / 5,803
Orthodox people - 4,000 / 5,534
others - 955 / 1,146

=======================

Among Pawlowski's conclusions about Jewish well-being and rates of Jewish emigration, was:

"(...)

c) The greater the percent of Jews among the total population in a given country, the higher is their emigration rate. Because with the increase of the number of Jews in a given territory compared to its total population, economical power of Jews in this territory is decreasing and their pauperization starts. Moreover, in such a country Jews are creating strong competition against themselves, which is understandable due to the monolithic nature of their occupational profile. (...) For this reason, even Jews themselves admit, that emigration of some part of Jewish people from a given country is improving the economical situation of the remaining Jews in that country.

(...)

h) Jewish migrations generally do not meet any obstacles in countries from which Jews emigrate, but do encounter serious problems in countries to which they want to immigrate. Some countries try to totally prevent Jewish immigration, or to limit its scale.

i) Even though Jewish emigrants are citizens of various states, Jewish emigration nevertheless has a national character. Jews are trying to establish main lines of emigration for their population, and are trying to organize it, or at least to support it. In this respect Jews surpass many nations, and even states. Jews have created international emigration-colonial organizations, with very strong capitals.

These organizations include:

1. ICA or PICA - Palestine Yewish Colonisation Association - its creation was possible thanks to capital of Baron Hirsch
2. OZET - Colonisation Association for Agricultural Jews
3. AGROJOINT - association created by American Jews, by so called Joint Distribution Comittee
4. KOMZET - committee for Jewish agricultural settlement in the Soviet Union
5. ORT - association for supporting Jewish colonization in Ukraine
6. IKOR - communist organization in the Soviet Union, supporting Jewish emigration and colonization
7. PROCER - emigration organization in Buenos Aires
8. HIAS - Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of America

They are joined by many banks and special funds, including Keren Hajessot and Keren Kayemet (...) as well as associations such as Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden in Berlin, Wiener Alliance Israelite, EZRA, and others.

(...)

m) Wherever Jews plan to settle for good [i.e. Palestine], they switch from trading, crafts and industrial activities to agricultural activities. They buy the land and settle there as colonists. However, they are encountering many difficulties during this process, because - owing to their monolithic occupational structure - Jews have no skilled farmers. Moreover, Jews are a mostly urban society and they live in large groups in cities and towns, rarely in large villages. (...) A Jew as an individual colonist is a rare case.

(...)"

As for preventing Jewish immigration by various countries, indeed - after 1918 the United States of America passed laws on immigration quotas limiting the influx of Jews, as well as other Eastern European and Southern European immigrants.
 
Jews often tend to adopt languages of people among whom they live (for instance, English in the USA).

Germany's Medieval Jewish community came from two main sources - one part were Jews who had settled in areas which were western parts of the Frankish Empire and later East Francia (they eventually developed the Western Yidish language), and the other part were Jews who had settled in West Slavic lands such as Bohemia, Lusatia, Polabia, Pomerania, Silesia, etc., which later became parts of the HRE during its political expansion eastward.

That latter part initially spoke Judeo-Slavic language, so-called Leshon Knaan.

Interactions between Western Yidish and Leshon Knaan led to development of early Eastern Yiddish. The last known written texts in Leshon Knaan language date back to the late 1500s, from areas then belonging to the kingdom of Poland. After that Leshon Knaan got extinct, due to increased expulsions and flight of Yiddish-speaking Jews to the east, where they mixed with Knaan-speaking Jewish communities:

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



That Judeo-Slavonic language was spoken not only by Jews living in Bohemia and Poland, but also by Jews living in Lusatia and areas inhabited by Polabian Slavs. But indeed out of West Slavic lands, the oldest presence of Jews was in the Kingdom of the Czechs (which was established earlier than the Kingdom of Poland), and perhaps also in lands of Lusatian Sorbs. Only later Judeo-Slavic Jews came to Poland - long after Christianization of Poland. But those were relatively small communities, and many of them converted to Christianity throughout time.

There was no numerically significant presence of Jews in Poland - at least not compared to countries such as Spain, Italy, Germany, or even much smaller Portugal, where numbers of Jews were large before expulsions - until the second half of the 16th century.

Most likely Jews settled already in Great Moravia, and were later "inherited" by the Czech Kingdom and other lands of former Great Moravia.

There were also few Jews in the Principality of Halych-Volhynia, and those Jews likely spoke Leshon Knaan. For a short period of time, Western Ukraine belonged to the early Czech Kingdom of the Premyslid dynasty. Perhaps that's when first Jews settled there.

==================

So Ashkenazi Jews refers to Jews speak Yiddish, or to Jews who came from Germany.

Despite being called Ashkenazi, some 90% of modern Ashkenazi Jews descend from people who - at one point in time or another - lived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which became the only safe refuge for Western European Jews during the pogroms and expulsions of the 1300s-1500s.

Judeo-Slavonic language got extinct in the 1500s as the result of mass immigration of Yiddish-speaking Jews from the west.

But Jews increased their numbers so much in Poland-Lithuania not only due to immigration, also due to high fertility rates.

Already in year 1598 certain Sebastian Miczyński noted the following about Jewish fertility:

"Jews marry at age 12, they don't fight in wars, they don't die from bad air, and so they breed like rabbits."

That Early Modern Era Jews had so high fertility rates is not so surprising - just look at modern Orthodox Jews in Israel. They also have very high fertility rates, even higher than Arabs. And now we must realize, that back in the Early Modern Era, virtually 100% of all Jews were Orthodox Jews.

Stanislaw Plater, a Polish noble descended from Polonised Germans of Livonia, did not have sympathy for Jews.

In his 1825 book, xenophobic Plater described the Jews of the Congress Kingdom of Poland in the following way:

"(...) Polish burghers are no longer in majority. In most of smaller towns Jews have outnumbered them by now. Many cities to which 300 years ago entrance for Jews was forbidden, now have around 50% of Jews among their population. In some other towns Jews already outnumber Christians. Wherever Jews move in, they ruin the locals with their selfish trading-monopolistic solidarity. (...) With this method, Polish cities are becoming more and more Jewish. The look of Jewish-inhabited districts, for people who know how cities look in other countries, is not very nice. (...) Only in southern part of the Congress Kingdom of Poland, in the vicinity of Kielce and Bodzentyn, few dozen towns are still free from Jews. (...) Jews, living in Poland for few centuries, now belong to the most striking phenomena of this country. In no other countries have they become so numerous, nowhere have they preserved so much of a separate nationality. Elsewhere, they are now just a religious sect, but in Poland they are a nation within a nation, which is preserving their own language, their own traditional costumes and customs. Hebrew is for them what Latin is for Catholics and Old Church Slavonic for Eastern Christians, that is - the language of religious rituals. Their vernacular is strange and wild, a macaronic mix of German and Polish - it proves, that they came to Poland not from the east, but from the west. (...)"

Apart from immigration, Jews indeed had a higher fertility than Non-Jews. Z. Guldon and K. Krzystanek in book "Jewish population in towns of the left-bank part of the Sandomir Voivodeship in 16th-18th centuries. Settlement-demography study", Kielce 1990, wrote that percent of Jews among inhabitants of towns of Sandomir Voivodeship west of the San River increased from 7,4% by the end of the 1600s, to 22% by the end of the 1700s.

In the Congress Kingdom of Poland, which was described above by Plater, percent of Jews among the population increased from 6,3% in 1816 - shortly after the Kingdom was created - to around 15% in 1913, shortly before WW1. Not all of that growth was due to natural increase, as there was also westward immigration of Jews to Congress Poland, mostly from Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. Those were so called "Litvaks".

By contrast Jews from the Grand Duchy of Poznan and from Galicia emigrated westward, as the result of which percent of Jews in the Grand Duchy of Poznan decreased from 7,8% in 1816 (as you can see, in 1816 percent of Jews was higher in the Grand Duchy of Poznan, than in Congress Poland) to just 1,9% in 1900. That was due to westward emigration to Germany (including Berlin) and to the USA.

In Galicia percent of Jews among the population was also decreasing, but not as fast.

In modern Israel, Orthodox Jews are the fastest growing ethno-religious group thanks to their high fertility rates. In the Early Modern Era all Jews were Orthodox, and they were also characterized by very high rates of natural growth. That's how Poland-Lithuania became home to by far the largest Jewish diaspora in Europe at one point in time (the second largest one was in the Ottoman Empire) - due to immigration from countries from which Jews had been expelled, combined with high natural increase.

The Russian Empire had no Jewish inhabitants within its 1719 borders. Until 1762 the number of Jews there increased to 66,100 due to annexation of formerly Polish-Lithuanian Livonia, as well as some immigration.

In Prussia and Austria the same was the case. Before 1648, there existed no Jewish communities there as far as I know, all had been expelled by that time. However, some Jewish immigration from Polish-controlled Ukraine to lands controlled by the Habsburg dynasty and to Prussia-Brandenburg started already in 1648, during the rebellion by Chmiel the Wicked (as he was called by Nathan Hanover in "Abyss of Despair"). In Berlin first Jews showed up in 1671 (after one century since last group of Jews had been expelled in 1573), and first synagogue was built in 1712.

That said, the bulk of their Jews was acquired by Prussia and Austria - just like in case of Russia - in the partitions of Poland-Lithuania. Prussia acquired around 70,000 Jews in 1773, then 74,000 more Jews in 1793, and finally 76,000 Jews in the third partition (1795), but lands of the Prussian third partition were later lost, and ultimately acquired by Russia in 1815.

After 1772-1795 Jews gradually emigrated from areas acquired in the partitions, to other parts of Prussia / Germany, Austro-Hungary and Russia.

For example, in year 1850 still as much as 72,3% of all Austrian Jews lived in Galicia, while in 1900 only 66,2% lived there. Similar Jewish emigration from Polish lands acquired by Prussia to western parts of Germany and to the city of Berlin took place.

In 1670 there were no Jews living in Berlin, while in 1925 the Jewish community in Berlin numbered 173,000 people.

So vast majority if not all of ancestors of Russian, German and Austrian Jews had lived in Poland-Lithuania at some point in time between year 1647 and year 1795. During that period, Poland-Lithuania was one of perhaps only three countries in Europe - alongside the Ottoman Empire and the Netherlands - that were tolerant for Jews.

Of course there was also emigration across the ocean, to the USA. In period 1830 to 1930 in total some 3,060,000 Jews emigrated from Europe to North America, ncluding 2,900,000 just to the USA (of them 2,447,438 in period 1881 - 1932, around 1,500,000 in period 1900 - 1914, while 296,852 in period 1919 - 1925, and only 65,841 in period 1925 - 1932).

There were a few Jews in the USA also before 1830, for example in 1790 Jews were 0,25% of the U.S. population.

========================

In the first half of the 20th century, Jews in Poland were a group of large social contrasts.

There was both a large group of rich Jews (compared to Non-Jews) and a large Jewish underclass (compared to Non-Jewish).

In 1921 Jews (believers of Judaism) were 10.5% of the population, but as many as 22.2% of all unemployed people, 18% of all employed people who did not reveal in the census what was their exact occupation, just 0.9% of people employed in agriculture, 23.5% of people employed in industry and mining, 73.8% of all people employed in commodity trade, 13.8% of employed in currency trade, 81.4% of employed in factoring.

In 1931 Jews (believers of Judaism) were 9,8% of the population (a decrease compared to 1921), but 27.3% of urban population and 3.2% of rural population, 21% of people employed in industry and mining, 59% of employed in commodity trade (a large decrease compared to 1921), 1% of employed in agriculture, 12% of employed in communication, finally 12% of employed in various other occupations.

High Jewish unemployement (in 1921 they were 10.5% of the population but as many as 22.2% of the unemployed population) resulted from the abnormal and highly monolithic character of their occupation profile - most of them were employed in commodity trade, usually those were small-scale traders. They were reluctant to move on to other occupations, and there was simply not enough room for so many traders.

They also faced increasing competition from Christian traders, who were supported by Christian population (i.e. "Christians buy from Christians"). And instead of changing their employment profile due to that competition, many Jews continued to do what they did, and slided into poverty. There emerged a large Jewish working class (industrial and mining workers) - still not as large as Christian, though.

In the USA, where % of Jews among population was much smaller, there was enough room for "traditional Jewish occupations". In Poland there was no room for "traditional Jewish occupations", as Jews were a very large % of the population. It was only in Palestine (and later in the state of Israel), where Jews finally realized, that they needed to start working as farmers and industrial workers as well. And indeed, Jewish colonists who moved to Palestine, learned how to farm, and started to diversify their occupational profiles. As the result, they could build a normally functioning state - Israel - where Jewish people are employed in various types of occupations - unlike in the past in Europe.

Back to pre-war Poland:

Jews were - on average - better educated than Christians, but reasons for that were: 1) that most of Jews lived in urban areas and 2) that there was poor education of Christians who lived in the countryside (especially Orthodox and Greek Catholic Christians). By contrast, if we take into consideration just urban population, then urban Christians were actually better educated than urban Jews (source in the link below):

http://www.stanford.edu/~ranabr/Abramit ... aburda.pdf

From pages 4 to 6 of the paper in the link posted above:

"(...) Since during both censuses about 3/4 of Jews resided in urban areas and 3/4 of the total population lived in rural areas, a general comparison without distinction into urban and rural areas compares mostly urban Jews to mostly rural non-Jews. Population in urban areas was signicantly more literate than that in rural areas, for both the Jewish minority and the non-Jewish population. Urban Jews - even though less literate than urban non-Jews - are still more literate than rural non-Jews. Thus, in the aggregate statistics, Jews are more literate than non-Jews. (...)"

And:

"(...) Jews attained higher levels of education than non-Jews, but lower levels in urban areas (...)"

Now some pieces of data from year 1921:

Group - active in the workforce / economically inactive population

Jews - 33.9% / 66.1%

Roman Catholics - 54.4% / 45.6%
Protestants - 53.2% / 46.8%
Greek Catholics - 63.9% / 36.1%
Orthodox people - 62.5% / 37.5%
others - 57.4% / 42.6%

Christians in total - 56.5% / 43.5%

S. Pawlowski in "On Emigration of Jews from Poland" commented that in the following way:

"(...) Number of Jews active in the workforce is in general two times higher than number of Jews economically inactive, especially in trade and isurances it is almost three times higher. (...) Such a situation was in 1921, while nowadays [1937] it must be even worse. There is no doubt that the percent of economically inactive Jews is rather increasing than decreasing. (...) Out of all Jews only 1/3 make a living, while among Non-Jews 5/9. (...) Under these conditions pauperization among Jews is progressing fast, and is becoming one of main reasons of their emigration. Jews, locking and limiting themselves to just a few occupations, are losing with each day job opportunities and opportunities to make a living. (...)"

=======================

While of those in "trade and insurances" sector (in 1921):

Group - active in the workforce / economically inactive population

Jews - 324,615 (28.6%) / 812,316 (71.4%)
Roman Catholics - 169,026 (40.6%) / 246,877 (59.4%)
Protestants - 15,309 / 21,140
Greek Catholics - 4,861 / 5,803
Orthodox people - 4,000 / 5,534
others - 955 / 1,146

=======================

Among Pawlowski's conclusions about Jewish well-being and rates of Jewish emigration, was:

"(...)

c) The greater the percent of Jews among the total population in a given country, the higher is their emigration rate. Because with the increase of the number of Jews in a given territory compared to its total population, economical power of Jews in this territory is decreasing and their pauperization starts. Moreover, in such a country Jews are creating strong competition against themselves, which is understandable due to the monolithic nature of their occupational profile. (...) For this reason, even Jews themselves admit, that emigration of some part of Jewish people from a given country is improving the economical situation of the remaining Jews in that country.

(...)

h) Jewish migrations generally do not meet any obstacles in countries from which Jews emigrate, but do encounter serious problems in countries to which they want to immigrate. Some countries try to totally prevent Jewish immigration, or to limit its scale.

i) Even though Jewish emigrants are citizens of various states, Jewish emigration nevertheless has a national character. Jews are trying to establish main lines of emigration for their population, and are trying to organize it, or at least to support it. In this respect Jews surpass many nations, and even states. Jews have created international emigration-colonial organizations, with very strong capitals.

These organizations include:

1. ICA or PICA - Palestine Yewish Colonisation Association - its creation was possible thanks to capital of Baron Hirsch
2. OZET - Colonisation Association for Agricultural Jews
3. AGROJOINT - association created by American Jews, by so called Joint Distribution Comittee
4. KOMZET - committee for Jewish agricultural settlement in the Soviet Union
5. ORT - association for supporting Jewish colonization in Ukraine
6. IKOR - communist organization in the Soviet Union, supporting Jewish emigration and colonization
7. PROCER - emigration organization in Buenos Aires
8. HIAS - Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of America

They are joined by many banks and special funds, including Keren Hajessot and Keren Kayemet (...) as well as associations such as Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden in Berlin, Wiener Alliance Israelite, EZRA, and others.

(...)

m) Wherever Jews plan to settle for good [i.e. Palestine], they switch from trading, crafts and industrial activities to agricultural activities. They buy the land and settle there as colonists. However, they are encountering many difficulties during this process, because - owing to their monolithic occupational structure - Jews have no skilled farmers. Moreover, Jews are a mostly urban society and they live in large groups in cities and towns, rarely in large villages. (...) A Jew as an individual colonist is a rare case.

(...)"

As for preventing Jewish immigration by various countries, indeed - after 1918 the United States of America passed laws on immigration quotas limiting the influx of Jews, as well as other Eastern European and Southern European immigrants.

Sorry, the differences in literacy rates of Jews versus other people living in eastern Europe can't be reduced to a matter of urban versus rural life styles. At a time in the Middle Ages when all Jewish men, at least, could read, probably the entire population of eastern Europe was illiterate, including the aristocratic classes. The only exception might have been the clergy. The same was true in certain parts of western Europe as well. The reason is simple. By the time of his bar mitzvah, a young Jewish boy has to be able to read the scriptures. Whether they would be literate in eastern European languages is another issue.

Also, the respect and, indeed, veneration for scholars of the Talmud in the Jewish community transferred easily into a respect for scholarship of all kinds.

Furthermore, the fact that Jews of the 19th century, say, were not farmers, is hardly their "fault". They had been forbidden to buy land by decree of Christian Kings and governments. They were, instead, forced to live in extremely small, extremely crowded urban ghettos. In Torino they were, for hundreds of years, literally locked down every night. That isn't to say that there weren't Jewish traders in the classical and Roman periods. There were also a lot of Galilean and Judean farmers and artisans, however. Paul of Tarsus, famously, was a tent maker. Peter was a fisherman, Jesus was a carpenter.

In my opinion, analyses which don't look at the historical forces which molded the culture of an ethnicity are bound come to incorrect, or, at least, incomplete analyses.
 
Angela said:
At a time in the Middle Ages when all Jewish men, at least, could read, probably the entire population of eastern Europe was illiterate, including the aristocratic classes. The only exception might have been the clergy.
Maybe - I don't have any good estimates for the Middle Ages.

According to one estimate, around year 1580 some 15-20% of the Polish-Lithuanian society could read and write.

But later literacy dramatically declined, to around 10% in year 1715.

This probably refers to Non-Jewish population only (because from 1580 to 1715 number of Jews vastly increased).

Angela said:
Furthermore, the fact that Jews of the 19th century, say, were not farmers, is hardly their "fault". They had been forbidden to buy land by decree of Christian Kings and governments.

I know. Jews of Europe were shaped by feudalism. And it was hard to move on and change lifestyle. But as I wrote - once the Jewish population hit over 10%, the demand for more people in traditional Jewish occupations was - at that time - no longer in existence.

Perhaps if the country was modernizing faster than it was, then the demand would increase. But the Great Depression hit in 1929.

Hitler claimed that he needed more "Lebensraum" because too many Germans were still peasants and German cities were already overcrowded. But look at today's Germany - almost all people live in cities, and they have much less "Lebesnraum" than in 1933.

======================

As you wrote origins of that situation lied deeply in the feudal restrictions applied to Jews in Medieval Europe.

But for those reasons, Jewish occupational structure was very different from that of Christians of all kinds:

ethnic_employment.png


===============================

Edit:

Jews were also the most urbanised ethnic group of the Russian Empire in 1897, 2nd most urbanised were Iranic Tajiks.

Table 4. from book "The Russian Empire: A Multi-ethnic History" by Andreas Kappeler:

https://books.google.pl/books?id=JZ...anization of individual ethnic groups&f=false

Ethnic_Urbanization.png


When it comes to explanations of those differences - in fact it worked a bit differently than you may think that it worked.

For example the higher % of urbanization among Russians than among Ukrainians was perhaps not because Russians were so much more likely to settle in cities than Ukrainians, but rather because when a Ukrainian peasant settled in a city, he tended to learn Russian language, and to start to identify as Russian. Of course that was the case for many reasons, mostly because Russian language was more prestigious than Ukrainian dialects, and Russian identity was more prestigious than Ukrainian identity, which was associated with peasants and stereotyped.
 
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OK so you must be talking about male DNA? Jewish Mtdna is heavily European. Ashkenazi Jews have traditionally been attracted to "goyim" women in order to "blend in" into their European environments. They did this in order to do business and find women to marry in Europe. They still mix with "goyim" women as we speak (look at USA and Hollywood).

Did you not read what I just wrote? Over 80% of Jewish patrilineages come from the Near East, furthermore the claim that Jewish mtDNA is "heavily European" was popularised by a 2013 study by Costa et al. which was subsequently overturned by Fernandez et al. 2014's re-analysis of PPNB remains from Syria.

In the beginning ancient Jews were very similar to Arabs both in mental and physical characteristics -- dark skin, hairy, curly or wooly hair, almond-shaped eyes, belief in one god, very strict laws, loud, rude, aggressive, etc -- but their religion separated them. Eventually Jews in Europe became so mixed that they became indistinguishable from Europeans or Americans as they do today -- or any other race/nationality.

Eh, how on earth would you know? Were you alive back then? I sincerely doubt so. Furthermore, I am related to the Danfi-Tsedaqa clan of the Samaritans, and I can tell you that they look nothing like Arabs or the description you brought up.
Finally, if you really think Jews are "indistinguishable from Europeans", I suggest you take a trip to Eastern Europe and show the locals pictures of Jews living in shtetls before telling them that they're "indistinguishable from Europeans". Unless you're ready to do that, I'm simply not going to take any of what you say seriously.
 
See "Genetic Studies of Jewish origins" on Wikipedia. About 80% of AJ's male lines come from Middle East and North Africa. But on the other hand the female DNA are mostly European (65-80%). "A 2013 study at the University of Huddersfield, led by Professor Martin B. Richards, concluded that 65%-81% of Ashkenazi Mt-DNA is European in origin, including all four founding mothers, and that most of the remaining lineages are also European. The results were published in Nature Communications in October 2013. The team analyzed about 2,500 complete and 28,000 partial Mt-DNA genomes of mostly non-Jews, and 836 partial Mt-DNA genomes of Ashkenazi Jews. The study claims that only 8% of Ashkenazi Mt-DNA could be identified as Middle Eastern in origin, with the origin of the rest being unclear.[53]"

Again, this study was overturned by Fernandez et al. 2014's re-analysis of Syrian PPNB remains, and I won't even bother quoting the supplemental data where the authors contradict their own conclusions.
 
The most recent 2015 study ("The time and place of European gene flow into Ashkenazi Jews") says that Ashkenazi Jews are:

- 50% Middle Eastern
- 35% Southern Euro
- 12% Eastern Euro
- 3% Western Euro

It says that Southern Euro admixture is +/- 2000 or more years old (Roman-Hellenistic times), while Eastern Euro is younger.

Eastern Euro admixture could be from various Slavic-speaking peoples or / and from Khazars converted to Judaism.

I think that's from Carmi et al.'s forthcoming study, if I'm not mistaken. As usual, the problem with such studies is that they draw conclusions going off contemporary data, while in fact the only way we're going to achieve some sort of consensus here is by acquiring ancient genetic data from the Levant and early Jewish communities in the Mediterranean.

The amount of Eastern Euro here doesn't make much sense by the way, as quite a few Ashkenazim totally lack this component in the first place... And the whole "Khazar" thing is dying a horrible death, the more we try to corroborate Khazar admixture the less plausible it becomes.
 
Semitic Duwa said:
I think that's from Carmi et al.'s forthcoming study, if I'm not mistaken

Yes.

Semitic Duwa said:
Finally, if you really think Jews are "indistinguishable from Europeans"

Among Jews in Germany dark hair colors were much more frequent while among Germany's Christians - fair hair colours predominated.

Pre-war data from Virchow for Germany and from Schimmer for Austria (cited by "JewishEncyclopedia.com" website):

Land - % Blonds (Jews / Christians) | % Brunettes (Jews / Christians):

Prussia - 11.23 / 39.75 | 43.34 / 14.05
Hesse - 11.17 / 31.53 | 41.50 / 13.22
Baden - 10.32 / 24.34 | 41.95 / 21.18
Bavaria - 10.38 / 20.36 | 39.45 21.10
Alsace-Lorraine - 13.51 / 18.44 | 34.59 / 25.21

Only in Alsace-Lorraine Christians were just slightly lighter than Jews. In other lands Jews had significantly darker hair colors.

Distribution of Jewish blond and brunette types in Germany and Austria shows overwhelmingly dark hair (from Virchow and Schimmer):

Land - % Blond Jews / % Brunette Jews:

Silesia - 8.20 / 49.53
Pommern - 8.85 / 50.58
Brandenburg - 9.64 / 47.39
East and West Prussia - 11.61 / 43.04
Galicia - 13.97 / 32.91
Posen - 12.39 / 39.22
Bohemia - 8.29 / 46.87
Lower Austria - 8.69 / 46.16
Moravia - 9.86 / 43.15
Bukovina - 13.55 / 35.21

Data from Henryk Szpidbaum (himself Jewish) for Polish Jews (not sure if this refers to Congress Kingdom, or 2nd Republic):

Blond hair - 13,28%
Light eyes - 20,59%

By comparison among ethnic Polish Christians 68% - 72,4% have light eyes and among ethnic English Christians 74% or more.

According to Guenter, "Die Rassenkunde d. jued. Volkes.", published in 1931 (and cited by Henryk Szpidbaum in "Jews in the Reborn Poland", Warsaw 1933), light-haired Jews were not due to European admixture, but already Ancient Hebrews had 10% - 15% fair-haired people among them.

So the most obvious difference between Jews and Northern-Central-Eastern Europeans, was that Jews were predominantly dark-haired.

A wartime colour photo (taken by Hugo Jaeger) of a Jewish girl from the ghetto in Kutno, occupied Poland:

Large size: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DXX-dftPz...7xXbTAFg/s1600/smiling+jewish+girl+crop+2.jpg

kutno6.gif


More colour photos of Jews from Kutno by Hugo Jaeger (one of Nazi Germany's most important photographers):

http://wyborcza.pl/5,140981,14804167.html?i=6

===========================

Henryk Szpidbaum wrote chapter 34. "Racial structure of Polish Jews" for the book "Jews in the Reborn Poland", Warsaw 1933.

Polish title: "Żydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej. Działalność społeczna, gospodarcza, oświatowa i kulturalna."

In English (plus a table of contents translated to English - author of each chapter is given):

"Jews in the Reborn Poland. Social, economic, educational and cultural activity":

VOLUME ONE, Warsaw 1933:

Publisher's Note
Introduction - Dr Ozjasz Thon

PART I - Jews in the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth:

1. Growth of Jewish population in the lands of old Polish Commonwealth - Dr Ignacy Schiper
2. External history of Jews in the old Commonwealth - Dr Emanuel Ringelblum
3. Internal Organization of Jews in the old Commonwealth - Dr I. Schiper
4. Economic history of Jews of the Crown and of the Grand Duchy in pre-partitions times - Dr I. Schiper
5. Fundamental rights of Jews in pre-partitions Poland - Dr Mojżesz Schorr
6. Jewish taxes to the state and to patrons - Dr I. Schiper

PART II - Jewish culture in Poland before the partitions:

7. Rabbinic literature of Jews in the old Commonwealth - Dr Jeremjasz Frenkel
8. Vernacular languages of Polish Jews and their folk literature in the old Commonwealth - Dr I. Schiper
9. Jewish apologists and polemicists in the old Commonwealth - Dr I. Schiper
10. Secular sciences among Jews in the old Commonwealth - Dr I. Schiper
11. Misticism and messianic movements among Jews in the old Commonwealth - Dr I. Schiper
12. Chasidism among Jews in the old Commonwealth - Dr Jeremiasz Frenkel
13. Jewish doctors in the old Commonwealth - Dr Majer Bałaban
14. Plastic arts among Jews in the old Commonwealth - Dr I. Schiper
15. Jewish education in the old Commonwealth - Dr Majer Bałaban
16. Customs and private life of Jews in the old Commonwealth - Dr Majer Bałaban

PART III - Polish Jews in the post-partitions period until year 1918:

17. History of Jews in Galicia (1772 - 1918) - Dr Filip Friedman
18. Galician Jews during the World War (1914 - 1918) - Dr I. Schiper
19. History of Jews in the Duchy of Warsaw and in the Kingdom of Poland (1795 - 1863) - Dr I. Schiper
20. History of Jews in the Kingdom of Poland since 1864 until 1918 - Samuel Hirszhorn
21. Development of Chasidism among Jews in post-partitions Poland (1795 - 1918) - Dr Jeremiasz Frenkel
22. History of Zionism in Polish lands (until 1918) - Dr Ignacy Schiper
23. Jewish working class movement in pre-war period - Arjeh Tartakower
24. Jews in Polish Legions (1914 - 1917) - Władysław Konic
25. Jews under the Prussian partition (1772 - 1918) - Dr I. Schiper
26. Jews in northern and eastern Kresy in post-partitions times - Dr I. Schiper

VOLUME TWO, Warsaw 1933:

PART III - Polish Jews in the post-partitions period until year 1918 (continued):

26. Jews in northern and eastern Kresy in post-partitions times (continued) - Dr I. Schiper
27. Participation of Polish Jews in science (19th century and early 20th century) - Mateusz Mieses
28. Modern Hebrew literature in Poland - Dr Jeremiasz Frenkel
29. Jewish contribution to Polish literature (until year 1918) - Dr Wilhelm Fallek
30. Development of Jewish literature in post-partitions Poland - Dr I. Schiper
31. Rabbinic literature of Polish Jews in post-partitions times - Izaak Lewin
32. Polish Jews and fine arts until year 1918 - Aleksander Hafftka

PART IV - Jews in the Rzeczpospolita [Republic] of Poland in period 1918 - 1933:

34. Racial structure of Polish Jews - Dr Henryk Szpidbaum
35. Numbers and natural development of Jewish population in Poland - Dr Arjeh Tartakower
36. Fundamental rights of Jewish minority in Poland and their history - Dr Michał Ringel
37. Legislation of the Reborn Poland concerning its Jewish national minority - Aleksander Hafftka
38. Legislation of the Reborn Poland concerning Jewish communities - Dr Michał Ringel
39. Jewish political parties in the Reborn Poland - Aleksander Hafftka
40. Parliamentary life of Jews in the Reborn Poland - Aleksander Hafftka
41. Parliamentary and political activity of Jewish deputies and senators in the Reborn Poland - A. Hafftka

PART V - Economic life:

42. Occupational and social structure of Jews in the Reborn Poland - Dr Arjeh Tartakower
43. Issues concerning pauperization of Jewish population in Poland - J. Borenstein
44. Jews in agriculture in the areas of former Congress Poland and Eastern Kresy - Engineer Bernard Dobrzyński
45. Jews in agriculture in the region of Lesser Poland - Dr Ignacy Schiper
46. Jews in Polish banking - Adolf Peretz
47. Jews in banking and credit (Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Wilno Region, Eastern Kresy) - Dr Ignacy Schiper
48. Participation of Jews in trade of the Reborn Poland - Engineer Maurycy Zajdeman
49. Participation of Jews in the branch of dealership and commission - Leon Perl
50. Jews in Polish industry - Dr Ignacy Schiper & Aleksander Hafftka
51. Participation of Jews in communication and transport - Dr Ignacy Schiper
52. Jewish artisans in the Reborn Poland - A. Hafftka
53. Jewish working class in Poland - Dr Arjeh Tartakower
54. Jewish cooperatives in the Reborn Poland - Abraham Prowalski

=============
=============

Dr Henryk Szpidbaum, in his chapter 34. "Racial [anthropological] structure of Polish Jews" believed that a relatively large part of Polish-Jewish ancestry were Khazar admixtures - and he described Jews with visible Khazar admixture, their anthropological type, as "Przednioazjatycki" ("Western Asiatic"). Of course at that time DNA was unknown, and physical anthropologists were classifiying people into "anthropological types" basing just on their physical appearance, skull shape, etc. - believing that phenotype is strongly correlated with genetic distance or genetic closeness between people (populations which are close to each other anthropologically would be described as a "race"). Modern genetic studies show that this is not really the case.

Genetic studies show that those old anthropological "racial" classifications were obsolete, at least in determining ancestry.

Phenotype is not determined just by genotype. Phenotype results from interactons of genotype and environment over time.

Here is a chart made by Dr Henryk Szpidbaum and his attempt of anthropological classification of Jews from 1933:

http://s27.postimg.org/3sie35hf7/Jewish_Anthro_Types.png

Jewish_Anthro_Types.png


Szpidbaum also wrote:

"(...) Polish Jews, just like also Jews from other countries, as well as other [Non-Jewish] nationalities, are all complicated mixes of many racial elements. Moreover it must be underlined, that there is no any exclusively Jewish-specific racial element, that cannot be found also among many other [Non-Jewish] peoples. European nations differ from each other only with distinct proportions of individual racial elements. (...)"

Here two photos from Szpidbaum's study:

http://s13.postimg.org/fkwe95jjr/Szpidbaum_types.png

Szpidbaum_types.png
 
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Semitic Duwa said:
And the whole "Khazar" thing is dying a horrible death, the more we try to corroborate Khazar admixture the less plausible it becomes.

But we don't really know what was Khazar DNA. Let's find samples of ancient DNA from Khazar bones, and then we can talk.

As well as ancient Jewish DNA from the Levant, so that we can compare them and see if there is some Khazar admixture.
 
Semitic Duwa said:
quite a few Ashkenazim totally lack this component in the first place...

These people might be descended from those few Ashkenazi lineages, that never lived in Eastern Europe.

It seems that some Jewish communities survived in the Netherlands and in South-Western Germany.

A conversation from another forum:

the Holy Roman Empire was never centralized, so when one principality or city expelled them, they could try luck in another one. But as Michael Toch's data shows, vast majority fled outside of the HRE's border, or perished in pogroms. Where exactly was there a continuous Jewish presence? As for Spain, some part of Jews converted to Christianity, with some of those who converted remaining "secret Jews":

There were multiple expulsions and pogroms within the HRE from the 14th to the 16th centuries. However, in many cases, this did not lead to Jews leaving the HRE, but just settling at a different location. For example, many Jews moved out of the cities and found refuge in small rural communities in Southwestern and Western Germany. (...) It is certainly true that most Jewish communities in Germany had a discontinuous history. However, there are also places where Jewish settlement was in principle uninterrupted. Examples are Worms, where a Jewish community existed for a millennium (10th century - 1942). Another one is Frankfurt, where Jews are recorded since the 12th century. From the 14th century, there is a continuous presence except for the years 1614 -1616. A typical example of the later rural communities is that of Buchau, a small town in the very South of Germany (1575 - 1942).

Through the 19th Century, the Jewish population of Germany (first of the independent states, then after 1871 of the German Reich) grew at a rate much higher than that of the German population as a whole. Furthermore, that growth occurred overwhelmingly in the older part of Prussia, due to immigration from Prussian Poland, as the figures posted indicate.

To be sure there were ancient Jewish communities in Germany, in places like Frankfurt, where they were described in rather negative terms by Goethe. But those communities were small.

By the end of the 19th Century they were overwhelmed by the much larger Jewish population of Prussia, with its massive concentration in Berlin.

Take for example the famous 18th Century Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. He was a native of Dessau in Prussia, but his family had come from Poland, and he was descended from Moses Isserles, the 16th Century Polish-Jewish Talmudist.

Another example - Karl Marx, born in Trier, in the Rhineland, but his ancestors had come mainly from Eastern Europe, his mother's family from Hungary (Pressburg), and his paternal grandmother's from Poland (Lwow).

So Jews without any Eastern Euro admixture can be descended from such Western communities, like that of Worms:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms,_Germany

There was an unbroken, continuous presence of Jews in Worms from the 10th century AD until year 1942.

Of course such communities were rare. Most of Medieval Germany's Jews were expelled to the east in 1300-1600.
 
Angela said:
veneration for scholars of the Talmud in the Jewish community transferred easily into a respect for scholarship of all kinds.

This is true.

But Jews tend to perform better in occupations requiring verbal or reasoning abilities, than in those requiring visual or spatial abilities:

"(...) A curious feature of the IQ of the Jews is that they are particularly strong on the verbal and reasoning abilities, and not nearly so strong on the visual and spatial abilities. (...) This profile of the Jews expresses itself in the areas of attainment in which Jews excell. Jews are very prominent in occupations requiring verbal and reasoning abilities, such as law, science, literature (...) but not so strong on occupations requiring visual and spatial abilities, such as engineering and architecture. There are not many prominent Jews in the fields of engineering and architecture. It is hard to name eminent Jews in these occupations. (...)"

Source:

Richard Lynn, "Why Are The Jews So Smart". I know he is a highly controversial author. But this particular observation seems true.

For hundreds of years Jews were involved mostly in occupations which required such verbal and reasoning abilities.
 
This is true.

But Jews tend to perform better in occupations requiring verbal or reasoning abilities, than in those requiring visual or spatial abilities:

"(...) A curious feature of the IQ of the Jews is that they are particularly strong on the verbal and reasoning abilities, and not nearly so strong on the visual and spatial abilities. (...) This profile of the Jews expresses itself in the areas of attainment in which Jews excell. Jews are very prominent in occupations requiring verbal and reasoning abilities, such as law, science, literature (...) but not so strong on occupations requiring visual and spatial abilities, such as engineering and architecture. There are not many prominent Jews in the fields of engineering and architecture. It is hard to name eminent Jews in these occupations. (...)"

Source:

Richard Lynn, "Why Are The Jews So Smart". I know he is a highly controversial author. But this particular observation seems true.

For hundreds of years Jews were involved mostly in occupations which required such verbal and reasoning abilities.

Richard Lynn is a well known racist who has been proven to have doctored data, "extrapolated" data incorrectly, and compared results using different testing measures. Nothing that he says should be given any credence whatsoever, except in the rare instances where it happens to correlate with the results of respected scholars in the field of intelligence research.

This particular conclusion flies in the face of real world measures.

At the very least it must be high verbal and mathematical skills, or there is no way that their average IQ would be 115-117. Or, what about the many Jewish children in Gifted Child programs where you have to have an IQ of 130 to be admitted? I assure you they are massively over represented in those programs and in high schools for math, science and engineering in large cities like New York and Chicago. In addition, everything I know about IQ testing indicates that visual spatial processing correlates with mathematical ability, and certainly with sciences like physics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates#Physics

He's just another anti-Semite uncomfortable with the fact that Jews outperform European non Jews.

I've also looked over some of your posts again. In my opinion, there are a lot of misrepresentations or at least half truths in those sources.

This Polish writer from the 16th century who said that the Jews didn’t fight in wars? Well, they sure fought in wars when they were in Israel, to the point that they tried to take on the Roman Empire, and paid for it by having their country smashed and having many of their people scattered to the four winds. They wouldn’t have fought in wars in Europe because they were excluded from all aspects of communal life. Instead, they were sitting ducks waiting for the next mob to attack them and burn them in their synagogues. Well, after generations of isolating them, restricting them to only certain professions, refusing to grant them citizenship, taxing the heck out of them, and subjecting them to pogrom after pogrom, certain eastern European governments did finally decide in the 19th and early 20th century to use them for cannon fodder and tried to conscript them for thirty years of service. What a surprise that the Jews didn’t jump at the chance, and tried desperately to emigrate.

That’s a large part of the reason for the mass emigration of Jews from eastern Europe, by the way, that, and the series of increasingly vicious pogroms, not the fact that there were so many of them that they were competing with each other, for goodness sakes. This author is looking for gnats and ignoring the elephant in the room. It’s not like this is terra incognita. There are innumerable testimonials as to why the Jews wanted so desperately to leave. They were fleeing persecution in the form of the pogroms, the inability to attend schools and universities above a certain quota, the forced conscription by governments who were at the same time discriminating against them.

Just look at Europe today for a modern day example. Why do you think the Jews of Sweden and France are leaving? They’re leaving because Muslims attack them even in the streets, and the authorities do nothing. Why do you think the Jews who tried to return to Poland when they got out of concentration camps wound up leaving again for Israel and the United States? It was because they were still being attacked in the streets. Modern day Jews learned their lesson. This insanity seems never to end. I'd leave too.


I’m also unsure what the 16th century writer meant by “they (the Jews) don’t breathe bad air.” Have you ever read the accounts of conditions in medieval cities? On top of the “normal” unsanitary conditions, they were packed into tiny spaces, living on top of one another. I’m sure they got the worst of whatever the community could provide in terms of fresh water, sewage services etc. It’s a testament to their ritual cleanliness practices that they survived at all. That, and perhaps some natural inherited genes for fitness.


This brings me to this “breeding like rabbits” business. When basically healthy people have enough food they tend to breed like rabbits. That’s what the Neolithic farmers did (the hunter-gatherers didn’t because their life style didn’t produce enough food), and the American settlers, as we’ve discussed, and the Swiss/German Amish. Heck, it happened all over most of Europe in the 19th century with better food and better sanitation. There was a massive increase in population in Italy as well during that century and the early years of the 20th century, which spurred immigration. My grandmother had eleven children, all healthy, strong and intelligent.


I also suppose there’s something to be said for the fact that, so long as first cousins aren’t marrying, it appears from some studies I’ve read that fertility is highest when people belong to the same gene pool. Or, maybe, instead of drinking themselves incapable every Friday and Saturday night, eastern European Jews obeyed the Talmudic strictures to “do their husbandly duty to their wives” at least every Friday night. Or maybe it had to do with their more sanitary practices, compared to the peasants around them, again in accordance with Talmudic Law.


I’m sorry if you find this offensive, but these Polish sources you’re citing just stink of veiled old fashioned anti-semitism, and rationalization in order to white wash history, not objective scholarship.

That passage about “Polish” versus “Jewish” Burghers is a good example. The author himself cites that the commerce of the “Polish” burghers suffered because of their alcohol problems. So, whose fault was that, pray tell? That lies at their own door. I don’t have much sympathy for people who have no self control or discipline, and then blame other people for their own lack of success. As for the Jews helping other Jews, I’m sure that was true. In the Middle Ages the Lombard bankers competed against bankers from other Italian city states, but they also collaborated on certain ventures. It’s natural. (They also suffered a version of a pogrom…in London. Uneducated mobs often turn against the wealthy, especially if they come from a different ethnic group.) If the Polish merchants wanted to corner a bigger share of the market they should have created some sort of larger mercantile association or cooperative. Who was stopping them? It all just sounds like the perpetual complaints of those who can’t compete.


The literacy issue I’ve already addressed. Jews have to be able to read Hebrew scripture by the time they have their Bar Mitzvah. So, they were literate long before literacy started to rise in non-Jewish eastern European countries. Turning to the “education” issue in the article you cited, I’ve just skimmed it, but I don’t see that the subjects were asked if they could read and write Hebrew. If they were only asked if they were literate in Polish, why would anyone be surprised if the answer was no, or at least lower than that of urban Poles, particularly in light of the fact that they were forbidden to attend Polish schools? Why would they have been educated in the subjects taught in the Polish schools of the late 1800s if their attendance was restricted?


I’m sorry, but, in my opinion, most of these sources show huge gaps in logic and thorough analysis, and give off more than a whiff of old fashioned anti-semitism.

Ed. Maybe that was too harsh. Perhaps some of these articles were written by people who just haven't been exposed to non local sources.
 
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Did you not read what I just wrote? Over 80% of Jewish patrilineages come from the Near East, furthermore the claim that Jewish mtDNA is "heavily European" was popularised by a 2013 study by Costa et al. which was subsequently overturned by Fernandez et al. 2014's re-analysis of PPNB remains from Syria.

Eh, how on earth would you know? Were you alive back then? I sincerely doubt so. Furthermore, I am related to the Danfi-Tsedaqa clan of the Samaritans, and I can tell you that they look nothing like Arabs or the description you brought up.
Finally, if you really think Jews are "indistinguishable from Europeans", I suggest you take a trip to Eastern Europe and show the locals pictures of Jews living in shtetls before telling them that they're "indistinguishable from Europeans". Unless you're ready to do that, I'm simply not going to take any of what you say seriously.

Did you read what I said?? I stated that about 60-80% of Jew Y DNA was from the Middle East BUT 65-80% of female DNA was from Europe. Just because one study is "overturned" does not mean you are right or it's all garbage.

OK, I did not mean to say ALL Jews are indistinguishable from Europeans. I have met and seen hundreds of Jews in USA and Ukraine or eastern Europe. What I meant is that I have seen many orthodox Jews that have white skin and fair hair with blue eyes who look very similar to "Nordics." This is clearly an effect of mixing with Europeans.
 
Have you yet found any example of ancient Arabian (or Jewish, for that matter, since now you also are including them as well) art work showing a human face with sub-Saharan African traits, like the "wooly hair" you keep babbling about, or are you still just posting ludicrous claims that have already been addressed and refuted in other threads?

Here: I hope now you can shut up and stop annoying me. This is what I mean by wooly hair OK -- do you finally get it??: Now I hope you will disappear and stop pestering me about how Arabs and Berbers are so white. :LOL:

picture-23-94.png
 


Really? Palestinian Arabs have +/- 15% Sub-Saharan African admixture, which is why they are darker than Jews.

It is not like Ancient Hebrews were as dark-skinned as modern Palestinian Arabs. They were closer to modern Jews.

Jews did not need to "whiten" themselves. Look at skin of Samaritans or Druzes - they never left the Middle East:

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

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

Some Samaritans (alongside Druzes & Cypriots, they are among groups most closely related to Jews):

1024px-Flickr_-_Government_Press_Office_%28GPO%29_-_Samaritans_praying_during_Passover_holiday_ceremony_on_mount_Grizim.jpg


1024px-Samaritans_on_Mount_Gerizim%2C_West_Bank_-_20060429.jpg


Samaritans and Druzes - or Assyrians for that matter (see the photo of Assyrian child below) - are rather white:

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

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



Photo described as "Iraqi Assyrian child":

Assyrianclothes23.jpg


Photo described as "Iraqi Arab child":

29125513sr9.jpg


=================================

West African admixture in Palestinian Arabs is +/- 10% (and this does not include East African admixture, I guess):

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/6201/westafricanadmix.png

westafricanadmix.png

Dont you read your history??? Do you know that when the crusaders came into Syria and Lebanon many married local women??? The crusaders were called "franks" but they lived for 200 years! Don't you think they would have added to the DNA of Druzes, Samaritans, Lebanese, and Syrians?
 
Here: I hope now you can shut up and stop annoying me. This is what I mean by wooly hair OK -- do you finally get it??: Now I hope you will disappear and stop pestering me about how Arabs and Berbers are so white. :LOL:

picture-23-94.png

You don't get to tell other posters here to shut up. Clean up your act or you'll get another infraction, this time for inappropriate language.

Also, for what it's worth, that isn't "wooly" hair as in SSA hair...it's West Eurasian "curly" hair, although he might have a few percent SSA. For a lot of human history, women have been using burning hot tongs, and later, chemicals, to get their hair to curl.

Of course it also occurs naturally in Europeans, all without benefit of any SSA autosomally. Redheads seem to be particularly prone to having it. It's certainly true in my family.

The young Nicole Kidman:
d1cbafd416f8ed8eadd3d78fb018dbe7.jpg
 

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