This is a very interesting article I found and I would like to have more input. I'm not sure as to the scientific validity but the observations are worthy of comment.
European Genetic Admixtures: Y-DNA March 5, 2009
There are a lot of people interested in race issues who suggest that Sephardic Jews are not-white. They do so without any understanding of Sephardic DNA. In fact, it is this kind of talk that leads Noel Ignatiev to write books about the Irish becoming white and that being white has nothing to do with biology, but is instead a political category of people we like and people we dislike. Either a race is to be defined based on genetic information or race is a social construct that doesn’t exist. Inadvertently, these “race realists” are actually promoting the idea that race is nothing more than a political classification.
There is simply no genetic basis for their claim. There is just an emotional desire to classify those we like at the moment as an “in-group” and others as an “out-group”.
Race is determined by genetic clusters.
Looking at haplogroups, we find the same mtDNA (materinal) haplogroups in both Europe and the Middle East with similar distribution patterns. H is most common haplogroup in Europe. It’s a less common in the Near East, but is still the most common one there as well. When it appears in lesser numbers, it is “replaced” by a higher distribution of other haplogroups which are also very common in Europe and not found anywhere else outside Europe and the Middle East.
The exception here are the Arabs because 38% of their mtDNA comes from haplogroups outside those common among whites, so they should be classified as mixed race people. But let me repeat it once more: this is done not because of the slight variations within Caucasian haplogroups, but because of such a significant outside gene flow into Arab communities.
In Y-DNA, the haplogroups do tend to bunch up in certain parts of Europe, but again, southern Europe (J2) is more like the Near East (J1) than to I and R haplogroups in other parts of Europe. (additionally, the mostly East European I is closer to the mostly Mediterranean J than to the mostly West European R.)
Were the Near East something other than white, then so too should be the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece (both known to be J2), as well as parts of Portugal, Spain, France, Serbia, Bulgaria, and so on. Needless to say that would be revolutionary conclusion.
Those Middle Easterners, therefore, who do not have significant amounts of DNA outside the Caucasian haplogroups should be classified together with other whites.
It is only a completely uneducated person who is governed by his emotions and not by facts who would classify two people with, for instance, H1 haplogroup mtDNA and R1b haplogroup Y-DNA, as members of separate races. Even if H haplogroup in Europe and in the Near East have slight variations, and they do, these variations pale in comparison to the differences with haplogroups common among blacks, Orientals, Amerindians, native Australians.
An ethnicity is classified within a particular race based on which haplogroups they belong to.
When it comes to the Y-DNA, the profile of most Sephardic Jews is very similar to that of Ashkenazi Jews and other Mediterranean Europeans.
Depending on a study, 30%-40% of Sephardim are in haplogroup J (according to Wikipedia, 12% J1 and 29% J2) and another 30% in haplogroup R1b (most common in Portugal and Spain). About 11.5% are haplogroup I, a northern European group. And a small amount is the mostly East European and Scandinavian R1a.
Another 19% is haplogroup E1b1b which is observed in significant frequencies in Europe and western Asia. It is particularly common in southern Europe and the Balkans. We find it in both northern and southern Italy, all of Spain and Greece, and southern France, as well as in smaller amounts all throughout Europe as far north as the Scandinavia.
Haplogroup E probably originated in the Near East, but most of it migrated back into Africa, both north and south of Sahara. E1b1b, however, stayed in the Near East or migrated into Europe. Rather than being an African influence onto the Middle East, it is the opposite: E is the Middle Eastern influence on Africa.
According to Wikipedia, “Most Sub-Saharan Africans belong to subclades of E other than E1b1b, while most non-Africans who belong to haplogroup E belong to its E1b1b subclade.” (Citing Fulvio Cruciani et al, Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E1b1b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa, Am. J. Hum. Genet, p. 74)
We therefore see the Sephardic Y-DNA profile to be very similar to Europeans along the Mediterranean, as well as to the Ashkenazim. The only major difference with the Ashkenazim is that rather than having about a third of their Y-DNA in haplogroup R1b (Western Europe), the Ashkenazim are about evenly split between R1b and R1a (Eastern Europe and Scandinavia).
This difference hardly seems significant enough to classify Sephardim and Ashkenazim as different races. Most West Europeans would presumably be very surprised if they were told that having more of their (R1b) than East European (R1a) Y-DNA makes someone non-white.
But what about the mtDNA.
Here the differences between Sephardim and Europeans are even less stark.
The primary Caucasoid mtDNA haplogroups are H, J, K, T, V and U (all of which derived from haplogroup R), as well as I, W and X. These are relatively evenly split throughout Europe and the Near East. Though some haplogroups are more (or less) common among certain ethnicities, the differences are merely in proportion of the same mtDNA haplogroups.
Studies of Sephardic mtDNA conducted among several communities revealed that most to have Caucasian mtDNA. We may discuss the proportions of various haplogroups, but that they are the same haplogroups is an established fact.
The obvious exceptions are Ethiopian and Indian Jews, who are almost definitely just converts to Judaism. Ethiopian Jews have the same profile as other Ethiopians. Indian Jews have a small amount of H and U haplogroups, which may be from the original Jews who converted these Indians to Judaism.
Yemenites also seem to be a mix of various groups, including Negroids. Over 8% are part of the predominantly African L haplogroup, which explains their darker skin and often times curly hair.
While the Yemenites are recognized as Sephardic Jews, neither Indians nor Ethiopians would normally be classified as such, except by the people who use the term Sephardic to mean any non-Ashkenazi Jew.
The other traditionally Sephardic-Mizrahi groups belong to the same haplogroups as do the Europeans (with no more than usual non-Caucasian gene flow).
Azerbaijani Jews are predominantly (59%) haplogroup J, which is evenly spread in same numbers in both Europe (12%) and the Near East (11%).
Georgian Jews are predominantly (58%) part of haplogroup HV, which originated in southern Italy and now common in Western Europe. It is the ancestor haplogroup of H (and also V), which is the most common one among Europeans.
Iranian Jews are more diverse in their genetic makeup, but it is still Caucasian, with H, J, U and T being the most common groups.
Iraqi Jews are similar, but have 7.4% of their population in the W haplogroup. This is not uncommon for Europeans either, however, despite the fact that this haplogroup is more common in South Asia.
Libyan and Turkish Jews are mostly H and X haplogroups. X is present in Europe so much that Bryan Sykes included it as one of the 7 Daughters of Eve for the white race. It is not a strictly white haplogroup, however, and is found in Asia as well as in the Americas. The founders of the group were likely Israeli Druze.
Moroccan Jews show high frequency of H, just as Europeans, though in slightly lower numbers.
Of course all of these haplogroups could be further subdivided and people belonging to the same haplogroup could look somewhat different.
But if race is to be defined as by genetic clusters, then it would only make sense that people in the same haplogroups are part of the same race. After all, if I and R Y-DNA haplogroups are part of the same race, it’s hard to argue that J1 and J2 are different races.
Sephardim are not the same kind of “white” as Hungarians or Irishmen. But Hungarians and Irishmen themselves aren’t identical either.
The lack of significant non-Caucasian haplogroups makes people white. By that standard, Sephardim are white.
European Genetic Admixtures: Y-DNA March 5, 2009
Ethnic Genome Project said:This post is a continuation of “Mapping out the borders of whiteness“. If you haven’t read it, you probably should to understand this more clearly here.
The following classifications aren’t hard facts. A scientist would frankly laugh at them because all of these haplogroups appear among all European and Near Eastern peoples.
For example, R1b is generally thought of as West European where 60-90% of people belong to this haplogroup. In Central Europe (Germany, Czech Republic, continental Italy) the frequency is about 40%.
But we see the same ~40% frequency of R1b among Armenians, Ossetians and Jordanians in the Dead Sea region, which is higher than among Swedes, Norwegians and Sicilians.
It also present in significant numbers throughout the Near East (from 4% in UAE to 16% in Turkey) and Eastern Europe (from 2% among Ukrainians to 15% among Bulgarians).
As I’ve said before, haplogroups can be split further and are somewhat different from region to region. But the differences aren’t radically different and differences within a haplogroup are frankly still small enough to be placed in the same haplogroup.
With that said, you can classify certain haplogroups as being most common in particular regions. That is what the following will attempt to do.
EUROPEAN HAPLOGROUPS
R1b: Western Europe (Celtic, Basque, Italic, Frisian, Saxon)
R1a: Eastern Europe (Slavic, Aryan)
I1: Northern Europe (Germanic, Scandinavian)
I2a: Southern Slavic (Balkans and southwestern Ukraine. I2a1 is also present in large numbers in Sardinia, Basques.)
I2b: Western Europe (Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and England)
MEDITERRANEAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN HAPLOGROUPS:
J1: Arabs, Jews.
J2: Spanish, Italian, Sicilian, Greek, Anatolian Turkish, Jewish, and some French and Portuguese.
T: Small haplogroup that is most present among Egyptians, Iraqis, Serbs and the Spanish. Despite small presence anywhere and especially in Europe, it was the haplogroup of President Thomas Jefferson, Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and several English royals.
G: Most present in Caucasus (southern Russia), which is culturally Middle Eastern. About 60% of Ossetians; 30% of Georgians, Kabardinians and Balkarians.
E1b1b: North Africa, Jews and southern Europe in the same regions as J2, but especially Greece and Serbia at 27% and 24%. (Most of E haplogroup migrated back from the Near East to Africa, but E1b1b stayed above Sahara and spread into Europe. It is now the most common of Mediterranean haplogroups among most European ethnicities.)
ASIAN AND AMERINDIAN (NON-CAUCASIAN) HAPLOGROUPS
N: First appeared in Southeast Asia. Its highest frequency occurs among the Finnic and Baltic peoples of northern and eastern Europe, the Ob-Ugric and Northern Samoyedic peoples of western Siberia, and the Siberian Turkic-speaking Yakuts.
Q: It is the dominant haplogroup among Native Americans. Also highly present among some Siberian Mongoloids like the Kets. (Their language has been linked to the Na-Dene languages among Indians in Western Canada and Alaska.)
European populations have only small traces of sub-Saharan haplogroups, so I will not include them here.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s combine haplogroups into European, Mediterranean/Middle Eastern and Asian/Amerindian.
The most European people are, not surprisingly, those on the British islands, particularly the Scots. They are 95% European, 4.5% Mediterranean and 0.5% non-white. The English are 92% – 7.5% – 0.5%. The Welch are 91.5% – 8.5% – 0%.
A little more surprising is the near complete lack of non-European genes among the Poles who are 94.5% – 5.5% – 0%.
This is somewhat surprising because the people with the most non-Caucasian Y-DNA are those around Poland. Russia is 67.5% – 8% – 24.5%. Estonia is 58.5% – 7.5% – 34.5%. Latvia is 59% – 1.5% – 39.5%. Lithuania is 56% – 1.5% – 42.5%.
And the Finns are the only people in Europe or the Near East who are mostly non-Caucasian at 40% – 1% – 59%. In fact, the Finns have so much non-Caucasian DNA that they could be classified as non-white at first look. But as I explained, their non-white Y-DNA is located mostly in the northern half of the country, so the south should be regarded as white and the north as mixed race.
Sweden has a lot less non-Caucasian Y-DNA at 88.5% – 2.5% – 7.5%.
The most Mediterranean/Middle Eastern people are the Greeks at 39.5% – 60.5% – 0%. Italy is 58% – 42% – 0 %. We also see a strong Mediterranean/Middle Eastern genetic influence in the Balkans and southeast Europe. Serbia is 57% – 43% – 0% and Hungary is 65.5% – 31% – 3.5%, while the Muslim Albania is 48% – 52% – 0%.
Interestingly, Portugal has a lot more J2 and E1b1b than Spain (but on the mtDNA side, Spain has the most non-Caucausian DNA at 23%). Portugal is 61.5% – 38.5% – 0%, while Spain is 79% – 14% – 0%.
Similarly interesting is the much higher presence of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern haplogroups among the Austrians (69% – 30% – 1%) than among the Germans (85.5% – 13.5% – 1%). The French are somewhere between them at 80% – 20% – 0%.
·[FONT="] [/FONT]I will do another post soon on the mtDNA, which is a bit more complicated for Caucasians than Y-DNA.
There are a lot of people interested in race issues who suggest that Sephardic Jews are not-white. They do so without any understanding of Sephardic DNA. In fact, it is this kind of talk that leads Noel Ignatiev to write books about the Irish becoming white and that being white has nothing to do with biology, but is instead a political category of people we like and people we dislike. Either a race is to be defined based on genetic information or race is a social construct that doesn’t exist. Inadvertently, these “race realists” are actually promoting the idea that race is nothing more than a political classification.
There is simply no genetic basis for their claim. There is just an emotional desire to classify those we like at the moment as an “in-group” and others as an “out-group”.
Race is determined by genetic clusters.
Looking at haplogroups, we find the same mtDNA (materinal) haplogroups in both Europe and the Middle East with similar distribution patterns. H is most common haplogroup in Europe. It’s a less common in the Near East, but is still the most common one there as well. When it appears in lesser numbers, it is “replaced” by a higher distribution of other haplogroups which are also very common in Europe and not found anywhere else outside Europe and the Middle East.
The exception here are the Arabs because 38% of their mtDNA comes from haplogroups outside those common among whites, so they should be classified as mixed race people. But let me repeat it once more: this is done not because of the slight variations within Caucasian haplogroups, but because of such a significant outside gene flow into Arab communities.
In Y-DNA, the haplogroups do tend to bunch up in certain parts of Europe, but again, southern Europe (J2) is more like the Near East (J1) than to I and R haplogroups in other parts of Europe. (additionally, the mostly East European I is closer to the mostly Mediterranean J than to the mostly West European R.)
Were the Near East something other than white, then so too should be the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece (both known to be J2), as well as parts of Portugal, Spain, France, Serbia, Bulgaria, and so on. Needless to say that would be revolutionary conclusion.
Those Middle Easterners, therefore, who do not have significant amounts of DNA outside the Caucasian haplogroups should be classified together with other whites.
It is only a completely uneducated person who is governed by his emotions and not by facts who would classify two people with, for instance, H1 haplogroup mtDNA and R1b haplogroup Y-DNA, as members of separate races. Even if H haplogroup in Europe and in the Near East have slight variations, and they do, these variations pale in comparison to the differences with haplogroups common among blacks, Orientals, Amerindians, native Australians.
An ethnicity is classified within a particular race based on which haplogroups they belong to.
When it comes to the Y-DNA, the profile of most Sephardic Jews is very similar to that of Ashkenazi Jews and other Mediterranean Europeans.
Depending on a study, 30%-40% of Sephardim are in haplogroup J (according to Wikipedia, 12% J1 and 29% J2) and another 30% in haplogroup R1b (most common in Portugal and Spain). About 11.5% are haplogroup I, a northern European group. And a small amount is the mostly East European and Scandinavian R1a.
Another 19% is haplogroup E1b1b which is observed in significant frequencies in Europe and western Asia. It is particularly common in southern Europe and the Balkans. We find it in both northern and southern Italy, all of Spain and Greece, and southern France, as well as in smaller amounts all throughout Europe as far north as the Scandinavia.
Haplogroup E probably originated in the Near East, but most of it migrated back into Africa, both north and south of Sahara. E1b1b, however, stayed in the Near East or migrated into Europe. Rather than being an African influence onto the Middle East, it is the opposite: E is the Middle Eastern influence on Africa.
According to Wikipedia, “Most Sub-Saharan Africans belong to subclades of E other than E1b1b, while most non-Africans who belong to haplogroup E belong to its E1b1b subclade.” (Citing Fulvio Cruciani et al, Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E1b1b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa, Am. J. Hum. Genet, p. 74)
We therefore see the Sephardic Y-DNA profile to be very similar to Europeans along the Mediterranean, as well as to the Ashkenazim. The only major difference with the Ashkenazim is that rather than having about a third of their Y-DNA in haplogroup R1b (Western Europe), the Ashkenazim are about evenly split between R1b and R1a (Eastern Europe and Scandinavia).
This difference hardly seems significant enough to classify Sephardim and Ashkenazim as different races. Most West Europeans would presumably be very surprised if they were told that having more of their (R1b) than East European (R1a) Y-DNA makes someone non-white.
But what about the mtDNA.
Here the differences between Sephardim and Europeans are even less stark.
The primary Caucasoid mtDNA haplogroups are H, J, K, T, V and U (all of which derived from haplogroup R), as well as I, W and X. These are relatively evenly split throughout Europe and the Near East. Though some haplogroups are more (or less) common among certain ethnicities, the differences are merely in proportion of the same mtDNA haplogroups.
Studies of Sephardic mtDNA conducted among several communities revealed that most to have Caucasian mtDNA. We may discuss the proportions of various haplogroups, but that they are the same haplogroups is an established fact.
The obvious exceptions are Ethiopian and Indian Jews, who are almost definitely just converts to Judaism. Ethiopian Jews have the same profile as other Ethiopians. Indian Jews have a small amount of H and U haplogroups, which may be from the original Jews who converted these Indians to Judaism.
Yemenites also seem to be a mix of various groups, including Negroids. Over 8% are part of the predominantly African L haplogroup, which explains their darker skin and often times curly hair.
While the Yemenites are recognized as Sephardic Jews, neither Indians nor Ethiopians would normally be classified as such, except by the people who use the term Sephardic to mean any non-Ashkenazi Jew.
The other traditionally Sephardic-Mizrahi groups belong to the same haplogroups as do the Europeans (with no more than usual non-Caucasian gene flow).
Azerbaijani Jews are predominantly (59%) haplogroup J, which is evenly spread in same numbers in both Europe (12%) and the Near East (11%).
Georgian Jews are predominantly (58%) part of haplogroup HV, which originated in southern Italy and now common in Western Europe. It is the ancestor haplogroup of H (and also V), which is the most common one among Europeans.
Iranian Jews are more diverse in their genetic makeup, but it is still Caucasian, with H, J, U and T being the most common groups.
Iraqi Jews are similar, but have 7.4% of their population in the W haplogroup. This is not uncommon for Europeans either, however, despite the fact that this haplogroup is more common in South Asia.
Libyan and Turkish Jews are mostly H and X haplogroups. X is present in Europe so much that Bryan Sykes included it as one of the 7 Daughters of Eve for the white race. It is not a strictly white haplogroup, however, and is found in Asia as well as in the Americas. The founders of the group were likely Israeli Druze.
Moroccan Jews show high frequency of H, just as Europeans, though in slightly lower numbers.
Of course all of these haplogroups could be further subdivided and people belonging to the same haplogroup could look somewhat different.
But if race is to be defined as by genetic clusters, then it would only make sense that people in the same haplogroups are part of the same race. After all, if I and R Y-DNA haplogroups are part of the same race, it’s hard to argue that J1 and J2 are different races.
Sephardim are not the same kind of “white” as Hungarians or Irishmen. But Hungarians and Irishmen themselves aren’t identical either.
The lack of significant non-Caucasian haplogroups makes people white. By that standard, Sephardim are white.
Last edited by a moderator: