Jewish people, where they are from?

[Tomenable]

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.

:useless:

The 16th century writer was obviously referring to 16th century Jews, not to those Jews in the Roman Empire in Ancient times.

Have you maybe read "Abyss of Despair" written by Nathan Hanover (it is about the Khmelnytsky Uprising) ??? If you read it then you will see, that Jews in Poland-Lithuania were not excluded or isolated, but were quite privileged, were living under protection of the Polish nobility, and rather than paying high taxes, they were themselves employed as Poland's tax collectors in Ukraine.

OTOH, it is true that Jews were quite restricted to certain professions, since Polish nobles employed Jews in those professions.

Ukrainian peasants and Cossacks hated the nobility and hated Jews, employed as tax collectors & administrators by the nobility.

Hanover refers to the Cossack leader as "Chmiel the Wicked", while describing his main Polish opponent, Jeremi Wiśniowiecki:

"(...) he [Wiśniowiecki] carried them [Jewish refugees] like on eagle's wings, until he brought them to wherever they wanted. When they were threatened from behind, he ordered them to go in front of his forces, and when they were threatened from the front, he was marching first, as a shield and a buckler, so they could camp and rest behind him. (...)"

That passage refers to the evacuation of Jews and Poles from Ukraine when they were under ferocious attacks of the Cossacks.

There is a 1999 war movie, a joint Polish-Ukrainian co-production, about the Khmelnytsky Uprising.

It is "With Fire & Sword", based on Henryk Sienkiewicz's 19th century novel of the same name:

Here a version with English subtitles (just switch them on) - Part 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UME_FMc4_RI

The movie was made to be quite pro-Ukrainian and rather portrays the Poles / the Polish nobles as evil oppressors, without mentioning the other aspect - i.e. Cossack / Orthodox war crimes against nobles, Roman Catholic Poles, and against Jews.

At that time ethnic identity in Ukraine was mostly determined by religion, as well as by class.

Roman Catholics of all classes, as well as great majority of nobles, identified as Poles. Orthodox peasants identified as Rusyns.

Small part Orthodox nobility (itself not very numerous) also identified as Rusyns / Ruthenians.

Cossacks were ethnically mixed, they included also Poles (few of them were even of Jewish descent), but most of them were Orthodox, so they identified as Rusyns (Ukrainians is a modern name), even if they descended from other ethnic groups.

 

[Drac II]

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.

As someone else already pointed out for you, the man in the picture does not have "wooly hair", just curly hair, which is widely found among Caucasians, including in Europe. Before you go around making strange claims make sure that at least you get acquainted with what people call certain things first. This is what people usually have in mind by "wooly hair":

As I showed you in another thread, to the Arabs of even as late as the Middle Ages this type of hair was something exotic, more characteristic among sub-Saharan Africans than among other peoples.

 

[Drac II]

The only scientific study to suggest that is from Popular mechanics [http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a234/1282186/].

And even then, that "reconstruction" does not look like a sub-Saharan African.

 

[Tomenable]

Sub-Saharan Africans also have various different types of hair.

For instance, Khoisan Bushmen have their own specific variant.

Then you have variance between West Africans & East Africans.

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

BTW - as far as I know, the percent of Neanderthal admixture in Non-Africans was calculated as 3% by comparing Non-Africans to Yoruba or Khoisan as reference populations, under an arbitrary assumption that they have 0% of Neanderthal admixture.

But how is this possible considering all the prehistoric and historical back-migrations to Africa which took place ???

I find it doubtful that Sub-Saharan Africans have no Neanderthal admixture at all despite those back-migrations.

More likely, Non-Africans have 3% more of Neanderthal admixture than Sub-Saharans, but Sub-Saharans also have some. If Yoruba people have, for example, 1% of Neanderthal admixture, then it means, that Non-Africans have 4% of it, not 3%.

 

[Johannes]

And even then, that "reconstruction" does not look like a sub-Saharan African.

I never said Arabs or Jews looked like Sub Saharan blacks!!! I just said that there might have been some mixture with SSA (especially Yemenis). We will never know. I never claimed it to be a fact. All I said is that since Moors were considered black there must be some reason for this.

Either way this image reflects what many Jews or Semites looked in ancient times:

 

[Johannes]

As someone else already pointed out for you, the man in the picture does not have "wooly hair", just curly hair, which is widely found among Caucasians, including in Europe. Before you go around making strange claims make sure that at least you get acquainted with what people call certain things first. This is what people usually have in mind by "wooly hair":

As I showed you in another thread, to the Arabs of even as late as the Middle Ages this type of hair was something exotic, more characteristic among sub-Saharan Africans than among other peoples.

Why don't you look at the definition of "wooly" before making your claims? It simply means very curly or matted. It's is not only what black people look like.

 

[Tomenable]

Johannes,

You claimed that Ancient Jews "were probably similar in appearance to Arabs". But why do you think so ???

After all, Arabs were not present in the Levant in Ancient times. So Arabs were not neighbours of Ancient Jews.

Arabs started expanding out of Arabia during the 600s, mixing with locals and converting them to Islam. Modern Palestinians are not "pure Arabs", but are descended from such mixed local people (locals who lived in Ancient Levant + Arab immigrants).

On the other hand, Jews aren't mixed with Arabs, because they were no longer in the Levant when Arabs came.

There is no reason why Ancient Jews would be similar to Arabs in appearance. They lived far from each other.

Maybe some groups of Jews are mixed with Arabs, like Mizrahi Jews or Ethiopian Jews - but not Ashkenazim:

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

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

Ancestors of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews had long been gone from the Levant by the time of Arab conquests.

 

[Tomenable]

Either way this image reflects what many Jews or Semites looked in ancient times

Really ??? If I remember correctly, it is rather based on appearance of modern Palestinian Arabs.

Isn't this showing a "politically correct" version of Jesus? Because the former one was "too white" ???

 

[Semitic Duwa]

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.

Considering what we already know about the Caucasus and the Pontic-Caspian steppe's genetic past, I'll be very surprised if Khazars made a major contribution to the Ashkenazi gene pool.

 

[Semitic Duwa]

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:



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.

Actually, even Eastern European Ashkenazim lack this component, and when they don't they usually have it in tiny amounts... I mean, let's not kid ourselves either, Ashkenazi & Sephardic Jews (especially Turkish and Bulgarian Jews) are a single population from a genetic standpoint, so if there is Eastern European admixture in Ashkenazim it has to be quite small as they're near-indistinguishable from their Sephardic counterpart. Any claim to the contrary is just hair-splitting IMO.

 

[Tomenable]

Considering what we already know about the Caucasus and the Pontic-Caspian steppe's genetic past

The Pontic-Caspian steppe has in fact many different genetic pasts, rather than just one genetic past.

The steppe was a melting pot and it had unstable demographics - there were many migrations there throughout history.

So Khazars could basically be anything genetically. Let's wait for some samples.

Let's also note, that the Khazar Empire was quite multi-ethnic, and ethnic Khazars were only a minority of its population.

It isn't certain who exactly converted to Judaism in the Khazar Empire, but for sure not all of its inhabitants.

 

[Semitic Duwa]

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.

It seems to me you have a problem comprehending what I wrote, I specifically referred to the study on mtDNA ("female DNA") which came up with this figure, and I explicitely told you that it was OVERTURNED by another study on the maternal lineages of PPNB farmers from Syria (= actual archeogenetic data as opposed to pure conjecture based on contemporary data).
This is getting old real quick, I'm tired of repeating the same thing over & over again.

 

[Semitic Duwa]

The Pontic-Caspian steppe has in fact many different genetic pasts, rather than just one genetic past.

The steppe was a melting pot and it had unstable demographics - there were many migrations there throughout history.

So Khazars could basically be anything genetically. Let's wait for some samples.

Let's also note, that the Khazar Empire was quite multi-ethnic, and ethnic Khazars were only a minority of its population.

It isn't certain who exactly converted to Judaism in the Khazar Empire, but for sure not all of its inhabitants.

Quite so, and yet I doubt they'd come anywhere close to Western Jews (Sephardim + Ashkenazim), rather there's much to bet they'd plot closer to Mizrahi Jews (if anything). But yes, we are in dire need of ancient data to gauge the validity of this theory, even though the odds really aren't looking good.

 

[Tomenable]

Semitic Duwa, the study by Carmi and Xue says that Ashkenazi Jews have 12% Eastern Euro admixture (they compared Jews to Belarusians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Poles and Russians), more recent than Southern Euro one - see Figure 7. in this link:

https://shaicarmi.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/aj_admixture_poster.pdf

This study - which compared Jews only to Russians - also shows 4,1% Eastern Euro (Russian-like in this case) admixture:

http://www.ashg.org/2013meeting/abstracts/fulltext/f130123362.htm

So why do you think that these studies are wrong?

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

BTW - there is at least one study from 2012 which inclines toward Khazar admixture:

Dr Eran Elhaik, "The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry...":

http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/12/14/gbe.evs119.full.pdf+html

 

[epoch]

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.

Autosomically speaking Ashkenazi Jews differ not so much from Sefardim. Both do have "nordic" admixture, though. This is dodecad numbers IIRC, so take heed. Not that I dislike it - it resembles the world - but in cases like this it can be a tad - nothing more than that - skewed.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a37NCXty3t0/TZBaidQk2TI/AAAAAAAAAbg/g1zopi9hyI0/s1600/ADMIXTURE_10.png

 

[Tomenable]

Both do have "nordic" admixture, though. This is dodecad numbers IIRC, so take heed.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a37NCXty3t0/TZBaidQk2TI/AAAAAAAAAbg/g1zopi9hyI0/s1600/ADMIXTURE_10.png

This is "North_European" admixture component from Dodecad K10 calculator, as I can see.

In Dodecad "North_European" defines mostly North-Eastern Europeans, such as Poles or Lithuanians.

Look it up for yourself, which groups score highest % in "North_European" in Dodecad K10.

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

Yes - here is the spreadsheet from Dodecad K10 calculator:

http://dodecad.blogspot.com/2011/05/k10-admixture-proportions-of-dodecad.html

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...cU0MsT8g/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=COa37rEO#gid=0

Top 4 most "North_European" % scoring ethnic groups are these:

Lithuanian_D								87
Finnish_D								77
Russian_D								72.3
Polish_D								71

Ashkenazi Jews score 15% "North_European" in this calculator:

Ashkenazi_D

15

So K10 "North_European" in Jews could be from Eastern Europe.

 

[Johannes]

It seems to me you have a problem comprehending what I wrote, I specifically referred to the study on mtDNA ("female DNA") which came up with this figure, and I explicitely told you that it was OVERTURNED by another study on the maternal lineages of PPNB farmers from Syria (= actual archeogenetic data as opposed to pure conjecture based on contemporary data).
This is getting old real quick, I'm tired of repeating the same thing over & over again.

It seems you have a problem expressing yourself: This is what you said in your response to my post: "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."

You did not "explicitly" explain anything. Basically you said nothing about female DNA. Why dont you explain things more clearly so I/everyone can understand where you are coming from.

 

[Tomenable]

Comparison of Poles and Ashkenazi Jews in Dodecad K10 spreadsheet:

Admix - WAsian / NWAfro / SEuro / NEAsian / SWAsian / EAsian / NEuro / WAfro / EAfro / SAsian:

Poles (n=15) - 12% / 0% / 17% / 0.3% / 0.5% / 0.1% / 71% / 0% / 0.0% / 0.1%

Jews (n=29) - 27% / 2% / 35% / 0.6% / 21% / 0.8% / 15% / 0% / 0.1% / 0.1%

Interesting is 0.8% East Asian and 0.6% North-East Asian in Ashkenazi Jews - could it be from Khazars ???

===========

Percentages are obviously rounded (up), because the sum is over 100% in both cases.

 

[Semitic Duwa]

Semitic Duwa, the study by Carmi and Xue says that Ashkenazi Jews have 12% Eastern Euro admixture (they compared Jews to Belarusians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Poles and Russians), more recent than Southern Euro one - see Figure 7. in this link:

https://shaicarmi.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/aj_admixture_poster.pdf

This study - which compared Jews only to Russians - also shows 4,1% Eastern Euro (Russian-like in this case) admixture:

http://www.ashg.org/2013meeting/abstracts/fulltext/f130123362.htm

So why do you think that these studies are wrong?

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

BTW - there is at least one study from 2012 which inclines toward Khazar admixture:

Dr Eran Elhaik, "The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry...":

http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/12/14/gbe.evs119.full.pdf+html

First off, 12% is unusually high, it certainly doesn't fit with the general paucity - and even total absence in many cases - of the Eastern European component in Ashkenazim which we know rather well from past studies and 3rd party analysis.
This is the main reason why this claim seems rather odd, furthermore the authors are drawing conclusions from contemporary data, and that in itself is enough for me to discard it.

Elhaik's paper isn't even a peer-reviewed paper, it's also filled with weird statements highlighting basic methodological flaws, such as Druze exhibiting "a large Turkic ancestry (83%)", Romania and Hungary being "Slavic lands" or using Georgians and Armenians to proxy Proto-Khazars. I mean, by that token, Mizrahi Jews are bound to be far more Khazarian than Ashkenazi Jews, in fact that's more or less what Behar et al. wrote in their 2013 rebuttal of Elhaik's paper.
Mind you, this is hardly the only paper where Elhaik produced strange, counterintuitive claims.

 

[Semitic Duwa]

Interesting is this 0.8% East Asian in Ashkenazi Jews - could it come from Khazars ???

IIRC many other ethnic groups from the Levant carry this component in similar amounts, hardly a specifically Jewish quirk.