Genome-wide data from medieval German Jews. Preprint.

[A. Papadimitriou]

I think this clearly shows there was a Khazar-contribution. There's more on Eurogenes, but the levels of Siberian are far too high to be explained by Eastern European admixture (unless there was some secret medieval Finnic kingdom in Central Europe). Two groups of Jews, the Zarphatic (ie French Jews) and the Ashkenazic (ie Steppe Jews) merging. Explains why some Ashkenazim are so light too.

Why Khazar and not pre-Khazar?

[ihype02]

Target	Distance		Polish	Sephardic_Jew
Ashkenazi_Poland	0.01003676	•	16.6	83.4
Ashkenazi_Ukraine	0.01030672	•	18.8	81.2
Ashkenazi_Russia	0.01525090	•	19.4	80.6
Ashkenazi_Germany	0.01579246	•	10.2	89.8
Ashkenazi_Lithuania	0.01726847	•	17.8	82.2
Ashkenazi_Belarussia	0.01758130	•	18.8	81.2
Average	0.01437277	•	16.9	83.1

Pre Slavic Ashkenazi Jews seem to be pretty much like Sephardic Jews.

[Angela]

Given it's only about 500 years ago, the best test to use would be IBD analysis.

[kingjohn]

Published
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S...674(22)01378-2

[Angela]

Extremely interesting twitter post from Shai Carmi where he explains all the changes they made to the paper.

Among the more interesting points is that another look at the possibilities shows that Northern Italy and Greece also have good "fits" as the source of the Southern European ancestry in the Ashkenazim. One might think they read our comments.

How low the amount of Middle Eastern in them appears in some models is also quite amazing, and the fact that the effective population size remained at around 1000 people for so long.

I wish all authors would highlight important changes in their published papers from the pre-print as he has done.

https://twitter.com/ShaiCarmi/status...00243941203968

[Palermo Trapani]

Extremely interesting twitter post from Shai Carmi where he explains all the changes they made to the paper.

Among the more interesting points is that another look at the possibilities shows that Northern Italy and Greece also have good "fits" as the source of the Southern European ancestry in the Ashkenazim. One might think they read our comments.

How low the amount of Middle Eastern in them appears in some models is also quite amazing, and the fact that the effective population size remained at around 1000 people for so long.

I wish all authors would highlight important changes in their published papers from the pre-print as he has done.

https://twitter.com/ShaiCarmi/status...00243941203968

Good point, I saw that as well (the Green component in the admixture models). Somebody needs to tell Kanye West about this paper and all his mentors.

[Leopoldo Leone]

Extremely interesting twitter post from Shai Carmi where he explains all the changes they made to the paper.

Among the more interesting points is that another look at the possibilities shows that Northern Italy and Greece also have good "fits" as the source of the Southern European ancestry in the Ashkenazim. One might think they read our comments.

How low the amount of Middle Eastern in them appears in some models is also quite amazing, and the fact that the effective population size remained at around 1000 people for so long.

I wish all authors would highlight important changes in their published papers from the pre-print as he has done.

https://twitter.com/ShaiCarmi/status...00243941203968

The ones on Anthrogenica says the exact opposite, and indeed some of them have been credited in the paper as the ones that have come up with the idea to check whether the AJ communities in Germany and France appear closer to the Erfurt-ME than Erfurt-EU.
What I have noticed is that usually the ones with more Russian-like admixture are those with a higher Lebanese-like admixture, which suggests heavily that it is to an extent an artefact unless only those individuals with less southern European-like admixture mixed with north east Europeans.
Admixture results depend heavily on the source pops selected, and the paper does mention that and presents a range of plausible models, all involving a south east EU source (Italian or Greek, and "Italian" ranging from south to north), a north east EU source and a Levantine source, as we already knew; the conclusions in my view start to be disputable when the authors read too literally into the models heavily suggesting that the ancestors of the ashkenazi Jews originated in south Italy and, having their cake and eating it too, suggesting that there is also considerable middle eastern admixture in Italy (especially in the south) which hides some of the admixture in ashkenazi Jews.

[Angela]

The ones on Anthrogenica says the exact opposite, and indeed some of them have been credited in the paper as the ones that have come up with the idea to check whether the AJ communities in Germany and France appear closer to the Erfurt-ME than Erfurt-EU.
What I have noticed is that usually the ones with more Russian-like admixture are those with a higher Lebanese-like admixture, which suggests heavily that it is to an extent an artefact unless only those individuals with less southern European-like admixture mixed with north east Europeans.
Admixture results depend heavily on the source pops selected, and the paper does mention that and presents a range of plausible models, all involving a south east EU source (Italian or Greek, and "Italian" ranging from south to north), a north east EU source and a Levantine source, as we already knew; the conclusions in my view start to be disputable when the authors read too literally into the models heavily suggesting that the ancestors of the ashkenazi Jews originated in south Italy and, having their cake and eating it too, suggesting that there is also considerable middle eastern admixture in Italy (especially in the south) which hides some of the admixture in ashkenazi Jews.

I'm afraid I don't follow. Shai Carmi wrote the twitter post. Just follow the link. I think he knows what he said in his own paper. If people at anthrogenica maintain he said something different, then clearly they're delusional, which doesn't at all surprise me.

[Angela]

As interesting as the paper may be for the history of the Ashkenazim from the 1200s forward, it is less interesting for the formation of the Ashkenazi ethnic group.

The only way this is all going to be settled is to compare genomes from Israel from, say, the time of the Maccabees to the end of the first century A.D. to these medieval samples. Then we'll know.