Origin of Red Hair in Jewish Populations?

[Nicu]

Rightfully or not, there has been a prevailing stereotype in much of Europe, especially Central and Eastern, that reddish hair is often associated with Jewish people (some of this has to do with negative stereotypes stemming from the Bible), but there is something to it, as it seems they have over 5% with some degree of red hair or beard, which is of course not very common in general.

Many might assume this is particular to Ashkenazi Jews, who absorbed some Central and Eastern Euro populations to an extent (although apparently more so South Euro), but if you look at Biblical references, they describe several of the Israelite kings and other figures as having red hair, like David, Esau, Judas, etc. It's hard to say how much of this is figurative and up to interpretation, but it is true that lighter hair can naturally occur within Semitic Levantine populations, even without European input, including Arabic-speaking ones today. I wonder how common it was in the days of the ancient Israelites and Judeans versus modern populations.

Curious if anyone has more light to shed on this.

 

[Vallicanus]

I'm sure red beards are far commoner among Jews than red hair, which is indeed noticeable.

 

[Malaparte]

My brother'n'law is Ashkenazi and has red hair. It's a definite Jewish type.

 

[norbert]

The "European input" doesn't have to be recent. It could date way back to the incursion of the Anatolian Neolithic Farmers who were the distant cousins of the Western Hunter-Gatherers in Europe. Now the ANFs were mostly dark-haired (or so we presume) but light hair probably wasn't uncommon. Then there are the Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers among which light hair might have occured in noticable amounts. Haplogroup J is not Semitic/Levantine and was brought by the CHGs or some related population.

But the references in the Bible might talk about something else. In the case of David it is said that "he was ruddy" which probably refers to his complexion. As for Esau, it says that his skin was red when he was born and that he was hairy. The occurance of red hair among Ashkenazi Jews is most likely the result of European admixture.

 

[Robotnick]

I've heard that some of the R1a and Eastern Euro component in Jews might even be ancient, or even part of the Israelite ethnogenesis, with LBA Indo-Iranic people assimilating into Canaanite areas. Unsure how plausible this is though, but some Indo-Iranic people were undoubtedly in adjacent areas roughly around that time.

 

[kingjohn]

I've heard that some of the R1a and Eastern Euro component in Jews might even be ancient, or even part of the Israelite ethnogenesis, with LBA Indo-Iranic people assimilating into Canaanite areas. Unsure how plausible this is though, but some Indo-Iranic people were undoubtedly in adjacent areas roughly around that time.

could be
as the r1a in ashkenazi jews is r1a-z93 if i am not wrong this is more of the eastern
or indo-iranian branch of r1a
R1a1a1b2 (F992/S202/Z93)[46] [R1a1a2*] (Z93, M746)[49] (Central Asia, South Asia and West Asia)

Haplogroup R1a - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

our prime minister ( which i am not a big fan of him )
belong to that haplogroup
autosomally speaking:
the eastern european component that ashkenazi jews have is likely the result of genflow
from poles or other east central european people

 

[Vallicanus]

Is red hair not more common among Jews and Samaritans than among Gentiles in eastern Europe?

 

[norbert]

Netanyahu's R1a-Z93 may come from a Khazarian or Bukharian ancestor. The Indo-Iranian Scythians mixed heavily with Turkic tribes in Central Asia but also with the peoples of the Caucasus. If it's from the Khazars, it could be related to their elite as Judaism was pretty much limited to their elites. Maybe that's where Netanyahu's love for power comes from.

 

[kingjohn]

Netanyahu's R1a-Z93 may come from a Khazarian or Bukharian ancestor. The Indo-Iranian Scythians mixed heavily with Turkic tribes in Central Asia but also with the peoples of the Caucasus. If it's from the Khazars, it could be related to their elite as Judaism was pretty much limited to their elites. Maybe that's where Netanyahu's love for power comes.

maybe so
funny enough
and yes i am aware that his r1a-z93 might be more specific jewish downstream branch
he is still more closer to the real Aryans which almost undoubtedly carried some r1a-z93 type
he indeed love power we are trying to get rid of him for 14 years lol


p.s
it isn't usually my style to put the dirty laundry outside to the public
and i was silent for many years
but after 7/10 disaster
where i lost my paternal relative
because he among other reasons feed the hamas monsters for many many years
with qatari money
i think i have the right to trash him now

 

[MOESAN]

- I don't know if 5% red hairs is reliable for Askhenaze Jews but it seems red hairs are commoner among them than among Easrern Europeans (0,8 to 1,4% approximatively, the most among Czechs, and even LESS among true Balts (< 0, 6%) -
- as a whole, you have more red beards than red hairs, but when red hairs rise up in number, red beards do the same in the same population -
- a possible answer would be studying the SNP's responsible for these red hairs (7 well known some time ago, maybe more now) and seeing which ones dominate among Jews - apparently the 3 commoner are rather found in Northern Europe, from West to East...

 

[Nicu]

True, beards sometimes have different colors than the rest and are governed by a different set of genes. Heck, I have very dark brown head hair but there is more auburn and light brown color around the middle part of my beard, go figure. I met people who had straight up red beards and brown hair too.

And yes, the answers to this are probably far more complicated than it may seem, as different Jewish populations have interacted and mixed with different other peoples over their long and interesting history.

Still less than like Irish and Scottish people but still notable. I guess the most red-haired in the world are weirdly enough the Uralic Udmurt people of Russia. They probably got that from some kind of EHG or IE source at some point.

 

[MOESAN]

True, beards sometimes have different colors than the rest and are governed by a different set of genes. Heck, I have very dark brown head hair but there is more auburn and light brown color around the middle part of my beard, go figure. I met people who had straight up red beards and brown hair too.

And yes, the answers to this are probably far more complicated than it may seem, as different Jewish populations have interacted and mixed with different other peoples over their long and interesting history.

Still less than like Irish and Scottish people but still notable. I guess the most red-haired in the world are weirdly enough the Uralic Udmurt people of Russia. They probably got that from some kind of EHG or IE source at some point.

In my previous post I spoke of 7 SNP's without knowing too much; I think the right concept is 7 loci (I don't know on what SNP's they are, because the paper I red (about white Australians) is lost somewhere among my docs heap.
Concerning red beards I think a lot of the loci concerned are placed close to other loci concerned by red head hair. Even head hair is unprecise because the total superficy of the head is parted in different places (top, back neck - top ears outlines, at least, and for beard and moustache you have diverse places too (vertical branch of beard on the sides, under chink part and the part under the mouth, as a whole ! for the scalp, very often the same colour for the forementioned parts (more uniform than beard), but not always!
Concerning Uralic Udmuts it's uneasy to say from whose they took these %, even if we can think red hairs gained strength among some IE tribes which could have passed their genes to other people. The identities of concerned loci could help here again.
BTW Eire republic shows a 7/7,5% as a whole (unlevel), Scotland 6,5% (unlevel too) as a whole but some parts of the Highlands goes over the 8% (11% sometimes according to some scholars, but in "desertic" places.For Udmurts, I never saw them directly, but I read something like 6,5% or a little more. Two very distant places of the World for red hairs.

 

[kingjohn]

i am hetrozygous for ( Val60Leu + Val92Met)
not sure though if they are red hair variants