Speaking of my bad, I wrote:
Jewish ethnicity is mythological. True?
I should have written:
The concept of Jewish race is mythological. True?
Since ethnicity is a cultural thing, rather than hereditary.
Your quote is correct in that Jewish populations are still, after 2000 years, similar to other, non-jewish * Mid-eastern *populations. But I’m afraid it is somewhat out of context, since, as observed in Tomndebb’s link
So, Jewish populations the world over are still all genetically similar to each other, rather than to the local population, at least in some respects. Although not in terms of blood type… :smack:
The polite English term is “Pole.” Unfortunately, no one evidently bothered to tell the residents of Poland, who still continue to refer to themselves as Polak (Pol.; a native of Poland, pronounced “polack”). I’ve always kind of wondered about that myself. Don’t they realize how offensive that is?
I dont get it. Is this because it is not common for breeding to occur with non-Jews? What about new people to the faith, would they not introduce more genetic variation to the Jewish population?
You do get it. While inter-breeding and conversion do occur (probably more in the past few decades than in the past, though - Yes, it is a lot easier to be a Jew now than it was 200 years ago), the majority of Jewish babies were and are born to two Jewish-born parents…
So there is SOME genetic “drift” of the populations toward each other, but over 2000 years (less than 100 generations!) just not enough to have made a huge difference. Think evolutionary time-scales - think how CLOSE all the different races of H. Sap are to each other (as compared to, e.g., chimps) after several MILLION years (even without any [well, hardly any 
] inter-species breeding).
And, actually, how genetically CLOSE we all still are to our chimp, gorilla and orang-utan cousins.
Just to dispell any angry remarks - the bit about inter-species breeding above (quip included) refer to breeding with other primates. I just realized that it could be mistaken for a remark about inter-racial breeding, which is empatically not an issue I meant to address…
If you go back to the Hammer, Redd, Wood et al. study to which I linked in my first post, you’ll find that over the years a number of people have tried various comparisons using “blood groups, enzymes, and serum proteins, as well as immunoglobulins and the HLA system” to determine the “relatedness” of Jewish groups among themselves and with their various neighbors. These different analyses all turned up conflicting conclusions that were difficult to explain or reconcile.
The most recent studies, however, have begun using examinations of DNA. The Hammer, Redd, Wood et al. study used the non-recombinant Y-chromosome (NRY)–that is passed exclusively from father to son–while other recent analyses (pdf) used mtDNA (that is passed exclusively from mother to child). A comparison of the two DNA studies indicates (not proves) that all the Jewish groups have a high inter-relatedness based on the NRY study. The pattern indicates that all the Jewish communities were founded by men who had Jewish ancestors dating back to the 6th century B.C.E. although each community had a smaller sample of men who had descended from local men who “married into” the community. The mtDNA studies seem to indicate that while some women have maternal ancestry extending back to 6th century B.C.E. Judah and Israel, the ancestry of most women seems to point to local groups in the regions of current settlement. In other words, for example, the Ashkenazim women frequently carry mtDNA consistent with the non-Jewish populations of Northeast Europe while Ashkenazim men have markers indicating an origin in the Middle East (influenced by some contact with Central Europe)*.
The supposition, at this point, is that Jewish men migrated to various areas (to establish trade settlements, in search of new land to farm, or for other reasons). They brought some small number of Jewish wives with them, but they soon intermarried with the local population (introducing the prevalent non-Jewish mtDNA into the communities). Once the communities were established, the Jewish practice of passing their faith and culture through matrilineal descent tended to “close off” the community from outsiders, so the population with primarily Jewish NRY from the fathers and primarily local mtDNA from the mothers began to cohere into a separate group that shared some traits with the surrounding populations (that were not subject to the endogamous marriage rules) as well as sharing some traits with the wider Jewish population from which they sprang.
*(The Ashkenazim DNA tends to pretty well destroy Koestler’s “13th Tribe” theory regarding the Khazars. There is no DNA evidence to support a Turkic origin of the Ashkenazim.)
Thanks tomndebb.
This answers the question extremely well. Endogamous marriage rules apply. These rules are passed on through matrilineal descent and thus follow the mtDNA.
So the racial part of Jewishness is a subset of the religious definition of Jewishness and over time the racial set takes in members of the non-racial set. Simultaneously members of the non-racial set take in members of the non-Jewish set, as people convert to Judaism. Thus in this dynamic system the non-racial Jewish is sort-of a buffer to non-Jewish.
So this same effect would apply to other religions like Amish or Russian Orthodox perhaps?
In re the scenario Tom describes above, an immediate observation springs to mind, that is probability of slave wives for isolated male communities in late antiquity - early Middle Ages (or beyond in fact, but that runs into other issues.).
NO I DIDNT.
You may have guessed I am not Jewish, nor an anthropologist. I am curious about everything. Now, thanks to Tom, I have learned something.
Well, I would expect to see some parallels with the Amish, given their tendency to marry in the community, coupled with a low number of outside converts. They do not have a 2,600 year history, of course. They also do not have, that I am aware, the same situation of immigrant founder males and local females, although I am no expert on Amish history prior to the advent of gasoline engines and electric grids.
I would think that the Russian Orthodox in Russia are pretty diffuse while the Russian Orthodox in Canada and the U.S. have a fairly steady flow of immigrants from Russia, so I do not know how that situation is parallel.
I am not sure how you are using “racial” in this paragraph. Children of Abraham? OK–understanding that it is a convention of language and not a biological description. Ethnological race? I do not see the word race as meaningful since it is often misleading. Aside from clearly cultural references, such as “race relations” in U.S. society, I tend to avoid the use of the word race because it has at least four separate meanings and one never knows which meaning an audience will infer that is different than one’s intent.
I am also not sure what you are saying about buffers. In Judaism, a convert is wholly Jewish, regardless of ethnic identity.
You may find this link interesting:
“Geneaology by Genetics” [specifically Jewish genealogy in this case]:
http://www.familytreedna.com/faqjg.html
And the main page that the link is from:
I subscribe to a bunch of listserves on this site, and have learned a lot from them. Somewhere I have some correspondence from one member who ran a DNA match on himself; the results were quite interesting, as he matched to some rather uexpected people. I’ll see if I can dig it up.
Found it: I’m not going to post the entire original e-mail, although it’s simple enough for anyone to search for it on the Jewishgen site. So a redacted version, taken from already redacted excerpts of the original article:
“Nathaniel Pearson is a population geneticist who has studied at Stanford University as well as in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. A few years ago, he conducted research on genetics as part of the Human Genome Project…He came to
the following conclusions: (1) Ukrainian Jews are a mixture of Middle Eastern (Judean) stock, European stock, and Turkic stock; and (2)
most people around the world have much in common genetically. In an
article for Stanford Magazine’s May/June 1999 issue, "My Blood Brother in Samarkand” (http://www.stanfordalumni.org/jg/mig/news_magazine/magazine/mayjun99/articles/dna_detectives.html), Nathaniel summarizes one of the most interesting discoveries he made during that time, in partnership with the geneticists Luca Cavalli-Sforza (Stanford University) and R. Spencer Wells (Oxford University). Here are some excerpts:
“Back at Stanford, my labmates and I had compared hundreds of DNA samples from men around the world, focusing on about a dozen
sites along the Y chromosome… Out of curiosity, I submitted my own
sample to the database – and discovered that I matched with four other
donors. One was a Turkic-speaking man in western Uzbekistan, two lived
in New Delhi, and one was a Tajik living in Samarkand… Sharif’s Tajiks are Persian-speakers who moved east to Samarkand well before the arrival of Islam there about 1,300 years ago and … mixed with people already there … The common influence of Indo-European, Semitic and
Turkic ancestry is one clue to how we might share a recent ancestor.”
(end of excerpts)
*excerpts shortened because of copyright concerns
Historically, it is known that Radhanite Jewish traders from Persia and
Iraq traveled north and east into Khazaria, Central Asia, and China, and that Jewish migrations proceeded in the same general directions. It is also known that the Jews in Kaifeng, China mixed with Chinese and that the Middle Eastern Jews in Khazaria mixed with Khazarian Turks. Pearson’s Y-chromosomal observations are therefore apparently consistent with the notion that Ukrainian Jews are partially descended
from Khazarian Turks whose ancestry derives in part from Central Asia,
and reminds us of the importance of tracing those ancient and medieval
Jewish migrations that did not follow a west-to-east pattern.
Kevin Alan Brook, Author, “The Jews of Khazaria” (1st ed.: Jason
Aronson Inc., 1999)”
Now I am neither a geneticist nor a historian, but the prospect of such extensive genetic mixing is fascinating, to say the least. Also, I should note that Kevin Brook is far from objective on the subject of the Khazars, as someone who has written books on the issue and maintains a web site devoted to the Khazars (www.khazaria.com). If you like to read on issues of history and population mixing, well, then you should be able to find some interesting material.
My mother, long dead, once described herself as 1/16 Jewish. I regarded myself as 1/32nd Jewish as if it had any relevance at all. I realize now that there is a possibility that I’m a full fledged Jew, considering the criteria of matrilineal descent, but I can see no way to confirm it. It occurs to me that there might be a lot more Jews than we realize. After all, if we inherit our surnames patrilineally, then our matrilineal heritage could easily be concealed.
tomndeb I should have said I mean ‘racial’ from a genetic POV.
I suppose another way of saying it is that the Jewish race (genetically) has been created by the Jewish religion.
The cause-effect may to be what confuses people.
The racial aspect of Judeism is an effect of the religious aspect. In the begining of the religion, the race did not make people Jewish, the religion did. Then over the years, as a result of the religous rules on marriage, the racial aspect was created.
Perhaps in another 2000 years the same will happen to the Amish and other religions with similar religious rules.
OK. I pretty much agree with that speculation.
(I would tend to drop “race” for “ethnicity” just to avoid misunderstandings.)
Perhaps when having these discussions the terms ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ should both be avoided. Both terms contain elements of genotype (genetically transmitted characteristics) and of culture (socially transmitted behavior).
A clearer way of expressing this might be:
Jewish culture has affected Jewish genotype.