What are the real racial origins of today's Jews?

[PaulFitzroy]

I’m really surprised that this issue hasn’t been discussed in the main Straight Dope archive even once. I’ve always been very curious about this myself (I consider myself Jewish and I am interested in Jewish issues.) One thing that has always made me wonder was the whole issue of a “Jewish race.”

People always say things like “he looks Jewish” or “I can always tell a member of the Tribe.” And I will be the first to admit, there are some people who just have the “look” to them. By this I mean, dark hair, swarthy looks, Mediterrenian facial features and yes, sometimes even the stereotypical “big Jewish nose.”

But the problem is that most of the Jewish people I see don’t all look alike. Some of them have those characteristics, some of them have only a few of them, and many of them don’t have ANY of those “Jewish looks.” Basically, unlike Chinese, Mexicans or Africans, there is no universal Jewish appearance.

So this leads me to my real question here: What are the racial origins of today’s Jews? Are they really descended from ancient Israelites of Biblical times? I want to note that even with deep suntans, most Jews don’t look to me like Arabs, they seem to more closely resemble Greeks or Italians. And even though the Jews are called “semites,” the “traditional Jewish features” look more like Italian, Greek, Armenian or Turkish features than any of the peoples of the Arabian peninsula (such as Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, or Saudis.)

I want to say that the explanation for this is that during their migration from Israel and through North Africa and Europe, the Jewish people interbred with various European races (Spanish, French, German and Russian) and therefore introduced European features into their genetics.

BUT, I have always read that Jews generally lived in tightly-knit communities and did not intermarry with the Gentiles of Europe. So I have a hard time believing that a huge number of Jews from the BC all the way up to the present day did much cross-breeding with Europeans.

SO, WHY ARE TODAY’S JEWS WHITE CAUCASIANS?*

Please, I’m counting on someone here to shed some light on this issue. I’m so bewildered by it!

[zev_steinhardt]

“Jewish race” is a misnomer, in that there are Jews of all races. Not all Jews are white caucasians; a trip to Israel will show you that better than anything else.

As to the racial origins of Jews, well, there is no reason to believe that they aren’t descended from the ancient Israelites with a healthy mixture of converts mixed in. Or is there something else you wanted to bring up?

Zev Steinhardt

[John_Mace]

Since European Jews tend to look like the populations around them, the logical conclusion is to assume that your hypothesis about them staying genetically isolated is false.

[PaulFitzroy]

I think it is likely that the Jews are descended from the Israelites, but exactly how many converts were mixed in? The Jewish religion did not spread as Christianity did (prosletysing) or as the Islamic religion did (conquest.) It has not grown astronimically like those religions has; rather its numbers have decreased over time.

I believe that there were Gentile converts to Judaism throughout history, but I have a hard time believing that there were ENOUGH of them to change the racial appearance of most Jews from dark Semitic-looking people to what we know them as today (in America anyway), aka white people with darker hair.

[adirondack_mike]

Interbreeding isn’t always done by choice.

Can’t cite right now but IIRC it doesn’t take a large influx of outside DNA to change the characteristics of a group.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

** adirondack_mike** has a point.
Rape goes on all too often.
In addition, you should know about the Ethiopean Jews and the Jews of western China.

[zev_steinhardt]

@PaulFitzroy

I think it is likely that the Jews are descended from the Israelites, but exactly how many converts were mixed in? The Jewish religion did not spread as Christianity did (prosletysing) or as the Islamic religion did (conquest.)

What’s the saying? Two black sheep is all it takes to start a flock?

Seriously, however, while Judaism (unlike Christianity and Islam) is not a prostelitizing religion, there were times (particularly when Israel was under Roman occupation) when conversion to Judaism was far more common than it is now.

Zev Steinhardt

[John_Mace]

@PaulFitzroy

I think it is likely that the Jews are descended from the Israelites, but exactly how many converts were mixed in? The Jewish religion did not spread as Christianity did (prosletysing) or as the Islamic religion did (conquest.) It has not grown astronimically like those religions has; rather its numbers have decreased over time.

I believe that there were Gentile converts to Judaism throughout history, but I have a hard time believing that there were ENOUGH of them to change the racial appearance of most Jews from dark Semitic-looking people to what we know them as today (in America anyway), aka white people with darker hair.

How good are you at math? Imagine a small group of Jews in a European city. Assume 2% genetic mxiture from the surrounding community every generation (Approx 20 yrs). How many generations/years until the group consists of a population which is a 50% genetic admixture?

[John_Mace]

I forgot to add: Then go find a history book and look up when populations of Jews moved into Europe. You might be surprised.

[monstro]

@PaulFitzroy

Basically, unlike Chinese, Mexicans or Africans, there is no universal Jewish appearance.

Africa is a big continent and very diverse. Do not use “African” when you actually mean “black”, a term which may or not connote a “univeral” appearance either since Ethiopians look nothing like Nigerians, who in turn are different from South Africans.

When someone says that someone “looks Jewish”, they seem to be saying (to my ears), “That person looks Ashkenazic”. Sephardic Jews don’t get this treatment from my experience, probably because their “otherness” is more obvious and the race labels that apply to them (Spanish, Arab, etc.) are given priority over their Jewishness.

I had lunch once with an older Jewish (Ashkenazic) friend of mine. When she came to pick me up from the hotel, the bellhop looked at the two of us and–thinking we were mother and daughter–remarked how much we resembled each other. The only similarity that I can think of was our hair styles. Mine was an Afro. Hers a Jewfro. But it was enough in the guy’s mind to make us twins, go figure.

[MikeS]

(Because I can’t let a math question go unanswered, the answer to John Mace’s question is about 35 generations, or 700 years.)

[barbitu8]

Then there is the black tribe in Africa who claims to be descendants of the Lost Tribe and declare its members Jewish.

Here in Charleston we have a Jewish police chief, who also happens to be a Negro.

[astorian]

More often than not, when the question in the OP is raised, it’s raised by anti-Semites who want to assert that modern Jews aren’t “real” Jews, and therefore have no claim to the land now occupied by the nation of Israel. Such folks like to claim that most modern Jews are descended not from Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, but from the Khazars, who used to inhabit what’s now Southern Russia.

Ironically, while such folk are glad to use such claims to refute Jewish claims to any land in the Middle East, it never dawns on them that IF they’re right, IF modern Jews are not descended from the Jews who lived in Palestine 2,000 years ago, then they’re ALSO not in any way connected to the death of Jesus, and anyone who’s persecuted or even spoken ill of modern Jews is an ignoramus.

[Colibri]

Jews do often show a lot of admixture with the populations they have been living among. However, there evidentally also has often been sufficient inbreeding within the Jewish community to preserve some genetic elements of Middle Eastern origin.

From here:

Previous Y chromosome studies have shown that the Cohanim, a paternally inherited Jewish priestly caste, predominantly share a recent common ancestry irrespective of the geographically defined post-Diaspora community to which they belong, a finding consistent with common Jewish origins in the Near East. In contrast, the Levites, another paternally inherited Jewish caste, display evidence for multiple recent origins, with Ashkenazi Levites having a high frequency of a distinctive, non–Near Eastern haplogroup. Here, we show that the Ashkenazi Levite microsatellite haplotypes within this haplogroup are extremely tightly clustered, with an inferred common ancestor within the past 2,000 years. Comparisons with other Jewish and non-Jewish groups suggest that a founding event, probably involving one or very few European men occurring at a time close to the initial formation and settlement of the Ashkenazi community, is the most likely explanation for the presence of this distinctive haplogroup found today in 150% of Ashkenazi Levites.

[Chairman_Pow]

@PaulFitzroy

The Jewish religion did not spread as Christianity did (prosletysing) or as the Islamic religion did (conquest.)

Depending on which account you go by, the Khazars were either conquered by a small band of Jewish mercenaries who took over and converted everyone or it follows closer to this story (wherein emissaries of Islam, Christianity and Judaism all talked up their religions and Judaism came out ahead).

I’ve come across some readings that imply that most Jews today are descended from the Kahzars. That said (and I don’t believe that the majority of those authors, if any, were actually Jewish), here’s a rebuttal that you may also find interesting.

[syncrolecyne]

@PaulFitzroy

But the problem is that most of the Jewish people I see don’t all look alike. Some of them have those characteristics, some of them have only a few of them, and many of them don’t have ANY of those “Jewish looks.” Basically, unlike Chinese, Mexicans or Africans, there is no universal Jewish appearance.

yeah…all them Mexicans sure look alike.
http://www.ccm.itesm.mx/noticias/jaque/archivos/081803c.jpg http://thesecretmexico.com.mx/Templates/worktemplateimages/tarahumara_09.gif
http://www.pansenado.org.mx/pan2000/integrantes/jones_jones_jeffrey.jpg http://www.gda.itesm.mx/galeria/social08.html http://www.azteca.net/aztec/prehisp/tarasca.jpg

[tomndebb]

Y Chromosome Bears Witness to Story of the Jewish Diaspora

Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes From this link:

Evidence for Common Jewish Origins. Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors. First, six of the seven Jewish populations analyzed here formed a relatively tight cluster in the MDS analysis (Fig. 2). The only exception was the Ethiopian Jews, who were affiliated more closely with non-Jewish Ethiopians and other North Africans. Our results are consistent with other studies of Ethiopian Jews based on a variety of markers (16, 23, 46). However, as in other studies where Ethiopian Jews exhibited markers that are characteristic of both African and Middle Eastern populations, they had Y-chromosome haplotypes (e.g., haplotypes Med and YAP+4S) that were common in other Jewish populations.

Second, despite their high degree of geographic dispersion, Jewish populations from Europe, North Africa, and the Near East were less diverged genetically from each other than any other group of populations in this study (Table 2). The statistically significant correlation between genetic and geographic distances in our non-Jewish populations from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa is suggestive of spatial differentiation, whereas the lack of such a correlation for Jewish populations is more compatible with a model of recent dispersal and subsequent isolation during and after the Diaspora.

and

In summary, the combined results suggest that a major portion of NRY biallelic diversity present in most of the contemporary Jewish communities surveyed here traces to a common Middle Eastern source population several thousand years ago. The implication is that this source population included a large number of distinct paternal and maternal lineages, reflecting genetic variation established in the Middle East at that time. In turn, this source diversity has been maintained within Jewish communities, despite numerous migrations during the Diaspora and long-term residence as isolated subpopulations in numerous geographic locations outside of the Middle East.

Founding Mothers of Jewish Communities: Geographically Separated Jewish Groups Were Independently Founded by Very Few Female Ancestors (.pdf document)

Basically, among the various studies that have been done, it appears that most of the Jewish settlements throughout Europe and Africa were undertaken (primarily by) Jewish men who either brought a few wives with them or who married local women. These migrations were often the result of traders and merchants looking for new markets. (This last claim is based on the historical record, not necessarily claimed by the geneticists involved in the previous studies.)

This has resulted in a Jewsih population that does have a strong connection to the original inhabitants of the Levant, although there is no claim of “racial purity” in this statement. (The term “Jewish race” is not part of the 18th - 20th century fascination with “race” by various ethnologists and anthropologists. Rather, it is a reflection of the older meaning of the word “a group of people descended from a common legendary figure.” The “Jewish race” is also the “race of Abraham” in the way that the Irish are the “Milesian race.”)

The Khazars were a real people in the area north of the Crimean peninsula who did convert to Judaism. However, they were pushed off their lands and disappeared as a coherent group before the 12th century. Arthur Koestler wrote a book The Thirteenth Tribe in which he speculated that they migrated north into Russia to become the Ashkenazim. (Any number of cranks have siezed on this and similar speculation to claim that the Jews are “really” Jews, but simply converted Turkic peoples. However, the DNA studies listed above demonstrate that the Ashkenazim migrated from central Europe, just as Jewish tradition had always claimed.)

[tomndebb]

to claim that the Jews are “really” Jews

s/b:
to claim that the Jews are not “really” Jews

[Alessan]

@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

** adirondack_mike** has a point.
Rape goes on all too often.

Well, not only rape. It may not be the nicest thing to say, but it would be unreasonable to assume that 100% of all Jewish women were loyal to their husbands 100% of the time. I’m sure there had to be some extramarital hanky-panky over the centuries, and the beauty of recessive genes is, that even if Rivka-Leah god knocked up by he polish neighbour, the blond hair and blue eyes won’t show up until her grandchildren, and in which case, who’s to say where they came from?

There’s a good reason Judaism is matrilineal. Hazal were quite frank with the knowlege that no-one can ever be sure who their father is.

[ftg]

From Colibri’s cite:

“… is the most likely explanation for the presence of this distinctive haplogroup found today in 150% of Ashkenazi Levites.”

Okaaaay.