Hi,
I’ve seen competing theories to explain the origins of of Ashkenazi Jews in Europe. Which theory is considered the most valid today?
I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
The word “Ashkenazic” is derived from the Hebrew word for Germany. The word “Sephardic” is derived from the Hebrew word for Spain. The word “Mizrachi” is derived from the Hebrew word for Eastern.
Most American Jews today are Ashkenazic, descended from Jews who emigrated from Germany and Eastern Europe from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s, although most of the early Jewish settlers of this country were Sephardic. The first Jewish congregation in North America, Shearith Israel, founded in what is now New York in 1684, was Sephardic and is still active. The first Jewish congregation in the city of Philadelphia, Congregation Mikveh Israel, founded in 1740, was also a Sephardic one, and is also still active.
From analysis of mitochondrial genomes it appears that only four subtypes account for 70% of the Ashkenazi Jews. This suggests a total of four female founders. These founders appear to descend from families that come from the Middle East from which they migrated to the Rhineland. It is fits well with what historical sources tell us about the Israel-Italy-Germany connection
The majority of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from prehistoric European women, according to study published today (October 8) in Nature Communications. While the Jewish religion began in the Near East, and the Ashkenazi Jews were believed to have origins in the early indigenous tribes of this region, new evidence from mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on exclusively from mother to child, suggests that female ancestors of most modern Ashkenazi Jews converted to Judaism in the north Mediterranean around 2,000 years ago and later in west and central Europe.
Not at all. It suggests that only four of the female founders still have living descendants. Your reasoning would be the same as saying Mitochondrial Eve was the only woman founder of the modern human race.
Even less than that. It suggests that only four of the female founders have living descendants along an unbroken female only line. The others can have all of the descendants they want, so long is there is a male somewhere in the lineage.
Not my reasoning. It’s from this website. I see more websites now asserting that the Ashkenazim came to Germany via Italy from the Middle East. I’m trying to ascertain which theory has the best evidence to support it.
“From analysis of mitochondrial genomes it appears that only four subtypes account for 70% of the Ashkenazi Jews. This suggests a total of four female founders. These founders appear to descend from families that come from the Middle East from which they migrated to the Rhineland. It is fits well with what historical sources tell us about the Israel-Italy-Germany connection”
AFAICT, it sounds historically plausible that male Jewish merchants living in Europe far from their home communities married local women who were not halakhically Jewish and founded new communities maintaining Jewish observances. After a few generations, nobody was likely to care that the “founding mothers” hadn’t been halakhically Jewish.
However, I can see how it might make some modern Ashkenazi Jews uncomfortable to think that their matrilineal ancestry isn’t Jewish “all the way back”.