Are Jews a religion or race? This is the age-old question that medical geneticist Harry Ostrer tackles in his concise but informative book, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People.
As Professor of Pathology and Genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Director of Genetic and Genomic Testing at Montefiore Medical Center, as well as former Director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University’s School of Medicine, Ostrer has devoted much of his career to unraveling the DNA sequencing of recessive genetic disorders common among Jews, such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher disease. After two decades of medical research, he explains that Jews share more than religious and cultural traditions — a common biological bond links Jews throughout the Diaspora.
This body of work has led Ostrer to conclude that Jews are genetically related worldwide. Three millennia of selective breeding have created a distinct population with unique racial characteristics. Within this broad isolated population, diverse ethnic tribes formed and branched out. Mutual genes serve as the ancestral linkage between major Jewish tribes: Ashkenazi (who are related to one another on average as fifth cousins), Sephardic, Eurasian Khazars, Middle Eastern, and Mizrahi or African Jews.
Legacy is a slim book that incorporates history, natural selection, population genetics, evolutionary psychology, and contemporary medical findings. The author’s quest for the basis of Jewish origins and identity forms the basic storyline of Legacy. Each chapter highlights various aspects of Jewish ancestry: physical measurements and characteristics, DNA studies, blood groupings, genealogical evidence, tribal lineage, physical and psychological traits, and, finally, the crux of Jewish identity. The result is an informative overview of 25 years of detective work unraveling the genetic kinship of Jews.
Ostrer explains how technological advances in genomics allow researchers to tease out population differences and migration patterns to the degree that it is possible to identify genetic subclusters in diverse populations. Research developments in the past decade have boosted the Jewish HapMap Project, the major research endeavor the author has spearheaded with his colleagues.
In utilizing these new research tools, geneticists have been able to trace the degree of genetic similarity across different Jewish groups in areas where the populations are genetically heterogeneous. Ostrer points out,
The Jewish HapMap Project demonstrated in exquisite detail what had been conjectured for a century. Jewish populations from the major Jewish Diaspora groups — Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi — form a distinctive population cluster that is closely related to Semitic and European populations. Within this larger Jewish cluster, each of the Jewish populations formed its own subcluster. Each group demonstrated Semitic ancestry and had variable degrees of admixture with European populations.
In his concluding chapter on Jewish “Identity,” Ostrer summarizes the central point of his work:
The evidence for biological Jewishness has become incontrovertible. The answer to Jacobs’ 1899 question, “Are Jews Jews?” would seem to be an emphatic yes. As noted earlier, a study by Goldstein and his coworkers demonstrated that it was possible to predict full Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry accurately and with a somewhat lesser degree of certainty for people with one, two, or three Jewish grandparents. The Jewish HapMap Project has extended these findings to people who come from virtually all other Jewish groups, each group representing a genetic cluster that can be defined as a predominant pattern of inheritance that includes a large number of genetic markers. The findings are based on the fact that segments of the genome tend to be shared at a higher frequency among members of different Jewish groups. This degree of shared genetic segments is greater among Jews than between Jews and non-Jews. So Jewishness at a genetic level can be characterized as a tapestry with the threads represented as shared segments of DNA and no single thread required for composition of the tapestry.
The fate of the Khazars — a semi-nomadic people of Central Asian Turkic origin in the area of Southern Russia, which was ruled by a succession of Jewish kings from essentially the eighth to the eleventh century — “has been the subject of much speculation,” as Ostrer notes, not to mention a source of contention among Jewish scholars.
Ostrer briefly mentions the Khazar controversy. After skimming through the history of the Khazars, he believes the findings from the Jewish HapMap Project refute “the theories that Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of converted Khazars or Slavs.”
Steve
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Didn’t Hitler & his supporters argue that Jews were a definable race & therefore could be found & removed from society or that’s what we’re told by orthodox history?
But you’ll find some Jewish experts saying that type of theory is nonsense but of course Hitler & co didn’t have the use of DNA profiling & the like.
frederickdixon
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As we all know, Jews – speaking very broadly and with many individual exceptions – have physical and behavioural characteristics in common with each other which are not shared by the northern and eastern European peoples among whom they live. The physical characteristics are shared, though, by the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, particularly the peoples of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine etc. which is not surprising given the origin which the Jews claim for themselves.
So Hitler and Co. were right to suppose that the Jews can be identified by race because people of eastern Mediterranean stock are racially alien in most of Europe. That alone, though, would probably not have been enough to motivate the actions taken against them – had they been Maronite Christians from the Lebanon, content to become quietly prosperous in Germany’s economy, they would have been left alone (apart from a ban on intermarriage) despite being of the same race as Jews; it was what the Jews were thought to DO which motivated the actions against them.
jason savage
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Very interesting. As i keep saying to people, genetically race is statistical continuous variable. We see in the chart principal component analysis. It’s hard to make out PC3. I’ve used this sort of analysis in work for other purposes. Jews look in the middle so score very lowly on these three PCs.
The Truth
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They’re a race like unto their cousins of Arabia and North Africa. Judaism has little to do with the Jew’s history & ancestral homeland, it is merely a facade that the Jews have used within European society. The real ‘religion’ of the Jews was nothing other than a form of Paganism before their first contacts with European civilization. The Old Testament history of the conquest of the promised land found within the books of ‘Moses’ and ‘Joshua’ especially, contain an accurate description of the character of the ‘Jewish’ people who were really those who were conquered not the conquerors. It is quite possible that the Jews were in Italy and Spain before the ‘Europeans’ and that the story of the promised land was the story of their expulsion from these lands.
Max Musson
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In view of the archeological evidence available, your last point could not be possible.
The Truth
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Archaeology is a mixture of fraud, fantasy and a false chronological concept. When people make claims that a certain thing is a million years old or perhaps 900k years old, do they even comprehend the things they are saying. It is easy to say that something is a million years old but much harder, nay impossible to justify a space of time that is totally incomprehensible to the mind of man. How does one traverse this space of time and be able to make sound observations on the state of the world, both natural and human, all they can do is make ridiculous claims backed by mere notions which falsely wear the garb of ‘science’.
However if you look at things such as place names and geography and compare them to historical texts you can see the thread of history has not been completely lost. Medina-Sidonia in southern Spain, as we know Sidon was a Biblical city, Venice-Phoenice, another amcient parallel, Arce-Acre Italy, Amorites-Moors, there are numerous examples of these parallels where large parts of Biblical events and peoples are transferred to Europe. It is these which give us a more reliable overview of the past and offer us the chance to at least partially reconstruct a history and chronology teeming with errors.
Max Musson
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No-one here is talking about things that happened one million years ago, but there is scientifically verifiable evidence that modern Europeans existed in both Spain and Italy c. 25,000 years ago, whereas Jewish history from the Bible only postulates a 4,000 year history for the Jews.
The Truth
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And no one can argue with ‘scientifically verifiable evidence’ can they? This ‘evidence’ may impress upon the majority of people, but it can not hold up to a genuine inquiry based on natural facts, once the air of invincibility is taken away all that is left are conjectures and vague notions. But let’s leave the ‘science’ aside because i believe there is a more compelling reason why some are inclined to accept and vouch for unbelievably long time spans to mark the beginning of their race.
It is purely a defence mechanism, some people will latch onto any bit of ‘evidence’ that seems to justify their belief in the ownership of their land since time immemorial however flimsy the ‘evidence’ is. This mechanism is activated because people feel their heritage is under threat in this day and age, while the exaggerated notion of antiquity is further fueled by a culture of national nihilism as well as attacks by newly arrived foreigners who seek to dis-inherit the ‘original’ people from their claim of ownership of the land. However none of the claims and counter claims are part of a genuine historical inquiry, instead they are a rabble who like children cannot stand to lose their lolly. They are fostered in an atmosphere of loss, humiliation and deceit, which is quite understandable, yet it doesn’t make them right. It hurts to see your nation in the process of being dismantled and our existence under threat, but when we feel that we are being hard done by because we are the ‘original’ owners of this land and ‘they’ are the foreigners invading and asserting themselves, then this is nothing but the expression of an unhelpful defence mechanism rather than an historical fact.
Those who assert that we have lived here for ‘thousands of years’ seem to ignore the flow of human history and the construction and decay of nations, their revival, migrations etc. The static little Englander world view is at odds with natural facts and logic itself, yet i do not doubt that we have a special attachment to this land more than anyone else who has ever set foot upon it, does this mean that we are entitled to it, of course not. There is plenty of evidence (written, geographical, linguistic) that we have come from far away distant lands before we arrived in Britain, the ‘legend of the fall of Troy was often linked to the foundation of Italian Rome as well as Britain and France, this would seem to place our people at one time in the area of Western Turkey, Greece, Macedonia and Thrace. Britain itself during the Roman times was always a far flung province with low population, used primarily for its resources. However, what if the British people were in fact part of the Roman people and that the so called occupation of Britain was nothing but the historical invention of the anti-Romanists of the 16th-17th centuries who were masters of the literary situation. Anyone who says that the Romans are the descendants of the modern Italians are hallucinating, the same is true with the Greeks, i believe the Slavs were actually the ancient Greeks and up until the 20th century the word ‘Greek’ was still used to refer to all those Orthodox communions in Eastern Europe including Russia.
I just think, Max, that we should find out where we really came from rather than cling on to the notion that we have always inhabited these Isles, which is a very negative and defensive position and i have no doubt unhistorical.
Max Musson
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People can argue with scientifically verifiable evidence and this is why scientific opinion does sometimes change and why there are sometimes competing interpretations and opinions within the world of science. However, when the weight of scientific evidence lies disproportionately in favour of one particular interpretation of history it creates a balance of probability that one would be foolish to ignore.
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You seem to wish to base your beliefs on snippets of folklore and random historical references in such a way that our perception of history and pre-hostory is garbled.
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You seek to support your argument with a statement of the blindingly obvious, that “Anyone who says that the Romans are the descendants of the modern Italians are hallucinating”, when of course the ‘descendants’ of the modern Italians have yet to be born and it is the modern Italians who are, in part at least, the descendants of the ancient Romans.
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You state that “we should find out where we really came from”, yet without reference to scientific evidence, i.e. archaeological evidence, and DNA analysis, viewed in combination with ancient historical texts, I don’t see where else you suggest that we will find the truth? I hope you are not going to suggest that we ignore all other evidence and draw our conclusions solely from an interpretation of the Biblical scriptures. A suggestion such as that would be quite laughable.