Ashkenazim: the Genetic Origin

Who we – Ashkenazi – truly are? And who are the “Jews”?

First of all let us make the terminological mess clear. If someone says “Jew” she supposes one of the following identities:

1. Israelites – a semi-mythological ethnos from the Bible, which dwelled across Middle-East before dissipation of 2th century A.D. 2. Judaists (including those who were converted into Judaism – and their descendants) 3. Present ethnical groups – Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizraim.

It is clear that those who fall into 2nd and 3rd groups are not the same; even Navajo Indian can become a Jew, while ethnic Ashkenazi may be secular for several generations. It is much more complicated with kinship. Present “Jewry” is officially divided into 3 main parts: Ashkenazi (Rhein communities’ descendants migrated to the east as the Crusade and exile from the Northern Europe had begun), Sephardim (descendants of those who had been exiled from Spain and Portugal in the end of 15th century) and Mizrahim (all others). Both among Ashkenazi and Sephardim there are ancestral castes of priests - Cohanim and Levites.

How can we determine these groups’ kinship and their link to Israelites? With the DNA test’s help, which allows to link relationship both patrilineal (observing the Y-chromosome mutation) and matrilineal (with Mitochondria DNA’s help). There is a Middle Eastern haplogroup J haplotype, which is strongly defined among ancestral priests – Cohanim, which is called Cohanim Modal Haplotype (CMH). Having determined the amount of CMH in a population we can clearly determine the relation level to Israelites.

The problem is that only specialists research such issues, while the others usually link to the following statement (a very popular but erroneous opinion):

“There is nothing special about Ashkenazi Jews can be found during analysis’ – R1 group marker is found in 50-60% of population, about 10% of I and E3b, some of N and J – which is a usual Middle European set. Sephardim Jews on the contrary have J marker among 50% of population. Maximum of J markers by the way have nomads (bedouins) of the Arabic peninsula and Egypt (about 87% of J marker beholders)”.

Confident mood and scientisms’ overload make the illusion of rightfulness; however, as to Behar we will see that the above said is total crap for both Ashkenazi (who have no more than 10% of R1 and 40% of J) and Sephardim (who also have no more than 40% of J). Klesov’s unacademic article “Joseph and his brothers or the molecular genealogy games for the adults” is more credible. However there were no footsteps indicated in the book so we compared main professional Jewish genetics articles’ results and made sure that Klesov’s figures are the same as of the world’s consensus. The article which Klesov uses but does not mention is Behar, Hammer et al., Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European Ancestries (Haifa, London, Arizona, 2003). Below are the results of this and other articles in short: [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ].

Y-Chromosome analysis for “Paternity test”

1. Cohanim both Ashkenazic and Sephardic are Middle Eastern Israelites’ direct successors as to the paternity line. 87% (Kolesov for some reason indicates 91% which is not that important) Ashkenazi Cohanim and 76 Sephardic Cohanim possess haplogroup J. which means they are more homogeneous than Germans, Norwegians or Belarusians also included in the testing. Practically Cohanim are the unique Israelite nation, maintaining the blood purity at least according to paternity line.

2. Ashkenazim Levites have basically nothing to do with Middle eastern J group – only 10% possessed the corresponding markers. Instead 60% behold R1a1 marker, which is much more than Belarusians have (51%), but less then Serbians do (63%). Ashkenasic Levites are successors of Eastern Europeans converted to Judaism, with minimal following J admixtures and have nothing to do with Israelites. Most probably that they are the successors of Khazars. Thus there are only 3.4% Levites among all Ashkenazi.

3. 90% of Ashkenazi do not belong neither to Cohanim nor to Levites. They are situated somewhere in the middle between such extreme positions as to J and CMH markers frequency. Klesov does not provide total haplotype statistics among Ashkenazi. However we may find this information in Behar:

J (Middle east) – 37% E (Africa and the Mediterranean) – 22% - i.e. Southern Italians have 25% P (Siberia, Central Asia) – 15% BR (Nothern Europe) – 14% K (Asia and Southern Europe) – 8% R1a1 (Eastern Europe) – 4%

Totally there are 90% of modern Ashkenazi appear to be a metisized formation between Israelites’ successors (about 40%) and different European ethnos’ (about 60%) according to Y-chromosome. For the reference Germans and Norwegians also have all these haplogroups excluding K. However, there are only 3% of J among them. Sometimes tests results may vary (in the most extreme case R1a1 was found among 10%) but the whole picture stays the same.

4. Also we should emphasize that modern Israelite genes (both Ashkenazic and the rest) happened to be closer to the Kurdish, Turkish and Armenian then to Arabic and Arabic-Palestinian according to "The Y-chromosome pool of Jews as part of the genetic landscape of the Middle East" (pdf)” tests. At the same time arabs do not have an Israelite haplotype. This is to the issue of “pansemitism” and Ashkenazi’s’ and Arabs’ rights to the Israel territory.

Analysis acc. Mt-DNA

It is an even more complicated issue with women line – mitochondrial DNA. It has been a big sensation in the media when it was found out according to Behar that 40% of Askenazi originated from 4 women. However there is nothing sensational in this fact for the scientists figured the hypothetical common ancestors – so-called Y-chromosomic Adam and Mitohondrical Eve. Therefore there are 40% of Ashkenazi who bear mt-DNA which is different from the surrounding nations and can be minimally found among non-Ashkenazi Jews. Despite the fact that scientists announced these 40% middle eastern Jews, they still had to agree that they don’t have any hard proofs: "our findings are not sufficient to answer questions about the extent and location of the maternal deme from which Ashkenazi Jewry as population arose." The fact is that the small amount of these genes could be transferred to non-ashkenazic Jews from the Ashkenazi after the Rhine communities of 9-10 Century originated. There can be no certainty that 4 Ashkenazic ancestress had middle European blood, i.e. had been brought from there, especially taking into account the fact that the European Ashkenazic type is much different from Sephardic and Mizrah. Even in case that these women were Israelites and gave middle eastern genes to 40% of Ashkenazic population, the rest 60% of analysed Ashkenazi did not show any middle-eastern results. Therefore acc to mtDNA the correlation is either the same as to Y-chromosome (40% to the middle east and 60% - Europe) or the European percentage is even higher.

Now let us try to imagine our ancestors’ history

After Bar Kokhba rebellion (132-135 A. D.) a small group of Israelites (J) men – middle eastern ancestors of Ashkenazi – appeared in Spain either bringing their wives with them or breeding with local population (E). Taking specialties of Israelites’ life of that time into account, the most probable is militarized consortium of settlers searching for the wives on the new territory. Their successors spread in the region assimilating and partially becoming a metisized conviction, losing their belligerency. Some of them moved to Roman Köln and Trier, but mass migration to German lands begins after the Franks’ invasion and fall of Rome and Northern Italy (beginning of 9th century). The expansion continued to England and France. For all this time an active exogamy took place: a brand new sub-ethnos – “Ashkenazi” (i.e. “Germans”) was formed, which has little with Israelites who remained in Palestine or moved to Asia and Africa.

In the 11th century Ashkenazi suddenly got a professional national attribute – loansharking, which was banned for the most of Christians. This event was simultaneous with crusade and city-states rise: on the one hand European monarchies urgently needed considerable sums of money; on the other hand business did not suit them, which means the need for intermediaries and front men, who could be easily left behind in case of a failure and didn’t need any benefits in case of a fortune. Thus half-European Ashkenazi, non-Ashkenazic Israelites’ ancestors and harbor men (this is where E and K + parallels come from alone with Sephardim mtDNA) had been chosen in order to hurriedly create a new type of a weapon – sly and wily “Jews” according to the Christian propaganda written by anti-system Israelites in the beginning of a millennium. Talmud was used as a bonding material. The result is a cultural golem, an artificial formation, which covered courts’ financial operations and presented to the local population, crusaders and debtors according to the formula “King is good – Jews are band” after its mission was done (England 1920, France 1394, Germany 1400s). Bitter and deceived by the “masters” a metis-golem in the amount of 25,000 leaves to the East carrying Talmud along with the thoughts of being unique and cursed, instilled to it by Europeans for business purposes. It pupates and ghettoizes with exogamy fall to <0,5% for generation. Looks like that all finished.

However Talmud and usury “presented” from the Europeans gave Ashkenazi a unique criteria for the eugenic selection – the intellectual one. After 20-30 generations of Yeshiva, away from the battles and agricultural labor an average IQ grows up to 107-117 among Ashkenazi (European = 100) and remains the highest in the world. During 500 years the “masters” have already forgotten about Ashkenazi and when they finally bethink about them, they faced an intellectually superior white European sub ethnos, enlightened, suburbanly insolent, with political and mafia ambitions and moreover free from the heavy state machinery! Something had to be done urgently. And the next scheme “Treblinka – Tel-Aviv” is well known.

Thus we came up to following:

1. Ashkenazi is a metisized european subethnos with 40% Israelite mixture with average IQ = 110 and unique intellectual culture. It is a promising player who usually does not fully realize its subjectivity and gets manipulated.

2. Sephardim – Maghrebian-Middle Easterm subethnos with 40% Israelite mixture with average IQ lower for 10-15 points then of Ashkenazi. Considering itself an Ashkenazi discrimination victim, used for Israel Ashkenazi weakening.

3. Jews – an artificial formation, which unites different ethnos’ and cultures according to Israelite genes. Used by Europeans for the certain economic needs, tied with the Christians’ ban for usury in middle ages and need for covering the outstanding financial operations later. Presently it is actively formed in Israel under control of the “masters”. However, when saying “Jews” most people mean Ashkenazi, who form the majority of 80%.

4. Thus it makes sense to give the brand “Jews” along with the bulky religious and historical outfit to rastafari, lemba and all identical Christians and actively promote a perspective European brand “Ashkenazi”. Let Christians and Muslims fight for the biblical history. We can find subjectivity only with such identity.

Exogamy is ok. As our genetical set shows, our ancestors bred with native Europeans for centuries. However the Ashkenazic ethnicity proved to be resistant. Danger comes not from the mixed marriages, but on the contrary in the excessive endogamy and gene pool impoverishment, which leads to sicknesses and degeneration. Also it comes from “panjewishness” (Ashkenazi IQ and culture destruction in the “Jewry” melting pot) and “pansemitism” – intermixture with mythical “brotherly Semitic nations” in Palestina propaganda.

All our history is Nataly Portman’s (Hershlag) face.

By Valgerer

Ashkenazim: the Genetic Origin