Ted Sallis’s current TOO article makes a number of important points.
First, the fact that Jews are most closely related to Northern Italians does not imply that this was due to conversion in the ancient world. He points out that “the relatively greater similarity of Jews to southern rather than central/eastern Europeans may also to some extent reflect the greater Neolithic ancestry in the southern European groups that is shared by various Jewish groups as one component of their ancestry.”
In other words, the similarity may be due to simple geographic closeness. The similarity may be due to similarities that long pre-date the Jewish Diaspora in the Greco-Roman world of antiquity. This then suggests that my doubts about large-scale conversions to Judaism in the ancient world may be well-founded after all.
Further, the fact that there is very little similarity between Ashkenazi Jews and Eastern and Central Europeans indicates that Ashkenazi Jews remained separate from these populations for hundreds of years.
Sallis also points out that there are technical problems with the PCA analysis — the analysis with the pretty picture showing genetic distances. Such pictures are beguiling and doubtless represent the take-home message for most people. The picture suggests that Ashkenazi Jews (ASH) are more closely related to Northern Italians than to Iranian or Iraqi Jews. But this is not actually the case. In fact, Gil Atzmon explicitly denies it here.
But the IBD (Identical By Descent) analysis provides a very clear picture indicating very close relatedness among Jewish groups. IBD analysis compares gene sequences that are similar or completely identical because they descend from a common ancestor.
As Sallis notes, “this is a strong demonstration of the common origins and very close genetic connections among these groups.” Indeed, twelve of the thirteen comparisons with the highest degree of sharing are between Jewish groups. (The red bars in Part A of the figure represent comparisons of Jews with other Jewish groups.) This analysis shows that Ashkenazi Jews (ASH in the figure) are substantially more closely related to all other Jewish groups than to any non-Jewish group, including the Northern Italians.
Finally, Sallis makes the important point that
when it comes to Jewish populations and the relatively small genetic distance separating Jews from both Europeans and Middle Easterners, “academics” (particularly Jewish scientists) and the media (as well as Jewish ethnic organizations) have no problem in stressing the genetic uniqueness of Jews and that this uniqueness stamps them as a separate and distinct biological/ethnic entity.However, when it comes to the objectively larger genetic gulf that separates Europeans from, say, Africans or Asians, why, that’s only an “illusion,” there is “no biological basis for race,” “we are all the same,” and “there is more genetic variation within groups than between them.”The contrast in attitude could not be greater.
Indeed, the Forward has an editorial based on the Atzmon et al. article titled “We are one genetically.” They clearly see the data as a wake-up call for Jews to preserve their genetic heritage:
In an age when exclusivity is frowned upon and multiculturalism prized, some Jews may celebrate if the genetic distinctions fade away and are replaced by a more pluralistic definition of who we are — or at least, who our genes say we are. But breaking down the cultural and religious isolation that has characterized Jewish life since ancient times also contains risks. Science tells us that we have, indeed, been one people. Will we remain so?
Well, the only people whose exclusivity is frowned on are White Europeans. But the sad reality is that Jews will continue to attempt to have their cake and eat it too on the issue of concern for genetic continuity as they have on all the other issues related to multiculturalism and Israel: Support for massive non-White immigration and opposition to White identity and interests in America and other Western societies while supporting an ethnonationalist, apartheid state in Israel and taking steps to ensure Jewish genetic continuity in the Diaspora.
Again, it’s worth remembering that a major motivation of the Jabotinsky faction of racial Zionists that now rules Israel was to prevent genetic assimilation that they saw going on the Diaspora. (See Ch. 5 of Separation and Its Discontents, p. 152ff.) They succeeded in their aims.
The ethnonationalist aspirations of Europeans are no less legitimate.
Facing the Future as a Minority
I put this scientific research in the same category as global warming. I see no reason to believe that Jews of the past mixed less then Jews of today except for the times when their own leaders put them in shtetls. The Jews want to think they are different genetically but the fact is they only differ psychologically from the population at large and even that gap is closing thanks to evangelical christian. This doesn’t make them *white* because white is more than a phenotype if it wasn’t then we could as well be Jews and god forbid they wouldn’t want that.
Doc, you are not forcing me to work. My college daze are long over. Just Google Books, “number of Jewish temples in ancient Rome”. LOL. At least a dozen or more documented in the City of Rome itself around the time of Christ! Numbers as high as 55 Jewish temples in the City of Rome during the time of Christ are thrown around by specialists.
Northern Italy is going to be the more Germanic. Southern France? Sardinia? What about Southern Italy & Sicily? North Africa? Some of the ancient historians thought the Jews originated in Cyrene in Northern Africa. Others tought Cyprus. Others Egypt.
Ancient temple cult with a marriage taboo.
Ashkenazi Jews’ selected traits will be diluted in Israel because while the neutal DNA might be shared with the other Jews the differences that make a difference (the selected parts of the genome) are not. To me Jewishness is associated with unusual success in intelectually demanding pursuits.
What about Greco-Roman Jews who owned gentile slaves or those who converted; both would have carried Jewish DNA into gentile populations.
As expected, a serious piece of work analyzing an important scientific paper brings out the usual “high quality” of commentator.
KMacD: a suggestion – moderate.
“This analysis shows that Ashkenazi Jews (ASH in the figure) are substantially more closely related to all other Jewish groups than to any non-Jewish group, including the Northern Italians.”
So back where we started.
“the similarity may be due to simple geographic closeness”
In that case, wouldn’t southern Italians rather than northern Italians be most closely related to the Ashkenazi?
The simplest expalnation seems to be that the Ashkenazi are descended from Jews who setlled in northern Italy in ancient times, where they prosylitized and married the locals before the Church banned Jewish prosylitization.
“In that case, wouldn’t southern Italians rather than northern Italians be most closely related to the Ashkenazi?”
Did you actually read my review? Southern Italians (other than Sardinians) were not included in this study. If they were, they’d likely be closer to the Ashkenazi along the continuum of genetic ancestry.
But the paper concentrated on North Italians and Sardinians.
KMacD: please moderate.
Not all readers can understand things at the level of your review. If you want to make sure people don’t give up trying to understand you could make it simpler.
In the review, I wrote:
“… the “Italian” group shown to be relatively closer to Jews are specifically “Northern Italians;” apart from Sardinians no other Italian groups were included in this particular study. ”
That seems simple enough. And the figures make it clear what groups were analyzed.
In any case, considering what my next essay will be is a more productive use of time than requoting what I already wrote. I find no utility in blog comment threads.
@Ted
My questions & comments are with the historical assumptions the survey makes. Not with you.
If Southern Italians & Sicilians had been included wouldn’t you think they would be closer than the more Germanic northern Italians? The same for the North Africans (there is a lot of variation there), and the Egyptians.
Also, putting the origin of the Jews in Iraq, or Iran is counter to all of the ancient hstorians & social commentators.
@ KMac
I had a guy ask me once, why Herodotus didn’t mention the Jews as being among the circumcised peoples? Duh. I don’t know. Anyone know the answer?
“Jews may also behave maladaptively at times. ” This is a sentance I never thought I would read in TOO. Could someone expand on this thought to explain how the policies of the American Jews (with a TFR of 1.4 and >40% out marriage rate) are guided by a hard headed assessment of their EGI? Maybe the Elders of Zion need a new game plan?
At 3:45 PM Watson writes:
“If Southern Italians & Sicilians had been included wouldn’t you think they would be closer than the more Germanic northern Italians?”
At 3:05 PM I had already written:
“Southern Italians (other than Sardinians) were not included in this study. If they were, they’d likely be closer to the Ashkenazi along the continuum of genetic ancestry.”
statsquatch:
“…are guided by a hard headed assessment of their EGI?”
You are asking this question on the wrong blog. There’s another blog, that shall go nameless, that connects everything from the price of milk to bad weather to “EGI” and invokes “Jewish EGI” to explain every facet of Jewish behavior.
I can’t recall any poster making such claims here.
Ted:
“I find no utility in blog comment threads.”
I need to start listening to you, Theodore.
Well Ted, I guess you would agree that the Jew’s marriage taboo in Northern Italy was fairly weak in ancient times? Weak enough that the most Germanic of the Italian population shares genes with the Jews.
I’m surprised the PCA seems to show Bedouins average out closer to the Jewish groups than Palestinians.
Previous research had found the Palestinians a little bit closer, at least to the Ashkenazi.
“But this is not actually the case. In fact, Gil Atzmon explicitly denies it here.”
Kevin,
Are you sure you put the right link? It didn’t seem too explicit on that question to me.
Salli’s handle on genetics is about as good as the Greek/Ethiopian hoax.
First, Salli’s opinion that Southerners would share more Neolithic commonality needs proof. It has absolutely none. Second, it is clear that while Sephardics are between Latin and Berber DNA, Ashkenaz tend towards the Anatolian.
In any case, what are you going to say about Italians and Greeks? Oh, no, two sources of WN culture are not White!?
Nordicists, that’s what you really are. Not WN.
Stop pretend you represent Whites.
If you got out, you’d see that your ideas of Jews as Race don’t make sense in any European country outside of the “Northern” ones.
@ Reginald: I was thinking of this quote: Still, “the Italian Jew is closer to the Iraqi Jew than to his Italian neighbor,” Atzmon told the Forward.
@ Angry
You are missing an interesting point. It is your cult’s marriage taboo, that has weakened, or strengthened over the centuries that causes the variations in Jew dna. A strong marriage taboo would mean little outside of the cult dna getting into the loop.
Of all the ancient Mediterranean temple cults, only your cult is still in business. LOL.
Ted,
My apologies. I read MacDonald’s blog post, but not your article, before commenting. Yes, I see that southern Italians were not included in the study.
AngryJew,
I’ve mentioned before, we are neither Nordic advocates (too narrow) nor Caucasian advocates (too broad). We are European advocates.
Jews, and particularly Israelis, don’t need our help to defend their interests. They do just fine on their own. People of European ancestry, on the other hand, need all the help they can get.
There’s another blog, that shall go nameless, that connects everything from the price of milk to bad weather to “EGI” and invokes “Jewish EGI” to explain every facet of Jewish behavior.
Right, a blog that very much relied on your elaborations on Salter in order to reach those conclusions. If, as you claim, “ultimate” interests are genetic interests and ultimate interests trump all, then it’s not at all surprising you’d see assertions that those interests have been subconsciously guiding actors throughout history.
At least Sailer, with his Jewish background, can be excused for parroting the “Jews have the highest IQs compared to goyim” canard but for Dr MacDonald it is something that he needs to reexamine. Whilst purely anecdotal I can state from long experience that, if anything, they are not up to Northern European standards of IQ, however the Jews dohave scored “genius” level on cunning, slyness, duplicity, deception and other traits for which their breeding program is well noted.
Yes, Angry Jew, I am a Nordicist. And so is my good friend Silver. Ask him, he’ll tell you.
Angry Jew, you don’t know what you are talking about. The IBD analysis clearly shows Jews as being more similar to each other and distinct from other groups. For what it’s worth – not much – the PCA shows them in between Europeans and Middle Easterners. The Structure analysis also shows Ashkenazim as being midway between Europeans and Middle Easterners. Previous studies I’ve reviewed here say the same thing. If you are upset with these findings, discuss them with Gil Atzmon.
Silver,
“Right, a blog that very much relied on your elaborations on Salter…”
I thought the only thing I have ever discussed was “testing.” Elaborations on Salter?
“…in order to reach those conclusions. If, as you claim, “ultimate” interests are genetic interests and ultimate interests trump all, then it’s not at all surprising you’d see assertions that those interests have been subconsciously guiding actors throughout history.”
Let’s see how many errors there are in these sentences. First, it confuses prescriptive and descriptive arguments. I’ve only discussed this, say, 1000 times already. What is the most adaptive behavior for a group is not necessarily how that group behaves. Second, one cannot assume that a group will behave in favor of “their EGI” especially if they haven’t carefully considered what are the net effects of their actions.
Third, what precisely are the “ethnic genetic interests” of Jews? The folks at that blog seem to assume that current Jewish behavior is both (1) working in favor of “Jewish EGI” and (2) Jews are knowingly acting to do so.
Both 1 and 2 are uncertain. This is an issue that requires serious analysis, rather than the blanket, knee-jerk assertions about “EGI” and “Jewish EGI” that people make. “Elaborations on Salter” was not meant to lead to the idea that if a Mexican farts in proximity to a Negro, then that flatulence is an act of ethnic aggression in favor of “Mexican EGI.”
To follow-up: if we do not know how the “ethnic genetic interests” of Jews should be optimally pursued in America (or elsewhere), then how can anyone say with confidence that a particular Jewish behavior (eg, favoring Third World immigration) occurs because Jews are “acting in behalf of Jewish EGI?”
That’s the sort of unthinking statement that discredits the EGI idea, and I’ve repeatedly stated that, with respect to that blog and the “talisman-like” manner that they’ve used Salter’s ideas.
Now, an argument *can* be made that being in favor of mass immigration does help “Jewish EGI.” However, the opposite argument can be made as well.
This is besides the point that Jews may behave maladaptively – as I’ve stated here – and promote policies that may harm themselves out of an irrational fear of White gentile homogeneity and/or an historical grudge against the West and its peoples. Or even, in some cases, due to “Ellis Island nostalgia” or some other emotional/progressive ideals.
I favor careful analysis, not mindless chanting of “Jewish EGI.”
One last word on the Neolithic issue, and on “politics.”
The relative contribution of so-called “Paleolithic” and “Neolithic” contributions to the European genepool is still open to debate. However, given that the Neolithic expansion occurred from a Near Eastern/Anattolian base (most likely) and expanded into Europe through the Balkans (and, probably as well, into Iberia from a north African route), it stands to reason that Neolithic “farmer” ancestry is going to be highest in southern Europe, particularly in Italy and the Balkans. Although there is disagreement on the extent of a Neolithic influx, I do not know of any significant researcher who would deny that whatever Neolithic ancestry that exists in Europe will be at its highest frequency in the southeast. This expansion occurred to the southeast as well as the northwest directions, and, therefore, in a radius in which Anatolia is the center, one would expect this Neolithic ancestry to be highest. Those who value single locus markers (I do not) would point to NRY haplotype J2 as a marker for the Neolithic expansion, being relatively high in Italy, Greece, the Balkans, as well as in, for example, various Jewish populations.
The point in relevance to the Atzmon study is that the expansion of Jews from the Middle East, and the branching of “European Jews” vs. “Middle Eastern Jews” took place thousands of years after the Neolithic expansion. In other words, if Atzmon’s dates are correct – and they do match the historical record – the ancestors of Jews left the Middle East after the racial differentiation of Europeans and Middle Easterners was complete (and those two racial groups can be separated by, for example, Structure, MGD, etc.). Therefore, the differences in the Atzmon study between, say, the Ashkenazim and north Italians, Sardinians, and French is likely due to the modern Middle Eastern ancestry in the former. That Jews are more similar to those three groups than to, say, Russians, may be due to the Neolithic commonality. Note I say “may.” At all times, I am careful not to make a definitive comment, because at the current time we just don’t know how the current genetic data came to be.
However, that the IBD findings show that Ashkenazim have more gene sharing with non-European Jews than with Europeans is clear.
With respect to “politics” I make clear that this has nothing to do with definitions of racial ingroups. Genetic data produced by Jewish scientists and trumpeted in Jewish publications is hardly “anti-Semetic.”
@Silver
“Right, a blog that very much relied on your elaborations on Salter in order to reach those conclusions.”
That almost sounds like science should subordinate itself to…i won’t say it.
@Ted
Very interesting posts.
Mr.Sallis: “Although there is disagreement on the extent of a Neolithic influx, I do not know of any significant researcher who would deny that whatever Neolithic ancestry that exists in Europe will be at its highest frequency in the southeast.”
This is also what I have heard.
AngryJew: “In any case, what are you going to say about Italians and Greeks? Oh, no, two sources of WN culture are not White!? ”
Genetics shows southern Europeans cluster in proximity with other Europeans. Apparently, European Jews constitute an intermediate group. My view is that they are whites but not Europeans though having much European admixture. They are caucasoids in the broader sense as are many north africans and near easterners.
Tom Watson: “Weak enough that the most Germanic of the Italian population shares genes with the Jews.”
Hey Tom, I’m half German half Italian and my italian grandparents are from Friuli and Piedmont in the north. They tell me that North Italians are more germanic, same as u said, but genetic research has shown little German admixture in Italy and central Italy has more of it than the north. The best explanation I’ve seen why northern italians are, on average, of a fairer completion than other italians is that there was a very strong celtic component there in antiquity which never existed in the rest of the peninsula.
@ Sledgehammer
They don’t call it Lombardy for nothing. LOL. Just look at a map. Notice that Switzerland, and Austria border Italy in the north. Notice the proximity to Bavaria & Baden Wurtemberg.
As I mentioned before there were many Jew cult temples in the City of Rome at the time of Christ. A dozen or more have been positively identified. Specialists think there may have ben as many as 55 Jew cult temples in the City of Rome! There are Hebrew language inscriptions all over Italy dating from Roman times. There are also Jew burial sites & catacombs all dating from Roman times. You could make a career out researching the cult of the Jews in Italy.
If you like to read there is a ton of literature on the subject.
Erich S. Gruen wrote a book called Heritage & Hellenism that looks like an interesting read on the origins of the cult of the Jews. A preview is available on Google Books. Take a peek at Chapter 2.
The problem with the Neolithic is that it would pre-date the founding of the cult of the Jews. If the Jew cult was founded by an Egyptian priest named Moses around 1300 or so BC?
@Ted
Are you a geneticist?
No.
Are you suggesting there is only one explanation for the question at hand?
Yes.
Does a No and Yes imply you have credibility?
Not enough.
Please, travel to the following countries and tell me if a Jew converts to Christianity, you’ll be able to spot him: Serbia, Bulgaria, France, Romania,Spain, Greece. Hm…a pattern here?
Another question, how many Jewish “languages” can you list, that are Semito-Iranian based?
Neolithic expansion?
There were many expansions from the Middle East into the Maghreb and Europe. In fact all sedentary techniques involved a biomass spreading them from the Crescent, and there was population substitution. Which wave are you going to pin on one tribe?
Angry Jew,
What you think people look like doesn’t change what they actually are. Do you seriously think that any person should (prescriptive) or would (descriptive) eschew their own flesh and blood offspring in favor of a stranger’s child that “happens to look more like them?”
What’s the whole point of population genetics studies like Atzmon’s then? We’ll just have “Angry Jew” tell us what he thinks people look like and have it published in AJHG. Note to “Angry Jew” : you are not God. Your opinions do not shape reality. I’ll go along with peer reviewed scientific papers, not your personal opinions, thank you very much.
You also suffer from a severe cognitive deficiency. I already stated in this comments thread that I’m not making any definitive conclusions; more data are needed. Yet you state:
“Are you suggesting there is only one explanation for the question at hand?
Yes.”
It seems to me you are upset at the findings of Atzmon et al, and instead of directing your upsetness at your fellow non-Western, non-European, Middle Easterners, you direct it at the messenger.
I’m just reporting, and attempting to put into context, Atzmon’s findings. Again, if those findings bother you, discuss them with Atzmon, and with the Jewish organizations and publications crowing over the data.
By the way, the importance of the Neolithic expansion to West Eurasian genetics is fairly well established. Inventing multiple expansions of equal import will not alter human demographic history.
With that, I think a consideration of the Jewish EGI question for a future post is more important than the ranting of individuals who cannot address their dissatisfaction toward the source of that dissatisfaction: Atzmon and colleagues.
Ted:
“At all times, I am careful not to make a definitive comment, because at the current time we just don’t know how the current genetic data came to be.”
Angry Jew:
“Are you suggesting there is only one explanation for the question at hand?
Yes.”
Ted,
“What is the most adaptive behavior for a group is not necessarily how that group behaves.”
But Jews are genetically a people, a cohesive group that has achieved a high measure of genetic continuity over time whilst living in diaspora and not on racially exclusive territory, and not merely a more loosely assembled, arbitrarily formulated group. I’m willing to bet you yourself believe much of the behavior of theirs we observe is genetically based per what are evolved – and given the genetic continuity of theirs we also observer – behavioral and mental proclivities that were in some sense adaptive otherwise we wouldn’t also observer their conspicuous genetic continuity under what would normally be not so conducive to gaining said genetic continuity. They must have been doing something right. And the genes that coded for that behavior were therefore selected for in that that behavior facilitated the propagation of those genes. Perhaps those behaviors are no longer as adaptive now as they once were, yet that does not necessarily imply those behaviors were not once adaptive; and they clearly were, for the reasons stated above.
Their hyper-ethnocentrism seems to be a pronounced instantiation of genetic similarity theory. And cannot we with justice think of genetic similarity theory as functionally a behavioral metric of the pursuit of EGI? It is, after all, concerning observed behaviors quite consistent with the pursuit of EGI.
“his analysis shows that Ashkenazi Jews (ASH in the figure) are substantially more closely related to all other Jewish groups than to any non-Jewish group, including the Northern Italians.” – and this is exactly why I call it pseudoscience. A Kaifeng Jew is not genetically closer to a Beta Israel then they are to their Chinese neighbor. I will buy that the Kaifeng Jew is more closely related to other Kaifeng Jews then they are to their goy neighbor. It’s B.S. boys and girls and the report simply demonstrates the sorry state of what passes for science today. I’d like to know who funded that report.
“Perhaps those behaviors are no longer as adaptive now as they once were”
For a very long time jewish access to power was constrained by a hereditary, explicitly and legally required Christian, landed aristocracy that would have been very hard to break into. Irresistably forceful ethno-centricity may have been optimal when faced with an immoveable object like that.
@Ted.
I am not shooting the messanger nor playing at G-d.. Sorry if I was offensive. Let’s stick to what you state.
First, there is a discrepancy between your conclusions and Atzmons. He does not show that Jews are still more coherent vis a vis one another than vis a vis a third party. That’s a mischaracterisation of the work. I am sure you’d agree that readers here jump on the opportunity to claim that a Jew from Ethiopia somehow manages to share more genetic ancestry with an Ashkenaz than with a Yemenite. This is false. While an Ashkenaz might not share much ancestry with a German (which surprises some ignoramuses – but I can’t tell why), an Ethiop Jew is an Ethiop – and that’s who he is related to, not an Ashekenaz. A Greek is more related to a Jew than either to an Ethiop from whom they are equidistant.
Second, you keep saying Jews are middle easterners, while the authors of the work are not suggesting anything of the sort. So that’s a distortion. Now what I’m proposing is not that Bulgarians and Jews are one and the same people – what I’m saying with my reference is that calling one group a transition group flies in the face of half of the European genome. In that case, Iberians are one big fat transition group!?
Third, from the Neolithic till now, The edge of Western Eurasia sees constant population movements and expansions from Central Eurasia, and its Southern Rimlands. Need I remind you of Iberian DNA? Or of borders of the Ottoman at 1800?
I have a different take on the supposed genetic similarity of northern Italians and Jews. Some have attributed this to neolithic expansion or to proselytizing in Greco-Roman times. I also have some problems with the underlying science, but that’s another story.
The Jews revolted against the Romans in Judea several times. The first Roman-Jewish war lasted from 66-70 AD. The exact number of Jewish casualties is unknown. It is estimated that upwards of 100,000 Jews were sold into slavery after the rebellion. It is likely that the bulk of them were transported to Italy.
The 2nd Roman-Jewish war lasted from 132-136 A.D.. The Jews made the mistake of rebelling against Hadrian, who as Roman emperors go, was considered enlightened. The result was the death, displacement and enslavement of most all of the Jews who remained in Judea after the first war. I have read estimates that as many as 600,000 Jews were sold into slavery at the conclusion of the conflict. Again, it is probable that the bulk of these new slaves wound up in Italy.
Roman slaves were allowed to procreate by their masters, who probably chose who was to be inseminated by whom including the master, himself; a breeding program of sorts. Certainly, the Jewish slaves were part of the mix. Could it not be that this is the way that Jewish gene markers show up in northern Italians?
@AngryJew
Please, travel to the following countries and tell me if a Jew converts to Christianity, you’ll be able to spot him: Serbia, Bulgaria, France, Romania,Spain, Greece. Hm…a pattern here?
They’s all poor and/or gettin’ swamped by immigrants?
“A Greek is more related to a Jew than either to an Ethiop from whom they are equidistant.”
Yes, Greeks are more similar to Jews than to Ethiopians. What this proves I cannot understand.
I also can’t understand how and why “Ethiops” are being added to the “discussion.” Who is bringing up “Ethiopian Jews?” Or any other Ethiopians? Obviously, they are not in any way actually Jewish.
Atzmon:
“the Italian Jew is closer to the Iraqi Jew than to his Italian neighbor,” Atzmon told the Forward.
The IBD data clearly show Jews more similar to each other than to other groups. The “Forward” (“We are One”) revels in this. The data are clear. Should we next start debating whether the Earth is a sphere or is flat?
Well, Ashkenazi Jews and other Jews are not Middle Easterners. They are not European either. They are in between both groups. I hardly think Atzmon would deny that.
And, no, I won’t even use the moronic PCA method to come to that conclusion: actual gene sharing and the results of Structure point in the same direction, and those methods are, in my opinion, more reliable than either PCA or Fst (which Jost has convincingly undermined).
And what do Iberians have to do with anything? They are a “transition group” between what? Basques and other Europeans? The only groups I see that give a Structure analysis in between Europeans and other groups are Jewish ones, in this or other studies.
“Third, from the Neolithic till now, The edge of Western Eurasia sees constant population movements and expansions from Central Eurasia, and its Southern Rimlands. Need I remind you of Iberian DNA? Or of borders of the Ottoman at 1800?”
Which means what? The genetic data are what they are? No European group is going to have the predominant gene sharing with non-European groups, or have a Structure analysis halfway in between French and Bedouin.
“what I’m saying with my reference is that calling one group a transition group flies in the face of half of the European genome.”
Half the European genome did not emerge from the Middle East ~2000 years ago.
Oh Ted, you base your entire case on this?:
“the Italian Jew is closer to the Iraqi Jew than to his Italian neighbor,”
By the same token I could say “It is easier to find in Buglaria, Italy and Iberia people genetically more similar to the Italian Jew, than to find an Iraqi Jew similar to the Italian Jew”
!!
And that’s the whole point.
It’s pretty damn clear that labeling Jews as transition people is to fail to grasp the argument. Jews are not a stop-over between Middle-Easterner and Europeans, unless you are a Nordicist. Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Iberians and French are all “transition people” by your definition. Then add Lebanese, Syrians Armenians, Caucasians, and boy – its the Nordics and Yemenites who are simply some extremities.
Atzmon’s conclusios are rather simple no:
“Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews.”
European/Syrian Jews.
“Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry.”
A no brainer.
Did Atzmon deliberately duck the Greco-Roman possibility?
I realize my own analysis is a bit ahead of Atzmon’s, so a pat on my back.
Ted:
It’s very simple. If’n you don’t want to include Jews with white folk, then, well, don’t include ‘em.
Sheesh. Moderate yer OWN dang posts. Y’all takin’ this AngryJew fella far too seriously.
That just makes BOTH of you’s irrelevant. The white nationalist who says Jews’ ain’t white but who LOVES debatin’ ‘em. You got ANY idea just how ridiculous you look?
Sad, boy, truly sad.
But then, he flatters you. He takes YOU seriously. Unlike us normal people, who don’t.
And to everybody else: This whole comment thread is exactly why you never let the propellerheads run the show, in a company or a nation.
“By the same token I could say ‘It is easier to find in Buglaria, Italy and Iberia people genetically more similar to the Italian Jew, than to find an Iraqi Jew similar to the Italian Jew’”
That’s the opposite of what Atzmon said.
“It’s pretty damn clear that labeling Jews as transition people is to fail to grasp the argument. Jews are not a stop-over between Middle-Easterner and Europeans…”
The study says they are.
“Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Iberians and French are all ‘transition people’ by your definition.”
No they aren’t.
It is Jews who are between Middle Easterners and Europeans. The Greeks are closer to every European group than even the Ashkenazi Jews are.
For example, Greeks were found to be 47% closer in Fst to the ancient European population called the Basques, Greeks were found to be 84% closer to the Germans, Greeks were found to be 43% closer to the Swedes, Greeks were found to be 60% closer to the Spanish, etc.
And then with the Iberians it’s even more extreme.
The Spanish were found to be 3 times closer to the Irish than Ashkenazi Jews were, 5.9 times closer to the Germans, 2.6 times closer to Eastern Europeans, and 2.2 times closer to the Swedes.
“Then add Lebanese, Syrians Armenians, Caucasians, and boy – its the Nordics and Yemenites who are simply some extremities.”
That’s a really stupid statement. The Nordics cluster with other Europeans, and the Yemeni cluster with other Middle Easterners.
“European/Syrian Jews.”
That just means they’re in Europe now.
“Did Atzmon deliberately duck the Greco-Roman possibility?”
It doesn’t seem the data was proper to draw conclusions on that question.
It doesn’t seem that any Greeks were tested, and it doesn’t seem that any effort was made to adjust for the confounding effect of the Neolithic diffusion.
Now it could be that when Atzmon says an Italian Jew is closer to an Iraqi Jew than an Italian, he’s making it up for political reasons.
I doubt it, but it’s a little bit fishy how he jumped at the chance to do an interview with the Forward which was clearly skewed to trying to use the study to promote Jewish group feeling.