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Has Achieved Nirvana |
https://theconversation.com/as...to-ancient-dna-97962 (for bonus points: The article missed one of the Four Matriarchs. Who is she? )
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana  |
From outer space, of course. Haven't you heard of Jewish space lasers?
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
And here I thought it was Brooklyn...
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
On a more serious note, the Ashkenazim are a mix of ethnic eastern Europeans and Eurasians who adopted Judaism later in the game. This has been known in my family for a long time, so not sure why we had to wait for DNA to "discover" this. My paternal grandfather escaped the pogroms in Ukraine at the turn of the last century. His family spoke Yiddish and traced the family tree back to the Tatars, who were Mongols.
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Minor Deity |
Similarly, my paternal grandmother's family escaped the pogroms in Poland (somewhere around Bialostok) at the turn of the last century, Yiddish speakers, but to the best of my knowledge, nobody traced their ancestry to the Tatars/Mongols. OTOH Ukrainians themselves seem to be ethnically more Tatar. However, the Jews in those adjacent countries (Poland, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine) migrated across the borders now and then, depending on safety and business, My Grandmother forbid anyone to say she was Polish, insisting she was simply "Jewish". The borders changed all the time, she said. The Holocaust had much to do with such vehemence, I'm sure, because the Poles were so infamously anti-Semitic before, during and after WWII. The Ukraine too was historically antiSemitic, but today it's lightened up far more compared to the rest of Eastern Europe. Both their president and prime minister are now Jewish (having a little trouble figuring out how their political system can incorporate both). My sons have both subscribed to 23 and me, and I'm going to double check their ethnic "scores" in view of pique's comments. Since their father is Turkish, I'd have expected some Turkic DNA (i.e. Tatar/Mongol) if only because that's supposedly the primary ethnic base of Turks. I don't recall any such rating, though. For that matter, I haven't seen anyone with Ashkenazi roots "score" on 23 and me as anything but "Ashkenazi" - i.e., no "Tatar or Mongol". I wonder if 23 and me just "rounds up" to Ashkenazi for any European Jewry. (Pique, did you or anyone in your family by any chance subscribe to that ancestry service? If so, did you get any of those Asian ratings?) Of course, modern Turks (all the more depending on what part of Turkey they're from), are something of a hodgepodge. The Crusades especially made for quite a motley throughout the Middle East. (Come to think of it, I wonder why so many Afghans have green eyes as did my ex.) To digress, but it's funny, Genghiz Khan is reputedly THE most prolific father-ancestor in human history. On that account, one would think Mongol DNA would be more dominant. Genghis Khan a Prolific Lover, DNA Data Implies
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
My grandparents all also considered themselves Jews, not Ukrainians, Rumanians, or Hungarians, though those were the countries they emigrated from. (And no doubt the non-Jewish citizens of those countries agreed with them.) They all spoke Yiddish, not the languages of those countries. In fact my paternal grandfather forbade Russian, the language of the Cossacks, to be spoken in his house. (My father was fluent in Russian because of army intelligence training during WWII).
I did not know this!
I have an unused 23andme box sitting in my desk. Mr. Pique bought one for each of us. I have refused to use it because I don't want to know about genetic abnormalities that I very likely am carrying (Tay Sachs and BRCA gene), and I don't want to risk them affecting my health insurance (he bought us these when you could still be denied coverage of preexisting conditions). Now that I know that they trace your ethnic heritage, I'm not particularly interested in that. My Dad told me about my grandfather's tatar background when I was still a girl, in the early 1960s. I looked up the Tatars in our family's encyclopedia and they had a photo of a typical Tatar man in the book. He was the spitting image of my grandfather. Many of the photos I've seen of Tatar people look like they could be my relatives. When I was studying Russian in high school we got a subscription to a Russian magazine. The girl on the cover of the first issue looked so much like me, everyone in the class commented on it. I've often been told by Russian natives that I look like a typical Russian girl. Someone once said, "scratch the surface of a Russian and you find a Tatar." So I don't need 23andMe to confirm what I've already been told. I think the main takeaway here is that the Ashkenazim are not ethnic Jews in the sense that Semitic Jews are. They are Eurasians who adopted Judaism for some reason, centuries ago. I gather at some point in history it was more desirable to be a Jew than it became later. And certainly hasn't been a good thing to be born into, from the perspective of persecution, for a very long time.
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| Minor Deity |
I wasn't doubting you had the ethnicity you were brought up identifying as both by family lore and visual "proof" - just curious about about how 23 and me works in terms of what ethnicities they name as groupings. (I do NOT think they break "Ashkenazi" down into any subgroups.) Otherwise, I'd have heard friends with European Jewish background report something apart from simply "Ashkenazi" coming back on their 23 and me reports. Also, surely my sons would have gotten some percentage of Eurasian (Tatar/Mongol) at least from their Turkish father - but nada. I remain ignorant about what 23 and me might have to say about other variants of Jewishness - i.e., Sephardic, Ethiopian, Karaite and such Eastern Semitic branches as Yemenite. I suspect all would be apt to yield only partial identities at best. I have thought until recently that the big controversy about Jewish ethnicity was whether Jews stemmed from a genetic profile dating from the Middle East in whole or part, or whether Jews were actually primarily descended from the famous Khazar tribe who converted to Judaism en masse around the 6th century. (I think that tribal group originated in the Ukraine, and is considered Eurasian.) https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Khazaria
According to recent reading, that "myth" has been largely abandoned, having been used primarily to discredit Jews from the claim to a genetically based Biblical entitlement - one which would grant them an archeological-theological right to their"Holy Land". IOW to cut them off from any fact-based historical Zionism. I don't know how this might or might not relate to your discussion about the Tatar/Mongol origin of European Jewry. I suspect there are admixtures. What continues to leave me hanging (being way too ignorant about genetics), are contrasting differences between information carried by the X chromosome (supposedly demonstrating descent of nearly half of Ashkenazi Jews traceably from only four European female founders) while markers on the Y chromosome supposedly prove a distinct linkage to Middle Eastern groups.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/r.../01/060117083446.htm Meanwhile
It sounds like an insular collective of male Jews married four European women (and their descendents), somehow leading to a combination ancestry of today's Ashkenazi Jews. In other words, disproving the claims of a Khazar-dominated genealogy in favor of a male "Founder-effect"dating as far back as the first Millennia. https://www.nature.com/articles/5201319
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| Minor Deity |
23 and me is really known for identifying ethnicities (from whatever small repertoire they have to work from - it seems to be VERY limited). And just FYI they do not give customers any information about genetic abnormalities or heritable typing - not unless they particularly pay a hefty surcharge and even so, I think the list is again very limited. The only "score" I ever got in that regard was when I filled out an elaborate questionnaire along with a blood test, at John's Hopkins in conjunction with my breast cancer. I've been tempted for some time to have a test for APOE (the blood test that tells you whether you're predisposed to develop Alzheimer's) but I decided it wouldn't give me any useful information - not until there's some helpful medicine available to help me deal with a possible positive score. I've also wanted to take a test indicating how my body handles various food categories (my son took such a rather fancy test, which confirmed what he already suspected - namely, that he's super sensitive to carbs. As am I, related to the cardiac problems alluded to below.. Also debating about taking a test that indicates how you respond to certain medicines. It's supposed to give you hints about which might help (or which might be a waste). I'm wishing such tests were far more fine-tuned than they are at present. The genetic abnormalities tests are only useful prior to pregnancy, if one suspects one and/or one's mate might be carriers especially of a recessive trait. In that case it could save a couple from bearing a child with tragic genetic abnormalities (as you know all too well). It's become clear that my two brothers and I are carriers of several cardiac abnormalities (one brother already succumbed) and I myself appear to have a few other chromosomal abnormalities (e.g., Ehler-Dahlos. That that explains a lot, albeit too late to have helped me avoid a disability). Also, a serious eye condition which just emerged (Also, too late to help). 
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| Minor Deity |
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
 me too
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
Very interesting information, Amanda! I was unaware of the whole debate about the khazars. And thanks for clarifying what 23 and me does. I also was unaware of that. It had been suggested to me (by a gynecological oncologist) that I at least get the BRCA gene testing, but since I would not do a prophylactic mastectomy, I don't see the point. My parents wanted me to get tested for Tay Sachs when I got married, but since I married a goyim, I didn't see the point of that, either. 
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| Minor Deity |
You'd be amazed how many Israelis think so too - at least when I first went there the summer of my 19th year!
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
I thought it was going to be something clever like “sugar, spice, and everything nice” or “snips, snails, and puppy dog tails”.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Maybe “Bagels and lox and everything that rocks”.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Or “Latkes and knish and some nasty tasting fish”. lol
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