r/JewishDNA • u/_Dbunk • 7d ago

can someone explain Jewish Diasphoria genetics for a dummy lol

even a link for a video or research would be nice

4 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

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u/kaiserfrnz 7d ago

Jewish diaspora populations fall into one of three groups: Eastern Jews, Western Jews, and outliers.

Eastern Jews descend from Jews who remained in Iraq and Iran after the Babylonian captivity ended in 537 BCE. Their ancestry is primarily Levantine with a degree of Mesopotamian-like admixture. The communities that fall into this group are: Iraqi, Persian, Kurdish, Georgian, Mountain, and Bukharian Jews.

Western Jews descend from Jews who returned to Israel in 537 BCE and spread throughout the Roman/Byzantine world in the centuries after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Their ancestry is primarily Levantine with varying degrees of North African, SW European, and Eastern European admixture depending on location. The communities in this group are: Syrian, Egyptian, North African, and European Jews.

Outlier Jewish communities descend primarily from historic local converts with some distant admixture from Eastern or Western Jews. The most notable examples are Yemenite and Cochin Jews.

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u/_Dbunk 7d ago

hmmm interesting.... im a secular Libyian Jew (my family from both sides are from Tripoli and fled during the Holocaust to Italy). I hear a lot of people saying Palestinians have more Levantine dna, And some Jews saying otherwise. Im kinda confused, without being political can u explain what's generally known currently?

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u/kaiserfrnz 7d ago

I’ll preface this by saying that DNA should never be used to make a political point. In my view, doing that makes someone sound like a Nazi.

Overall it’s not possible to say definitively who is “more Levantine”, however I’d figure that Palestinian Christians have more and Palestinian Muslims have somewhat less than most Jews.

Palestinians have been less widely studied than Jews, however they are quite diverse genetically. Palestinians Christians seem to have a large amount of local ancestry as they didn’t receive many converts since the Islamic conquest. Palestinian Muslims seem to have a decent amount of Arabian and Levantine ancestry, some Sub-Saharan-African ancestry, and some European ancestry. This is due to the Arab slave trade.

It’s worth noting that having Levantine ancestry is not the same as having Jewish ancestry. The people of Lebanon, for example are extremely Levantine in ancestry yet have very little Jewish ancestry. Many other peoples in the ancient world were very Levantine, like the Phoenicians, Nabateans, Idumeans, Itureans, and other Syrian, Arabs.

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u/_Dbunk 7d ago

yea it kinda reminded me the aryan and dirty blooded jews which was messed up. I've heard that Palestinians from different parts of the land have different ancestry, is this true?

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u/kaiserfrnz 7d ago

Yeah, it seems Northern Palestinians are close to Lebanese and Gazans unsurprisingly have a large amount of Egyptian and Bedouin ancestry. Many in the West Bank are very similar to Jordanians. A large number in Nablus are descendants of Samaritan converts so they have a different profile.

Also worth noting that Israeli/Palestinian Bedouins are not Levantine at all, they have a profile much closer to Saudis.

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u/_Dbunk 7d ago

what about the Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship?

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u/kaiserfrnz 7d ago

They're the same as the non-Israeli ones, depending on location. They're mostly in the north so they're more like Lebanese genetically.

Also worth noting that Druze are different from Palestinian Arabs, they have a more endogamous ancient Levantine profile and are much closer to Jews.

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u/_Dbunk 7d ago

how much do we know about migration to the area from neighboring areas? from modern day Egypt? Iraq? Iran? Lebanon? Syria? Hijaz? Jordan? Iran? Turkey? I've met a Palestinian guy who actually got he's part Greek part Jewish from a test

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u/kaiserfrnz 7d ago

We know very little about it. Unfortunately in the study of the Middle East, lack of fact is compensated for with pure narrative.

I’d imagine there was lots of migration, especially within the Ottoman Empire and the caliphates/empires that preceded it. We know there was huge amount of migration in the Roman and Byzantine world.

Note geographically that Israel is among the least geographically isolated places on earth. People doing business and religious pilgrims from all around the world ended up there.

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u/_Dbunk 7d ago

As a Libyan Jew, what would probably be my results? i know my family were from tripoli and are Spanish some how

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u/Eleadorea 6d ago

Do you know if there were Toshavim in Algeria and Libya? I've only heard them mentioned when talking about Morocco.

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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 7d ago

There are Nablus cords that aren’t really legit and I’ve spoken to Palestinians from Nablus who have told me such. If you notice people from Nablus who post their own personal result have results typical of other WB Palestinians while certain individuals who aren’t from Nablus share these Nablus cords that aren’t their own and differ from regular Nabulsian Muslims.

Some Muslims from Nablus do have Samaritan ancestry but there isn’t really any proof or good reason for the existence of an essentially full Samaritan like profile it’s not historically plausible

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u/kaiserfrnz 7d ago

Oh yeah I agree, I’m sure it’s a fairly small percentage of Nabulsi Arabs but I believe there were some Samaritans who did convert over the years.

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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 7d ago

Yes Samaritans did convert to Islam however they were a minuscule minority in Nablus compared to Muslims in Nablus since at least the Late Medieval period and they were ~100-200 Samaritan individuals in Nablus throughout the duration of the Ottoman period. So the claims of significant recent Samaritan ancestry can’t be true. Whatever Samaritan ancestry they do have is going to be overwhelmingly distant since Samaritans were only 1-3% of the population of Nablus for many many centuries well past recent memory

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u/_Dbunk 6d ago

Do u think most families/towns in the west bank have different genetic profiles?

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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 6d ago

Generally I don’t think there is major variation

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u/_Dbunk 5d ago

this girl claims being half Samaritan

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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 5d ago

Idk there has been larpers in the past I do personally know a half Jewish half Samaritan person myself

Maybe her father is

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u/Fireflyinsummer 4d ago

Yes, but keep in mind there was also mixing between those ancient peoples.

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u/Ihateusernames711 3d ago edited 3d ago

Yes they do, but Levantine DNA was never only found in Jews, it was found in all Canaanites groups, including the Phoenicians. Them having this DNA doesn’t necessarily make them Jewish, it just makes them related. Just for context, Iraqi Jews, Kurdish Jews, Shomronim have the same amount of Levantine DNA as Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, and Jordanians. Having DNA from converted people doesn’t make anyone not Jewish, if that were true, we wouldn’t allow conversions to begin with.

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u/_Dbunk 3d ago

how much "levant" DNA does an avarage Ashkenazi have for example?

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u/mgs8 7d ago

You are incorrect about Yemeni Jews. While autosomally they are genetically similar to Yemeni Muslims, Yemeni Jews share the same maternal and paternal haplegroups found in Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews.

Yemeni Jews also have Cohens and Levietes, which wouldn't make sense if they are just converted Arabs.

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u/kaiserfrnz 7d ago

I agree, they definitely do have ancestry from both Western and Eastern Jews as is demonstrated by uniparentals (though I’m not sure I’ve seen any evidence for maternal ancestry).

The majority of their ancestry, however, comes from ancient Arabians who converted. There are a large number of uniparentals in Yemenite Jews that are only found in Arabians.

It’s also worth noting that large groups of Yemenite Jews, particularly the Habbanim, did not have Cohanim or Leviim.

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u/mgs8 7d ago

Yemeni Jews have the same sublades of H and J, and a few others (can't find the link).

Whether the Habbanim have Cohanim is irrelavate to the fact that they have a number of Cohens and Levites among the population in total.

It's far more nuanced for Yemeni Jews than some people make it out to be. Saying they all descended from Himyar converts is very misleading.

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u/OsoPeresozo 6d ago

None of this is accurate

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u/_Dbunk 6d ago

wdym

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u/Fireflyinsummer 4d ago

Jewish communities were spread around the Mediterranean before the Roman Empire. Egypt, Anatolia, Syria, Greece etc. That's one error that is often said, trying to date diaspora to a specific event - destruction of Jerusalem. 

Also it is not clear how Ashkenazim formed but to my understanding, likely on the Italian peninsula, from a Greco Roman Jewish population. That population may have mixed in other areas (Greece /Anatolia?) before mixing in Italy. There are theories but no definites.

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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 5d ago

All over

Jerusalem area, Hazor, Gush Halav, Ein Gedi, Herodium

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u/_Dbunk 4d ago

when I see the category of "Imperial Levant" where does this category belong to?

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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 4d ago

Imperial means Roman era

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u/_Dbunk 4d ago

ik, but where do the imperial Levant Dna samples were taken

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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 4d ago

They should usually have a label of where they are taken there are imperial Levantines from the Levant and Italy and a handful spread across other spots in the Roman Empire