PSA: Jews are a racial group
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
That's a pretty funny response, TBH. - Ashkenazi Jew |
Anonymous
It was! It's very nice that she's proud of her heritage. |
Anonymous
Not impressed. Sorry. |
Anonymous
Who’s asking you to be impressed? |
Anonymous
Nah. Im calling you a troll. |
Anonymous
Aparently our censor-in-chief Jeff, who's been deleting multiple messages here with zero prior warning. |
Anonymous
I'm the one who posted about JM. I can't understand why the posts are being deleted. No one should be that angered by my factual post from a PBS program. If someone can't control their anger, maybe they shouldn't read this website, and look into therapy. I also suggest they get in touch with PBS, as well as the host of Finding Your Roots and take the issue up with them. Virtually every guest on the program has some Jewish ancestry in their DNA results. There must also be markers for Syrian Jewish ancestry because some orthodox rabbis request DNA tests before they will perform Syrian Jewish weddings if they are unknown to the community to be of Syrian extraction. |
Anonymous
|
Below are a few articles of interest on the topic for those who wish to click and read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_is_a_Jew%3F https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5034383/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/defining-jews-defining-a-nation-can-genetics-save-israel/254428/ |
Anonymous
|
Fascinating links! Thank you.
I believe that our religion and culture is such a small minority that we can't afford to turn others away. Let us embrace these new Jews. |
Anonymous
I don't think anyone is arguing we should turn people away. The argument--poorly articulated--was that there is an ethnic/genetic basis to one's Jewish identity, for most Jews. This is true for Jews with Ashkenazi Jewish background (which is about 80% of Jews worldwide). This does not mean that people without that background (who, according to traditional regulations, would need to convert) are less Jewish. It simply means that, at least according to most Rabbis, if your mother is Jewish (or, increasingly, your father) you are Jewish by birth and don't need to convert. That's an important point when discussing Jewish identity, but it's not a point that's meant to create some sort of hierarchy of Jewishness. |
Anonymous
Sigh. Have missed the last few posts, but let me dive in here. I can see an "ethnic" component as in "my great grandparents were Jews, so I feel a connection to Jews, even though I not only have nothing to do with Judaism, but also nothing to do with Jewish secular culture" What I have a problem with is "none of the relatives I actually know by name were Jews, but a genetic testing service says I have "jewish genes" so I am ethnically Jewish" In one case we are using ethnic to mean a connection to specific individuals who were part of a community one can know about. I don't care for that form of identification (to me secular Jewishness means actually being part of Jewish culture - Yiddish speaking atheism will do if you are not religious) but its coherent. The latter is using "ethnic" as a euphemism for "racial" and is, IMO very problematic. It would be so even if the genetic tests were guaranteed accurate, but it is more so in that they are not. |
Anonymous
Regardless of your level of comfort around there being a genetic subgroup called Ashkenazi Jewish, one exists. That's a matter of science. Expectant parents with Ashkenazi Jewish background need to take an Ashkenazi Jew panel (that's literally what it's called) to test for the presence of certain genes that carry diseases (like Tay Sachs). Of course, there's a difference between a genetic group and an ethnicity, but there has historically been an extremely strong overlap between those with Ashkenazi Jewish genetic backgrounds and those who identify with the ethnicity from a language/traditions standpoint. More recently, of course, intermarriage has become much more common, so the genetic distinctiveness of the group is lessening, but the fact remains that the group exists. Wikipedia actually sums it up pretty nicely (and you'll see that the passage uses "genetic subgroup" and ethnicity interchangeably): In an ethnic sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is one whose ancestry can be traced to the Jews who settled in Central Europe. For roughly a thousand years, the Ashkenazim were a reproductively isolated population in Europe, despite living in many countries, with little inflow or outflow from migration, conversion, or intermarriage with other groups, including other Jews. Human geneticists have argued that genetic variations have been identified that show high frequencies among Ashkenazi Jews, but not in the general European population, be they for patrilineal markers (Y-chromosome haplotypes) and for matrilineal markers (mitotypes).[110] Since the middle of the 20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews have intermarried, both with members of other Jewish communities and with people of other nations and faiths.[111] A 2006 study found Ashkenazi Jews to be a clear, homogeneous genetic subgroup. Strikingly, regardless of the place of origin, Ashkenazi Jews can be grouped in the same genetic cohort – that is, regardless of whether an Ashkenazi Jew's ancestors came from Poland, Russia, Hungary, Lithuania, or any other place with a historical Jewish population, they belong to the same ethnic group. The research demonstrates the endogamy of the Jewish population in Europe and lends further credence to the idea of Ashkenazi Jews as an ethnic group. Moreover, though intermarriage among Jews of Ashkenazi descent has become increasingly common, many Haredi Jews, particularly members of Hasidic or Hareidi sects, continue to marry exclusively fellow Ashkenazi Jews. This trend keeps Ashkenazi genes prevalent and also helps researchers further study the genes of Ashkenazi Jews with relative ease. It is noteworthy that these Haredi Jews often have extremely large families.[15] |
Anonymous
The wiki (and geneticists generally) are using the term "genetic subgroup' differently than people here are. They are taking self identifited Ashkenazi populations and noting frequencies of genetic patterns in them. Which yes, includes high frequencies of certain diseases, high occurrend of the cohen modal haplotype, etc. People here seem to be thinking there is a genetic marker for being an ashkenazic Jew. Note how many of the markers mentioned in the article charecterize only a minority of Ashkenazic Jews. For example, only about 3% of Ashkenazi Jews are Tay Sachs carriers. BRCA1 is found in about 1% of Ashkenazi Jews, and BRCA 2 in less than 2%. Only about half of Ashkenazi Cohanim have the J Cohen Modal Haplotype. IE if you took 50 Ashkenazi Jews, and 50 others (random Europeans, or middle easterners, or whatever) you could tell the groups apart pretty reliably. Not necessarily for any individual. No genetic pattern is definitional of who is an Ashkenazi Jew, and I don't think any of the studies in the Wiki article suggests there is. |
Anonymous
|
And further, PP has changed the subject. What I was contesting was "there is an ethnic/genetic basis to one's Jewish identity, for most Jews." Not "are there high frequencies of certain genetic patterns among Ashkenazim that are recognized among geneticists"
The problem is not that someone who gets a 23andme test that says they are ashkenazic gets tested for being a Tay Sachs carrier - no harm in that. The problem is that someone decides that that is something that makes someone (who has neither religious nor cultural affiliation with Judaism, nor even any known relatives who did) a "part of the Jewish people". |
Anonymous
| There are a lot of Jews who would say it does make them part of the Jewish people. It’s not a mandatory criterion, but it’s one way of being Jewish for a lot of people. |