Genome maps trace Jewish origins - June 2010 Study

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

So much hinges on this thesis... I wouldn't put it past the Israelis to falsify their research on this one.  --CSR

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Genome maps trace Jewish origins: roots of far-flung populations reach back to the Levant

by Tina Hesman Saey

Scientists taking a genome-wide view of ancestry have confirmed what historians, archaeologists and linguists have long known- Jews originated in the part of the Middle East known as the Levant.

Two new studies show that most Jewish groups share large swaths of DNA.

A study of 14 Jewish Diaspora communities and 59 non-Jewish populations, published online June 9 in Nature, finds that Jews share genetic heritage with Middle Eastern groups, such as the Druze. The work also indicates that most of the Jewish groups trace their genetic origins to the Levant, which includes present-day Israel, Palestinian territories, Lebanon and other areas. From there, groups of Jews migrated to other parts of the world.

Maps of those migrations were inscribed in the DNA by genetic signatures of local people that Jews interbred with as they moved. Most contemporary Jews carry evidence of a Middle Eastern origin along with genetic heritage from European and North African ancestors.

"I like to think of relatedness as a tapestry, and these shared segments [of DNA] are threads in the tapestry," says Harry Ostrer, a geneticist at New York University School of Medicine and the leader of a study published in the June 11 American Journal of Human Genetics.

Each of the Jewish groups in the studies has its own genetic signature but is more closely related to the other Jewish groups than to non-Jewish groups. Even though the researchers excluded people known to be directly related, any two Ashkenazi Jewish participants in Ostrer's study shared about as much DNA as fourth or fifth cousins, he says.

But "people who look genetically like they may be fifth cousins aren't necessarily genealogically related," says Karl Skorecki of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, a coauthor of the Nature study.

That study finds that three major Jewish groups have roots in the Levant: Ashkenazi, Moroccan and Sephardic Jews; Caucasus and Middle Eastern Jews (including Iranian and Iraqi groups); and genetically distinct Yemeni Jews.

In contrast, analyses of DNA from Jews in Ethiopia and India show that those groups share genetic heritage with their neighbors, indicating that these Jews may descend mainly from local converts.

Understanding the genetic heritage of individuals may help researchers zero in on disease genes that are more common in certain ethnic groups, Ostrer says.

The new data also may be used in commercial DNA tests to tell clients how much Jewish ancestry they have. But, says Skorecki, "People get the horribly wrong impression that there's a Jewish version of a gene" defining heritage. That's not the case. "It's more of a genome-wide pattern," he says.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Genome+ma ... 0231408460

http://www.sciencenews.org

[Kadafi]

The only Jew who I believe can trace their roots to the Middle East is Paula Abdul!