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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26392 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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Palestinians have 2x the proportion of ancient Levantine DNA as Ashkenazi (European) Jews, who make up most of the Israeli population

Palestinians have 2x the proportion of ancient Levantine DNA as Ashkenazi (European) Jews,

The Levant includes all or part of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. This area was all part of the Ottoman Empire in the late 1800s. So even if Palestinian Arabs have 100% Levantine DNA, it doesn't contradict my point: Most of the Palestinian Arabs moved to what's now Israel from other parts of the Ottoman Empire around the time of the early days of Zionism. That's why it's very common for them to have names like "Al-Masri" which means "Egypt."

who make up most of the Israeli population

I think this is inaccurate, I am pretty sure that Ashkenazim are a minority. I certainly agree that Ashkenazim lived in Europe for many generations before returning to Israel.

But the point is that the Palestinian Arabs are not some ancient people who has lived in the area of Israel since time immemorial. Rather, they are one of many many groups. The area has been conquered, invaded, settled, annexed, and lost probably dozens of times over the last few thousand years.

returning to Israel

So you're saying that the Eastern Euro Jews originated from Israel? Is there evidence for this?

Modern DNA studies strongly suggest that Ashkenazi Jews are descended patrilineally from Levantine Jews and matrilineally from Italians, likely local Roman women who were converted to Judaism by Jewish merchants and other emigrants from Palestine in the final centuries of the Western Roman Empire.

After the Empire collapsed they slowly migrated north, into Frankish lands, then the Rhineland, then slowly eastward over the following millennium, but there was relatively little intermarriage with natives through this time (or rather if and when there was, those people left the tribe and assimilated into the local gentile society). Modern ‘pure’ Ashkenazim (meaning those who don’t have recent non-Jewish ancestry due to intermarriage over the last 100 years or so, as many eg ex-Soviet Jews do) who have a Jewish mother and Jewish father tend to have little or no Slavic ancestry for this reason, even if their ancestors spent 500+ years in Slavic lands.

So you're saying that the Eastern Euro Jews originated from Israel? Is there evidence for this?

Yes. Are you seriously skeptical that such evidence exists?

Yes! I was asking genuinely. I did not know this. For most Russian Jews I know, they have Russian ancestors too.

Yes! I was asking genuinely. I did not know this. For most Russian Jews I know, they have Russian ancestors too.

The evidence I am aware of is follows:

  1. Oral and written tradition says that Jews originated from the land of Israel. In fact, the word "Jewish" comes from "Judea."

  2. Modern DNA evidence which connects Eastern European Jews to other groups of Jews such as Mizrachi and Sephardi. If all Jewish groups are connected, it's reasonable to conclude that there is a common place of origin.

  3. Modern DNA evidence (apparently) says that Eastern European Jews have some degree of Levantine genes. Again, the reasonable conclusion is that Israel is the source.

To be sure, it's pretty obvious that the various groups of Jews have admixture from other areas. Just looking, you can tell that European Jews look more European than Sephardi or Mizrachi or Ethiopian Jews.

Ashkenazi (European) Jews, who make up most of the Israeli population

Untrue. Ashkenazi Jews only make up 32% of Israeli Jews, or 23% of Israel's population. The single biggest Jewish demographic in Israel are the Mizrahi Jews, representing 45% of Israeli Jews or 33% of the population of the country.

Okay but isn't the categorization used here... pretty odd? It differentiates Ashkenazim from "Soviet Jews", who presumably are either Ashkenazi or even more European, and it doesn't appear to differentiate Sephardim from Mizrahim, even though Sephardim (afaik?) are also quite European in ancestry. Also, some of those in the "Mixed" category would presumably be, like, Ashkenazim/"Soviet" mixed, if these are really the categories used.

I wouldn't differentiate the two. My bet is the "Soviet Jews" here are genetically quite similar to the Ashkenazim.

It's more of a chronological categorisation than an ethnic one. Ashkenazim who emigrated to Israel around 1948 would presumably have a lot of ancestry in common with Russian Jews, but the Russian Jews are mostly those who emigrated from the USSR in a large influx around 1989. Because of this, they're a distinct cohort in terms of culture, language and history, if not ethnicity.

It is surprising that they don't mention Sephardim etc. anywhere in the article. Maybe there really aren't that many of them?

The majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi, not Ashkenazi.

I believe there is a theory that Palestinians are the Jews who were bad at reading. Judaism requires a large amount of reading sacred text so the ones who were bad at reading left the tribe. NYC folks and West Virginia folks dislike each other so the conflict makes sense.

But New Yorkers and the red tribe elite also dislike each other- indeed far more than thé red tribe elite and hillbillies.

Palestinian Christians in particular (a genetically-distinct subpopulation of Palestinians) are the closest DNA match to ~2nd century Galilean DNA according to Global25 Coordinates.

Only a tiny minority of Palestinians are Christians. Its why its so disingenuous when rightists show the far below 1% tiny minority of Gazan Christians as somehow central figures and victims in that conflict. The truth is that Arab Christians have been fleeing the Levant for the West since the 1800s, long, long, long before Israel’s founding, and largely fleeing persecution by people of the same faith as 99% of modern day Palestinians.

Describing Palestinian Christians as central victims of Israel is like saying the primary victims of Israel and America’s bombing of current day Iran are Iranian Jews.

My understanding is that Palestinian Christians are so rare as to be irrelevant, save occasionally when used as a propaganda tool, and are generally even worse off than Muslim Palestinians.

By contrast, Arab Christian Israelis are, I believe, the most successful non-Jewish group in Israel? It's not a paradise for them either, but they are doing pretty well by regional standards.

Palestinian Christians and Israeli Christians are both essentially thé economic elites of their local Arab communities. They’re not ‘worse off’ in a meaningful way.

I'm not an expert, but my sense was that there are various forms of low-level discrimination in Israel? It's not particularly bad, especially considering the region, and there's the joke that Arab Christians are 'the Jews of Israel' (i.e. a highly-educated over-achieving minority), but if the question is just "is it worse to be an Israeli Christian than an Israeli Jew?", the answer is yes.

Only being 2x a bunch of random European Ashkenazis seems less than expected

The proportions are quite high (80% vs. 40%)

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