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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   21641 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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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.

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