The Genetic History of Ashkenazi Jews (Kosher Riverboat Cruises)

Some fascinating new research in this new pre-print article , soon to appear in a major scientific journal:

S. Waldman et al., Genome-wide data from medieval German Jews show that the Ashkenazi founder event pre-dated the 14th century

Online Courses:

Biblical Jewish History: From Abraham to Bar Kochba

A Thousand Years of Ashkenaz!

The Holocaust

[mynameisnotjerome]

Thank you for this! My father was born just after the war and adopted in Britain. He looked like an Italian and not a British at all. Due to the trauma of being abandoned at birth he didn't want to investigate, so after he died I did a DNA test and I have strong Italian and Ashkenazi Jewish genes. I'm so happy and proud of my heritage!

[groweg]

Ashkenazi on my dad's side. Fascinating to learn of the Italian genetic contribution. My dad's ancestors came from Poland and Russia. Interesting to think of ancestors captured by Romans and sent to Italy. Thank you for presenting on this important study.

[LearnMarketingChannel]

Baruch HaShem! This is one of the very best channels on YouTube! I deeply appreciate the time and effort spent on every single video!
Thank You!

[suzannakoizumi]

My darling deceased Jewish husband's family came from Minsk and Pinsk. He had very fair skin, some freckles, and the lightest and most transparent blue eyes, like liquid pools of water.

[JohnKruse]

Thanks for making this so accessible. My wife's family includes Northern Italian Ashkenazi heritage. We have dug around a bit and imagine that they came back into Italy at some point, but beyond that we don't know and will have to go digging! In any event, it is amazing that the scientific community is helping to pull the greater story together.

[elizabethmorton]

I don't in any way want to deny the impact of the exile created by the wars with Rome, but I recall from my graduate studies in "early Judaism" some years back that, prior to those wars, the Jewish diaspora outside the Land was greater in population numbers than the Jewish population in the Land. The Roman Jewish population was very substantial, and Jews travelled all over the Mediterranean world in antiquity. The Jewish population in Alexandria was also huge, as we know from Philo. Like all other ethnic/religious groups of the day, they engaged in trade (lots of sailors!), and moved to take advantage of economic opportunities. Yes, huge numbers were taken in slavery as a consequence of the wars, but slavery was not the only factor. There were also positive reasons for relocation.

[Dg]

Incredible video Rabbi. Thank you for your work, hope to see more content when new studies come out.

[Blublod]

This is a fascinating subject. I have zero Jewish ancestry but have many Jewish friends, mostly Sephardim, and over the years we have had many discussions about Ashkenazim and Sephardim origins. But you know, at the end of the day what I find just as fascinating are the differences in practices, especially when it comes to foods and weddings. Genetics aside, it’s truly a very rich culture.

[joycealdrich]

That was fascinating. I shared it! Wish I was able to go on the Netherlands cruise. My Great-Grandmother was a Jew from Veendam, Groningen. I've never been there. She came to America, via London, England, and crossed the sea to Ellis Island, then going to French Canada, finally living in California. Have a wonderful cruise!!! Safe journey.

[frankschmitzer]

As always, you cut through to what is essential and make it understandable. Many thanks.

[koopon]

Interesting and timely, thank you Dr. I am an Ashkenazi Jew from both my father and my mother’s side and recently had my DNA tested out of curiosity for my family's history.

The results correlate strikingly with the findings of the new study that you share in this video. My Y-DNA haplotype is J1 and mtDNA Southern European. All DNA admixture calculators, and I've used around half a dozen so far, identify my genetic DNA as being Levantine 50-60% and Southern European/Italian at 40-50%. Interestingly, it also identified a North Greek/Balkan influence in the Southern European category, which perhaps says something about my own family’s migration north.

Apart from proving that Ashkenazi Jews do indeed descend from Judean exiles as our tradition describes and literary evidence corroborates, what was fascinating to me was that there was no evidence of any Polish or other Central or Eastern European DNA in my results *at all*, despite my family seemingly having lived in the region for what could be up to a thousand years.

With so much animosity and hatred aimed at Jews today, particularly at Ashkenazi Jews for some reason, I am proud of my ancestors who managed to pass on our religious, national, and ethnic culture in unbroken lineage for some 2, 000 years, against all the odds. If our longevity and success as a people bothers some, then so be it. There is much good in the world and we should focus only on increasing it. עם ישראל חי

[Daveyful]

Do not mean to offend with my Cross, but I am a Christ follower but have family ties to Ashkanazi Jewish heritage

[Frodojack]

As an Ashkenazim I can be proud of my Jewish and Italian ancestry.

[NullStaticVoid]

I'm not Jewish but find topics of antiquity fascinating.
Besides, Dr. Abramson is just so engaging he makes any topic fascinating.
It's like going over to someone's house and they just happen to have these charts, didn't you know about this?

[KristiContemplates]

Might explain the family stories I was told as a child that we had Italian in our blood.
The shock of discovering that most people didn't throw a big party to celebrate 13th birthdays in their family was unpleasant.

I love when information is shared that helps my quirkiness make sense

[amendareid]

I love your work. It's been very instrumental in my research about my heritage and the migratory pattern of our people. It's helped me understand who I am and very interestingly, the Why. Brilliant work as always!

[LisaRichards_]

I should start this comment out by noting that I don’t use my real name in my YouTube profile, because of trolls.
The first time I ever heard the accusation that Jews weren’t Jews was back in 1989 when I was in New York.
I had come from Brooklyn to the city with a Jewish friend, and we were walking to a restaurant in the city.
As we were walking, we saw a group of black guys in the street that were claiming to be One Percenters, as they called themselves.
One of them had a megaphone and was screaming into it.
I was wearing a chain around my neck with a Jewish star on it.
As my friend and I passed them, the guy with the megaphone pointed at me, and yelled, “A white Jew! A fake Jew!”
Having learned Hebrew, and gone to shul my entire life, and had a lot of family members that had been killed in Auschwitz, it was quite a bizarre accusation that I was a “fake” Jew.
So yeah. I’ve known about these crazy claims for a very long time, long before Kanye.

[teddmented]

What surprises me is the percentage of Italian admixture requires intermarriage and conversion that would be a significant aberration from custom and requires explanation

[SonofLiberty-zwop]

Excellent presentation and description. Thanks for sharing this knowledge. Knowledge puts other things in to the light. Shalom.

[RobinHerzig]

Lotta trolls showing up early today 😕 Must mean the channel is getting popular