# Humanities & Anthropology > History & Civilisations >  Ashkenazi Jews

## Twilight

Hello there, I was wondering. There has been an ongoing debate about the Jews being descended from either the ancient Isrealites and the Khazars and I was wondering what the most logical answer and where did the Ashkenazi Jewish haplogroups came from, thanks :)

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## adamo

The Khazarz were Jews that took towards the Caucasus and passed towards the west of the Russian steppes, ending up in east Central Europe (Ashkenazim)

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## Twilight

Thanks, wanted to make double sure :)

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## Templar

I think it is still debatable. If you look at haplogroup data for the Ashkenazi, it doesn't seem like they are descendants of steppe nomads or at least not significantly. 19% are J1, 19% J2, 20.5% are E. In total (J1+J2+E) that is 58.5% which seems to indicate a more southern origin i.e. the Middle East. I got this from the Y haplogroup chart on Eupedia, but take it with a grain of salt just in case because it doesn't say what the sample size for the Ashkenazi was.

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## adamo

Well Templar....they ultimately trace to Israel, in the Middle East, so high E3b and J frequencies are to be expected....I mean, regardless of the fact that they used the Caucasus to attain east-central Europe.....it would be awkward calling them Ashkenazi JEWS if they didn't originally come from Israel and the Middle East XD

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## Templar

> Well Templar....they ultimately trace to Israel, in the Middle East, so high E3b and J frequencies are to be expected....I mean, regardless of the fact that they used the Caucasus to attain east-central Europe.....it would be awkward calling them Ashkenazi JEWS if they didn't originally come from Israel and the Middle East XD


As far as I know, the original Khazars were a Turkic group. They converted to Judaism. 

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/316553/Khazar

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## Templar

So in conclusion, I'd say that most Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of Jews from the Middle East who at some point migrated to Europe, and then mixed and converted a few of the locals. Apparently conversion to Judaism was fairly common in Europe until the rise of Christianity, which then lowered conversions to Judaism. A sizable percentage COULD be descendants of Jewish Khazars, but it would be pretty hard determining what the exact percentage would be. I'd estimate it to be around 15%, maybe less.

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## Twilight

> So in conclusion, I'd say that most Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of Jews from the Middle East who at some point migrated to Europe, and then mixed and converted a few of the locals. Apparently conversion to Judaism was fairly common in Europe until the rise of Christianity, which then lowered conversions to Judaism. A sizable percentage COULD be descendants of Jewish Khazars, but it would be pretty hard determining what the exact percentage would be. I'd estimate it to be around 15%, maybe less.


Interesting, it seems that all the haplogroups that the Ashkenazi Jews have are also connected to the Caucasious and the Middle East exept haplogroup I, I'm very curious to see what subclades the Ashkenazi Jews have to see if we can separate Khazar from Isrealite. :)

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## Alan

Ashkenazi I would say are just Israelites who first mixed with some Iranian tribes and moved to North and East Europe. This gets obvious if you look at their haplogroups. They might be Khazar influenced too but I doubt a Khazar origin.

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## RHAS

_"EEJ are Europeans probably of Roman descent who converted to Judaism at times, when Judaism was the first monotheistic religion that spread in the ancient world. Any other theory about their origin is not supported by the genetic data. Future studies will have to address their genetic affinities to various Italian populations and examine the possibility of other components both European and Non-European in their gene pool."_
*The origin of Eastern European Jews revealed by autosomal, sex chromosomal and mtDNA polymorphisms.* 
http://www.biologydirect.com/content/5/1/57#B10

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## Sloven-Vened

Jews are not Semites. Semites have dark skin and black hair. Jews are Khazars. Khazars are Germanic nation. Language of Khazars is germanic Yiddish language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashken...zar_hypothesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_genetics_of_Jews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar...enazi_ancestry

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## Azzurro

> Hello there, I was wondering. There has been an ongoing debate about the Jews being descended from either the ancient Isrealites and the Khazars and I was wondering what the most logical answer and where did the Ashkenazi Jewish haplogroups came from, thanks :)


Twilight, Ashkenazis descend from the ancient Israelites, the reason for the connections with other middle eastern and Caucasian Y lineages pre dates most cultures and civilizations, if you take a look at downstreams of specific Y-lines some lines will be entirely Jewish or Ashkenazi Jewish, the further you go back in time the more matches with others, a good example would be J-M92 as it cannot be associated with a single culture or civilization the mutation is too old but L556 a downstream of M92 is almost exclusively Jewish. To answer your question with the Khazars it is possible that there is and can be some lineages that do descend from the Khazars but this again would have to be done by looking at SNP's and splits.

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## davef

Azzurro is right! If Ashkenazim are so Germanic then why do they plot south? And the khazars are Turkish like, Turks aren't all that close to Ashkenazim.

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## Angela

Elhaik has totally failed to prove his "Jews are Khazars" theory. Anyone who's been following blogs or sites that feature discussion of the matter should know that. I don't know what there's left to discuss.

His latest paper is even more absurd than the prior ones, and has been universally dismissed. Yiddish is a German language. Period.

See:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...ghlight=Khazar

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...ghlight=Khazar


Whether there might have been a minor impact is another story.

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## stoningbull54

Interesting topic. I found out recently from Ancestry DNA that I am indeed part Jewish. My ancestry DNA result revealed:

- 62% Eastern European
-30% Italian/Greek
-4% European Jewish
-4% Caucasian

What I am wondering about this result is whether that 4% Jewish is due to similar genes being present in the Serbian gene pool to Jews or is it the result of having a recent Jewish ancestor (great great grandparent) considering that Askhenazi Jews are a very closed genetic community.

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## use

The Khazars are largely a myth. It started among white supremacist Christians so that they could believe they weren't worshipping a Jew as the Son of God. Then the Muslims copied the belief so they could believe Jews didn't have a right to Israel.

Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are much more closely related to each other than they are to any other group of people.

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## LeBrok

> The Khazars are largely a myth. It started among white supremacist Christians so that they could believe they weren't worshipping a Jew as the Son of God. Then the Muslims copied the belief so they could believe Jews didn't have a right to Israel.
> 
> Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are much more closely related to each other than they are to any other group of people.


I'm not sure of Sephardic Jews, but just recently Ashkenazi were estimated as 70% European and 30% Levant.
Welcome to Eupedia, use.

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## New Englander

but we are taking Roman era South East European ancestry around 60% out of that 70%

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## Angela

Keep up, New Englander,

Nobody should take this to the bank, but it's another not implausible possibility.

LeBroc, you have to remember that for New Englander/Sikeliot, Italians aren't Europeans, not even North Italians, even if they often plot with and sometimes north of Iberians. 
_Ashkenazi_Jew:average

Levant_Neolithic:I1704 38.50
Italian_Tuscan:average 25.70
Iran_Chalcolithic:average 19.70
Polish:average 13.35
Lithuanian:average 2.75
_

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## New Englander

Iv never said anything close to North Italians being Non-European. And Iv never said South Italians are not Europeans. I said they have ancestry that drifts them closer to the Middle East than to Scandinavian populations. 

As for the Jews, You must be implying that Roman Era South Eastern Europeans are not European? Because I simply implied that was the MAJORITY of EUROPEAN MIXTURE, OPPOSE TO BALTIC AND NORTHERN.

Also, Levant in Jewish populations is not identical to the present day populations. 

If you think that Jews are 70% central and North European you need to learn how to do math, they would plot with French and Northern Spain if that were the case, not South of Italy. 

On Eurogenes K13, South Italians West Asian + East Med + Red Sea = over 50% North Italy = around 30% 20% is a huge difference, why is this so hard to grasp? Palestine is around 80%, thats a 30% difference. SO if South and North Italians are identical according you you, than so are South Italians and Palestinians, something I never claimed. All I said is they have more common ancestry.

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## firetown

> As far as I know, the original Khazars were a Turkic group. They converted to Judaism. 
> 
> http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/316553/Khazar


From your link:



> But the most striking characteristic of the Khazars was the apparent adoption of Judaism by the khagan and the greater part of the ruling class in about 740.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khagan

This is referring to a very small percentage of Khazars. Hardly enough to claim significant Khazar DNA percentages within today's Ashkenazi population.

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## New Englander

You can say that all Jews are descended in large from the Israelite, but the Eastern Ashkenazim groups may have small amounts of Khazar ancestry.

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