Posts Tagged ‘dna’

Exchange Between Groups Took Place About 2,000 Years Ago

Genetic Melting Pot: David Reich (left) and Priya Moorjani found that Jews and Africans mixed genes about 2,000 years ago. (Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer)

In the Book of Kings, Solomon is depicted as an international businessman of sorts who sent ships from the port of Etzion-Geber, near modern day Eilat, to trade precious metals and other goods with various parts of the world, including Africa. Solomon also famously received a visit from the Queen of Sheba, who is thought to be from what is presently Ethiopia.

Now, a new scientific paper offers a genetic timeline that could support these biblical tales. The paper builds on two studies published last summer that were the first to use genome-wide analyses to trace the history of the Jewish people through DNA.

“It demonstrated that there was a biological basis for Jewishness,” said Dr. Harry Ostrer, director of the human genetics program at the New York University School of Medicine, who led one of the studies.

Among its many findings, Ostrer’s paper indicated that Jews have African ancestry — an observation that David Reich, associate professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues decided to explore further.

Reich’s team analyzed more than half a million DNA markers across the entire genomes of people from seven diverse Jewish populations — including Ashkenazim from northern Europe; Sephardim from Italy, Turkey and Greece, and Mizrahim from Syria, Iraq and Iran. They then compared the genetic data with DNA from 15 sub-Saharan African populations.

Reporting in the April issue of PLoS Genetics, the researchers found that modern day Jews can attribute about 3% to 5% of their ancestry to sub-Saharan Africans, and that the exchange of genes between Jews and sub-Saharan Africans occurred approximately 72 generations, or about 2,000 years, ago.

Priya Moorjani, a doctoral student in Reich’s lab who led the research, was surprised that the degree of African DNA was so consistent across the various Jewish populations. She had expected, for example, that North African and Middle Eastern Jews would have a greater degree of genetic mingling than Europeans, based on their geographic proximities.

So the findings, Moorjani said, may point to a shared ancestry among the various Jewish groups. “It’s definitely suggestive that most Jewish populations have a common ancestral population,” she said.

Although the Harvard team couldn’t determine where exactly the exchange of genes took place, the results complement historians’ understanding of the Jewish narrative.

“This is interesting, and it gives me food for thought,” said Norman Stillman, a professor of Judaic history at the University of Oklahoma. “Does it prove something historically specific beyond the fact that we know the Jewish bloodline was open to some extent throughout history? No. But it fits in with the rest.”

Lawrence Schiffman, a professor of Hebrew and Judaic studies at Yeshiva University, said two time periods came to mind that could support the geneticists’ findings. The first is during the First Temple Period, between about 950 B.C.E. and 600 B.C.E., when Solomon’s kingdom would have had contact with Africans.

Or, Schiffman said, the mixing of populations could have taken place a bit later, during the Hellenistic period, from about 320 B.C.E. to 30 B.C.E., when Jews were living all over the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and could have come into contact with Africans to the south of them.

Yet even though the biblical accounts offer possible explanations for the Reich lab’s findings, Schiffman stresses that he and other social scientists can only offer historical interpretations of the genetic data. “The facts are the ones that scientists are developing; the theories are what [historians] have,” he said. “We now have to take what they are giving us, and we have to add it to our picture of history.”

Stillman pointed out that Jews are often thought of as an insular group, because they tended to marry within their community. “But,” he said, “that doesn’t mean there wasn’t, all throughout history, an inflow of others into the group.”

As Reich sees it, genetics and history are not actually so disparate. His work, he said, is “a kind of complementary way of studying history.”   Contact Gianna Palmer at palmer@forward.com,  Originally posted HERE

The Bible-Solomon (Ben Cross, Vivica Fox)

 

King Solomon Embroidery

The North American Ethiopian Conference on Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ) Embroidery Program

 

King Solomon and The Queen of Sheba
by Blu Greenberg, Linda Tarry, and Avi Katz (Illustrator)
Publication: Simcha Media Group, 1997

Ages 4-8

 This version of the story has exciting original material. Afresh new tales and  riddles, an equal relationship, and a naturally multicultural, as well as slightly feminist, bias. Beginning like a fairy tale, it introduces the precocious African princess Makeda of Sheba, a child whose wisdom, fame as a riddler, and kindness prompts her elderly father to name her, rather than either of her brothers, his heir. And she becomes Queen. (This is the first time that the Queen of Sheba has been given a history, a family, and aggada [legends] of her own, or that she has been shown to be of the African race.) Meanwhile, “In a land far away” lives a wise Jewish King, named Solomon, who had also manifested great wisdom as a child. Inevitably, traders bring news of the other to their rulers. Queen Makeda accepts King Solomon’s invitation to visit. The two quietly earn each other’s respect and love while also discussing the other’s country and religious beliefs. They marry; she conceives his child and returns to Sheba. When their son reaches the age of 13, he returns to his father. There the story ends, but the legend continues in an afterword that explains the prevailing desire of today’s Ethiopian Jews to return to Jerusalem. While the writing is graceful and dignified, the art accomplished and charming with valid ethnic representation, and the book design elegant, the real importance of this title is its more accurate portrayal of the Queen of Sheba. — School Library Journal
Latest Tweets

  • MochaJudenBHM Cape May Cty NJ: Wildwood was an entertainment hub for AA performers. Not permitted to stay in YT hotels local… https://t.co/krmMiw5qSZ - posted on 02/02/2023 12:50:08

  • MochaJudenHanna Jahanforooz MORNING https://t.co/fbhsFZ51af - posted on 31/01/2023 12:49:08

  • MochaJudenGela by Abyssinia Infinite featuring Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw https://t.co/DGu1flDaDc - posted on 30/01/2023 18:05:41

  • MochaJudenGela by Abyssinia Infinite feat. Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw - (Zion Roots): https://t.co/bIb3lxxSMf - posted on 30/01/2023 18:02:42

  • MochaJudenHBCU Dillard University Re-Launches the Dillard University National Center for Black-Jewish Relations in New Orlean… https://t.co/am6V5HTzwv - posted on 29/01/2023 16:40:46

Post Calendar
March 2024
S M T W T F S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31