Thanks, but I think you mean "despite cultural diversity".
Israeli scientists have been doing genetic tests that show that Jews are not all that genetically diverse, still clearly show the marks of Middle Eastern origin (yes, even European Jews), and in terms of other populations are most closely related to the Kurds. They even found a genetic marker for being a Cohen which correlates with descending from a common male ancestor who lived 3,000 - 5,000 years ago.
No, I meant genetic diversity. IIRC, one is Jewish if ones mother is Jewish? There have to be lots of european genes in Israel.
Remember that the geneticists say that racial differences are quite superficial.
I once sat in an airplane seat next to a blond haired (and I looked closely at the eyebrows, eyelashes and arms!), blue eyed woman whose parents where eastern european Jews. Oddly enough she was a Bahia (the 4'th incarnation of Judaism, or should I say the 5'th incarnation of some lost Babylonian religion). She spent the time telling me about how geneticists were proving that "we are all one race". This was a couple years back when the human genome project was wrapping up. I stayed polite, but I wanted to say "Look, if the ONLY difference between people on the planet is some have blue eyes like you, and some have brown eyes like me, then we would still have two races". Furthermore, given the perverse nature of us humans, there would be warfare between the two races.
Not sure why you included that last statement. In the first paragraph you are trying to argue that Jews are not genetically diverse. You follow that up with a statement that racial differences are only superficial. So are Jews racially diverse but not genetically diverse since racial differences are genetically only superficially different?
I stand by my original comment. Since Jews have been geographically diverse, and are accepting of marriage with others, Jewish genetics must be reasonably diverse. In most other cultures, when lots of intermarriage happens, the cultures drift apart. The Jews have managed to stay bonded culturally. So I infer that they are a rare example of genetic diversity while keeping a cultural identity. I can't think of any other group that would come close. Perhaps Chinese, which are quite spread through east Asia and also have strong cultural ties. |
