Volume 60 Number 90
Produced: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 13:55:54 EDT
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
No Rape Evidence in Our Genes (2)
[Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz Joshua W. Burton]
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From: Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz <sabbahillel@...>
Date: Wed, Jun 13,2012 at 02:01 PM
Subject: No Rape Evidence in Our Genes
>From Yisrael Medad in MJ 60#89:
> Kevin Williams writes (MJ 60#88, thread "Limiting genealogic inquiries"):
>> Moroccan Jews look like Arabs, German Jews can have light hair and blue
>> eyes. There must have been significant ancestral admixture. How did it
>> happen? I had assumed through rape during pogroms, plus seduction and
>> abandonment. But thankfully, there's not much evidence of those horrors
>> in our genes.
> While indeed inter-marraige through conversion or otherwise is a
> contributory factor to physical resemblance between Jews and the general
> surrounding population, I wonder what proof there is that there is "not
> much evidence of these horrors [rape, seduction & abandonment] in our
> genes"? Reviewing Jewish European history, I would think that not the case.
The point is that the genetic analysis shows that the part that came via
the *father* (such as the Y chromosome) shows a much lower amount of
mixture from the local populations that the Jews lived among than would
otherwise exist had many children been the product of rape (for
example). However, the mitochondrial DNA (which comes from the mother)
shows a higher level of mixture than might have been thought. Thus, it
appears that more of the physical resemblance comes through the female
line rather than the male.
Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz
<SabbaHillel@...>
http://sabbahillel.blogspot.com
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From: Joshua W. Burton <joshua@...>
Date: Mon, Jun 18,2012 at 12:01 PM
Subject: No Rape Evidence in Our Genes
Yisrael Medad (MJ 60#89) writes:
> Kevin Williams writes (MJ 60#88, thread "Limiting genealogic inquiries"):
>
>> How did it happen? I had assumed through rape during pogroms, plus
>> seduction and abandonment. But thankfully, there's not much evidence
>> of those horrors in our genes.
>
> While indeed inter-marriage through conversion or otherwise is a
> contributory factor to physical resemblance between Jews and the
> general surrounding population, I wonder what proof there is that
> there is "not much evidence of these horrors [rape, seduction &
> abandonment] in our genes"? Reviewing Jewish European history,
> I would think that not the case.
But, as Kevin Williams observes, the genetic evidence tells a different
story: Jewish Y chromosomes, non-Jewish mitochondria. (I make no
independent brief for the truth or falsity of this preliminary evidence,
though as individual sequencing falls rapidly in price, we can
anticipate that large datasets will soon provide far more robust sampling,
based on routine medical records of hundreds of thousands of Jews.)
The Jewish European history you review tends to imply that rape during
pogroms, seduction and abandonment were all practiced by non-Jewish men
against Jewish women, rather than the reverse, whereas Kevin is citing
alleged genetic proof that Jewish ancestry shows intermarriage primarily
in the opposite sense. When you say that you "wonder what proof"
exists, are you doubting the published genetics, doubting that Jews were
victims rather than perpetrators of pogroms, or simply ignoring
or misunderstanding the evidence as already described?
Joshua
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End of Volume 60 Issue 90
