Negotiating Jewishness through genetic testing in the State of Israel
The Israeli State recently announced that it may begin to use genetic tests to determine whether potential immigrants are Jewish or not. This development would demand a rethinking of Israeli law on the issue of the definition of Jewishness.
just my thought .. being a jew .. is it a religion or a genetic marker from a past time. i thought anyone could convert .
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Welll, Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group. Yes, people can convert to Judaism (how easy it is depends on the branch of Judaism,), however Jewishness is also a culture with language, history, folklore.
Following the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, it caused a major exodus from the Levant.
Those who left to Central and Eastern are the Ashkenazi Jewish people. Interestingly, while they have Levantinr ancestry, they also have a lot of Southern European ancestry according to genetics.
Those who had ancestors who lived in Spain, Portugal and North Africa are the Sephardic Jews. They have more Levantine ancestry.
Finally, the Jewish people who remained - the Mizrachi Jews, are the closest genetically to the earliest Jewish people. Interestingly, their genetics are extremely close to Lebanese, Palestinians, Assyrians and Syrians.
