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From: Jon Entine <>
Subject: [DNA] Nature Genetics: A Genetic View of Jewish History
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 11:47:36 -0500
The February Nature Genetics, out today, has a very interesting/nice review
of "Abraham's Children". The fact that it was so positive is especially
noteworthy as it was written by Harry Ostrer of NYU, who is awaiting
publication of his more scholarly book on the same subject, due out later
this year. I had interviewed Harry while preparing the book. I emailed about
his single critical comment in the review... He wrote back that he thought
it could have focused more on the genetics of Jewish diseases--which just so
happens to be the focus of his book, which those of us writing on this
subject are eagerly awaiting. That of course was not my purpose. I was
trying to bring the flowering story of genetic anthropology and the renewed
focus on human differences to a broader, popular audience, while respecting
the complex science.
I continue to welcome feedback/comments from those of you on this list who
may have soiled your hands by reading Abraham's Children. And I stand by my
offer of a refund for those of you who can legitimately suggest why you
believe the book is racist--which to this point, NO reviewer has yet
suggested.
Regards,
Jon Entine
http://www.abrahamschildren.net
****
NATURE GENETICS
February 2008
A Genetic View of Jewish History
Abraham¹s Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People
By Jon Entine
Reviewed by Harry Ostrer
Who is a Jew? Jon Entine is the latest entrant in a discussion that, over
the past century, has included Mark Twain, Maurice Fishberg, Joseph Jacobs,
the German eugenicists, Albert Einstein, and a pack of contemporary
geneticists, including me. The rabbis that created the Talmudic canon of
Jewish law solved this issue long ago: they declared that a Jewish child of
a Jewish mother. If male, he would be circumcised to continue the biblical
covenant that God created with Abraham. This formula was shaken up in 1983
by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, which declared that the child
of a Jewish father is also presumed to be of Jewish descent. Others hold
that, in lieu of Jewish birth, a Jewish someone who has agreed to follow the
precepts of Judaism before a rabbinical court (beit din) and under gone
submersion in a ritual bath (mikvah) and circumcision (brit milah), if male.
Yet, to the public and the geneticist alike, the Jewish people are something
morean ethnic group that has maintained its social and genetic cohesiveness
over 2,500 years despite geographic dispersion to all regions of the globe.
A century ago, popular wisdom held that Jews were a race with a distinctive
build and physiognomy. The New York University physician and physical
anthropologist Maurice Fishberg wrote: ³One can pick out a Jew from among a
thousand non-Jews without difficulty.² Joseph Jacobs, a physical
anthropologist and folklorist, expanded on this viewpoint by noting that
³The remarkable unity of resemblance among Jews, even in different climes,
seems to imply a common descent.² This concept was embraced by Einstein. But
amid the tumult of the twentieth century, in which race science run amok led
to the Nazi-led Holocaust of Jews, new constructs using the discoveries of
population genetics emerged.
In his book, Abraham¹s Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen
People, Jon Entine maps some of these discoveries onto the span of Jewish
history from ancient times through the Jewish Diaspora. In the process, he
tries to respond to Mark Twain¹s observation and question: ²All things are
mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remainsWhat is the secret
of his immortality?² Entine¹s response ³good breeding.² To trace the
patterns of good breeding, he pays special attention to the discovery of the
Cohan modal haplotype,¹ a Y chromosomal marker defined by a series of
microsatellites that is found in a high proportion of Jewish men who claim
descent from Aaron the Priest, the brother of Exodus leader Moses. He also
pays special attention to the discovery of the BRCA1 185delAG mutation that
arose in ancient Palestine and that was transmitted through Jewish
populations and some of their converso successors. By drawing on many
studies, including some unpublished, Entine pulls many groups in from the
margins of contemporary Judaism, including the Jewish Communities of India
and Ethiopia and the Hispanic communities of the American Southwest.
However, there are many other genetic strands that link JewsY-chromosomal
and mitochondrial haplotypes that point to founding mothers and fathers and
genetic bottlenecks in Jewish Diaspora groups, other disease mutations that
arose during the course of Jewish history and that point to shared ancestry
as well as founder effects and founding of Diaspora groups, and autosomal
ancestry informative markers that are just starting to be discovered.
Entine is no stranger to controversy. His earlier book was Taboo: Why Black
Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We¹re Afraid to Talk About It. As he and
his predecessors in the field of Jewish genetics have pointed out, the
stakes in these genetic discoveries about Jews are higha genetic
demonstration of Middle Eastern origins that would favor claims for a Jewish
homeland in Israel, glorious lineages with potential lines of descent from a
priest or a king, even a Messianic line, absolution from Christ-killing, a
genetic stake in a long intellectual tradition of learning and scholarship,
and duties and curses are all on the line. In my own case, the discovery of
my patrilineal E3b haplotype has pointed to a line of descent originating in
southern Africa with migration through the Middle East and Eastern Europe,
and a previously unknown 18th-century ancestor, Eliezer Der Gutter, who
blessed¹ his descendants ³to live in poverty until the 10th generation,²
believing that poverty would make them more pious!
The study of the genetics of the Jewish Diaspora is in a golden age right
now, but golden ages are prone to end. Historically endogamous Jewish
populations are admixing in the melting pot of Israel. Admixture rates
between Jews and non-Jews are high. Heterozygote testing programs have led
to selective mating practices that are influencing allele frequencies. So,
the genetics of Jewish populations as currently discerned will change.
For the generation of geneticists who avidly read Richard Goodman¹s series
of books on Jewish genetics, and its predecessors by Raphael Patai and
Jennifer Patai-Wing, Elisabeth Goldschmidt and Arthur Mourant, J on Entine¹s
book is a welcome addition. His understanding of the genetics is limited and
uncritical, but his broad, well-documented sweep of Jewish history will
inform even the most knowledgeable of readers.
Harry Ostrer is in the Human Genetics Program, New York University School of
Medicine, E-mail:
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