------CLASSIFY WOODY ALLEN---------

[Buddyryvall]

Classify Woody Allen

[joton]

jewish-brit ;D

[Human]

a depigmented light haired semitical type.
he looks very semitic to me. many European Jews are quite like him. his ancestors, it seems, came from Eastern Europe.

[Drooperdoo]

Hilarious! Asking us to "identify" the ethnic strains of Woody Allen, who is, perhaps, the closest thing to a "professional Jew" there is.
In the United States--since the 1970s--whenever the word "Jew" is uttered, the image of all the handsome Israelis fails to rise up before the public imagination. Sadly, Woody's picture floats up--to the chagrin, I'm sure, of "world Jewry".
These are evil thoughts, and I hesitate stating them (lest I carry frankness further than good taste can support), but my wife and I have noticed a few different "Jewish types". Small gene pools in isolated shtetls might account for this--but Woody Allen is of the red haired "Allen Dershowitz" class. The two could be brothers.
Joan Rivers and Jerry Seinfeld are of the "Pinched head" class.
Lorne Green and David Groh (who portrayed "Joe" from Rhoda) are from the flat-nosed Eastern-European class.
Lately my wife saw actress Melanie Mayron [from "Thirty-Something"] pre-cosmetic surgery, and she's the spitting image of Bob Dylan. Poor thing! --No wonder she opted to go under the surgeon's blade.
Before I get yelled at for bigotry, I've observed the same varieties of people among other ethnic groups: Notably, the Irish, Spanish, Welsh, Armenian, etc. So hold off on yelling at me for a while. lol

[mike2]

I've really never been interested in the Ashkenazi because everyone knows they have Armenoid blood and thus probably aren't exactly the best models for what the ancient Israelites looked like. I would cast Ashkenazis to play Hittites, but not Israelites. The Sephardim approach the swarth character of the ancient Jews much closer. Oded Fehr, a very good-looking man, is an excellent example of the handsomeness prevalent in the ancient Hebrew racial character.

[Drooperdoo]

Mike,
You're 100% right. He's far more representative of Jews than Woody Allen. Woody Allen is Ashkenazic, and may have little to no actual "Palestinian dna," as the geneticists are calling it. Dirty looks are darted at you from Ashkenazics when the term "Khazar" is mentioned, but dna makes a damning case. Interestingly the Khazars were known for their red head, and are from Central Asia. When they took Ashkenazic dna, they were perplexed by the fact that the genetic markers were from the Northern Middle East, not the South [with the Semites]. Jews were more closely allied with Kurds and Armenians. Why is this interesting? --Khazars entered Eastern Europe from somewhere north of Iran. Where are Kurds and Armenians from? --The Iran region (and both groups are termed "Indo-Iranian".)
To clinch it: Jewish actor-director Bob Balaban looks like Woody Allen and Alan Dershowitz. His family's from the same region of Eastern Europe. His surname "Balaban" is one of the few still-existing Khazar surnames.
Furthermore, even with the few people with Palestinian genetic markers in Eastern Europe [about 2-3% had the Cohen marker], their matrilineal dna was nevertheless from Slavs.
So, in short, Woody's actual ancestry [if we take away the connotations of religion] is a almost certainly Turko-Slavic with probable dashes of Scandinavian genes [from the time when the Vikings ruled the region and spread their genes around during the founding of Russia].

[Solomon]

Mike said:

I've really never been interested in the Ashkenazi because everyone knows they have Armenoid blood

There's no such thing as 'Armenoid blood'. 'Armenoid' is a physical type (which many Sephardim could be classified as, btw).

and thus probably aren't exactly the best models for what the ancient Israelites looked like.

Why not? At least half of their genetic makeup is Palestinian. Sephardim and Ashkenazim are essentially the same, the main difference being that Ashkenazim have less Levantine and more European ancestry.

I would cast Ashkenazis to play Hittites, but not Israelites.

It looks like you fell for the 'Ashkenazim = Khazars/Armenians' and 'Sephardim = true Israelites' thing. WNs love that theory.

The Sephardim approach the swarth character of the ancient Jews much closer. Oded Fehr, a very good-looking man, is an excellent example of the handsomeness prevalent in the ancient Hebrew racial character.

Isn't Oded Fehr is an Ashkenazi Jew?

[Melnorme]

Solomon said:

There's no such thing as 'Armenoid blood'. 'Armenoid' is a physical type (which many Sephardim could be classified as, btw).

This post has some relevant information about this seemingly unkillable myth.

dodona.proboards35.com/index.cgi?board=genetics&action=display&thread=1105316625

To the extent that 'Armenoid' ( if you take that to mean 'Caucasus', 'Asia Minor' or 'Near Eastern' or whatever ) genes exist in Jews, they are also found amongst non-Ashkenazi Jews.

For example, in the largest modern Sephardic group, the Moroccan Jews, it was found in the recent Shen et al. ( 2004 ) paper that the most common Y-Chromosome haplogroup is the typically Near Eastern G.

Info on haplogroup G : home.comcast.net/~whitathey/indexg.htm

More info at my archive, for those who understand it.

[Drooperdoo]

Solomon,
We must all bow to your knowledge and concede to your intelligence. It's beyond reproach! --But even YOU must own that there are clearly two different strains exemplified by Oded Fehr and Woody Allen. They're as different as night and day. --As to Fehr, he was actually born in Tel Aviv, Israel. And, no, he isn't "Ashkenazic". There's a laziness in categorization among Jews lately. They use the term "Ashkenazic Jew" and "European Jew" interchangeably.
Take Germany, for an example: The first Jewish communities were Sephardic communities--after Spain expelled the Jews in 1492. They migrated north into France, the Netherlands and then over into Germany. These Sephardic Jews make up the majority of today's "Western European Jews". Ashkenazic Jews only recently poured into Central Europe from Russia and Poland [after the pogroms of the 19th Century]. There was a lot of bad feeling between the two groups--the Sephardic Jews and the Ashkenazic. Karl Kraus [the famous Austrian-Jewish journalist] was horrified by the Eastern Europeans, who refused to assimilate, wore black gaberdine and--in many cases--were illiterate. This struck a discordasnt note with the original German-Jews (who landed there from Spain hundreds of years earlier). This community was assimilitionist, they were educated doctors, financiers, jurists.
Oded Fehr and other dark Sephardic types like Jeff Goldblum, Jerry Seinfeld, Fran Drescher came from this original Spanish-Jewish community in Germany. I mean, look at comedian Gilbert Gottfried. He has a "German" surname but looks like a Middle Easterner!
They kept to themselves, and because of the twin factors of genetic isolation and external antisemitism, maintained the lion's share of their original Eastern Meditteranean characteristics--i.e., they're handsome.
The Woody Allen types bumbled into Central Europe from the east, not the west--and their arrival was much more recent.

[Melnorme]

Seinfeld isn't "Sephardic". His mom is a Syrian Jewess from Damascus.

The original German Jews weren't Sephardic - quite the opposite, they were the proto-Ashkenazim who invented Yiddish and spread the language ( and their genes, most likely ) eastward.

[mike2]

Solomon said:

There's no such thing as 'Armenoid blood'. 'Armenoid' is a physical type (which many Sephardim could be classified as, btw)

You're right, sorry about that. What I meant is most Ashkenazi (that I have seen anyway) are of Armenoid physical type. They look like the back of their skulls were cut off. I'm pretty sure the original Hebrews were long-headed Meds Proper.

Solomon said:

Why not? At least half of their genetic makeup is Palestinian. Sephardim and Ashkenazim are essentially the same, the main difference being that Ashkenazim have less Levantine and more European ancestry.

Let me just say if I were an artist and I were to draw a scene depicting the Israelites storming Canaan, I would not model them after Ashkenazis.

Solomon said:

It looks like you fell for the 'Ashkenazim = Khazars/Armenians' and 'Sephardim = true Israelites' thing. WNs love that theory

Actually, I don't believe in the Khazar theory in the least. I just can't see Turkic folk converting to Judaism. They are worlds apart. I don't think the Ashkenazi were Armenians, but that the Sephards and Ashkenazi "absorbed" the Armenoid phenotype from nearby peoples before and during the diaspora.

Solomon said:

Isn't Oded Fehr is an Ashkenazi Jew?

No, I'm pretty sure he's just an Israeli. Middle Eastern to the core. If he was Ashkenazi, wouldn't you think him to be atypical?

[mike2]

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm talking out of my arse. I'm just saying there is a noticeable difference between Oded Fehr and Woody Allen that should be accounted for. Which would you model Abraham after?

And I should apologize for equating handsomeness with Oded Fehr's type because it would seem like I'm calling Jews of Woody Allen's type "ugly," which isn't my intent.

[Drooperdoo]

Melnorme,
I am humbled by your ability to "bust out the facts"! Actually, however, you're quoting the linguistic theory for the appearance of Yiddish. Most scholars think it arose from Old German in Bavaria. MANY--a growing number, I'm afraid--think the opposite: That Yiddish is actually a Slavic tongue with German borrow-words [this, due to the syntax of the language--which is Slavic and not Teutonic]. So the debate rages: Did they arrive in Germany from the east or the west?
The answer--as I stated--is BOTH.
What we *do* know for sure, though, is that Spain expelled its Jews in 1492. Those Jews didn't just disappear magically. They entered France, the Netherlands, and, yes: Germany. And their movements are recorded historically. So there's no question: These communities that entered Germany did so from Spain--and overwhelmingly retained their Sephardic appearance.
So no matter how much it may irk, there *is* a reason that Jeff Goldblum looks Mediterranean and not northern European; there *is* a reason why Fran Drescher has black hair and olive-skin; there *is* a reason why Gilbert Gottfried could pass easily as a Syrian--and, lastly, there *is* a reason why none of them look like pasty, red-haired Woody Allen.

[Melnorme]

Drooperdoo said:

What we *do* know for sure, though, is that Spain expelled its Jews in 1492. Those Jews didn't just disappear magically.

Of course they didn't. They went to the Ottoman Empire. If you want to look for Sephardic Jews in Europe, look no further than Bulgaria, Greece, Yugoslavia and European Turkey. There's no need to invent mythical Sephardic communities in Germany ( although, I concede that a very small amount of Sephardim may have gone there ).

[Human]

even being red haired Woody Allen looks so typically Jewish. it is visible there is some semitic thing going on there...

King David, according to the bible, was red haired: that was a 1000 years before Jesus.

sephardic presence in Germany is significant. ive watched tv programs on stuff like that. Some Germans not to far desecrated a whole Portuguese Spanish Jewish cemetery in Germany.

that intellectual Theodor Adorno may have been sephardic. ive read about many others with a similar extraction...