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Post by IranianLion on Oct 21, 2005 21:26:28 GMT -5
A minority population almost always mixes with the host population altering itself in the process. The host population almost always is unaffected by this process. The Jews are no exception. That's why Jews tend to resemble the appearance of their host populations. Many Ashkenazim resemble northern and eastern Europeans; many Separdim resemble southern Europeans and North Africans; many Mizrahim resemble their various Middle Eastern host populations. It's not evolution which happens over thousands of years. From my own personal experience, I cannot tell the difference between Jewish and non-Jewish Iranians. It would be difficult to tell Iranian Jews like Katsav, Mofaz or Halutz apart from other Iranians (except perhaps Halutz who has a quasi-Assyrian appearance IMO). As for IQ, IMO there is no way of singling out the genetic component from the environmental. I think there is a theory that Ashkenazim are supposed to be more intelligent than other populations because they were pushed into "cognitive-reliant" trades such as accounting and money lending. According to this theory, intelligence was a selected characteristic for Ashkenazim far more than other populations. However, I don't think this applies in a capitalist society. actually this is wrong both you and yankel are wrong in diff ways i dont know exactly how to explain this maybe melnorme can, Jews are not identical to their hosts populations and at the same time they are often not extremly alien, their is overap and certain features could be taken diffrent ways but their is an "ashkenazi" look despite not every single ashkenazi having it, and there is also a "sephardic" look simply put in a crowd of israelis u will spot a spectrum slowly changing in color but with simmilar features, that spectrum gets slightly contrasted by Arabs and by russians and ethiopians who often have distinct looks (altho some russians may not, and even some ethiopians can have "jewish" features) and at the same time i dont mean to say their is a feature that is exclusivly jewish, im just bad at explaining basically u can put an afram in a crowd of somalians and he may not stand out, because of natural varation but when u put 2 or 3 and say there are african americans amongst u pick them out, it may get easier knamean? either way genetics shows ashkenazim arent simply Europeans of the Jewish faith but a Hybrid population leaning more on the middle eastern side As I said, it's a tendency. Many Ashkenazim have a very "Middle Eastern" appearance (I'm loathe to use that description but it keeps it simple). What you have written is not incompatible with what I wrote. Although I stand by my contention that if you were to put Jewish and non-Jewish Iranians in the same room you could not tell them apart. As I understand it, genotype is not the same as phenotype. Many genes have no effect on appearance. Perhaps some/many of the Jewish genes that differ from those of their host populations are of that kind.
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Post by Yankel on Oct 21, 2005 22:49:53 GMT -5
Actually, I agree with you. Many Persian Jews are as dark as Yemenites. They seem to consider themselves more Persian than anything, too. I have met a few that could pass as Ashkenazi, though.
I hear this so often on DODONA. What people don't realize is that the Y-chromosome constitutes about 1% of our DNA. It has no impact on phenotype, or, at least no correlation between the two has been found yet.
The Ashkenazi gene pool (i.e., autosomal DNA, which determines phenotype) is a pretty even mix of Near Eastern and European genes. Yigal is right, though. Most Ashkenazi Jews lean more toward the Near Eastern side.
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Post by yigal on Oct 21, 2005 23:05:39 GMT -5
Actually, I agree with you. Many Persian Jews are as dark as Yemenites. They seem to consider themselves more Persian than anything, too. I have met a few that could pass as Ashkenazi, though. I hear this so often on DODONA. What people don't realize is that the Y-chromosome constitutes about 1% of our DNA. It has no impact on phenotype, or, at least no correlation between the two has been found yet. The Ashkenazi gene pool (i.e., autosomal DNA, which determines phenotype) is a pretty even mix of Near Eastern and European genes. Yigal is right, though. Most Ashkenazi Jews lean more toward the Near Eastern side. That is true in fact we were talking about that last night when we where talking about "arab jews" Persian jews tend to over emphasize their persianess , i think its due to trying to over compensate for their extrairanian origin, either way most persian jews when asked what they are will instinctlivly say persian rather than the expected answer i get from other ME and NA jews "jew" the persians i know too are rather dark one female looks indian(from india) but her brother could pass anywhere from italy to Morroco
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Post by Yankel on Oct 21, 2005 23:38:28 GMT -5
Yeah, dude. That makes sense. It's like they have this weird Stockholm Syndrome thing going on.
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Post by unspammable on Oct 22, 2005 4:29:03 GMT -5
I just love it when threads get off-topic like this.
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Post by asdf on Oct 22, 2005 4:33:18 GMT -5
That's why Jews tend to resemble the appearance of their host populations. Many Ashkenazim resemble northern and eastern Europeans; many Separdim resemble southern Europeans and North Africans; many Mizrahim resemble their various Middle Eastern host populations. It's not evolution which happens over thousands of years. I don't know about this one. Their genetics doesn't show that, nor does their phenotype if you mean Iberian.
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Post by IranianLion on Oct 22, 2005 5:55:26 GMT -5
Actually, I agree with you. Many Persian Jews are as dark as Yemenites. They seem to consider themselves more Persian than anything, too. I have met a few that could pass as Ashkenazi, though. There is an overlap between all Jewish populations. Persian Jews range from very dark (Katsav) to medium (Mofaz; Halutz) to light (can't point to any famous light Persian Jews but I have met some in my time). Interesting. I will investigate this. Autosomally, Iranians cluster with European rather than Near Eastern populations. At least according to Cavalli-Sforza.
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Post by IranianLion on Oct 22, 2005 6:03:58 GMT -5
Yeah, dude. That makes sense. It's like they have this weird Stockholm Syndrome thing going on. I find that kind of offensive to be honest. Persian Jews are proud of being Persian, like other Persians, because we are a very nationalistic people. Further, Jews have been in Iran for thousands of years. And remember that a Persian was the Jews' Messiah. We go way back.
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Post by anodyne on Oct 22, 2005 6:46:16 GMT -5
"Yeah, dude. That makes sense. It's like they have this weird Stockholm Syndrome thing going on."
I don't see it as being so strange. Before the rise of Hitler German Jews consider themselves to be Germans who happen to be Jewish, for example. I can see why the religious types wouldn't like that at all consiering that type of attiude lead to a high rate of intermarriage with gentiles.
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Post by Yankel on Oct 22, 2005 16:13:34 GMT -5
You do realize you're talking to a German-French Jew (same thing, really), right? Most Jews consider themselves Jewish before anything. It is true that before the Shoah many German Jews were proud "Germans" (even though this was never really reciprocated by ethnic Germans, to say the least), though.
Persian Jews were treated poorly in Iran. I mean, there are exceptions, but the fact that most Persian Jews live in Israel or America speaks volumes about their relationship with Iran.
Huh? Are you talking about Esther?
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Post by yigal on Oct 22, 2005 16:25:52 GMT -5
You do realize you're talking to a German-French Jew (same thing, really), right? Most Jews consider themselves Jewish before anything. It is true that before the Shoah many German Jews were proud "Germans" (even though this was never really reciprocated by ethnic Germans, to say the least), though. Persian Jews were treated poorly in Iran. I mean, there are exceptions, but the fact that most Persian Jews live in Israel or America speaks volumes about their relationship with Iran. Huh? Are you talking about Esther? hes talking about akhasveiroysh ho moilekh they werent treated super bad, most left with the rise of the shah, same with the few zorastian iranis
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Post by Yankel on Oct 22, 2005 16:26:55 GMT -5
Interesting. I will investigate this. Also, note that, while Iranians are genetically and racially closer to ancient Jews than most Diaspora host populations, Persian Jews are more "mixed" than Ashkenazim. How is that possible?
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Post by yigal on Oct 22, 2005 16:37:50 GMT -5
Interesting. I will investigate this. Also, note that, while Iranians are genetically and racially closer to ancient Jews than most Diaspora host populations, Persian Jews are more "mixed" than Ashkenazim. How is that possible? your confusing IRanians with Kurds who are iranic in language but their are some facts i want to put out there 1) "kurdish" territory is claimed by Aramaic Christians as being theres, Barkhu can elabirate on this,from what i understand the Aramaic Christians of iraq claim that Kurds are Iranized Aramaens,who became Iranized by the expanding persian empire in the same way that certain central asians speak Iranic tounges such as Dagestanis who speak tat despite their non iranic lineage. This Claim is given credibility by the fact that "kurdish" jews are Bi Lingual in Neo Aramaic and Kurdish, tho they often preffer neo aramaic which tho they calll a diff name (targumit) its simmilar to that of Iraqui Aramaic Christians 2) Abraham was born in Tera7, it is now known as 7aran an area claimed by kurds as kurdistan, and by Aramaic Christians 3) i would like to see Genetic Tests of Assyrians and Chaldeans compared with kurds i think the results might prove the Iranized Aramaens hypothosis
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Post by IranianLion on Oct 22, 2005 19:25:09 GMT -5
You do realize you're talking to a German-French Jew (same thing, really), right? Most Jews consider themselves Jewish before anything. It is true that before the Shoah many German Jews were proud "Germans" (even though this was never really reciprocated by ethnic Germans, to say the least), though. Yet you yourself commented on how Persian Jews place a lot of emphasis on their Persian identity. I don't think that's entirely accurate. You see, most people are treated pretty poorly in Iran. That's why Iranians of all faiths have left in droves: Jews; Muslims; Christians; Bahai; Zoroastrians. Those that have the money leave the country. Jews were definitely among the most prosperous, having established themselves as merchants and what-not, so most could afford to leave. My family and I have left Iran so I don't blame my Jewish compatriots from doing the same. The best jobs and educational placements are given to individuals with revolutionary and religious credentials. I would not get access to these and nor would a Jew. Of course, Jews are treated with suspicion by the regime given the tense relationship with Israel. 13 Jews were falsely accused of spying for Israel a few years ago. Still, they were pardoned and I don't think that kind of thing has happened since. The only group in Iran that is systematically persecuted is the Bahai, who claim that their founder was the 12th Emam of the Shia tradition. I think some numbers would be useful. These are rough estimates. 45,000 Persian Jews emigrated to Israel from 1948 to 1977 under the Shah's rule when Jews faced no problems. Since the Islamic Revolution, 55,000 Persian Jews have emigrated, mostly to the US, leaving about 30,000 still in Iran. So about 25% of Persian Jews live in Iran, 35% live in Israel and 40% live in the US. (The total number of Persian Jews is 130,000 or less than 0.2% of the Iranian population.) Huh? Are you talking about Esther? [/quote] Esther?! ;D Nor am I talking about Mordechai. I'm talking about Kourosh (Cyrus) who freed the Jews from their Babylonian Captivity.
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Post by IranianLion on Oct 22, 2005 19:31:21 GMT -5
How is that possible? [/quote] Haven't got a clue. But that's what Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994) report.
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