What does it really mean to be a Jew?

controversial notion of Jewish ethnicity - the idea of Jewish blood.

Why is there a controversy about 'Jewish blood'? Look at the images above! Are they all supposed to have the 'Jewish blood' in their veins? Isn't that as silly as it gets? Why the deception? It has to do with all Jews of all races and colors aspiring to be 'The Chosen'

in two millennia of diaspora

Who is supposed to have 'Diaspora' from Palestine? Look at the images above and you decide! What are the chances that white Jewry could have 'Diaspora' from Arab Palestine? Of course, by looking at the images alone, the most obvious answer is that European Jews are European going back to time immemorial.

condemning them to death solely by virtue of their Jewish ancestry.

But if there is such a thing as 'Jewish ancestry' then we can only conclude that the Jews in the picture above are related. How silly is that? Very silly. There is no 'Jewish ancestry' as there is no 'Muslim Ancestry' or 'Christian ancestry'.

Traditional knowledge holds that there was once a distinct nation of people who all practiced the Jewish religion, a Hebrew people with a common geographic origin and, in all likelihood, relatively uniform physical appearance.

What the hell is wrong with these Ashkenazi Jews that they refuse to believe their own eyes. If there were a uniform people called 'the Jews' that can only refer to Arab Jews who are indeed a people with 'relatively uniform physical appearance'. But European Jews converted to Judaism in the 9th century and they are certainly very European in appearance, as would be expected.

Sand is the author of a book called "The Invention of the Jewish People", and a proponent of the belief that today's Jews are the descendants of different global populations who converted to Judaism over the ages, rather than the offspring of an exiled Hebrew nation.

How are we to believe that both the European white Jew and the Ugandan African Jew are 'exiles of the Hebrew nation'? But with completely fabricated notion of 'Jewish roots' Anglo European Jewry did manage to camouflage their white colonialism of the lands of people of color as something new and different., i..e. white Jews coming home to the land of people of color. You know how the expression goes: If it does not make sense, it is not true.

Jewish identity exists in countless diverse modes. The most important aspect of Jewish identity to many religious Jews is their faith and their daily practice, their attendance at synagogue and the sincerity of their prayer.

But how is that different form any other kind of religious identity?

there are those secular Jews who self-identify as such due to their belief that Jewish blood runs through their veins.

Then they need to look at the picture above and embrace the Ugandan Jew as a blood relative, which to most white Jews is a very repulsive notion.

Intermarriage and assimilation were seemingly prevalent in every outpost of the Jewish diaspora, as evidenced by the vastly divergent appearances of the world's Jews.

This is a very false and deceptive statement. The Arab Jews as a group do resemble their Arab brethren; European Jews most certainly resemble one another. African Jews do resemble the African people. Please tell me what sort of 'intermarriage' produced the pictures of the American Jew and the European Jews above? Who is the Ugandan Jew intermarried with? The Jews are a diverse group like all other religious groups.

Regarding the Kaifeng Jews of China, the Bnei Menashe of Northern India, the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe and even the monotheistic Lemba of Zimbabwe, one may ask: how can it be said that these people share a single ethnicity? Some say science holds the answer.

It is guranteed that no 'scientific research' would ever be allowed to show that Jews of Zimbabwe are related to Jews of Khazaria who today go by 'Ashenazi Jews'. That certainly has to do with the revulsion white Jews feel towards the notion of being blood relatives of black Jews. But this is again a desperate attempt to make logic out of nothing. But why then do we have diseases that only exclusively attack white Ashkenazi Jews? How do you explain that? The answer is very simple: this is a people that has not mixed its blood and is one core and distinct group of a European people.

A number of genetic disorders occur more frequently in certain ethnic populations.In the Ashkenazi Jewish population (those of Eastern European descent), it has been estimated that one in four individuals is a carrier of one of several genetic conditions.These diseases include Tay-Sachs Disease, Canavan, Niemann-Pick, Gaucher, Familial Dysautonomia, Bloom Syndrome, Fanconi anemia, Cystic Fibrosis and Mucolipidosis IV. Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Health/genetics.html

A 2000 study analyzing seven geographically distinct Jewish groups found that six were more related to each other than to the non-Jewish populations of their respective Diaspora homes.

I would most certainly like to know what the 'six groups are'. I will again repeat that Ashkenazi Jews find the notion of being related to African blacks as sickening.

Research done the following year indicated that Sephardic and Kurdish Jews are essentially indistinguishable on the genetic level, while differing slightly from Ashkenazis.

Slightly? Inquiring minds would like to know that if the Arab Jews have genetic relations to a European people - the Ashkenazi Jews - then why not to the Germans, the Swede, the French? It makes absolutely no sense and it is guaranteed 'the research' was done with the intended result already predetermined.

This marker, known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype, or CMH, is common both in Ashkenazi and Sephardic populations and indicates a common male ancestor for many Cohanim.

No! This is a whole bunch of nonsense! The European Ashkenazi Jews, scattered as they are around the world, is in fact the lost tribe. But the name of the tribe is not 'Jew' but rather 'Khazars'. They lost everything that makes a people: language, heritage, customs as they begun to 'wander' around parts of Eastern and then Western Europe. Ashkenazi Jews are a European people. If all else fails, do not let your eyes fail. Look at the picture at the top of the page again.

Or is it their practice and culture that truly matter? Is information about distant ancestry truly relevant?

Yes, but Ashkenazi Jews need to look in the right direction for their ancestry: towards Khazaria. Honoring one's ancestry is honorable, but attempting to pass for what you are not is a disgrace and a dishonor to one's true ancestry. The Khazars of Europe must be turning in their graves to learn that their descendants have totally erased them from history and have substituted a people of the Arab region as their lineage.

It's up to the Jews - and their distant Arab cousins - to decide.

The Arabs are cousins of Jews? The answer is yes and no! Arab Jews are in fact Arab and they do in fact have everything in common with their Arab brethren except for religion. The Ashkenazi Jews have nothing in common with the Arab Jews except for religion. Why make a simple fact so complicated?

Last update - 16:49 25/03/2010

By Matt Lerner

What does it mean to be a Jew? Is it solely a religious affiliation? Is it simply an affinity to an ancient cultural tradition? Or is it literally bone-deep?

Status as a Jew has historically been determined either by matrilineal descent or by conversion into the faith. However, in two millennia of diaspora, Jewish identity has become far more multifaceted than the progenitors of the tribe could ever have imagined.

Today, Jewish identity is defined variously through religious practice, secular cultural identification, and the controversial notion of Jewish ethnicity - the idea of Jewish blood.

Understandably, the notion of "Jewish blood" makes a lot of people cringe. The notion of racial purity was famously paramount to Nazi ideology. The Nuremberg Laws and other Nazi policies labeled even non-practicing Jews as such, condemning them to death solely by virtue of their Jewish ancestry.

Traditional knowledge holds that there was once a distinct nation of people who all practiced the Jewish religion, a Hebrew people with a common geographic origin and, in all likelihood, relatively uniform physical appearance.

But there are those, like Tel Aviv University professor Shlomo Sand, who question both the relevance and validity of this notion in modern discourse.

Sand is the author of a book called "The Invention of the Jewish People", and a proponent of the belief that today's Jews are the descendants of different global populations who converted to Judaism over the ages, rather than the offspring of an exiled Hebrew nation.

Sand rejects the traditional narrative of a Roman-instigated diaspora and views the notion of Jewish ethnicity as a racist one used to perpetuate a Zionist myth of ownership of the land of Israel.

Jewish identity exists in countless diverse modes. The most important aspect of Jewish identity to many religious Jews is their faith and their daily practice, their attendance at synagogue and the sincerity of their prayer.

There are plenty of Jewish atheists who attend synagogue and celebrate Jewish holidays on a solely cultural basis, as a way of engaging with their distinct heritage. In addition, there are those secular Jews who self-identify as such due to their belief that Jewish blood runs through their veins.

Today, nearly two millennia after the destruction of the Second Temple, people identifying themselves as Jewish hail from nearly every corner of the globe.

Intermarriage and assimilation were seemingly prevalent in every outpost of the Jewish diaspora, as evidenced by the vastly divergent appearances of the world's Jews.

Regarding the Kaifeng Jews of China, the Bnei Menashe of Northern India, the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe and even the monotheistic Lemba of Zimbabwe, one may ask: how can it be said that these people share a single ethnicity? Some say science holds the answer.

DNA studies conducted over the past two decades have made interesting headway in the scientific analysis of Jewish genealogy.

A 2000 study analyzing seven geographically distinct Jewish groups found that six were more related to each other than to the non-Jewish populations of their respective Diaspora homes.

Research done the following year indicated that Sephardic and Kurdish Jews are essentially indistinguishable on the genetic level, while differing slightly from Ashkenazis.

London's Daily Telegraph reported in January that Indian scientists are seeking a genetic connection between the Pashtun ethnic group and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

This case is made particularly newsworthy by the fact that it is largely ethnic Pashtuns who make up the leadership of Afghanistan's Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist entity at potentially violent odds with the Jews.

Perhaps the best-known study of Jewish DNA was published in 1997 in the science journal Nature. It found that Cohanim (members of the Jewish priestly class) from different Jewish populations share a common genetic marker despite their geographic diversity.

This marker, known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype, or CMH, is common both in Ashkenazi and Sephardic populations and indicates a common male ancestor for many Cohanim.

Researchers in 2000 found that members of one clan of the Lemba tribe of Southern Africa exhibit the CMH in high frequencies, lending credence to the claim of some Lemba to historic Jewish origin.

Another study found the CMH to be present among the Bene Israel of India, whose oral traditions tell of ancestors arriving in India after a shipwreck in the 2nd century BCE.

It is important to mention that some of these same studies have come to surprising conclusions about the relationship of the Jews with other Middle Eastern populations.

A 2000 study found that Arabs and Jews share a "relatively recent common ancestor", while the same study that encompassed seven distinct Jewish populations also acknowledged an "extremely close affinity" of Jews with non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations.

The closest genetic link found in that study was between the six most-related Jewish groups and Syrian and Palestinian populations.

DNA research has gone some way towards establishing a probable common ancestry for many of the world's Jews, but has also made clear that Jews and their Arab neighbors hail from the same stock.

Does Jewish ancestry forty generations in the past really mean anything to the world's far-flung Jews?

Or is it their practice and culture that truly matter? Is information about distant ancestry truly relevant?

It's up to the Jews - and their distant Arab cousins - to decide.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1157346.html