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Most Jews share a genetic substrate of Semitic origin and there are identifying characteristics that come along with that. However, due to the diaspora, Jews tend to also have physical characteristics of the surrounding population. After all, they may have lived in ghettos, but they didn't live in a vacuum.
Jews have lived in central European countries like Germany for well over a thousand years and while a generally endogamic ethnicity, there was intermarriage over the centuries. I have seen ultra Orthodox families where I grew up with members who had some obvious Semitic features alongside children or siblings with very European features. Gene expression is a complex and nuanced thing.
I've only been Jewish for 56 years, and all this time I thought it was a religion
I think this is where a lot of confusion comes in about what it means to be Jewish. If it's just a religion, then why do atheist, who have Jewish parents, call themselves Jewish?
If they do not believe in G-d, then they have no religion. If they have no religion, then how can they be Jewish?
It depends on the jew and the community they lived in, some jews are converts like russian subbotniks although historically intermarriage and conversion was quite rare, jews who can trace back to the levant like cohanim or levites generally should resemble an eastern Mediterranean population. I myself have descendants paternally who claimed to be cohanim and we constantly were mistaken as southern italian, greek or spanish, many times Eastern Mediterranean with alpine influence I believe this is the case that most mediterranean people come from a common ancestor but also that there was much intermixing with romans and Greeks in the early period.
they aren't but....everyone on earth is turkish lol.
The romans claimed they come from Aeneas - Aeneas was soldier from the Trojan war and Troy is present day Turkey.
The Romans inhabited UK. UK later turned into one of the largest empires and populated America, Australia and what not.
So Turkey -> Rome -> UK -> America.
Everything on earth has started with...turkish lukumi
When we were twelve, approaching our bar mitzvahs, we boys asked the rabbi why Jewish mothers and Italian mothers were so similar.
He shushed us, and warned us not to ever reveal it: the Italian People are descended from Jacob's twin brother, Esau!
I did some research, read the Talmud, Torah, and Midrash, and it was verified. When Jacob received the primary blessing (of prayer, but part of it was that we never lack for anything, which is why Jews are viewed to be wealthy--it was the blessing Issac placed upon us) Esau asked for a blessing as well. So Isaac blessed him with the power of the sword. He intended for Esau to protect his younger brother; he never dreamed that the Italian people would use it to forge an empire!
There is just to many funny ways of answering this. I am in between 2 responses:
Actually there is a 3rd one, but I might get in trouble with the mods for it...
I don't know, what does mindcuff says Jews look like ?
That's because Jews lived in Europe for a long time where they fornicated, so now every-one looks Jewish !
Southern Italians, especially Sicilians, are genetically very similar to Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. This could be partly due to that many European Jews have ancestors that lived in central-southern Italy during the Roman Empire (who then moved north), and partly due to that there is also minor amounts of Levantine ancestry in southern Italy dating to Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and also the Neolithic expansion out of the Near East.
Maltese and Cypriots are also close to them too.
On genetic maps.. It s only sicilians close by ashkenazi
Sephardics are far away.. They are in the middle east cluster
Sicilians and ashkenazi are in the edge of the european cluster going slightly towards the middle east, with sicilians more to the european and ashkenazi more to the middle east
The other italian are more in the european cluster, with a gradient north south..northern italians more in it
Ashkenazis are originally Khazar (Turk tribe) from Central Asia who converted to Judaism while Sephardics are the original jews have their origin in the middle east.
The Khazar theory is false DNA has shown that, only one vocal scientist still believes that and he has been heavily criticized by his peers. It is an outdated theory heavily promoted by groups that don't believe the Jews belong in Israel they like use it in an attempt to prove the Jews weren't originally from Israel.
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How Jews and Italians are related
