ABSTRACT
In June 2010 two papers appeared in major scientific journals – Nature and the American Journal of Human Genetics – which attempted to address the question of the “genetic structure” of the Jewish people (Behar et al. 2010; Atzmon et al. 2010). Both papers set out to assess the degree of Jewish communities’ “genetic” relatedness to each other and to their non-Jewish neighbours, and to explore whether the origin of contemporary Jews could be traced to the Middle East. Atzmon et al. examined seven Jewish populations and concluded that their “[genetic] comparison with non-Jewish groups demonstrated distinctive Jewish population clusters, each with shared Middle Eastern ancestry, proximity to contemporary Middle Eastern populations, and variable degrees of European and North African admixture”. More specifically, the paper states that the study “refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry” (2010: 850). Behar et al. suggest in a similar vein that the results of their study “trace the origin of most Jewish Diaspora communities to the Levant” (2010: 238).
