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The article details the journey that the author went on to learn how to perform Polish Jewish genealogy. Topics discussed include use of the Polish State Archives (PSA) website due to advances in technology and improvements in the availability of records from Poland; process of uploading the digitized images to the PSA website from the indexes of the records on the JRI-Poland site; and discovery of a birth record that was linked on JRI-Poland.

An introduction to the journal is presented which discusses topics featured within the issue including antisemitism, the link between race and religion, and the genealogies of Muslims and Jews.

The article focuses on and how individuals interpret genetic information in order to make meaning about themselves and about Jewish ancestry within these contexts and confirmation on videos feature individuals for Jewish, for whom the results of a genetic ancestry test (GAT) confirm Jewishness.

The primary purpose of the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1–9 is to construct a monument to the pre-exilic dead of Judah and Israel, reflecting the important cultural value Judeans placed on the preservation of one's name after death. Ancient Near Eastern and archaeological evidence suggests that the preservation of ancestral names for many generations was something available only to the elite; by opening the work with a monument to the pre-exilic ancestral dead, the Chronicler implies readers would raise their cultural status by supporting a restoration of the pre-exilic polity. The Chronicler used the genealogies to reflect important themes of the work, but the one thing they do that narrative cannot is to create a literal monument to the dead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jesus associated himself with the "sign of Jonah" on multiple occasions in response to Jewish leaders demanding that he prove his authority. Possible explanations of the sign are examined here with an emphasis on Jesus's statement that he would be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt 12:40). A close reading of Jonah 2 reveals that Jesus was describing himself as one who must suffer, but that he was depending upon his Father to rescue him from his descent into death. Unlike traditional explanations which assume that the statement must be restricted to the specific period that Jesus was in the tomb, this approach suggests that Jesus's descent began in the Garden of Gethsemane before he died. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Steinmann needed to show that the chronogenealogical formula throughout Genesis 5 and 11 ("When A had lived X years, he brought forth [ *] B") indicates not when B was born but rather when A performed the causing action that initiated the process that culminated in B's birth. His reply, however, does not even attempt to establish this bedrock premise; he continues to treat it as self-evident. My rejoinder demonstrates that Steinmann has not successfully defended the semantics of causation that underlies his unique case for chronological gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his article, Jeremy Sexton offers a critique of my observations about the possibility of gaps in the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11. His critique notes several items in my presentation, but most notably, Sexton attempts to make an argument about the semantics of Hebrew causation in general and about the H (Hiphil) stem of verbs of the root דלי in particular. In this response, I demonstrate that Sexton's analysis is flawed and involves misunderstanding of my position and false conclusions about the meaning of H (Hiphil) stem of verbs of the root דלי. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives The purpose of this study was to genetically characterize the male lineages of people who speak Mirandese, an interesting case of a linguistic relict that can still be found in the municipality of Miranda do Douro, NE Portugal. This region lies within the area of the Leonese dialects, which are remnants of the Romance dialects spoken in the Kingdom of Leon currently grouped in the Astur-Leonese linguistic continuum. We intended to disclose affinities with surrounding populations, namely from Spain where the Astur-Leonese is also spoken. Methods Eighty-eight unrelated males (58 from Miranda and 30 from Bragança, the broad Portuguese region where Miranda is located) were genotyped with the combined use of 17 Y chromosome short tandem repeats (Y-STRs) and a high resolution Y chromosome single nucleotide polymorphism (Y-SNPs) strategy. Moreover, 236 males from Miranda and neighboring regions, previously classified as R-M269, were also genotyped. Results R-P312 was the most frequent haplogroup in the Mirandese, followed by J-12f2.1 and T-M70. The male lineages J-12f2.1 and T-M70 were also well represented, and both were shared with descendants of Sephardic Jews. No signs of diversity reduction were detected. Conclusions Mirandese speakers display a Y chromosome gene pool that shows a subtle differentiation from neighboring populations, mainly attributable to the assimilation of lineages ascribed to be of Jewish ancestry. Although not revealing signs of geographic/linguistic isolation, no clear affinities with other Astur-Leonese populations were detected. The results suggest that in Miranda language sharing is not accompanied by significant gene flow between populations from both sides of the political border. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 28:671-680, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bene Israel Jewish community from West India is a unique population whose history before the 18th century remains largely unknown. Bene Israel members consider themselves as descendants of Jews, yet the identity of Jewish ancestors and their arrival time to India are unknown, with speculations on arrival time varying between the 8th century BCE and the 6th century CE. Here, we characterize the genetic history of Bene Israel by collecting and genotyping 18 Bene Israel individuals. Combining with 486 individuals from 41 other Jewish, Indian and Pakistani populations, and additional individuals from worldwide populations, we conducted comprehensive genome-wide analyses based on FST, principal component analysis, ADMIXTURE, identity-by-descent sharing, admixture linkage disequilibrium decay, haplotype sharing and allele sharing autocorrelation decay, as well as contrasted patterns between the X chromosome and the autosomes. The genetics of Bene Israel individuals resemble local Indian populations, while at the same time constituting a clearly separated and unique population in India. They are unique among Indian and Pakistani populations we analyzed in sharing considerable genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations. Putting together the results from all analyses point to Bene Israel being an admixed population with both Jewish and Indian ancestry, with the genetic contribution of each of these ancestral populations being substantial. The admixture took place in the last millennium, about 19–33 generations ago. It involved Middle-Eastern Jews and was sex-biased, with more male Jewish and local female contribution. It was followed by a population bottleneck and high endogamy, which can lead to increased prevalence of recessive diseases in this population. This study provides an example of how genetic analysis advances our knowledge of human history in cases where other disciplines lack the relevant data to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several authors have proposed haplotype motifs based on site variants at the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) and the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY) to trace the genealogies of Jewish people. Here, we analyzed their main approaches and test the feasibility of adopting motifs as ancestry markers through construction of a large database of mtDNA and NRY haplotypes from public genetic genealogical repositories. We verified the reliability of Jewish ancestry prediction based on the Cohen and Levite Modal Haplotypes in their "classical" 6 STR marker format or in the "extended" 12 STR format, as well as four founder mtDNA lineages (HVS-I segments) accounting for about 40% of the current population of Ashkenazi Jews. For this purpose we compared haplotype composition in individuals of self-reported Jewish ancestry with the rest of European, African or Middle Eastern samples, to test for non-random association of ethno-geographic groups and haplotypes. Overall, NRY and mtDNA based motifs, previously reported to differentiate between groups, were found to be more represented in Jewish compared to non-Jewish groups. However, this seems to stem from common ancestors of Jewish lineages being rather recent respect to ancestors of non-Jewish lineages with the same "haplotype signatures." Moreover, the polyphyly of haplotypes which contain the proposed motifs and the misuse of constant mutation rates heavily affected previous attempts to correctly dating the origin of common ancestries. Accordingly, our results stress the limitations of using the above haplotype motifs as reliable Jewish ancestry predictors and show its inadequacy for forensic or genealogical purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary contrasts two recent scholarly works on the possibility of a biological basis for 'Jewishness.' Harry Ostrer's Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People claims a strong shared genetic component of Jewish ancestry tracing to the Levant, extending so far as to suggest a biological basis for Jewishness. Nadia Abu El-Haj's The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology adopts a skeptical perspective on contemporary genetics and claims that genetic studies of the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA cannot be viewed as supporting a common Jewish ancestry. The disagreement is consequential, and the arguments can be understood in terms of differences in the audiences, styles of reasoning, and social and political perspectives for the two works. A synthesis is proposed for helping to articulate a space between the two opposing views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including Jewish population genetics, genetic distances and physical anthropology.

The contemporary study of Jewish genetics has a long prehistory dating to the eighteenth century. Prior to the era of genetics, studies of the physical makeup of Jews were undertaken by comparative anatomists and physical anthropologists. In the nineteenth century the field was referred to as 'race science.' Believed by many race scientists to be a homogeneous and pure race, Jews occupied a central position in the discourse of race science because they were seen as the control group par excellence to determine the relative primacy of nature or nurture in the development of racial characteristics. In the nineteenth century, claims of Jewish homogeneity prompted research that sought to explain morphological differences among Jews, chief among them the difference between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. I examine some of these original debates here with a view to placing them in their historical and cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origin and history of the Ashkenazi Jewish population have long been of great interest, and advances in high-throughput genetic analysis have recently provided a new approach for investigating these topics. We and others have argued on the basis of genome-wide data that the Ashkenazi Jewish population derives its ancestry from a combination of sources tracing to both Europe and the Middle East. It has been claimed, however, through a reanalysis of some of our data, that a large part of the ancestry of the Ashkenazi population originates with the Khazars, a Turkic-speaking group that lived to the north of the Caucasus region ∼1,000 years ago. Because the Khazar population has left no obvious modern descendants that could enable a clear test for a contribution to Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, the Khazar hypothesis has been difficult to examine using genetics. Furthermore, because only limited genetic data have been available from the Caucasus region, and because these data have been concentrated in populations that are genetically close to populations from the Middle East, the attribution of any signal of Ashkenazi-Caucasus genetic similarity to Khazar ancestry rather than shared ancestral Middle Eastern ancestry has been problematic. Here, through integration of genotypes from newly collected samples with data from several of our past studies, we have assembled the largest data set available to date for assessment of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic origins. This data set contains genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms in 1,774 samples from 106 Jewish and non-Jewish populations that span the possible regions of potential Ashkenazi ancestry: Europe, the Middle East, and the region historically associated with the Khazar Khaganate. The data set includes 261 samples from 15 populations from the Caucasus region and the region directly to its north, samples that have not previously been included alongside Ashkenazi Jewish samples in genomic studies. Employing a variety of standard techniques for the analysis of population-genetic structure, we found that Ashkenazi Jews share the greatest genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations and, among non-Jewish populations, with groups from Europe and the Middle East. No particular similarity of Ashkenazi Jews to populations from the Caucasus is evident, particularly populations that most closely represent the Khazar region. Thus, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate corroborates the earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social construction of ethnic and religious identities of Christian immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) arriving in Israel under the Law of Return after 1990, and the role of churches in their social integration, are examined. As Israeli citizens actively involved in Christian churches, they challenge the Jewish character of the state, and the dynamics of their ethnic and religious identity should be understood in this unique context of reception. The analysis sheds light on the complex relationship between ethnic and religious identities and illustrates how different religious organizational configurations (Russian Orthodox and Greek churches) prompt immigrants to forge different patterns of identity along ethnic lines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The question of Jewish ancestry has been the subject of controversy for over two centuries and has yet to be resolved. The “Rhineland hypothesis” depicts Eastern European Jews as a “population isolate” that emerged from a small group of German Jews who migrated eastward and expanded rapidly. Alternatively, the “Khazarian hypothesis” suggests that Eastern European Jews descended from the Khazars, an amalgam of Turkic clans that settled the Caucasus in the early centuries CE and converted to Judaism in the 8th century. Mesopotamian and Greco–Roman Jews continuously reinforced the Judaized empire until the 13th century. Following the collapse of their empire, the Judeo–Khazars fled to Eastern Europe. The rise of European Jewry is therefore explained by the contribution of the Judeo–Khazars. Thus far, however, the Khazars’ contribution has been estimated only empirically, as the absence of genome-wide data from Caucasus populations precluded testing the Khazarian hypothesis. Recent sequencing of modern Caucasus populations prompted us to revisit the Khazarian hypothesis and compare it with the Rhineland hypothesis. We applied a wide range of population genetic analyses to compare these two hypotheses. Our findings support the Khazarian hypothesis and portray the European Jewish genome as a mosaic of Near Eastern-Caucasus, European, and Semitic ancestries, thereby consolidating previous contradictory reports of Jewish ancestry. We further describe a major difference among Caucasus populations explained by the early presence of Judeans in the Southern and Central Caucasus. Our results have important implications for the demographic forces that shaped the genetic diversity in the Caucasus and for medical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the summary of a conference that focused on the significance of the Jewish genealogies that were found in German archives. It was held September 9, 2010 in Detmold, Germany. Topics under discussion at the conference included the importance of family and genealogy in Jewish culture, genealogy and literacy as a social custom in Jewish history, as well as the registration of Jews and dissidents in Westfalen-Lippe, Germany.

The author's aim is to offer a fresh genealogy of that enduringly controversial term, "Jewish self-hatred." In the first part of the article, the author seeks to show how a general rhetoric of Jewish self-hatred developed not so much as a means of diagnosing a psychological condition but more as in the context of new political needs or, more precisely, in the context of debates about Zionism in turn-of-the-century Germany and Austria. In the second part of the article, the author proceeds in a more microhistorical way, tracing the route the cultural Zionist Theodor Lessing took to popularizing the specific phrase "Jewish self-hatred." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article portrays the life of Ruth and Naomi and how it leads to the kingship of King David. Ruth, a Moabite widow, lives with her mother-in-law Ruth in Israel where he married Boaz and bore a child. The child became the grandfather of King David. However, there are unclear statements whether Ruth or Naomi is the ancestor of the king because of some interpretations in language used in the Bible. It is explained that Naomi nurtured the child like her own son.

The article examines the three theological and ethical questions on the personality of Aaron's grandson Phinehas which appeared during an assembly at the Tent of Meeting in Israel. The three questions include the function of God's punishment, the role of Moses as intermediary, and the question whether Phinehas is a hero or a vigilant. Based on the examination, it is concluded that one could not arrive at a consensus opinion whether Phinehas has a heroic and vigilant personality.

The article investigates whether it is possible to trace a Jewish origin of the appearance of Noah's apocryphal fourth son named Yōn…ōn in the Book of the Cave of Treasures. The setting in which a figure like Yōn…ōn could have evolved within a Jewish context was discussed. Internal evidence was produced, which renders the identification of Yōn…ōn is very probable.

This article highlights the World Summit for People with Family Names: Behar, Bejar, Vejar, Bejarano, Becherano in Bejar, Spain on September 6-9, 2004. This event was organized by Iako Behar, a Bulgarian Jew living in Mexico. Participants will be provided with a genealogy specialist talk about the roots of and links between their names.

This article offers a hauntology of Bentham's panopticon, reviewing its failure to create a perfect visibility and thereby creating ghosts. The visuality of ghosts is examined in a Jewish genealogy from Freud and Proust to Walter Benjamin and Anne Frank. The article concludes with a theoretical consideration of the 'working out' of visual culture as a non-linear but nonetheless historical process that attempts to work out the double-binds of globalization and digital culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflects on the identity of God and the genealogy of man in the context of the Torah. Concept of eternity and the generations of men; Time and identity; Analysis of the concept of the Torah.

Studies the Y-chromosome-specific haplotype diversity in Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews. Presence of all 16 European haplotypes in Jews with two of them widespread; Similar distributions in the two populations; More frequent occurrence of haplotypes XI and XV in Ashkenazim; More frequent occurrence of haplotypes IV and V in the Sephardim.

Presents a paper dealing with the family history of Ananiah son of Azariah, a Jew from Elephantine who lived during the rule of Darius. Description of the archive of Ananiah starting with the papyri followed by the contracts; Plans for the houses of Ananiah in the Jewish district of Elephantine; Presentation of documents describing the boundaries of Ananiah's house; Examination of the final document.

The article describes the attitude of Jews in Great Britain toward political and social change in Russia from the February Revolution of 1848 through the Bolshevik control of power to the end of the Civil War in March 1921. It also relates the waves of Jewish immigration to Great Britain from the Russian Empire and the special relationship of Jews in Great Britain with Russia, which is traced back to their close family ties. It also highlights the Jewish political community from 1917 to 1921 and their responses to the revolution.

Abstract The subject of why the Rabbis adopted a matrilineal principle is the subject of much debate; as yet no clear answer to this question has been put forward. Indeed [...]

The article discusses a study by geneticist Eran Elhaik on the genetic theory of the Jewish European ancestry based on the Khazarian Hypothesis, a theory on the origin of Ashkenazi Jews of Europe from Turkic refugees who converted to Judaism between the 7th and 9th centuries. Topics discussed include the aim of Elhail to study genetic disorder through his study, the Rhineland Hypothesis on the origin of Jews from Israelite-Canaanite tribes, and the heterogeneity of the Jewish communities.

Haplotype and allele frequencies of 12 X-STRs included in the Investigator Argus X-12 kit were studied for 313 individuals, representing five populations with known Jewish ancestry. The high efficiency in forensic parameters in all the populations studied demonstrates that this set of markers provides a powerful tool for solving complex kinship cases in Jewish populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an abstract of the study 'Y Chromosome Haplotypes Among Members of the Caucasus Jewish Communities,' by Dror Rosengarten.