Moses, Oy Moses, The Women Knew of Your Heritage

Nadene Goldfoot                                             

Jochabed placing Moses in the Nile River with help of his sister, Mirium 

                               

   

The Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile River with her handmaidens and they found a little cradle-like basket floating down the river and stuck in the bulrushes with a whimpering baby inside.  If the Princess didn't realize where this baby had come from, the handmaidens  knew.  They listened to gossip.  Mirium tells them of a wet-nurse she knows.
                                                                     
The report was already well-known to them.  All boy babies of the Hebrew slaves were being slain because their numbers had grown so fast.  The Egyptian government were suddenly afraid that these slaves might turn on them because of their vast numbers today, so the only way could think of slowing them down was to kill the boy babies. People responsible for this dastardly "Population Control" execution talked about it.  Facts were leaked.    Hebrew slaves were useful.  They would soon be building the Egyptian storage cities that would save Egyptian lives, but they already were close to reaching the  numbers of  a 600,000 population.  The Egyptian's population numbered anywhere from 2 to 4 million.
                                                                               

 

This little new-born boy had been born to the Hebrew slaves of Amram and Jochebed, his wife of the tribe of Levi.  His big sister, Miriam, was given the task of watching the basket from the lush growth along the Nile to see that he was kept safely hidden.  Today many Arabs have the name of Omran, so much like Amram.  Moses meant-to be drawn out of water.  Though all new-born look so much alike, his skin coloring may have been a little different from the surrounding population.  That could have been a give-away.   It was one thing to hear the decree and have no feeling about it and another to be so close to one of the new-born scheduled to be slaughtered.  They could not stomach the idea of this baby being ripped apart with the sword.

The Princess and her ladies could not resist the tiny new-born.  They decided that the Princess must save his life.  They conspired, and pretended that the Princess had given birth to him.  He was her baby.  They were told by Miriam, hiding nearby, that she knew of a wet nurse that could feed him.  Of course they all put two and two together and realized that the real mother would be the wet-nurse.

The Bible tells how the Israelites are enslaved in Egypt and eventually escape under the leadership of Moses. At least one pharaoh is involved, the "pharaoh of the oppression" who enslaves the Israelites, and the "pharaoh of the exodus" during whose rule the Israelites escape. The biblical story does not name or give enough information to identify the period in which the events are set. These are some candidates put forward for the role of Pharaoh of the Exodus:
                                                                       

The Pharaoh could have been Thutmose II b: 1493 to 1479 BCE.  He died childless, some thought.   

•  Alfred Edersheim proposes in his "Old Testament Bible History" that:
•  Thutmose II is best qualified to be the pharaoh of Exodus based on the fact that he had a brief, prosperous reign and then a sudden collapse with no son to succeed him. His widow Hatshepsut then became first Regent (for Thutmose III) then Pharaoh in her own right. Edersheim states that Thutmose II is the only Pharaoh's mummy to display cysts, possible evidence of plagues which spread through the Egyptian and Hittite Empires at that time.^{[citation needed]}
• Amenhotep II (1425–1400 BC). Shea suggested that there were 2 Amenhotep II's. The first one died in the Sea of reeds, after which his brother took the same title.
• Akhenaten (1353–1349 BC). Sigmund Freud in his book Moses and Monotheism argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten's death.  Nothing leads to such a conclusion in our Tanakh.  This is supposition.  Our story in our bible says clearly that he reacted when seeing an Israelite being beaten to death by his overseer and was intercepted by Moses, young and strong enough to do so in his anger and he accidentally misjudged his own strength, and killed the overseer.  Knowing that this was punishable by death, he fled and ran to Midian.                                                 
  
• Ahmose I (1550–1525 BC): Most ancient writers considered Ahmose I to be the pharaoh of the Exodus

"Ahmose I married his sister, Ahmose Nefertari (the daughter of Ahhotep I and Seqenenre Taa II), and the couple were blessed with a number of children. Two of their sons died at a young age (Sapair and Saamen), but the third went on to become Amenhotep I. As well as honouring his mother, the king respected his powerful sister-wife. She already held the title, "Second Prophet of Amun", an exceptional rank for a woman, and he gave her the title "God's Wife of Amun". This begun the convention of naming the chief wife of the pharaoh by this title. 

Our princess in the Exodus story would have been the daughter of Ahmose, if he were the correct Pharaoh.  I have found Moses' birth to have taken place in 1391, however.  Our Jewish and Christian timetables are not in agreement in this case.  The Exodus is said to have happened in 1579 BC, figured by a Christian timetable.   

•  
• The point is, that a princess would have been married to a Pharaoh, and they might have been siblings as this was the usual pairing to keep control of power.  They saw no problem with it.  This could have been the case.  They may have lived in separate quarters, and she could have been through a 9 month period of time not seeing her husband-brother in order to pull such a stunt off that the baby was hers.  Her ladies in waiting would have sworn to it.  They all looked forward to the baby being in their life.  
•  
•   "Oh, did I forget to tell you?  I've must have been pregnant for I just gave birth to this boy!"  I had wondered why I felt a little out of sorts!   
•                                                          
  
•                                            "  Time of New Kingdom
• 1570 B.C - 1070 B.C
  "Dynasties Eighteen to Twenty
  
  The New Kingdom was arguably the height of Egyptian civilization. Dynasty Eighteen ruled from Thebes and included notable Pharaohs such as Hatshepsut (the most famous female ruler), Tuthmosis III (often called the Napoleon of Egypt) and Akhenaten, the "heretic" Pharaoh who introduced a form of monotheistic religion based on the Aten (the sun disc). Following the disruption caused by the Atenist heresy a new Dynasty was founded by a soldier and vizier Ramesses I. His successors Seti I and Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great) left their mark on the ancient world both in terms of their military campaigns and their building works. The kings of the Twentieth Dynasty took the name Ramesses to connect them with their illustrious predecessors, but they did not live up to the name. This was partly due to a mass displacement of people around the Mediterranean (caused by the Trojan War and the fall of the Mycenaean culture) and a series of poor harvests causing widespread famine. A confederation of races known as the "Sea Peoples" destroyed Egypt's historical enemy, the Hittites, and threatened Egypt's borders. By the end of the dynasty, Egypt was torn by civil war and the treasury was empty."

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaohs_in_the_Bible
http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/ahmoseI.html
http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/kingslist.html
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/2275/what-was-the-estimated-population-living-in-egypt-around-1446-bc

Retelling the Planning of the Exodus

Escaping the Egyptian soldiers with a miracle happening, the parting of the sea
Led by Moses, Egyptian slaves were freed after 400 years of slavery
only to be chased for their leaving-with their permission.  This was the beginning of
such experiences of a government not keeping their promise to this people,
yet they will survive.  Am Yisrael Chai! 
We remember these days with our holidays of Passover and Sukkot  

Nadene Goldfoot                                         

Planning the what would turn out to be a 40 year Exodus for people who had been held as slaves for the past 400 years was a monumental task, fit for a Prince of Egypt, even though he was now past 80 years old.
                                                                               

Moses, a Levite,  had time to think about how he would do such a thing on his own journey when he left his wife, children and grandchildren in Midian to travel back to where he had been born; Egypt.  He knew he would have to win a debate first with today's Pharaoh, a boy he grew up with, he figured.  Then the Exodus itself.  How would he survive at his age without the comforts of home?  His own kin would not mind being they had known nothing but slavery and hardship in their whole lives, but he had been raised by the Pharaoh's daugher and was educated along with the Pharaoh's own grandchildren.  He had had the comforts of living in the princess's own household.  He had lived comfortably in Midian with Jethro, the local priest, and his daughter, Zipporah, as his wife.
                                                                         

This is the time for us to reflect what it would have been like for our ancestors back 4,000 years ago to go on such a journey and relive in role-play during Passover slightly the lives of our ancestors who took us out of any possibility of us growing up in slavery and not as free men in our own country.  It's come about slowly for us.  Not until the end of WWI  in 1917 did most European Jews feel freed  from the tyranny of Europe towards the Jewish people.

Ah yes, the Jewish people.  We've been a people without  a country ever since 70 CE when the Romans burned down our 2nd Temple, Solomon having built the first that was so damaged by Nebuadnezzar, the Babylonian in 586 ///BCE, in Jerusalem.  We had started off as a family of 70 and our servants in the town of Ur, now found in Iraq, and we were very fertile.  We grew and grew and were added to by other slaves held in Egypt that worked with us.  Moses made us a people which we happily agreed with.
                                                                           

Moses helped us to become a people with a religion, a way of life in that we would be treating people the way we would like to be treated.  We would never do to them what we didn't want done to us again, like make people into slaves, or kill at will as we lived under such stress.  There was but one G-d; not a world of them in Mt. Olympus as the Greeks and Romans believed; but one unseen G-d who told Moses how to get us from point A in Egypt to point B back to the home of our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  How we have remembered these people, our dream held long dear with stories from our parents handed down to us.

Moses had used all the convincing techniques he had up his sleeves to get the Pharaoh to allow this people to exit out of Egypt.  400 years was enough.  Times had changed.  This Pharaoh was in agreement.  He remembered Moses.
                                                                         

Today's journey between Egypt and Jordan

Imagine the rush that occurred with these slaves having been told by Moses that they would have to leave in a few hours after being given the signal that it was a GO.  The rush to collect all they could from people around them that would help on their journey.  Women who knew they had no time, mixed flour and water together and spread it out on rocks to dry in the sun for food to carry on the journey; something we imitate with our matzos.  Believe me, it was much harder to chew than Manischewitz matzos.   Animals rounded up to take on the journey.  400 years of work without pay, and these people knew this, so felt they had something coming to them.  They had no idea that they would be on the march for 40 years.
                                                                         

Retelling the Exodus story with song; as told in our Tanakh
You will bring them and implant them on the mount of Your heritage,
the foundation of Your dwelling-place that You, Hashem, have made-
the Sanctuary, my Lord, that Your hands established.  

And so we continue to retell this story every year since it occurred.
It was that life-changing an episode. 

I can't imagine how they ever lived through slavery for that long a period of time.  Sleeping without a Seely mattress, how could they have managed that?
                                                                             

A Sukkah, built as it was 3500 years ago.  

Our American Colonialists and Pioneers had made something soft to sleep on.  Even English people in the 1200s would have had some sort of hay or straw bedding.  My grandmother in Portland had a feather pillow; maybe they had feather mattresses.   What did slaves have but hard cold floors?  How could they have slept outside?  How did they waken without coffee?  Today we can't even get started without it.
                                                                         

We know that they had built 3 sided-type tents, Sukkot,  on their trip over the sandy desert for protection when sleeping using some sticks and then blankets for the sides.  We copy this also in our following holiday of Sukkot and people in Israel do eat and sleep in them for the length of our holiday of remembrance.  Sukkot comes after Passover.  This is when we speak and remember the awesome event experienced by the children of Israel (Jacob) which is what we called ourselves, 7 weeks after their exodus from Egypt when they camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula.                                                             

 It was then that the Revelation was revealed to the people, Israel.  It's when Moses came down the mountain with the 10 commandments given to him by G-d.  These very same commandments were to become the moral  bedrock for much of Western civilization.
                                                                               

The distance from Egypt to Canaan is not that far.  Today you can travel it in 10 hours on route 90 by car.  It's 751.5 km or 466.96045 miles.  I can travel 400 miles from Portland, Oregon to Ontario, Oregon across the state in 6 to 7 hours easily.   In 1579 BCE, about 3,500 years ago it took Moses 40 years to move 600,000 people that far.  As it was done on purpose, we have to understand that this gave the people time to produce two more generations that were not slaves and did not have the slave mentality, but had turned into a solid people, and were producing strength of mind and body.  By the time they arrived in that 40 year epoch, they were not the same people that had left.  They, of course, had mostly died off, and this was a new breed of people, so anxious to end their migration.  They had been exposed to much in their travels of other people and ways of living so they could compare what they had accepted with what they had seen.  They had something now they had lost;strong  faith in their one G-d, a belief that Abraham had taught his children.

Moses survived the 40 year trek but died just outside of Canaan, so he never saw the land of his fathers.  He died in an unknown spot so as not to ever to be worshipped-(G-d forbid) as a god.  He was a man who listened to his moral compass; his G-d.

The end of our role play to remember those days is done in a Sukkah below is a large community-sized sukkah which perhaps a synagogue has built it for its congregants to perform the mitzvah of eating in one as our forefathers did.  Woven mats carried could be the answer for clean flooring, and sleeping.  I'm sure our forefathers didn't have tables or chairs but sat on cushions on the mats.  I hope cushions were invented there by then.
                                                                                   

Resource: Tanakh (Old Testament)
To Be a Jew-by Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin

Why I'm So Happy About John Bolton As Our National Security Advisor

Nadene Goldfoot

                                                                             

John Bolton was our : United States Ambassador to the United Nations in 2005 and 2006. an appointment by George Bush.  "President Donald Trump announced his appointment as National Security Advisor, to take office on April 9, 2018."

As Ambassador, he defended Israel.  He wasn't shy about it.  He defended Strongly.  
That's more than many presidents have done. 

 We had a defender in John Bolton.  He didn't buy into the Palestinian claims of land
 ownership in Israel.

  "In June 2011, Bolton dismissed Palestinian claims to statehood as a "ploy."  Why?  He was up on his history as well as the activities of people in the area.  Bolton stated in June 2004 congressional testimony that Iran was lying about enriched uranium contamination:  He understood the aims of the Iranian government to snuff out Israel.  

Bolton Is Gary Cooper in High Noon for Israel, Dr. Strangelove in Apocalypse Now for Everyone Else-in the UN click. 

"The removal of H.R. McMaster and appointment of John Bolton as United States President Donald Trump’s national security adviser was met with joy in Jerusalem, with dread in other capitals." Israel hopes Bolton will help defend them against Iran. 
Bolton is known as a tough guy.  He's another who doesn't mince words.  He's direct.  That's us.  That's America.  We've admired straight shooters.   

John seems to me to be his own man, which is rare these days.  He's not part of a cabal.  He'll do as he sees is right for his country.  What's important is that he's not part of the former Sec of State John Kerry before Clinton or or during her reign.  It was Kerry who fawned over the Iranians and got us the nuclear deal with them in the first place, and Obama and Clinton either followed suit or directed it.  Now Trump and Bolton will have to halt this mess.  

One thing, Bolton will work well with Trump. As was said in 2017, "
'After Obama, Netanyahu finally has a real friend in the White House,' says former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton." 
Eliran Baruch, 12/4/2017 Information Security engineer

Today we couldn't be luckier with the President Trump appointment of Ambassador Nikki R. Haley. 

  She's Bolton's equal and even more if that's possible.  She's not shy about speaking 

the truth to the UN in her defense of Israel. Perhaps she was even an admirer of Bolton.  Why are these two people defending Israel?  

It's because they see the truth and it doesn't interfere with any pre-conceived plans of theirs

like other people have had.  Every time Nikki has spoken about Israel  I have had reason to cheer.  She had been the Governor of North Carolina and knows how to be emphatic about righteous causes such as Israel.  Young as well as beautiful, she reminds me of Queen Esther speaking up for her people, only she isn't Jewish, which makes us even luckier, for no one can say that she's self-indulgent over her own.  She just sees our Israel's position clearly.  .  

Pete Hegseth on Fox News " also noted that "it's an ongoing reality that from Baghdad to Damascus, to that entire region, Iran seeks the destruction of the State of Israel. It's 'Death to America, death to Israel -' we're in this together. And it's happening right now under our noses. Some of the people that we have supported in that region have tacitly allowed Iran to expand its influence even more - which is a huge problem. It's ongoing - every day, [Israel's] existence has to be fought for, and this is an important step to show that we really do care."

Those that scream about Bolton being appointed are people who don't give a nickel for the life of Israel or its people.  That's how I see it.  The #1 problem Israel and the USA are facing is the action that can come from the Ayatollas of Iran who bubble and boil in their hatred against the West and Jews.  Our previous government put us both in the direct path of destruction. Now these tough guys, Trump and Bolton, must face them as brave Americans would and should.  They stand shoulder to shoulder with Israelis.  May G-d be with them both.  High Noon.  Yes, indeed.  

Resource: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-bolton-appointment-raises-israeli-hopes-that-trump-will-nix-iran-deal-1.5938180
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-bolton-is-gary-cooper-for-israel-dr-strangelove-for-everyone-else-1.5937518
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/238881
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/03/terrorists-america-has-deleted-from.html 
John Bolton mentioned here.  

Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrachi Jews: How Jews Became Divided After 70 CE

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                     
Way back in King Solomon's day (961 BCE-920 BCE) , we find that he ruled over all the kingdoms of his day; from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, and onto the border of Egypt.  People from far lands brought him many tributes and served Solomon all the days of his life.  He ruled over other kings of the lands, even from Tiphsah to Gaza, and he was at peace with all of them.  The land of Israel including the tribe of Judah lived with security.  The saying was that each man lived under his grapevine and under his fig tree from Dan to Beer-Sheba.
                                                                       

One reason, other than marrying a daughter of each king, was that Solomon believed in trading, and had a fleet of ships.  He was good friends with the king of Tyre, Hiram, and Hiram had been a friend of his father, King David.  Tyre was the main seaport of the Phoenicians at that time.  Solomon had other trading alliances with the cities of Chittim, Ophir and Tarshish.  Solomon was a ruler of international reputation.
                                                                       

Therefore, Israel had a large naval force used for trading.  He also used his ability to travel for diplomatic purposes, as he was a shrewd diplomat and had alliances to the kingdoms of Sheba, Egypt and Phoenicia.  They all had seafaring capabilities at this time.  The Queen of Sheba was credited with having over 400 ships that she used for trading with other countries.
                                                                                 

The 6th century BCE was the period of Obadiah, a minor prophet.  He was saying what would happen to the 12 Tribes of Jacob one day:  The exiled of Jerusalem which is in Sepharad will inherit the cities of the South.  Sepharad must have been Spain, as that name is what the Jews of Spain took for themselves; the Sephardim.  The place-name is only mentioned this one time in Obadiah.  Jews had settled here from the destruction of Solomon's 1st Temple.  "It is certain that they were to be found in the 1st century CE and were specifically mentioned in the canons of the Catholic Church Council at Elvira in the year 312.  Tombstones of Jews from the Classical period have been found.  . 
Spain was  called Iberia, then later called Hispania.  From that comes Spain.  Obadiah may have called it Sepharad but we're not sure.
                                                                         

One theory was that Sepharad was an Asiatic  region north of Israel to which exiles from Jerusalem were deported when the 1st Temple of Solomon was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. Tyre would have been north.  I believe they meant the land now called Spain. 

"When did the Jews first arrive in Spain? There are hints from the Bible that the lands of the western Mediterranean were well known to the Israelites. Around 970 BCE Solomon formed an alliance with Hiram of Tyre, the king of the Phoenicians, providing Hiram with sailors who had a knowledge of the sea equivalent to that of the Phoenician sailors. The territories of the Israelite tribes of Asher, Zebulon, and Dan were part of Phoenicia and some early Spanish Jewish documents actually refer to those tribes as having descendants living in Iberia. The Bible implies that expeditions to Spain were routine as early as the tenth century BCE."

The Jews actually started colonies in Spain.  So when the Romans occupied Jerusalem and then finally destroyed the 2nd Temple and city itself in 70 CE, people were forced to leave.  Some were taken as prisoners to Rome which later led them to go to Germany.  These would become the Ashkenazim.   Others followed their more seafaring leaders to their well known route leading to Spain where the Sephardim were born.  Those that were able to stay in the area are called the Mizrahim (East).  Israel and Judah always had Jews living there that never left and their descendants remained as well.  
                                                         

Typical Ashkenazim IDF soldiers:  'European' ancestry in the Ashkenazi Jews is predominitely South European.

          Ashkenazim or German and Hebrew (Yiddish);   Sephardim or Spanish and Hebrew (Ladino)  and Mizrahim (East in Hebrew)  or Arabic and Hebrew.                
                                                                

Image: Four women complete the Sargeant-First-Class Course for the IDF Infantry Corps in 2007. We can’t tell whether they are Ashkenazi, Sephardic, or Mizrahi Jews by looking at them, but all are Jewish. Photo by the IDF

"Studies of autosomal DNA, such as familyfinder from FTDNA, which look at the entire DNA mixture, show that Jewish populations have tended to form relatively closely related groups in independent communities with most in a community sharing significant ancestry.    For populations of the Jewish diaspora, the genetic composition of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jewish populations show significant amounts of shared Middle Eastern ancestry.    According to Behar and colleagues (2010), this is "consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelites of the Levant" and "the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World."

"Recent studies have been conducted on a large number of genes homologous chromosomes or autosomes (all chromosomes except chromosomes X and Y). A 2009 study was able to genetically identify individuals with full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.   In August 2012, Dr. Harry Ostrer in his book Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, summarized his and other work in genetics of the last 20 years, and concluded that all major Jewish groups share a common Middle Eastern origin."

Resource: http://kehillatisrael.net/docs/learning/sephardim.html
 http://www.artsales.com/ARTistory/Ancient_Ships/11_solomons_navy.html
Bible:  Kings: Chapter 5
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews
* https://www.timesofisrael.com/archaeologists-reveal-first-solomons-temple-era-artifacts-ever-found-on-temple-mount/

The Plight of the Kurds and Israel's Relationship

Nadene Goldfoot                                     

     
The Kurds are people who have the closest DNA to Jews.  We both go back to the time of the scribe, Ezra, when Jews were settlers in what would later be called, Kurdistan.  Remember that it was the Babylonians who captured the Judean Jews in 597-586 BCE and Nebuchadnezzar took them to Babylonia which came under Persian rule by Ezra's day.  

"The Battle of Chaldiran of 1514 is an important turning point in Kurdish history, marking the alliance of Kurds with the Ottomans."
" The Sharafnameh of 1597 is the first account of Kurdish history.  Kurdish history in the 20th century is marked by a rising sense of Kurdish nationhood focused on the goal of an independent Kurdistan as scheduled by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920."                                                                             

Kurdistan was a mountainous region now divided since the 1920s between Turkey or the Ottoman Empire into Iran and Iraq as well as the country of Turkey.
                                                                               

 
 Ezra existed in the 5th Century BCE.  Ezra had been a scribe in the Persian (Iran) government.  In 458 BCE, it was he who was given permission by Artaxerxes I of Persia to return to Jerusalem with 1,754 returning Jewish exiles from Babylonia.  There, they rebuilt their destroyed Temple with the Persian government blessings. " Even after the 2nd Temple was rebuilt in 349 BCE, the level of holiness of the 1st Temple era did not return."   This is all documented in his book, The Book of Ezra, by Ezra himself, in the TANACH, or Old Testament.  In the Tanach, it is in the end of the book, just before chronicles and is titled, Ezra-Nehemiah.                                                                           

So we Jews lived in the same lands that Kurds have been living in.  Our DNA has been studied as well. "Genetic analysis has shown that the Kurdish people are closely related to the Azeri, Armenian, Georgian, and Jewish peoples, descending from some common ancestors in the northern Near East region.

Some of the studies cited below have haplogroup frequencies for various populations of Kurds. We can add to that small-scale results from Family Tree DNA's "Kurdish DNA Project"; at present the following Y-DNA (paternal DNA) haplogroups were found among its grouped members: G2a, G2a3b1, I1, J1, R1a1a1, R1b1a2a1a1b4i, and one instance of Q1b1a.   My father's Jewish haplogroup is Q1b, now upgraded to be called QBZ67.  These are haplogroups passed on from father to son.

Women pass on their mtDNA to their daughters.  The  mtDNA haplogroup HV1b2 is found among a Yezidi Kurd as well as Ashkenazi Jews. The Ashkenazim are tested through Family Tree DNA's "HV1b - MtDNA Match Mates" project.

Language is an important marker as well.  "The Kurds speak an Iranian language. Their traditional homeland, known as Kurdistan, includes some regions in the present-day nations of Turkey (southeastern quadrant), Syria (northeastern corner), Iraq (northern areas), and Iran (western areas) and small numbers have lived in parts of Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

Kurds were promised an independent nation in 1920 by the Treaty of Sèvres but never got one. The Kurds' identity — even their use of the Kurdish language — was widely suppressed in Turkey and Syria. In Iraq beginning in the 1990s the Kurds managed to assert their political autonomy but they are still part of that country and since the fall of Saddam Hussein they've reintegrated into the countrywide Iraqi political system.
                                                                           

Kurdish Leaders meeting about Peshmerga forces winning against ISIS,
 on all fronts along a 1050-kilometer border, but they also stressed that the forces needed better arms and political support.

Peshmerga are the military forces of the federal region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Because the Iraqi Army is forbidden by Iraqi law from entering Iraqi Kurdistan, the peshmerga, along with their security subsidiaries, are responsible for the security of the regions in Iraqi Kurdistan.

February 22, 2015 - ISIS releases a video that appears to show at least 21 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in cages carried down Iraqi streets.

November 13, 2015 - After a two-day battle, the Peshmerga Iraqi Kurdish military force declares victory in liberating the Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIS. The battle was backed by the US coalition air power.

October 17, 2016 - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi makes a televised statement announcing the start of the mission to retake the key city of Mosul, the last remaining ISIS stronghold. He says a coalition of about 100,000 troops will play a role in the operation, though some will have a holding role behind the front lines or other support roles. The force includes about 54,000 members of the Iraqi Security Forces, 40,000 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, 14,000 members of paramilitary units - 9,000 Sunni fighters and 5,000 from other minorities including Christians, Turkmen and Yazidis - and approximately 500 US service members who will serve mainly in a logistical capacity. US military officials have estimated up to 5,000 ISIS fighters are in Mosul, but the terror group's supporters say there are 7,000.

The Kurds have been living together with other Kurds in 4 different areas, in Eastern, Western, northern and Southern Kurdistan that lie in northern  Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.  It is the Northern sector who has been the most vocal in leading the drive toward independence.  They all feel they have been betrayed during the past 100 years by Baghdad.  Now, they were not thrown out of their own land, but lost their right to administer themselves as before and want and deserve independence.
They feel as the Americans had felt towards England who had to fight for their independence from her in 1776, yet the USA is not backing the Kurds in this endeavor.  However, Israel is.
                                                                             

Kurdish leader in exile, Dr. Jawad Mella surrounded by his bodyguards
born in Damascus, Syria 1946

Dr. Mella says, " I established Kurdistan National Congress in 1985. I wanted it to be an umbrella organisation to unite all Kurdish parties and to sit down to chart a united strategy for Kurdish problem and rights. We organised several meetings but we faced many difficulties because some parties would attend the meeting and other won’t. The next meetings it would vice versa. That’s why so far they have not been successful to unite all the parties. I will continue struggle to unite the Kurds on one table because the only way to gain freedom is the unity of the Kurds, without unity it impossible to have freedom."

Israel has been the Kurdish supporter since the 1960's in northern Iraq and supported their insurgency against Saddam Hussein.  They have been fighters against ISIS.  You'd think for this reason the USA would be also.  Instead, we have told the Kurds to just be patient.  Then they've been told to engage the Baghdadi leaders instead as they did to Kurdish Representative Tanya Gilly in 2006.   Last year as recent as September 14th, 2017, our US special presidential envoy for the global coalition to defeat ISIS told the KRG the same thing in their city of Erbil.  The USA remains their ally, but their dialogue is not always in good faith, I see.   "The USA diplomats in Baghdad also have been critical of demands for too much Kurdish autonomy as it seemed to go against their plans for rebuilding a "unified" Iraq."   I ask, "Why?"

Former President Ahmadinejad of Iran and his threats to bomb Israel with A bombs.
That's why they work so long and hard on their nuclear project.  

                                                                             

                   Kurdish leaders of Iran who are not for change                               
They dare not.  They're in Iran under the Ayatollahs.
Freedom of thought?  Not in Iran

 Iran's influence is growing steadily in Baghdad, and Iran has replaced Saddam's Iraq as the main opposition to an independent Kurdistan once again.  Of course not.  Once a country gets land, they don't intend to lose it.  Russia had  a terrible time after being the USSR.  We see them today trying to regain Ukraine again, which was part of the Pale of Settlement where Jews were allowed to live instead of being allowed into Russia proper.  Of course today there are no Jews in  Ukraine, having been all killed by either the Nazis or their Ukrainian helpers.  I have a feeling that these Kurdish leaders dare not disagree with Iran's  Ayatollahs or else!

Strangely or not, being under 4 dictatorships makes it very hard for the Kurds to unite since they are already on their own soil of Kurdistan.  One of the dangers they had already is behind them.  It was Saddam Hussein who had gassed them!  " The Halabja Massacre or Bloody Friday, was a massacre against the Kurdish people that took place on March 16, 1988, during the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War in the Kurdish city of Halabja in Southern Kurdistan. The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injured 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians.  That's how crazy Saddam was.   The Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as an act of genocide on March 1, 2010, a decision welcomed by the Kurdistan Regional Government. The attack was also condemned as a crime against humanity by the Parliament of Canada.
                                                                      

Kurdish relations with Israel is a close one.  Kurds held up Israeli flags at rallies in Europe and in Kurdish cities of Dohuk and Akre.  Turks were angry after a vote which resulted in pressure on Israel to tone down its public support.  Kurdistan is being painted for this as a 2nd Israel, which may actually be quite true, as they admire Israel.  Former PM of Kurdistan mentioned that he saw on September 17th in the Kurdish regions, SUVs with Israeli flags and many Kurds told him that Israel was the one country they could count on for support.  It is Netanyahu who supports and independent Kurdistan in Turkey while Erdogen supports Hamas.  Turkey has some great people.  I don't know how someone like Erdogen got in.  He's more Iranian-acting than Turkish.  He's all for the newer orthodox Islam of the Ayatollas; far more hateful than his own people.  It must be paying off for him.  

The Kurds, wherever they live; Iran, Iraq, Syria or Turkey, are great fighters and great friends of Israel.  They are our cousins.  

Update: 3/8/2018 11:27am  "Since USA's McMaster’s speech ijn mid-December, Erdo?an of Turkey has invaded Afrin, Syria (a city then controlled by America’s Kurdish allies), massacring women, children and the elderly; promoted the use of child soldiers in his fight against the Kurds; and undermined U.S. sanctions against Iran."

1:32pm:  "The Yazidis, or Yezidis (/jəˈziːdiːz/ ( listen) yə-ZEE-deez) (Kurmanji Kurdish: Êzidî, IPA: [eːzɪˈdiː]), are a Kurdish religious minority indigenous to a region of northern Mesopotamia (known natively as Ezidkhan) who are strictly endogamous.   Beginning in August 2014, the Yazidis were targeted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in its campaign to rid Iraq and its neighbouring countries of non-Islamic influences."

"The Kurds and Yazidis are not the same.  The Yazidis are a very small group who live in the north of Iraq.  The largest contingent of Kurds outside Turkey rule the northern third of Iraq, as a result of the US invasion and various other factions, post-Hussein.  (They were brutally repressed under Hussein.)"  I have not found any shared customs of Yazidis with Kurds or Jews.  The Yazidis are an ancient Persian people, and their religion is based on Zoroastrianism.

Resource:  http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/11/miracles-in-israel-4-return-of-lost.html
http://balochwarna.com/2014/12/05/exile-kurdish-leader-dissatisfied-with-wests-actions-against-isi/
Ezra-Book of Ezra
The Jerusalem Report, magazine,  October 18, 2017, p:  12-17.
Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.meri-k.org/iranian-roundtable/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/netanyahu-hits-back-at-erdogan-for-supporting-hamas-1.5451118
http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/kurds.html
https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/isis-fast-facts/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidis
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Yazidis-and-Kurds-Are-they-the-same