Interesting DNA Findings of Jewish People

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

Prof. Karl Skorecki of the Technion, and  of Bar Ilan University in Haifa, Israel,  is best-known for his 1997 discovery of genetic evidence indicating that the majority of modern-day Jewish priests (Kohanim) are descendants of a single common male ancestor, consistent with the Biblical high priest, Aaron. He also led an international team of researchers who, in 2006, found that some 3.5 million or 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just four "founding mothers," who lived in Europe 1,000 years ago.

It is traditional for the headstone of a Cohen show evidence with the blessing that Cohens give, shown with the hands in position of giving a blessing.  

The Kohanim or Cohens of today are the largest group of DNA matches that I have, personally. So many Cohens are sharing some DNA with me.   I'm Jewish, but my father is of a different haplogroup, Q;  actually QBZ67, a line of Jewish Q's that are found in a deeper DNA test of alleles, called the Big Y Test done at FTDNA.  Many Cohens chose other surnames other than Cohen, so one never knows if they are a Cohen or not unless their family was unbroken enough to be able to pass this information onto the next generation orally, which is what men have done throughout time if they could do so. For instance, my 1st cousin's mother was a Cohen.  Her grandfather was a rabbi and a Cohen, with the surname of Hochfeld.              

Jews are a rarity.  We make up only 0.02% of the world population, and we come from a very ancient people.  From what I've learned, male Jews bear the Cohen gene of J,and other Jews' haplogroups are  E as in E-L117; R as in R-M269;and a few from G, I. Women might be of K.  My grandmother is a W.   Men need to take the Y haplogroup DNA test to discover what their haplogroup is to find out.  This is the exciting part of genealogy and DNA testing.   The interesting factor is that many male Arabs also bear a J haplogroup.  DNA can trace our lines to find what J belongs to each group.  This proves our story in the bible about our history with Ishmael and Isaac a story going back almost 4,000 years. J1c3d was of a male friend of mine.  

                                                 

The Cohens have certain responsibilities in the synagogue. They are the first to read from the Torah.  Levites are next.  They are both of the tribe of Levi, but the difference is that the Cohens were from Aaron directly.  Levites also have responsibilities and were not given any land by Joshua for their duty was to live with others and be the teachers.  They were given some compensation. 

 Shown here are 4 Jewish women:  Betty Midler, Gal Gadot-Wonderwoman, Hedy Lamar, and  Barbara Streisand.

Their ancestor could be one of the 4, who knows?                       

The 4 founding mothers of 1,0000 years ago were not Sarah, Leah, Rachel, and Rebecca as these 4 were born a good 3,000 years ago in the 2nd millennium.  Being common names of Jewish women, though, I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of them bore one of these names.  With all the bottlenecks that we have gone through, I'm not surprised that it was down to 4 women who are our wonderful great X 1,000 grandmothers.  Those 4 ladies must have had some marvelous tough genes to carry us onto this generation.

About Dr. Karl Skorecki

The only child of Holocaust survivors, Karl Skorecki was born and educated in Toronto, where he received his MD degree from the University of Toronto in 1977 with the Gold Medal for highest overall standing in all courses.  Between 1977-1984, he pursued postgraduate clinical and research training in internal medicine, nephrology, and molecular biology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

In 1984, Skorecki returned to the University of Toronto, serving as Director of Nephrology and professor of medicine, pediatrics, and clinical biochemistry.  In January 1991, on the eve of the First Gulf War, Skorecki came with his family to the Weizmann Institute of Science on sabbatical, after which came the decision to immigrate.

In 1995, Skorecki joined the staff of Rambam Health Care Campus (Rambam) and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s  (the Technion) Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine in Haifa.  Between the years 1995-2005, he served as Director of Rambam’s Nephrology Department.

Prof. Skorecki is currently Director of Medical and Research Development at Rambam and Director of the Rappaport Research Institute of the Technion.  He conducts research in human molecular genetics and stem cell biology.

Skorecki’s interest in population genetics began with a series of research studies tracing patrilineal genealogies in the Jewish priesthood and shared ancestries of Diaspora Jewish communities.

Using a similar approach, Skorecki’s other research findings have shown that the Druze population of northern Israel represents a contemporary snapshot of the diversity of Near Eastern populations in antiquity.  Combining population genetics and evolutionary medicine, his team also identified a genetic locus powerfully associated with common forms of kidney disease and hypertension affecting millions of people of African ancestry.  Skorecki’s work in stem cells has led to the development of a novel experimental platform for understanding cancer cell growth, paving the way for a new approach to personalized cancer care.

Prof. Skorecki and his wife, Linda, have five children and thirteen grandchildren, all of whom live in Israel.

                                                 

Another outstanding researcher is Prof. Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist  of Pathology and Genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Director of Genetic and Genomic Testing at Montefiore Medical Center. For 21 years he was Director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University School of Medicine. Ostrer graduated in 1972 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Physics, Course 8). As an undergraduate student, he worked in the laboratory of Salvador Luria, studying the effects of the bactericidal agent Colicin K. He received his M.D. degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1976. From his medical student days onward, Ostrer has studied the disease and population genetics of Jewish Diaspora groups. In a 2001 article in Nature Reviews Genetics, he noted the curious over-representation of lysosomal storage diseases, disorders of DNA repair, clotting disorders, and metabolic disorders, suggesting a possible commonality for selection of heterozygotes for each of these classes of disorders.

He also observed that founder mutations for many of these disorders coalesced to the establishment of each of these Diaspora groups, whereas mutations for others arose at earlier points in Jewish history.

A series of studies from the Jewish HapMap Project that he co-founded with Gil Atzmon demonstrated that many features of Jewish history could be observed in the genomes of contemporary Jewish Diaspora groups – a higher degree of DNA segmental sharing within and between Jewish groups and admixture with local historical non-Jewish groups.

In a group of papers about Abraham's Children in the Genome Era, the members of the Jewish HapMap team explained that these observations are compatible with large-scale proselytism around the Mediterranean Basin during Classical Antiquity followed by relative genetic isolation and endogamy during the subsequent 2000 years. In a forthcoming book, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, Ostrer has explored how these genetic observations might influence collective Jewish identity as well as be used to create a personalized genomics for Jewish people. 

What he is known for in population genetics is bringing together threads from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and India, this unique work situates Jews in the grander scheme of today's golden era of genetic analysis---all at a time when assimilation is literally changing the face of world Jewry.  Ostrer shows that Jews from different Diaspora groups are linked by the genetic threads that provide a biological basis for Jewishness.  He goes on to discuss whether certain traits alleged to be more prevalent among Jews---intelligence, mental illness---have a genetic basis. 

Karl Skorecki even wrote a very complimentary  assessment of Ostrer's book that I just read on the back of the jacket.   

Resource:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARt_4ojX7oU (Skoretski, population genetics, ) http://pard.technion.ac.il Prof. Karl Skorecki of Technion's Rappaport Faculty of Medicine discusses stem cell research, cancer cures and research in population genetics. Interview filmed in October 2010.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080508182219.htm

https://www.jfedstl.org/2013/05/02/dr-karl-skorecki-speaks-about-genetics-of-being-jewish/

https://goldfoot_genealogy.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-poland-lithuanian-commonwealth-and.html

https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-haplogroup-we-be.html

https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2018/09/what-haplogroup-do-pashtuns-be.html

https://goldfoot_genealogy.blogspot.com/2021/10/our-connection-to-hochfelds-line-of.html

Legacy, A Genetic History of the Jewish People by Harry Ostrer

FTDNA=Family Tree DNA, in Houston, Texas, online