The Cohens As Designated by Moses From His Brother, Aaron and Their DNA Origins (J)

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did what GOD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his servants, and it turned into a snake. Pharaoh's sorcerers did the same and had many snakes on the ground.   Then Moses's staff swallowed up all of the Egyptian snakes.   

Moses organized his people by designating his brother, Aaron, to take on the priestly duties of the Israelites while on the Exodus.  It was to be an inherited position, passed on to Aaron's sons.  The brothers had been separated since the birth of Moses .  He was not to know his birth mother or siblings, Aaron and Miriam.  They would meet when Moses returned to Egypt to free the Israelite slaves from bondage to the Pharaoh, who was unnamed.

Moses, placed in a basket set on the Nile in the hope of saving his life this way, watched over by big sister, Miriam. 

  Moses was born to the tribe (house) of Levi (the 3rd son of Jacob and Leah)  at a time that the pharaoh had ordered the death of all baby boys  out of fear of an assumed assassination on himself in the future.  According to the Book of Exodus, the Egyptians were concerned because the Israelite slaves had begun to outnumber them and might join with an enemy to defeat Egypt (Exodus 1:9–10). When all else failed, the pharaoh ordered all Israelite sons (not just the first-born) to be drowned at birth, thereby lowering the Israelite population.

Abraham, son of Terah and father of Isaac,  was the forefather of Moses and Aaron.  Isaac's sons were the twins, Esau and Jacob (so important in our history) and Jacob was the father of Levi, who was the father of the girl, Jochebed, who married Amram, the son of Kohath who was the grandson of Levi,  and then had the sons, Moses, Amram and  Miriam, a daughter.  Therefore, Moses' Y haplogroup (male line) was still the same as Abraham's Y haplogroup even though the line was broken by Jochebed.  She married into her father's line.  

Abraham had come from the city on or very near the Eurphrates River in the East, called Ur (of the Chaldees) or possibly even Ur of the Cassites, which was an ancient Babylonian city.  Modern excavations of this city show that it was a highly civilized society  in Abraham's time, though devoid as the Bible tells of modern-day morality.  They believed in human sacrifice, etc.  but technically were evolved.  This is one good reason why Abraham took his father, an idol maker, and family and left for the Wild West.  

Being Ur was a Babylonian city, Abraham then was a Babylonian.  Babylonia was known as Shinar or (of the Kasdim) (Chaldees).  

Shinar was formerly thought to be Sumer, but modern scholars identify it as a land called Shanhar mentioned in cuniform documents.  This was situated either in Northern Mesopotamia or in the plain of Babylon.  Rulers of Shinar included Nimrod (Gen. 10:10) and Amraphel (Gen 14:1-9).  Exiles from Judah were banished there after the destruction of the First Temple (Is 11:11).  

Ur was regarded in the Bible as the Cradle of Humanity and as the scene of man's 1st revolt against G-d, as in the Tower of Babel.  The flood is found in the Torah/Bible and in Babylonian literature found today.  

Abraham migrated to Canaan where he later fought Amraphel, king of Shinar (Gen 14). one of the 5 kings who united to attack the rulers of Sodom and were defeated by Abraham.   Babylon was known by the prophets to be a symbol of insolent pagan tyranny, and the symbolism was later adopted by writers of the New Testament Christians.

The Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar II (604-656 BCE)  inherited the Assyrian Empire.  He took Judah in a conquest in 597 and 586 BCE and then exiled many Jews to Babylon.  There now was a large Jewish population made by these and the previous conquest of the Assyrians.  

I can't say where the Assyrians and Babylonians came from since they are from the cradle of civilization, but we now understand that mankind came originally out of Africa and spread out over the lands.  Aaron was the patriarch of the priestly line, the Cohens who are now claimed to be J1s by science, either J1 or/and J2. Haplogroup J

YOUR HAPLOGROUP

The major branch—J1a1a1-  P58—evolved during the early Holocene ~ 9500 years ago somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and southern Mesopotamia.

Haplogroup J-M267 is found at its highest frequencies in the southern Middle East, west of the Zagros Mountains in Iran, to the Mediterranean Sea, and encompassing the entire Arabian Peninsula. The J-M267 marker has been carried by Middle Eastern traders into Europe, central Asia, India, and Pakistan. As with other populations with Mediterranean ancestry, this lineage is found at substantial frequencies within Jewish populations. The Cohen modal haplotype lineage, as well as the presumed lineage of the Prophet Mohammed, are found in Haplogroup J-M267. J1 is also one of the main Haplogroups found among Arab populations.

 Haplogroup J2 is thought to have appeared somewhere in the Middle East towards the end of the last glaciation, between 15,000 and 22,000 years ago. The oldest known J2a samples at present were identified in remains from the Hotu Cave in northern Iran, dating from 9100-8600 BCE (Lazaridis et al.                                                    

         Rabbi Chaim David Hochfeld, a true Cohen, died 1904 in Portland, Oregon

Tombstone of "Chaim David ben Simcha Rivka Hochfeld, Rabbi, born in 1829 in Belaya Tzerkaw, Ukraine, Bessarabia, Russia.  He died on April 5, 1904 in Portland, Oregon, when they made really big headstones.  (They had faith that people would still be able to read Hebrew !!)  Look at the great condition of this headstone.  They don't make them this great these days.  It's full of information, which is its intended use;  something to keep for our memory of this person.  I love it!!

 Notice the two hands at the top. That is a Cohen sign of giving a blessing to a person, congregation, etc.   Cohens should do this on their  tombstone.  It is the sign of a Cohen.  It turned out that Herb Hochfeld, knowing he was a Cohen and was a first reader from the Torah because of being a Cohen, , was from a line of rabbis.  His relative, Helen Hochfeld,  was the mother of my 1st cousin, Nathan Goldfoot.  Herb and I became good friends, both of us born in Portland, Oregon.  Now Cohens were from the tribe of Levi, being direct descendants of Aaron.  The 2nd readers of the Torah as the other Levites who were not direct descendants.  Lastly are the Israelites (all the other Jews in the synagogue) who want to read aloud to the congregation.  All boys learn Hebrew through their Bar Mitzvah.  If for some reason they did not get bar-mitzvahed at age 13, it's never too late to learn Hebrew and have the experience.  

Cohens might be spelled as Cahan, Cohan, Kagan, Kahn, Kogen, Kohn, Kohen, Cohn, etc, or use other names such as Hochfeld.  A Cohen or Kohen Tzedek is a priest of rightousness, a righteoous priest, from gaonic times, used as a name, and was abbreviated to K.Tz, which as Katz became a surname in the modern period.

   I know of an Arab who is J1c3d, which is also found with Jewish Cohens.  His mother was a Pashtun., but he was born in Syria.  

Resource:

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/03/special-facts-about-cohens-or-high.html

Torah/Tanach, The Stone Edition

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%202&version=VOICE

https://www.familytreedna.com/my/y-dna-migration-map/

https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_J2_Y-DNA.shtml#:~:text=Famous%20J2%20individuals-,Origins,8600%20BCE%20(Lazaridis%20et%20al.

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