The Probable Y Haplotype of Moses-J1 and Why

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

Moses, born in 1391 BCE in Egypt to Amram and Jochebed,  was a descendant of Abraham according to the Biblical genealogy.   Abraham had come from the city  of Ur, which was close to the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia. Abraham was born in the 2nd millennium  about 1948 BCE.  His family line probably came from land even  further east, and they were shepherds.  That would have been an Indo-Iranian (Aryans) land.  They were the people of Ur of the Chaldees, and the Chaldees identifies them as a special tribe of people.   Abraham wanted it to be known that he wasn't a native Urian but from the Chaldees; thus Ur of the Chaldees.  They were obviously different and that may be one reason why he and his father Terah, decided to leave and head out for Egypt. 

 It's a great story of how Abram and Sarai wanted their children to be brought up their way; without many gods and their idols which is what people of Ur believed in.                                       

Look for the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers then see Kaldu (Abraham's tribe (most likely).  Ur is on the map at the bottom.  

Important Kaldu tribes and their regions in southeastern Babylonia were Bit-Yâkin (the original area the Chaldeans settled in on the Persian Gulf), Bet-Dakuri, Bet-Adini, Bet-Amukkani, and Bet-Shilani.

It's hard to say exactly what the Y haplogroup of Moses was, but it's a very important feature  because he did not leave any descendants.  His two sons, Gershon and Eliezer,  died accidently as teens when they were messing around with the Ark of the Covenant and not following the directions of Moses.  Their mother was Zipporah, daughter of Jethro, a priest in the land of Midian.  Moses was born during a time of Egypt killing all boy babies, and he had been born then, so his mother hid him and the Pharaoh's daughter found him and kept him as her son.  He was raised as an Egyptian Prince.  

This Egyptian Prince discovered his birthmother and that he had a brother, Aaron and sister, Mirium.  When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt on the Exodus, he made Aaron the high priest (Cohen) and all his male descendants as priests.  Aaron was from the tribe of Levi and that meant that all the males directly from Aaron were the priestly line who after these 3,000 years have been found to have the Y haplogroup of J1.  It is the most common Y haplogroup of the Jewish males of today.  They were Cohens and had a specific job in the synagogue and of course, before synagogues came into being out of necessity as the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed in 70 CE; burned down along with Jerusalem.  The Cohens, many of them escaped out of Jerusalem.  

Many of the men bearing J1 have the surname of Cohen.  The priests were called Cohens.  However, we find that many Cohens serving in the synagogues today have taken  different surnames.  From my father's side of the tree, the Goldfus/Goldfoot line, my brother matches 898 Cohens on FTDNA. Ian Goldfoot, 2nd-3rd cousin matched 1,421 Cohens;   from a 1st cousin's husband (AB) 1,262 Cohens, from distant cousin (SZ) 747 Cohens, from distant cousin (VS) 1,329 Cohens; from 1st cousin (AE) 804 Cohens,  from a cousin's cousin (HH) 1,167 Cohens.  

Here are the DNA reports on people who could have been the line of Abraham and therefore, Moses, for this is a father to son inheritance of DNA.  

Approximately 35% to 43% of Jewish men are in the paternal line known as haplogroup J and its sub-haplogroups. This haplogroup is particularly present in the Middle East and Southern Europe. 

15% to 30% are in haplogroup E1b1b, (or E-M35) and its sub-haplogroups which is common in the Middle East, North Africa, and Southern Europe. 

The Mediterranean haplogroup T1a1 is found in varying percentages depending on the Jewish group studied but with upward of 15 to 3% with the highest frequency within Jewish communities native to the Fertile Crescent and East Africa.

Y chromosome haplogroup J1-M267 evolved in the northern parts of West Asia around the LGM. A limited number of founders migrated south—to the Arabian Peninsula, the southern Levant, and southern Mesopotamia, where the J1a1a1-P58 branch evolved in the early Holocene. Haplogroup J1-M267 expanded during the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, coinciding with the spread of Afro-Asiatic languages combined with the diffusion of arid pastoralism in the desert regions of West Asia. The spread of Islam did not substantially affect the distribution of haplogroup J1-M267 in West Asia.  My cousin's cousin HH, had this Cohen gene which my 1st cousin shared as his mother was a cousin of HH.  HH and the mother shared a Rabbi as a grandparent.  This means that my 1st cousin had a great grandfather was a Rabbi and a Cohen (J1-M267).  

Human Y chromosome haplogroup J1-M267 is a common male lineage in West Asia. One high-frequency region—encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, southern Mesopotamia, and the southern Levant—resides ~ 2000 km away from the other one found in the Caucasus. The region between them, although has a lower frequency, nevertheless demonstrates high genetic diversity. Studies associate this haplogroup with the spread of farming from the Fertile Crescent to Europe, the spread of mobile pastoralism in the desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula, the history of the Jews, and the spread of Islam. Here, we study past human male demography in West Asia with 172 high-coverage whole Y chromosome sequences and 889 genotyped samples of haplogroup J1-M267. We show that this haplogroup evolved ~ 20,000 years ago somewhere in northwestern Iran, the Caucasus, the Armenian Highland, and northern Mesopotamia. The major branch—J1a1a1-P58—evolved during the early Holocene ~ 9500 years ago somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and southern Mesopotamia. Haplogroup J1-M267 expanded during the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Most probably, the spread of Afro-Asiatic languages, the spread of mobile pastoralism in the arid zones, or both of these events together explain the distribution of haplogroup J1-M267 we see today in the southern regions of West Asia.Go to:

After the major exodus from Africa, anatomically modern humans started their journey of colonizing Eurasia from West Asia1,2. Later this region harbored initial developments of other breakthroughs of the human past. The Neolithic demographic transition3, the origin of the first city-states and civilizations4, writing5, the use of metal-making6, and the emergence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam7 are the most prominent ones.

Y chromosome haplogroup J-M304 represents the major male lineage in West Asia today8–12. The 12f2a13 deletion and single nucleotide polymorphic (SNP) biallelic markers M3049 and P20914 define and characterize this haplogroup. It splits off from haplogroup IJ-M429 at ~ 45 thousand years ago (kya), while the time to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of haplogroup J-M304 lineages is ~ 33 kya15,16. Studies associate haplogroup J-M304 with the spread of farming from the Near East to Europe11,17,18. Around the time of the Neolithic demographic transition3, the genome-wide ancestry of West Asian populations was geographically structured into three groups19–22. Among them, haplogroup J-M304 is found in the Caucasus/Iranian and Anatolian hunter-gatherers and farmers, but not in the Levantine ones. Unfortunately, so far aDNA studies are missing from the Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia, where haplogroup J-M304 is frequent nowadays. This haplogroup splits into J1-M267 and J2-M1729,11. While haplogroup J2-M172 is associated more with agriculture in the northern latitudes of West Asia, haplogroup J1-M267 has been connected with the spread of the pastoral economies in the West Asian arid zones23,24.This is just the first part of the report.  

FTDNA said that "If you do not have an oral tradition of being a Cohen or of being Jewish, then your Y chromosome is still part of Haplogroup J-M267 (J1). Your deepest ancestor was likely part of the Neolithic farming expansion that began about 9,500 years ago from the Fertile Crescent. 

Keep in mind that while the CMH was the most frequent haplotype found in Cohanim men, it was not the only haplotype. Therefore, if you have an oral tradition of being Cohanim, then you most likely are genetically a Cohen. If you do not have a tradition of being Cohanim and if your ancestors were Jewish, then you come from the same genetic Gene Pool. While not being directly from the line of Aaron, you could be descended from one of his numerous male relatives. Three percent of Jewish males who identify as Yisrael have the CMH.

E is also a very common Jewish Y haplogroup. In my family, we have E-L117 coming up for three of our relatives.   The E-Y6923 cluster follows the same pattern as many of the larger Ashkenazi Y-DNA clusters, with (1) a shared direct male ancestor dating back to about the second half of the first millenium CE, as evidenced by initial branching during that time frame; and (2) substantial branching within those subbranches.

Resource:

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

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7987999/

https://sites.google.com/view/ashkenazi-y-dna-and-mtdna/y-dna-haplogroups-of-ashkenazi-jews/haplogroup-e-y-dna-clusters-for-ashkenazi-jews

https://help.familytreedna.com/hc/en-us/articles/6202378100751-The-Cohen-Modal-Haplotype-Badge

Spread Throughout Middle East: Our Cohen Gene of J1

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

       Our races  have spread all over;  so we follow the Y haplotype today of DNA 

       Shabbat Shalom;  from Friday night at sundown till 3 stars in sky of Saturday night---PEACE.  

     IDF Israel Defense Force (young men from 17to 23) for 24 to 34 months) , you don't have to be a Cohen to carry the Cohen gene;  You are called on first to read from the Torah in the synagogue because your father told you that you were a Cohen-also a DNA test proves it..as what happened with my cousin Herb Hochfeld.  The Holocaust was the root of a lot of lost genealogy. 

The Cohen gene seems to be the gene of J1, found in a majority of male Jews of today with the discovery of DNA.  The Genealogy of this line is from Aaron, full brother of Moses.  Moses and Aaron's ancestors go back to their father, Amram, to Kohath, Levi (of the 12 sons forming the 12 tribes of Jacob), Jacob/Israel, Isaac, and Abraham.  Abraham's father was Terah, son of Nahor I, to Seroh-Serug; to Reu, Peleg,  Eber, Shelah, Arpachshad who was born 2 years after Noah's Flood;  Shem-of 3 sons of Noah, and Noah ! 

Moses had 2 sons who were accidently killed by disobeying Moses's direction of being safe while near the ark of the covenant. They were still in their early teens at the time; leaving no children.     

All these sons would have carried the same Y haplogroup of J1.

" Human Y chromosome haplogroup J1-M267 is a common male lineage in West Asia. Haplogroup J-M267, also commonly known as Haplogroup J1, is a subclade (branch) of Y-DNA haplogroup J-P209 along with its sibling clade haplogroup J-M172 ...

One high-frequency region—encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, southern Mesopotamia, and the southern Levant—resides ~ 2000 km away from the other one found in the Caucasus. The region between them, although has a lower frequency, nevertheless demonstrates high genetic diversity. Studies associate this haplogroup with the spread of farming from the Fertile Crescent to Europe, the spread of mobile pastoralism in the desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula, the history of the Jews, and the spread of Islam."

    Our 27,290 Israelites deported to Assyrian Empire by Sargon in 721 BCE.  

Jews, numbering 603,550 had left Egypt and had an exodus of 40 years to get to Canaan. They had lost some of their numbers at the end, numbering only 601,730-having lost 1,820.    They settled according to where Joshua told them was their land on a strip of land.  The 10 northern tribes;  Dan (64,400);  Asher (53,400);  Naphtali (45,400);  Zebulun (60,500);  Issachar ( 64,300);  Manasseh (52,700);  Ephraim (32,500); Gad (40,500); Reuben (43,730); and some of Benjamin (45,600), and some of Simeon (22,200) who stuck pretty close with Judah who had 73,730. 

    Judah, the tiny state,  became a vassal of Assyria the large     empire.  

Ahaz, king of Judah, son of Jotham ruled from 735 BCE to 720 BCE and they were attacked by the northern Kingdom of Israel and Syria at the time when the Edomites and Philistines were attacking his southern territory.  In desperation, he asked Assyria for assistance and they invaded Syria and Israel  even though the prophet Isaiah told him not to ask them.  This caused Judah to become a vassal of Assyria and were also subjected to Assyrian idolatry, which they were very much against.  Becoming a vassal has its problems, all right, owing a lot to the larger and stronger country.  

  Then Israelites were attacked by the Assyrian Empire in 721 BCE by Sargon who carried away 27,290 Ivrim (Hebrews-Israelites; ancient Jews) of the population, the best they saw.   They were taken to Assyria, but also to Media (sons of Japheth-son of Noah, ancestor of 14 peoples in Indo-European language group) , friends of Babylonians in 6th century  BCE)  and then replaced them; with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners. 

124 years later, Babylon, who had inherited all of Assyria's lands and their holdings, attacked Judah in 597 BCE and Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BCE) took away 8,000 Judeans/Jews of the local aristocracy to Babylon.    

As far as this record goes, this shows 35,290 Jews taken into exile as of 597 BCE which would be 2,620 years ago.  

They returned in 586 BCE  to attack again. It  was on  Tisha B'Av, July 587 or 586 BC, the Babylonians took Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple and burned down the city.  Jews finally returned in 538 BCE to rebuild the Temple and live in Jerusalem . Most returnees were too young to remember the city.   

Levites did not get any land dispersed by Joshua. Aaron was  from where Cohens come from.   They were to live among their brothers and teach Torah, etc.  Cohens are directly related to Aaron.  Levi had one daughter, Jochebed, mother of Moses.  

Gilead was not one of the 12 tribes.  It was in Transjordan, settled by the tribes of Reuben, Gad and 1/2 of Manasseh.  After 732 BCE attack, then 721 BCE and   the boundaries were not stable; but changed.  

This proves that Jews originally came from the Middle East. 

We are left with 14 million Jews in the world; 0.02% of world population.   

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, ASSYRIA, and  NEBUCHADNEZZAR

DNA and Haplogroup of Jewish People

Nadene Goldfoot                                               

The best thing I've done is take DNA testing seriously and get into my DNA and my haplogroup.  To understand oneself is to know who your parents are and all their ancestors, do a family tree, and then take some DNA tests.  So much of where our talents lie are inherited talents. With Jewish people, our history is found in the Bible/or Tanakh, as we call it in Hebrew.  The more you learn, the more you want to go deeper.  

Updated:Through testing, you'll find a lot of 4th and 5th cousins.  With 4th cousins, that's going back to your 64 4th great grandparents.  Going back to 5th cousins means going back to your 128 5th great grandparents.  The next level of 6th means that you have 256 ggrandparents and so on.  The pot our genes comes out of holds a lot of ancestors.  Luckily, our skills that we inherit usually come from our nearby ones, although there could be exceptions.  

We do have 99% of our DNA in common with all other homo sapiens.  It's that 1% that's exclusively ours that we can match with other people who share our ancestors.  That's the exciting part that turns us into detectives in finding these people.  

                                              

  I discovered through 23 & Me that my DNA contains 2% Neandertal.  I've read every one of Jean M. Auel's novels like the Clan of the Cave Bear, who include Neandertals in her stories of early Cave Man.                                        

A haplogroup is the branch on the tree of early human migrations and genetic evolution.  Haplogroups are defined by genetic mutations or "markers" found in Y chromosomes (the male line) and mtDNA testing (the female line).  These markers link the members of a haplgroup back to the markers first appearance in the group's most recent common ancestor.  Haplogroups of have a geographic relation. 

                                                

According to our story, Jacob's family tree went back into the beginnings of the bible.  He's the father of 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel.  According to my research, he was the son of Isaac and grandson of Abram/Abraham.  His haplogroup should be the same as his sons, and this should go on to be the same on down the generations.  I find that it should have been called what the scientists of today have called "THE COHEN GENE OF J1.  Since Jacob was a J1 or should have been, all 12 sons should have been the carrier of this as well, so that's how it works.  it only changes a little through a mutation and that takes a long time to happen.  So why aren't all Jewish men carrying J1?  What happened?              

What happens if a man does not produce sons to carry this on?  It stops.  Evidently this happened.  Jacob had 12 sons by 4 wives.  He also had a daughter.  Leah, his first wife, had 6 sons and the daughter.  Rachel had 2, Leahs handmaiden had 2, and Rachel's handmaiden had 2.                 

 At one point, a son did not produce a son, and only produced daughters.  Their husband would have taken over responsibilities including their male line, whatever it was.  People in those days were tribal.  They had gone from family groups to tribes, and then clans where they took in other tribal populations, though Jewish ones.  This is how a few other haplogroups developed amongst the 12 tribes and the Jewish people.                

The priests in the Temple were charged to be from the direct line of Aaron, older brother of Moses who was from the tribe of Levi.  Moses was born in 1391 BCE and died in 1271 BCE.  His male descendants told their sons orally that they were to carry on this position.  Today, the Cohens are the first to read from the Torah on a Shabbat (Saturday) morning in the synagogue.  My 5th cousin, Herb Hochfeld,  knew he was a Cohen and did this.  He DNA tested and this was verified.  He was a J1 or J-M267.  So it's not just all men with the surname of Cohen.  Others have picked up other surnames for different reasons.  But Herb's male line hadn't lost who they were and what was expected of them for these past 3,417 years.  I think that's pretty amazing!

This fact certainly could have been lost in Europe, though, with the 2nd World War interfering with our lives.  Men could be Cohens and not know it unless they have been DNA tested. 

We still find certain haplogroups are more common.  The J1 seems to have a big population.  Another very common one is E-L117.  My father's line is Q, and after testing 111 alleles, is now called QBZ67. There is a branch starting with G, and I, and R.  

Tree of life with branches of haplogroups

Women's haplogroup have different letters of the alphabet.  My paternal grandmother is a W. W (Wilma) is a small group that appears in the western Ural Mountains, the natural border between Europe and Asia and the eastern Baltic area, and is also found in India. This is what my Polish/Lithuania grandmother turned out to be. Not all W’s are Jewish, of course. It occurred first about 20,000-25,000 years ago in NE Europe or NW Asia. Her branch was one of the last discovered of any female haplogroup since Bryan Sykes wrote THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE and discovered the 7 major lines of females. W is like the 8th discovered and didn't make it into his book.   K is the most common Jewish female haplogroup that I've noticed.  He called K women, Katrine.  W has been called Wilma.  

Ashkenazi Jewish women were down to 4 basic women to carry the future population, the scientists tell us.  Evidently when they were found there were only 4 different haplogroups of these Jewish women who wound up in Germany after being taken to Rome after 70 CE.  I bet one was K.                                                           Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxemburg, Golda                                               Meir         

Hedy Lamarr Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, the only child of Gertrud "Trude" Kiesler (née Lichtwitz; 1894–1977) and Emil Kiesler (1880–1935). Her father was born to a Galician Jewish family in Lemberg (now Lviv in Ukraine) and was a bank director at the Creditanstalt-Bankverein. Trude, her mother, a pianist and Budapest native, had come from an upper-class Hungarian Jewish family. She had converted to Catholicism and was described as a "practicing Christian" who raised her daughter as a Christian, although Hedy was not formally baptized at the time.     

Gal Gadot of Israel playing Wonderwoman.  Gal Gadot-Varsano is an Israeli actress and model. At age 18, she was crowned Miss Israel 2004. She then served two years in the Israel Defense Forces as a soldier, whereafter she began studying at the IDC Herzliya college, while building her modeling and acting careers.      

One of our IDF female soldiers of Israel.  

                   

  J is also used for women, which is confusing. J:  7% of Jewish women are found to be J1, (Jasmine) which originated about 40,000-45,000 years ago in Near East or Caucasus/ central Asia and is associated with the spread of farming and herding in Europe during the Neolithic Period beginning 10,000 years ago. It’s common in the Middle East and among Jews. J2 is localized in the Mediterranean. J is 17% European originating in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago and is the 2nd largest haplogroup for women. Another J listed is 5% European originating in N. Spain about 17,000 years ago.  Bryan Syke's  book goes into where they first originated and gives us great detail about it.  

                               

Paul Newman's father was Jewish, mother wasn't but he saw himself as a Jew. His father was the son of Simon Newman and Hannah Cohn, Hungarian Jewish and Polish Jewish emigrants from Hungary and Vistula Land. Paul's mother was a practitioner of Christian Science. She was born to a Slovak Catholic family in Peticse (near Homonna) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

    That is the interesting part of knowing the haplogroup.  Scientists have found the place of origin for each branch.  For instance, our Q line was first discovered in Siberia, Mongolia and parts of Turkey.  Our branch somehow became a Jewish line, while others became the native Americans of North and South America. 

Jeff Goldblum found out about his roots with Henry Louis Gates. 

TV programs about genealogy and DNA are popular.  Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a documentary television series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. that premiered on March 25, 2012 on PBS. In each episode, celebrities are presented with a "book of life" that is compiled with information researched by professional genealogists that allows them to view their ancestral histories, learn about familial connections and discover secrets about their lineage.

Season Six was shown from October 2019 to October 2020 with two new episodes airing weekly in October 2019, eight episodes airing weekly in January and February 2020 and six episodes airing weekly in October and November 2020. All episodes air on Tuesdays.  There are many other interesting programs about finding one's ancestors.  

Be a detective and so some research about you and your family.  You will have a far better understanding and patience with yourself if you do, and you'll appreciate how you got here in the first place.  DNA is so fantastic as to how it all works.  It's one of those important wonders of the world.  

update: 12/17 21:  I just ran across this info and thought I'd share it as we Jews are an endogamous people.

Endogamy is the practice of marrying within the same ethnic, cultural, social, religious or tribal group. In endogamous populations everyone will descend from the same small gene pool. People will be related to each other in a recent genealogical timeframe on multiple ancestral pathways and the same ancestors will, therefore, appear in many different places on their pedigree chart. Endogamy can be the result of a conscious decision or cultural pressure to marry within the selected group but also occurs as a result of geographical isolation (for example, in island communities).

Examples of endogamous groups include Jews, Polynesians, Low German Mennonites, the Amish, Acadians or Cajuns (French settlers in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada), French Canadians, people from many Arab countries, people from Newfoundland and people from many islands. Endogamy is also a problem in early Colonial American populations.

The interpretation of DNA results from endogamous populations can be particularly challenging because such people will typically have large numbers of matches in the DNA databases.

The interpretation of autosomal DNA matches can be particularly difficult, especially in the case of endogamous populations where the pedigrees cannot be traced back beyond the 1800s. The relationships will often be more distant than predicted.

The Family Tree DNA Family Finder matching algorithms were modified with effect from 21st April 2011 to downweight matches between Jews in order to provide more accurate relationship predictions.[1] 23andMe make similar adjustments for customers with Ashkenazi ancestry.[2]

For people with Jewish ancestry it has been suggested that you need to have at least one long half-identical region of 23 cMs or more to have some hope of finding the relationship in genealogical time.[3]  (https://isogg.org/wiki/Endogamy)   Are they talking about a segment of 23cMs?  

Resource:

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

Deep Ancestry Genographic Project by Spencer Wells

THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE, by Bryan Sykes

DNA & Genealogy by Colleen Fitzpatrick & Andrew Yeiser

Jacob's legacy, A Genetic View of Jewish History by David B. Goldstein 

DNA TRADITION; The Genetic Link to the Ancient Hebrews, by Rabbi Yaakov Kleiman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Your_Roots

PROOF: Moses, Prince of Egypt, Son of Israelite Slaves: Finding Our Genealogy in the Y Haplogroup Line of J1 or J2.

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

 

 Jochebed saving her newborn son, Moses, by placing him in a basket to float down the Nile, out of harm's way.  With her is her daughter, Miriam.  Women who converted would be given the Hebrew name of Miriam.  

                                                                               

The Parents of Moses (1391-1271 BCE)  were Amram and Jochebed of the tribe of Levi, where the Jewish line of Cohens originated from.  Moses had been united with his older brother, Aaron, and had deemed him to be the priest of the new religion he was creating, later to be called Judaism.  From Aaron's descendants came the Cohens or Priestly line with special duties.  Aaron died on  Mt. Hor, on the bordeer of Edom, at the age of 123.  In rabbinic legend he is regarded as the personification of piety and the spirit of peace, but he was also showed with his faults as well.  He was persuaded to make the Golden Calf while Moses was on Mt. Sinai.  It shows the mentality of the people at that period.  Moses had a big undertaking ahead of him.  

Why should I believe in this tale of our history that comes from the 5 books of Moses, the Torah?  Most all the world doesn't give it much credence, including many some of today's Jews.  Many refer to it as a fairy tale set up to push the political beliefs of the Jews and their hold on the land once called Palestine.

I believe in this story and so do others.  I love it when DNA , a science of today that can find something like a tag each of us carries showing where we were made, proves the case of the Torah's authenticity.                                 

The connection between the Egyptians and Moses and the Israelite tribes shows much in DNA.  J1, which is the tag of a DNA test of Y haplogroups, is called the Cohen gene.  Actual men serving as the ancient Cohen in the synagogue, bear this DNA .  We had a Hochfeld cousin who was a Cohen in the synagogue, reading first from the Torah before the Levites who were 2nd, and then the Israelites.  DNA showed that he was also the bearer of the J1 Cohen gene, the Y haplogroup.  It's true.  This is not a matter of a fairy tale.  People of Moses's day knew nothing of DNA.  

Genetic studies among Cohanim from all over the world reveal the truth behind this oral tradition. About 50 percent of Cohanim in both Sephardic and Ashkenazic populations have an unusual set of genetic markers on their Y chromosome. What is equally striking is that this genetic signature of the Cohanim is rarely found outside of Jewish populations.

The Y chromosome also keeps track of time. Small mutations occur in the DNA being passed on, and these changes build up with each generation. Like the tick of a clock, the number of these mutations is a measure of time passed. By looking at the differences between Y chromosomes in the Cohanim, researchers can estimate roughly how many generations ago members of the priesthood had a common ancestor. Remarkably, the evidence suggests the Cohanim chromosomes coalesce at a date that corresponds with when the priesthood is thought to have begun.

What researchers may have found is a marker indicating paternal connection to the people from whom the ancient Hebrews emerged—potentially a powerful tool that enables us to look into the history of many Judaic populations.

J-M267 , the J1 Cohen marker of the Y haplogroup of my relative, Hochfeld, is very common throughout the Levant and Semitic dominations  by J-P58, but some specific sub-populations have notably low frequencies. Syrian Sunnis of Hama  have 47.2%.  The Ismaili group of Damascus, Syria, had 58.8%.  Palestinians had 32.7%, and they had many coming from all over the Middle East that called themselves Palestinians.  

Cohanim Jews had 46.0%.  Their test was run by Hammer and Behar in 2009.  Those tested were the remnant of Cohens left after the Holocaust, a group of 215 tested.  Think how many Cohens were slaughtered in the Holocaust, lost to us.  it shows that many of today's Jews have been of the Cohen line of Aaron.  

Jerusalem, Israel. A group of Cohanim (Members of Levi Tribe) and models of Herod's temple ritual tools during a simulation of the Passover sacrifice.

It happens that Jews are divided between the Cohens, the Levites, and the Israelites.  The Levites were a special group being Aaron and Moses were of this tribe.  Moses gave his closest relatives the greatest responsibilities to bear.  Scientifically, Cohens are the descendants  of Aaron specifically.  Levites are all the descendants of of Levi, and Israelites are all the other 11 tribes out of the 12 of Jacob.  They all 12 tribes would be 1st cousins with a lot of ? times removed from each other.  So, those Jews bearing J1 are from the tribe of Levi and specifically from Aaron, the brother of Moses.  They have the biggest job of all of the Jews and were never allocated land by Joshua after entering Canaan.  Big Job-no land means no pay in real- estate.  That's the way it was to be.  They were to be the teachers of their religion and go from tribe to tribe, teaching.  They would live with their cousins.  

One does have family membership in being Jewish with the occasional converted included, as long as they had a Jewish mother.  Even that is changing in this generation, for there are many Jews where only the father was Jewish and the mother did not convert.  However, many Romans had been converting into Judaism at the exasperation of Roman emperors who put a stop to that in the 300s CE (AD) in their meetings.  From thereon, Jews did not proselytize.  After Christians had used forced conversions on Jews, Jews realized it was one of those things they did not want to ever do to others; so it has been the practice that if any person asked to be converted to Judaism, they would be turned down 3 times, needing to consider the steps they are taking and then will be considered.  So the DNA of Jews has been that which scientists love to study.  

Going way back to the 12 sons, patriarchs of the 12 tribes, , Levi  was the 3rd son of Jacob and Leah.  Levi had one daughter, Jochebed, who was the mother of Moses, and 3 sons;  Gershom (Gershon)s, Kohath (whose son, Amram was the father of Moses) , and Merari.  Levi died in Egypt at the age of 137.  

Arabs also have many men that carry the J1  Y haplogroup, but theirs shows a slight difference, making the tag able to show of the male was of the Jewish or Arab line.  What that tells me is that there was this Y haplogroup connection between the Arabs and the Jews.  The fact that a son is a Cohen is related from father to son, so it's been an oral communication, and one that is visual as probably the son has been taken to the synagogue along with the father and has seen the process.  Today, since the Holocaust, is another story.  Some men have no idea what they are and can take a DNA test to find out.  

Going back to our Torah, Abraham and his niece, Sarah, who was his wife, had a son, Isaac.  Abraham also had another son,  Ishmael,  by Sarah's handmaid, Hagar, who was an Egyptian. Isaac was his 1st son.   The reason for this story was to stress the relationship between the Israelites and Ishmaelites and to account for the nomadic nature of the latter.  Who did the Ishmaelites become?  They were people who also divided into 12 tribes as told in Gen.25:12) who lived in Northern Arabia between Egypt and the Assyrian border.  The Bible refers several times to their trade with Egypt.  Traditionally, they are the Arab descendants of ISHMAEL and modern Arabs still claim this descent, so it's a part of the Arab history as well.  Jews have always said that the Arabs were their cousins.

                                                               

                                                       Esau and Jacob

Jacob himself was a twin, but we never hear much about his older brother, Esau. They were the sons of Isaac and Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel, an Aramean man, the youngest son of Nahor and Milcah, the nephew of Abraham, and the father of Laban and Rebecca.    

Jacob was the son of Isaac, son of Abraham, and Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees,  an ancient Babylonian  city.  Archaeologists have found evidence of a flood, an extensive one, at an earlier date.  Abraham, when younger and known as Abram, had migrated with his family to Haran, the site where Abram's brother had settled, named Haran, who was the father of Lot.  This nephew of Abram had traveled further with him.   Haran was a trading town in NW Mesopotamia.  Assyrian inscriptions from this period mentions a Habiru (Hebrew) community  in the vicinity which links with Moses's father, Terah, there.                                              

                                                           Esau and Jacob

                                                                     

By the late 12th century BCE, the Arameans were firmly established in Syria; however, they were conquered by the Middle Assyrian Empire, as had been the Amorites and Ahlamu before them.

So our Jewish patriarch, Jacob himself was half Aramean.  

Arameans were also a group of Semitic tribes who had invaded the Fertile Crescent in the 2nd half of the 2nd millennium BCE (when Abaham was born) and roamed between the Persian Gulf and the Amanus Mountains.  Aram and Israel had a common ancestry and the Israelite patriarch were of Aramaic origin and maintained ties of marriage with the tries of Aram.  Thus, they both carry J1 or J2 male (Y) haplogroup line.  How could false historian writers glean all this information way back and make up a story line so clever?  Truth is always stranger than fiction.  Some of that Y haplogroup must have a few Aramean genes.  

They must have been fraternal twins, for they were  not identical twins at all, being very different.  Jacob had to trick Esau in gaining the birthright of their father, Isaac, for the betterment of the future, he must have thought.  Nothing was held back as far as telling all of Jacob's faults, making the reader feeling quite sorry for Esau, the hunter in the family, while Jacob was the stay at home, cook for the family.  The story relates, showing that the twins have become enemies of each other.  Esau is later identified with the people, possibly descended from him, of Edom (Gen. 36:1).  In the Talmud, Esau was synonymous with villainy and violence.  Later, Esau in late Hebrew literature implies a coarse materialist.  

                                                                  

The Edomites were also called the people of Idumea, which lay south of the Dead Sea and bordered on the Red Sea at Elath and Ezion Geber.  They also were of Semitic origin, traditionally descendants of Esau, and lived by hunting.  They in turn had dispossessed the Horite inhabitants of Seir, the area of Mt. Seir, a mountainous and easily fortified area with fertile land. Then they copied their environment by organizing themselves along tribal lines headed by a chieftain called  the Allooph, later consolidating into a monarchy.  The Edomites, of course, were traditional enemies of the Israelites.  They fought Saul and were defeated by David who partly annexed their land.  The Edomites regained their independence during the reign of King Jehoram of Judah (854-844 BCE)  but wars between the two states were frequent.  

                                                                    

They later became vassals of Assyria.  At the time of the destruction of the 1st Temple, they plundered and looted in association with the Babylonians, and, being driven out from Seir by the Nabateans, occupied Southern Judah during or after the period of exile when Jews were forced by the Babylonians to walk to Babylon.  The Edomites were FINALLY conquered by John Hyrcanus who forcibly converted them to Judaism , and from then on they constituted a part of the Jewish people.  That means we might be carrying some of their genes, too.  

Resource;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J-M267******

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Edomites.html

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/familycohanim.html

https://aramean-dem.org/English/History/Evidences_of_our_Aramean_origin/Evidences_of_our_Aramean_origin.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arameans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4728368