Lies About a Jewish Heritage

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

                                   Me, a Jew  holding dual citizenship since I made aliyah in 1980, when I was in the States getting ready for Yom Kippur which is why I'm wearing white.  I'm a conservative Jew, taught in Sunday school from age 15 on; for a few years till college, and am a proud Jew who now writes about our amazing history;  a blogger.  I'm 88 now, and more than ever involved with out history and religion.  I'm like others, expecting the best out of our people to carry on our historic truths.  Talk about having Pride Parades, we need one just to feel proud of our heritage !  

George Santos has just come up with the lie of having Jewish grandparents and it's turned into an outrageous lie.  He's a public servant, so this was a lie to many.  He claimed they were Holocaust survivors, trying to gain sympathy from his voters for that bit of news.  A Santos in Ukraine, yet, was his claim.  I don't think he even knows that Santos is a Sephardic possibility, not an Ashkenazi one, and it was Ashkenazis in Ukraine, with Sephardics being most rare there.  

It he were intelligent, he would already have had a DNA test to find his roots.  I hope his voters, if anyone remains to be one, insists on his testing himself, and let the results come to someone else for verification of the truth.  I wouldn't trust him.  He's now saying his surname is Zabrovsky (sounds Ashkenazi).  Who knows?  DNA results can't hurt.  May I suggest FTDNA ?  That's my testing choice. 

In countries outside of Israel,  there are people with a Jewish heritage who refuse to admit it.  They are no longer practicing their ancestor's faith and want to be known as either Christians,  or today, even Moslems.  They deny profusely if told they have a Jewish heritage.  To them, it is embarrassing, and a hateful accusation.   

Many of us are proud Jews and are not afraid of letting people know;   some even going to the point of wearing Star of David necklaces in public without even knowing much about their own religion other than they were not Christians.  

The last thing imaginable is to find someone declaring in public to be Jewish and lie about it, using it as a positive statement about himself.  Of course, this has happened with a consummate liar bragging about himself!  This is not a person that Jews can be proud of.  Lying about every point of his life and saying he's Jewish puts Jews in a bad light.

We Jews have been around since the Exodus that Moses led who was born in 1391 BCE when he was 80 years old, so it began in 1,311BCE which was 3,334 years ago.  Israel was created again in 1948.  We've been the  scapegoat of the world's problems ever since, even blamed for the weather.  The last thing we need is a liar declaring he's Jewish or even Jew-ish, which this person has done in differing hours of the day.  His story has changed so.

Our days of beating the bushes for new people to join us was over long ago in the year of about 300 with the Romans who became Christians.  They didn't want competition and they were actually getting it from the Jews in those days.  The penalty was death for proselytizing, so we ended that.  One can marry a Jew and then convert, and there have been a few conversions that happen with individuals, but not many.

               Sammy Davis, Jr. in Oceans 11

One of the most famous that has happened and a plus for us was  Sammy Davis, Jr.  . Sammy Davis, Jr. did not call himself “the most famous,” but “the only black, Puerto Rican, one-eyed, Jewish entertainer in the world.” From the age of three until his death, Davis (1925 – 1990) never stopped dancing, singing, acting and playing music. In 1957, he ended his romance with white actress Kim Novak – soon to appear in Vertigo – after a veiled death threat from the head of Columbia Pictures, who was grooming Novak to be a star.

At the time, interracial marriages were banned in half of the country’s states and it was only in 1967 that the Supreme Court ruled “anti-miscegenation” laws unconstitutional.When Sammy Davis, Jr. converted to Judaism in 1960, it was big news. He was only the latest celebrity to do so—Marilyn Monroe had converted in 1956 to marry Arthur Miller, and Elizabeth Taylor had converted in 1959 to marry Eddie Fisher—but his conversion “was especially controversial, both because of his racial background and the shifting dynamics of Jewish ethnicity,” writes (unrelated) scholar Rebecca L. Davis.

“Davis adapted to the attention that his choice drew by insisting that his highly unusual combination of racial, ethnic, and religious identities was inherently harmonious. Blacks and Jews had similar histories of oppression and marginalization, he explained, and he admired the Jewish people’s history of overcoming diversity.”

Jews, Sammy Davis Jr., said, were a “swinging bunch of people.” In addition, writes R. L. Davis, “Jewish masculinity offered a heterosexual style that worked for a short, lithe man who could out-dance, outtalk, and out-sing anyone with whom he shared the stage.”

“Davis constructed a narrative of selfhood that defied the politics of ethnic inheritance.” He also made it part of his shtick: Black, Jewish, Puerto Rican (on his mother’s side), and one-eyed (he’d lost an eye in a 1954 car accident), playing with, and against, stereotypes: “When I move into a neighborhood, I wipe it out!”

And now I read that Blacks are the cause of most of the attacks on Jews today, showing more anti-Semitism than other groups.  It's come down to racial behaviors.  What's going on?  We need Sammy Davis more than ever.  

We have had a run on well-known, well educated Jews in the news for breaking the law lately.   Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, was sentenced last month to three years in federal prison on fraud charges.  The minimum-security camp at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, N.Y., has become an enclave for Jewish white-collar offenders. (Tom Bushey/Middletown Times Herald Record vis Associated Press.)..

Tom Bushey/Middletown Times Herald Record, via Associated Press

 At that, he was even a Cohen, which made it more tragic.  He wasn't any lawyer on the East Coast, he was a Cohen!!!  Cohens, in Judaism, were our leaders, direct descendants of Aaron, brother of Moses who was asked to be our head priest.  Descendants have been going ever since as leaders in the synagogue being first readers of the Torah; one of many positions they have.   I bet he knew nothing about this;  just being Trump's lawyer.  Otherwise, he would not be in such a position. 

One can be an important lawyer and an exemplary Jew as,  well,  like Alan Dershowitz, who knows as much about our Jewish history;   more than most Rabbis.  

It's shameful that our Jewish brethern have come to the following:What the minimum-security camp at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, N.Y., does offer is a rarity in the federal prison system: a full-time Hasidic chaplain who oversees a congregation of dozens of Jewish inmates who gather for prayer services three times a day.  I hope it's required that any Jew there must attend.  I'm not that diligent an attender myself, and that's not the point.  I haven't gone off the deep end--at least as far as the laws of the USA go.  The behavior of these men is a shunda for the rest of the Jewish population. 

 It's one thing we have in common with the Chinese population in the USA.  They also are sensitive as to their Chinese reputation.  We Jews have always had an excellent reputation.  I guess it is a sign of being the end of the world with a Cohen actually in prison legitimately.  Maybe he also needs a DNA test to see if he has the right haplotype of other Cohens.  

Everyone, Jewish or not, should remember that they have family and should not want to bring embarrassment upon that family's present people or ancestors.  Then maybe they'd think twice before they robbed that store or killed another person.  

Resource:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/nyregion/michael-cohen-otisville-prison.html

https://www.frontpagemag.com/17-of-assaults-on-ny-jews-were-carried-out-by-muslims/

Our Lost Tribe: The Igbos of Nigeria?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

                      It's quite a distance from Israel to Nigeria

A group of 3 Israeli video-makers went to Nigeria to speak with a leader of the Igbo tribe about being Jewish. The 5 men were held in jail for months before the embassy could get them released. They were held in jails of deplorable conditions, a can was the toilet for the 3.  

 The Igbo are one of Nigeria's largest ethnic groups.  Among them is a minority of practicing Jews who believe they are descended from the "lost tribes" of Israel".  

This news about being Jewish came out in 2013 My Jewish encyclopedia carries nothing about Nigeria or the Igbo/Ibo.                                                                                       

An interview with a parishoner revealed their story that in the family tree of Jacob (Yaakov), son if Isaac, son of Abraham, Jacob  had a 7th son named Gad by Zilpah,(Gen 30:10-11)  and he left Israel and went out and had a son named Eri.  Eri had a son named Aguleri and he was the beginning of the Igbo people of Nigeria.  Gad's full brother was Asher.  

Google found that: In Genesis 46:16 Eri (עֵרי "watchful") is the son of Gad. He was the progenitor of the Erites. (Numbers 26:16)

"Eri (king), the progenitor of the Umu-Eri and Umu-Nri"- which are "Igbo ancient Nigerian city-states," Thus, Eri was the father of the Erite family.  

My records say that Gad and his tribe had settled in Gilead and Central Transjordan where they gained a warlike reputation.  They flourished during the rule of King Saul and their position was consolidated under David.  After the split in the kingdom, which happened after King Solomon died in 932 BCE, Gad belonged to the northern kingdom called Samaria and suffered severely from Syrian attacks.  In 732, the region was devastated by Tiglath-Pileser III and most of its inhabitants  were exiled.  Later it was occupied by the Ammonites.  

There are 162 million people in Nigeria and the Igbi people make up 20 to 50 million of them.   

Rabbi Yisrael Uzan, a leader in the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States serves as the Chief Rabbi of Nigeria and the Chabad representative in Abuja, capital of Nigeria. Rabbi Mendel Sternbach serves as Rabbi of Lagos. They are involved in Humanitarian Aid, especially prior to Ramadan. 

                                                                  

 The groups claim that their religious practices result either from hundreds of years of continuous practice of Judaic or Judaic-like customs by their ethnic groups, customs inherited from the Jews of Bilad el-Sudan or by a more-recent departure from European Christianity to modern Judaism. Either way, Judaism in Nigeria has developed demographically with the interest of Jewish peoples in other countries, especially Israel and the United States.

Rabbi Yisrael Uzan, a leader in the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States serves as the Chief Rabbi of Nigeria and the Chabad representative in Abuja. Rabbi Mendel Sternbach serves as Rabbi of Lagos. They are involved in Humanitarian Aid, especially prior to Ramadan. 

The Igbo Jews of Nigeria are one of the components of the Igbo ethnic group.

                                                               

Certain Nigerian communities with Judaic practices have been receiving help from individual Israelis and American Jews who work in Nigeria, out-reach organizations like Kulanu, and African-American Jewish communities in America. Jews from outside Nigeria founded two synagogues in Nigeria, which are attended and maintained by Igbos. Because no formal census has been taken in the region, the number of Igbos in Nigeria who identify as either Israelites or Jews is not known. There are currently 26 synagogues of various sizes. An estimated 4,000 Igbos were practicing some form of Judaism in 2016. Some synagogues in Nigeria include: CHW known as Community of Hashem Worldwide with several synagogues around Nigeria and some part of Cameroon.  Akwa Ibom and Cross River Jews--

The Annang, Efik, and Ibibio people of Akwa Ibom and Cross River States of Nigeria have had ancient religious practices that strongly resembled some of the Jewish Torah. These include their traditional sacrifice of animals (rituals) by the presiding male of each village, or of a group of villages, for purification, especially during times of sickness. They have active synagogues with majority of the synagogues in the eastern part of the country a vibrant one in Abuja supported and provided with many Jewish materials by different Rabbis. There are also key synagogues in Port Harcourt and Lagos.  Yoruba Jews--

The Jewish community among the Yoruba are often referred to as the Bnai Ephraim (Children of Ephraim). Most of them around various communities in Ondo state since the 1930s, about 2000 people in all.

The Jewish Igbo are not yet recognized by Israel's rabbinate, but Miles says that does not matter to them. "They are happy to be acting, practicing, worshipping as Jews," he says.

1 Chronicles 5:11-16Helpful? Yes No

The sons of Gad lived over against them in the land of Bashan  (Bashan, country frequently cited in the Old Testament and later important in the Roman Empire; it is located in what is now Syria. Bashan was the northernmost of the three ancient divisions of eastern Palestine, and in the Old Testament it was proverbial for its rich pastures and thick forests. ) as far as Salecah: Joel the chief, Shapham the second, Janai, and Shaphat in Bashan. And their kinsmen according to their fathers' houses: Michael, Meshullam, Sheba, Jorai, Jacan, Zia and Eber, seven. These were the sons of Abihail the son of Huri, son of Jaroah, son of Gilead, son of Michael, son of Jeshishai, son of Jahdo, son of Buz. Ahi the son of Abdiel, son of Guni, was chief in their fathers' houses,

Numbers 1:24-25Helpful? Yes No

Of the people of Gad, their generations, by their clans, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go to war: those listed of the tribe of Gad were 45,650.

Gad had a population of 40,500 at the end of the Exodus in the 2nd census.  They suffered a loss of 5,150.  

Genesis 49:19Helpful? Yes No

“Raiders shall raid Gad, but he shall raid at their heels.

Update: 7/31/21:  DNA should show some results as to their claim. Ilona is an Igbo Nigerian.   Ilona’s test shows “1.2% Middle Eastern,” according to a screenshot from the website MyHeritage.com. Ilona says other take-home tests, like one also posted online by a Nigerian-born attorney named Emeka Maduewesi, similarly show genetic markers from the region.

But a recent genetic test carried out by an American missionary group searching for “Jewish roots” came back negative — prompting fierce backlash from activists who called the project faulty and irresponsible.

It does depend on the DNA company.  Each has their own specialites.  Many that people are taking are from ancestry.com.  

Earlier this year Jewish Voice Ministries International, an evangelical missionary group from Arizona, collected saliva samples from some 124 Igbo men in the state of Nnewi. They used kits from Family Tree DNA, a Texas-based company that sells genealogical analyses, including a focus on Jewish heritage. The test was done in collaboration with a local religious group and with the assistance of a well-known Igbo doctor.

Family Tree DNA’s repository of Jewish genetic samples includes the datasets of Michael Hammer, from the University of Arizona’s Anthropology department, and the sample collection of Doron Behar, from Israel. “After a careful comparison, the lab was not able to find any connection to the samples we collected,” Bernis wrote in an email to the Forward.

This is the company I use and feel it is the best, but I find they set the scales to only show a connection using 7cMs, and on GedMatch.com, one can set the scales at 3cMs,  to see a connection to people.    I would go with what these 2 companies say.  

Reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQC7xWN_Rto

https://www.wewereneverlost.com/-  We Were Never Lost

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

https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/01/world/africa/nigeria-jews-igbo/index.html

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia-Gad

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israeli-filmmakers-arrested-in-nigeria-over-rumored-igbo-separatist-ties-673710

https://www.npr.org/2012/12/14/167180589/nigerias-jews-celebrate-hanukkah

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk0140NQL9Hkdto8utCS_MBpeWwGtbg:1627761876745&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=pictures+of+Igbo+Jews,+pictures&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWucTDjY7yAhVCrZ4KHVH6BFYQ7Al6BAgHEFc&biw=1920&bih=880-dozens of pictures

https://www.openbible.info/labs/cross-references/search?q=Genesis+46%3A16

Update:  https://forward.com/news/380398/irresponsible-jewish-dna-test-sparks-backlash-in-nigeria/

Genetics and Biblical History Join Hand in Hand in Origin of Mankind in Early Middle Paleolithic Era

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                       

Geneticists tell us that Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens  began in Africa and began to leave there between 90,000 and 120,000 years ago, but a new discovery in a cave in Israel pushes that date back by 50,000 years. An upper jawbone was found to be between 177,000 and 194,000 years old with 7 teeth and one broken incisor.   What is interesting is that the jawbone they discovered and tested makes them think he was part of a previously unknown group of Homo sapiens that left Africa and then died off.                                                     

The cave was on the western slopes of Mt. Carmel in Israel.  Discoveries were made in 2002, Other similar findings show the discovery was more Homo sapien than Neanderthal and probably the oldest ever found out of Africa.  The 2010 discovery was of 400,000 year old teeth in the jawbone.
                                                                       

Not from Neanderthal but from a modern human far older than expected, possibly 194,000 years old
found in Israeli cave led by Israel Hershkovitz, paleoanthropologist at Tel Aviv U. A freshman
on his first dig actually found it.  He is said to have found teeth in 2010 that were 400,000 years old.  

We all should know some history about Egypt and their many Pharaohs.  We've seen museum exhibitions that travel near to our own cities and have had a chance to visit them.  Africa's northern land holds Egypt and right next door to it is Israel, the same land it was in these ancient days when Abraham lived  in the 2nd millennium BCE.  Both Egypt and Israel sit on the Mediterranean Sea in which they and Spain, Italy, Greece and Syria learned to sail and had transportation simplified.
                                                                           

Pharaoh Narmer Narmer was an ancient Egyptian king of the Early Dynastic Period. He probably was the successor to the Protodynastic king Ka, or possibly Scorpion.
He was the 1st king of a Unified Egypt. 

  Pharaohs have been known about since 3,100BCE.  That's only 5,118 years ago.  
                                                                   

Nimrod was an ancient Biblical king of Cushite origin. 

  Cush was the son of Ham and brother of Mizraim (Egypt), Put (Libya and Morocco) and Canaan (Israel).  Cushites were therefore known to be from Africa. As I understand the development of man, the Egyptian model would be understandable for the Cushites.   Moses had married a Cushite woman (Numbers 12:1) , though Chabad points out that  she was the  Midianite, Zipporah.   Could he have not taken another wife?   These brothers were the patriarchs of their individual tribes  found in Africa and Southern Arabia.  Nimrod is identified by scholars with the Cosseans or with the city of Cush, which, in Babiylonian tradition, was one of the first cities built after the Great Flood in which Noah saved his family and all the animals on the ark.

"Ham was the lowest and least important of Noah's three sons. Nimrod came from a line which was cursed by Noah: "Cursed be Canaan, a slave of slaves shall he be unto his brothers."

 We must remember that Cushites were not Israelites and the word could have been used as a slur by Mirium and Aaron in Numbers.  That Moses thought to marry someone not of his own people was being discussed between the two siblings about Moses, their baby brother. 
                                                                             

Homo sapiens Idaltu (Elder or first born) found in Ethiopia Herto Man is the name given to a number of hominin fossils found in 1997 in Herto Bouri, Ethiopia. They date to around 160,000 years ago.

"In his book, Antiquity of Jews, Book 2, Chapter 10, Josephus wrote that while Moses lived in Egypt, he commanded the Egyptian army in a war against Ethiopia and that he married an Ethiopian woman. The following are a few excerpts from Josephus’s narrative about Moses in Ethiopia:"  Ethiopia would be considered as a part of Cush.  Josephus Flavius (Yoseph ben Mattityahu ha-Cohen)  had been a General for Israel from a priestly (J1 Y haplogroup) family born c38 CE and died 100 CE who wrote for the Romans who had overcome him in the overtaking of the Temple in 70 CE.  
                                                                       
The region of Cush was therefore south of Egypt which was Nubia and Ethiopia according to Hebrew scriptures and other ancient languages.  It extended South from Elephantine and Syene which turns out to be the modern Assouan. "Aswan, a city on the Nile River, has been southern Egypt’s strategic and commercial gateway since antiquity. It contains significant archaeological sites like the Philae temple complex, on Agilkia Island near the landmark Aswan Dam. Philae’s ruins include the columned Temple of Isis, dating to the 4th century B.C. Downriver, Elephantine Island holds the Temple of Khnum, from the Third Dynasty."
                                                    

Nimrod was believed to be a mighty hunter and strong ruler whose kingdom was made up of Babylon, Erech, Accad and other ancient sites.  For instance, Assyria was known as "the land of Nimrod."  Historically, he was one of the ancient Babylonian kings.  He's been connected to the Gilgamesh Epic and with the Assyrian war-god, Ninurata.  (He was the first to be a mighty man on earth.) I Chronicles  

According to the Sages, Nimrod was the primary force behind building the Tower of Babel which was a rebellion religiously.  In the Midrashim is the explanation of Nimrod's sinister motive of doing this.  He wanted to build a tower reaching Heaven and from it, wage war against G-d.  

In the Tanach (Bible) and now from our genes we learn that mankind came out of Africa.  The first known civilizations there were in Northern Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea. 
                                                                    

In conclusion, Dr. Hershkovitz explained that hominins had been coming in and out of Africa for at least  the last 1/2 million years.It must have been that some modern humans migrated from Africa far earlier than we had thought and that they may have interbred with Neanderthals in Eurasia as far back as 220,000 years ago.  

"Evidence of this type of Homo sapien does not mean that this person contributed to the DNA of anyone living today.  It could have belonged to a previously unknown population of Homo sapiens that departed Africa and then died off."
                                                           

Couldn't that mean that they died off in the Flood?  It's food for thought.  Genesis 6 relates that because of their evil ways. G-d was determined to annihilate the human race through the flood.  Noah was the only exception and therefore was commanded to build the Ark for himself, his family and the animals of the earth.  He died at age 950, and the first people to repopulate the earth were his sons;  Shem, Ham and Japheth from which 70 people who were the first from whom humanity was derived.  Not only the Torah has this story in the beginning in Genesis but it is also found in the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic that has a parallel flood story called Utnapishtim.  Many midrashic tales were woven around the story of Noah.  

Gilgamesh, the ancient Babylonian creation explanation,  was written in 2100 BCE in Mesopotamia in the Sumerian language on clay tablets.  "The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling." Ziusudra, Utnapishtim and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East. 
                                                                         

Babylon was also known as the land of Shinar or of the Kasdim (Chaldees).  Here is the scene of the Tower of Babel and the Flood.  Abraham was born in Ur of the Chaldeans but had migrated where he later fought Amraphel, king of Shinar. It was known to prophets as the symbol of insolent pagan tyranny. So the Flood actually, as we of today know, that evil was not drowned in the Flood as expected, but models of Homo sapiens were destroyed, yet may still live in genes of today's mankind.  
                                                                        

 Our possible female ancestor or not, an early Homo sapien inspired by the Lascaux cave painting found in SW France.  Actually, she's not bad!  This was done by a later Cave man who had now entered Europe, after the Metal Age invaders. 

Today, Family Tree DNA can  show the subscriber their page of ancient origins.  " There were three major groups of people that have had a lasting effect on present day peoples of European descent: Hunter-Gatherers, Early Farmers, and Metal Age Invaders.  As for me, I'm carrying 22% of my genes from Hunter-Gatherers,  50% from Early Farmers and 28% from Metal Age invaders.  Hunter-Gatherers are from the " climate during the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 mill – 11,700 YA).  I'm glad I most likely am not carrying genes from those early Homo sapiens who have died off.  Chances are that they'd be pretty ugly to our eyes of today.  

Resource:  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/science/jawbone-fossil-israel.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharaohs
http://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/2346085/jewish/The-Cushite-Woman.htm?gclid=CjwKCAiA47DTBRAUEiwA4luU2cVmenlW55K0vIDdwYPurGc3qkfsLpZ9lZJNSBm83i_1S0LezfVDLBoCI-wQAvD_BwE
https://claudemariottini.com/2014/03/05/moses-cushite-wife/
http://www.babylonrisingblog.com/ManyNames.html
Genesis 11 Tower of Babel
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112333/jewish/Nimrod-and-Abraham.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11548-nimrod

The Many Bottlenecks Jews Have Faced: J2 Facts Come Out of It

Nadene Goldfoot                                                      

From having many men in the mix, so many were lost and those remaining were in the bottleneck.

A bottleneck is a genetic DNA term that explains what happens to a people when a horrific incident happens that wipes out most of their population.  I'll show how that has happened to us many times without an environmental event like a volcano erupting.
                                                                       

"Some bottlenecks are religiously induced – Amish, Mennonite and Jewish, for example.  These people marry only within their religion.  Today, that’s called endogamy – but it’s a form of a bottleneck event. " In our situation, most of the time the culture helped us to be in this situation by locking Jews up in ghettos such as in Italy, or in Syria keeping us in the Jewish quarter of Yehuda Street with pain of death if one left.  For 2,000 years, we've not only preferred to marry within our own people, but Gentiles have not wanted to mix with us, either.  It's been a mutual standoff, until recent days. Of course, there's always been rape, and sometimes but rarely, love between religions.

 A wonderful example I have found is  this.  "There are 4 people, 2 couples.  Each person’s DNA is represented by a color.  The two males are blue and green and the 2 females are pink and yellow, like on the left side of the pedigree chart shown below.

In the first generation, they pass their DNA to their children and the children are blue/yellow and green/pink.  In the second generation, the children intermarry with the other couple’s children – because there are no choices.  All of the grandchildren of the original couple have DNA that is blue, yellow, green and pink.  The children and grandchildren don’t all carry the same segments of blue, yellow, green and pink – but all of them carry some part of the original 4 founders.  There is no orange or turquoise or red DNA to be found, so forever, until new people enter the landscape, they will pass the same segments of blue, green, yellow and pink DNA to their descendants.  In an isolated environment, they might not meet new humans for thousands of years – lets’ say 10,000 years." Haplogroups once active are now lost. Jews have been around for almost 4,000 years from Abraham's time.                                      

We have found that a haplotype of J1 leads from Aaron, brother of Moses and has been called the Cohen gene.   "Later research, using a larger number of Y-STR markers to gain higher resolution more specific genetic signatures, has indicated that about half of contemporary Jewish Kohanim, who share Y-chromosomal haplogroup J1c3 (also called J-P58), appear to be closely related.  

                                                                     

Someone here may be carrying a J haplogroup , all Jewish
It would have to be one of the men, as the Y haplogroup is passed on from father to son, etc.  

Cohens in the synagogue are special people.  They were selected by Moses starting with his brother, to be the priests of the people.  They have served in the synagogues all this time with certain functions such as reading first from the Torah on Saturday morning "Shabbat."  One does not need the surname of Cohen to be a Cohen, but they need the oral history from their family in lieu of a family tree.  It's something handed down from father to son.                                     

In our case, many Jews have been killed since inception with Abraham.  

When the Romans entered Jerusalem in about 60 BCE, they crucified 25,000 Jews until 70 CE when they burned the city down with the 1st Temple.   25,000 to 30,000 Jews that were left alive rebelled against the Romans  and were killed.   10,000 more  men were found and killed as well. 

By 6 BC, when Jews were living in 2nd Temple times, the Zealots were founded, which was a political party by Judah the Galilean and Zadok, the priest who demanded non-compliance with the Roman demand for a census to be taken which was really an assessment of their property.   It was at this time that the Y haplotype was mutated from J1 to become J2 most likely through Pinchas, the Zealot.                                                                 

    "According to the Holy Scriptures the seed of Zadok is supposed to be countless and measureless. The promise avows that from Zadok seed Hashem will build a continued existence family tree and from this offspring Cohanim will be selected to perform sacrifices on the Beit Hamikdash. The prophet may soon arrive and he will make holy Cohanim, sons of Zadok, and Leviim to minister and safeguard the third Temple, respectively. 

DNA revealed families from different Cohanim background with the precisely coalescence time allied, in J2 haplogroup, to Zadok. The Zadok Cohanim lineage is composed by 24 families strongly associated to Jewish priest caste, both in Ashkenazim and Sephardim communities. They present a DNA signature in J2 haplogroup that formed a well shaped tree with ramifications, branches and different houses as it should be in the face of of three thousand years of growth." 

It was identified by DNA, 24 different families confirmed positive for the Zadokite Cohanim lineage (J2a4). All of these families are strongly related to Cohanim tradition both in Sephardic and Askenazim communities.  These families may represent the 24 houses of Zadok. from "Dr. Karl Skorecki of the Ramban/Technion Medical Center in Haifa  

Zadok, son of Ahitub, a Cohen under King David:  II Sam-8:17, 15-29;   I Kin, 1:8, 34-40; 2:35, 4:4; I Chr. 8:16.  Zadok's sons were Ahimaaz and Azariah. Another important Kohan line was from Ahimelech, son of Abiathar.  (I Chronicles 18, 15-17.) I did not see Skorecki's references in either Samuel II, Kings I or I Chronicles.  It must be something else.  

The Bible states that Zadok was a patrilineal descendant of Eleazar the son of Aaron the high priest.(2 Samuel 8:17;1 Chronicles 24:3) The lineage of Zadok is presented in the genealogy of Ezra (his descendant) as being of ninth generation of direct patrilineal descent from Phineas the son of Eleazar; Ezra 7:1, see 1 Chronicles 5:30 where he is placed ninth in descent from Phineas.  Eleazar had a brother, Ithamar, who was also a priest.  He and Eleazar together succeeded their father, Aaron in the priestly office.  

The chief men of the descendants of Eleazar/Elazar  were found to be more numerous than those of the descendants of Ithamar...16 family heads for the sons of Eleazar, and 8 for the sons of Ithamar ..(Chromicles I 24-1-7). The Kohanim were from Alazar and Ihamar.

...Zadok, The son of Ahitub, son of Amaryah, son of Azaryah, son of Mirayoth, son of Zerachyah, son of Uzzi, son of Bukki, son of Avishua, son of Phineas

— Ezra 7:1-4                                                                                                       

The Arch of Titus in Rome, a view of Jews being marched into the city carrying golden objects from Temple, the loot stolen by the Romans by 70 CE..  

 Finally, 1.1 million  more Jewish soldiers were killed by the Romans and the rest found were enslaved and most marched to Rome.  The slaves taken numbered 97,000 after Jerusalem was burned down.    There were about 50,000 Jews in and around Rome by the 1st Century CE, who were the poor, Greek-speaking foreigners scorned by Romans for their poverty and slave status.  Many later gained their freedom and continued to live in and around Rome.1       

Top of Masada

                                         

Herod's Palace Here

This wasn't the end of the Jews.  960 men and women had found refuge at Masada, but after 3 years of holding out, committed mass suicide rather than be taken and                                                        subjected to any criminality.

By the year 37 to 100 CE, there were about 40,000 survivors left in Judea.  

In 60 CE, it is also thought that there were about 700,000 left in Judea and 1,500,000 Jews were living in other places thoughout the land.  Many had been into trading and had moved away before 70 CE to carry on business.

The world population of Jews was now about 4,200,000 Jews before the year 132 when General Bar Kokhba, a descendant of King David, gathered up men who were his soldiers and attacked the Romans.  They took over Jerusalem and held it for 3 years, giving the Romans the hardest war they had ever fought in.  Bar Kokhba was finally killed in the battle in 135.  The Romans hadn't counterattacked  big-time until 133 when more came with an army of 35,000 under Hadrian and Julius Severus.  580,000 Jewish soldiers were killed during this final battle to regain Jerusalem.  Other Jews died from hunger and disease.  Now Jerusalem became a heathen city.  

By 600 CE, Jews were living in many parats of Europe with small settlements in TGermany, France and Spain.  Eastward, there were also small Jewish settlements along the Black Sea as well as larger communities in Greece and the Balkans. 1.  By the 12th and 13th centuries, Jews were expelled from many countries of Western Europe still suffering under the "Christ Killers accusations of anti-Semitism" but were granted charters to settle in Poland and Lithuania.  Ashkenazi Jews spread quickly into Eastern Europe, growing from about a population of 15,000-25,000 in the 13-15th centuries to 2 million by 1800 and 8 million by 1939.  Eastern European Jews became the dominant culture of the European Jews and of most Jews throughout the world.  

After all this, haplogroups were narrowed down to most likely far less than before.  The worst things was that so many men were killed most likely before they had fathered children.  If they did, girls do not carry the Y haplotype, only males do.  So many Y haplogroups could have been lost. Except, Jews basically came to be through family inheritance of one tribe.  Abraham most likely was of haplogroup J1.  I say this because at least half of the Cohens who serve in synagogues are found to be J1 and J2.  Arabs are also high in having the J1 haplogroup.  This is also showing the truth in the bible which states that Abraham's son by Hagar the Egyptian was Ishmael  who was father of the Arabs and his son by Sarah, his niece, was Isaac of the Jewish line. 

Jews lined up to enter Camps of Death

To top off our narrow haplogroup left to us through fighting, we then faced the Holocaust of WWII from about 1939 to 1945.  6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their helpers.  That's 6,000,000.                                                                         

War of Independence-attacked at announcement of being a state

1948's War of Independence for the Jews found 650,000 were populating the new tiny state.  They lost 6,000 of these people in the war, the most they have lost since then, probably the basis for another bottleneck.  

Perhaps this explains why at times a Cohen's shoes had to be filled by someone not of the immediate family.  Women have been known to marry outsiders who were also Jews.  If a tribal group needed to, they did marry outsiders and convert them.  For the Y haplogroup, J1 remains the largest group, but we also see E, G, Q, I, and R of various branches.  As for the women who pass on the mtDNA haplogroup, who number more outsiders originally than the Jewish men, we see K, H, N, J and W repeatedly.  

Pinchas is told about in Numbers in the Torah.25:1-30.  He was the son of Elazar, son of Aaron who was Moses's brother and it was Aaron who was selected to be the new High Priest.  Pichas's maternal grandfather was Jethro, a pagan  Midianite priest and father of Zipporah, Moses' wife (Exod 2-3).  The Druze still honor Jethro as Nebi Shu'aib at the shrine near Kephar Hittin.  

We have many J1 and now J2, both known as Cohens.  Through the ages, the high priest was sometimes appointed politically instead of father to son.  (read reference in Jewish Encyclopedia) 

Update: 12:15 Noon:  My Cohen friend is a J-M267 or J1 and also is a Cohen in the synagogue.  The line is said to be 20,000 years old and originated between Anatolia and Mesopotamia.  Studies were done by Hammer & Behar in 2009 and they tested 215 Jewish Cohanim and found 46% of them were of the J1 haplogroup.  Then Hammer studied 1,360 Jews per se and found 14.9% were also Cohens.  Nogueiro studied 57 Jews of Portugal and found 12.3% were Cohens.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J-M267

Update: 12/7/15

Resource: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/cohenbrazil/default.aspxhttp://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/2995/jewish/The-Zealot.htmhttp://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/12/from-139-bce-to-139-ce-fight-to-remain.htmlhttp://dna-explained.com/2015/07/09/what-is-a-population-bottleneck/ http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/jewish-genes-what-haplogroup-could-they.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaronhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zadok
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7689-high-priest
1. A Mosaic of People:  The Jewish Story and a reassessment of the DNA Evidence by Effen Levy -Coffman.