Pashtos of Afghanistan and Pakistan and DNA

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Tribal and religious leaders in
Southern Afghanistan

We have good reason to believe that some of these Pashtun tribes were descended from the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel, taken away by the Assyrians in 722-721 BCE, almost 3,000 years ago.  They believe this as well as the reference below shows.

I've met several Pashtos online in discussions about DNA.  My father's line is Q, which makes
up 5% of the Jewish male population of today,  and first was 
labeled as Q-M242, or Q1b1a, then with further testing now is called QBZ67.  One of his
matches with the 1st test  was a Pashto.  I then figured we had a connection through DNA.  
                                                                                                     

Charles Goldfoot, brother
also Q  (M-242)/Q1b1a

Maurice Goldfoot,
fighting under "Billy Meshke"
of Q1b1a (Y haplogroup) DNA
updated to: QBZ67

 My father is related by DNA with about 16% of the Pashtuns!  This shows we were connected most likely before 721 BCE when the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were taken by force by the Assyrians.



'

My father's line 

would start in Germany after leaving Jerusalem in 70CE with the Romans destroying everything. 

At one point they received the surname of Goldfus.  

From there they finally ended up in Lithuania at least by the 1800s CE.  

"Some anthropologists lend credence to the oral traditions of the Pashtun tribes themselves. For example, according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the theory of Pashtun descent from Israelites is traced to Nimat Allah al-Harawi, who compiled a history for Khan-e-Jehan Lodhi in the reign of Mughal Emperor Jehangir in the 17th century. The 13th century Tabaqat-i Nasiri discusses the settlement of immigrant Bani Israel at the end of the 8th century CE in the Ghor region of Afghanistan, settlement attested by Jewish inscriptions in Ghor. Historian André Wink suggests that the story "may contain a clue to the remarkable theory of the Jewish origin of some of the Afghan tribes which is persistently advocated in the Persian-Afghan chronicles." 
Descendants of King of Israel Saul "Called Talut by Pashtuns" of Tribe of Benjamin

1   King of Israel Saul b: in abt 10000 BCE
. 2   [1] Michal the First, Daughter of Saul
..... +[2] King of Israel David b: in 1000 BCE Bethlehem
. *2nd Husband of [1] Michal the First, Daughter of Saul:
..... +Phalti
. 2   King at Mahanaim Eshbaal
. 2   Merab
..... +[2] King of Israel David b: in 1000 BCE Bethlehem
. 2   Jeremiahin /Pashtun

..... 3   Afghana /Pashtun, Commander in Chief

These references to Bani Israel agree with the commonly held view by Pashtuns that when the twelve tribes of Israel were dispersed, the tribe of Joseph, among other Hebrew tribes, settled in the Afghanistan region. This oral tradition is widespread among the Pashtun tribes. There have been many legends over the centuries of descent from the Ten Lost Tribes after groups converted to Christianity and Islam. Hence the tribal name Yusufzai in Pashto translates to the "son of Joseph". A similar story is told by many historians, including the 14th century Ibn Battuta and 16th century Ferishta."            
Descendants of Joseph

1   Joseph b: in Canaan, 18th-16th centuries BCE? Hyksos period (2500-1587 BCE)
.. +Asenath b: in Egypt
. 2   Manasseh b: in Egypt
. 2   Ephraim b: in Egypt
                             

Pashtos visiting in Jerusalem
Here they are at the Western Wall.  Their family genealogy
is well kept.  They say they are descended from King Saul. 

 There are conflicting stories that could have to do with the fact that Babylonia came to Israel 
and took more people away in 597 and 596 BCE as well.  So some could have become slaves 
at different periods.                         
                                                             

Imran Khan, politician and cricket star in Pakistan, a Pashto
belonging to the Niazi tribe

Pakistan:          30,699,037 Pashtuns in 2008, 2nd largest ethnic group

Afghanistan      13,750,117 Pashtuns in 2016

Total                  49 million in 2009

"The haplogroup R1a (Y-DNA) is found at a frequency of 51.02% among the Pashtun people. Paragroup Q-M242 (xMEH2, xM378) (of Haplogroup Q-M242 (Y-DNA)) was found at 16.3% in Pashtuns. Haplogroup Q-M242 is also found at a frequency of 18% in Pashtuns in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

After 3,000 years of separation, it is amazing that there is this connection.  Though I haven't found anyone yet that shares any actual chromosome segments of our DNA yet, we came from the very same branch.  I know there are several listed under my brother's Y haplogroup at FTDNA.  

The fact is that both Arabs and many Jews both carry the male Y haplogroup of J, J1c3d, or the Cohen gene, as Jews call it.  It also  shows that our Biblical history is accurate in saying that we both came from Abraham.  The story is that we came from Abraham's son, Isaac, his 2nd son by Sarah.  It was when Abraham and Sarah thought that she was barren that she gave permission for him to father her young Egyptian  handmaid, and so he took her as a wife and she bore Ishmael who became the father of the Arabs.  

As I understand it, they live in Pakistan in their own territory in tribes, and live in the same
area as their clans  which sounds like a reservation similar to our Native Americans do in Oklahoma.  They follow their own well-developed culture with their own standards called Pashtunwali-a set of ethics, as well as being Sunni Muslims.  Many light candles on Friday night such as we Jews do.  There are other things that they do which caught the attention of Dr.  Shalva Weil of Hebrw University in Jerusalem,  who traveled to Pakistan and studied them, coming back feeling they were indeed people of our lost Ten Tribes.  "Prof. Shalva Weil is a Senior Researcher at The Research Institute for Innovation and Education at the Hebrew University. She focuses on Indian Jewry, Ethiopian Jewry, and the Ten Lost Tribes and specializes in qualitative methods, violence, gender, ethnicity, education, religion, and migration.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GROcMlaGTA.  She's a Social Anthropologist.  In 1991, she curated an exhibition at Beth Hatefutsoth: the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora on the Ten Lost Tribes entitled "Beyond the Sambatyon: the Myth of the Ten Lost Tribes."

Update: 3/7/17:  Yasmin Eliaz is a Master’s student in Political Science at Bar Ilan University. She specializes in Afghanistan and works as a research assistant at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Read other articles by Yasmin.

Lately, the police in Pakistan have been rousting them in their search for ISIS terrorists, causing much pain and grief.  One problem is that militants are hiding in Afghanistan with the purpose of fomenting violence inside Pakistan.  

Reference:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtuns
http://www.sharnoffsglobalviews.com/pashtuns-jewish-261/ *****
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?
http://goldfoot_genealogy.blogspot.com/2017/03/our-dna-matching-pashtuns-of.html*****
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/10/britains-birth-of-pakistan-israel-and.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/01/afghanistan-and-taliban-terrorists.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/10/pashtuns-and-jews-who-have-lived-in.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-blot-in-our-history-losing-ten.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/01/pashtuns-and-other-lost-10-tribes-of.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/11/miracles-in-israel-3-discovery-of-lost.html
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1a_Y-DNA.shtml
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/01/can-pashtun-tribe-of-afghanistan-have.html *****
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/12/lost-tribe-of-israel-living-in-india.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-tribe-of-dan-and-what-happened-to.html
Special:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhB16xVTlbQ

Why Finding Israel's Lost Ten Tribes Has Been Important

Nadene Goldfoot

Will Jews ever unite with their lost ten tribes?  What happened to them after they were taken away?

The Assyrians attacked Israel in 721-715 BCE and took away a good portion of 10 of the 12 tribes.  King Manasseh of Judah was exiled to Assyria in 652 BCE.  After this, Assyria declined rapidly and was succeeded by Babylon.

Ezekiel, from the 6th century BCE, one of the exiled  to Tel Abib on the Kebar River in Babylonia where he prophecied for 22 years,  made prophecies 37:16, 17  which connected the final Redemption with the reunion of the whole house of Israel.  He had said, "Now you, Son of Man, take for yourself one piece of wood and write upon it, "For Judah and for the Children of Israel, his comrades."; and take one piece of wood and write upon it , "For Joseph,  the wood of Ephraim and all the House of Israel, his comrades. Then bring them close to yourself, one to the other, like one piece of wood, and they will become  united in your hand."  The 12 tribes had been from the 12 sons sons of Jacob; Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham.  His father was Isaac.

 Moses (1391-1271 BCE),  our Prophet of Judaism, had picked Levi to carry on the priestly office as he and his brother Aaron were of this tribe.  Levis were not allotted territory in the land division between tribes, so to keep the number 12, Moses divided the tribe of Joseph into 2 tribes for his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.  The Levis' job was to be teachers, so were to move around to each tribe and live with families, very much like teachers did in early America.  We had 603,550 tribal members entering Canaan with Judah having 74,600 and Benjamin with 35,400.  Ephraim had 40,500 and Manasseh had 32,200.

Joshua led everyone into Canaan and was in charge of the assignment of land.  Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh were to live in what was later called Transjordan (today's Jordan).. Naphtali and Asher were given the Sidonian frontier in Galilee, around where I lived in Tzfat (Safed).  Issachar and Zebulun were to have the Valley of Jezreel area (Megiddo, Beit Shean, Afula) .  Ephraim and the other half of Manasseh were to live in the mountains of Samaria (now the West Bank) with Benjamin to their south and Judah further south.  Dan got to live along the seacoast where Jaffa and Tel Aviv  lie.  Simeon got the Negev, which is a desert area and today makes up half of Israel.  Beersheba, Makhlesh Ramon, Kibbutz Sde Boker and Eilat are in the Negev.  .

When King Solomon died, Israel split into two states.  Judah, Simeon and most of Benjamin became the southern state  of Judah.  Then the Assyrian kings invaded in 732 and 721 and exiled the northern tribes of Israel to Assyria, Media and the neighboring lands of Aram-Naharaim.  Later more were exiled by the Babylonians in 586.

Assyria was an empire in existence from the 25th Century BCE to 608 BCE.  It included today's Syria when Damascus was an important center, Turkey, Iran and Iraq.  Today, Media (Medes) constitutes the NW part of Iran.  The empire extended from Aran (Azerbaijan) to Afghanistan.  Persian speakers, Kurds and Azaeris  are the descendants.   Mesopotamia is today's Iraq and the homeland of Babylonia. Shortly after Muhammad died in 632, the Muslims conquered it in 637. Jews who had been expelled from Arabia settled here in Kufa, which was 110 miles south of Bagdad.  .

Since 1948, Israel's re-birth in today's period, Jews have been again returning to their Holy Land.  I lived there from 1980-1985 and saw Jews from every country imaginable who no doubt are representatives of mainly, only 2 of the tribes.  We have been seeking the other 10 and wonder what happened to them and if there are any remnants of those tribes still living.  The hunt has turned up some surprising results. totday's Jewish population is almost 6 million.

It turns out that the Taliban contains many Pashtuns of Pakistan and Afghanistan who claim descendancy of the lost 10 tribes.  There are 15 million Pathans.  Not only that, but their culture has included many Jewish practices in their homes, but not in their religion, which today is Islam.  They do such things as circumcise their boys at 8 days, wear a fringed garment like a tzizit, light candles on Friday night and have food taboos similar to today's Jews.  However, those I have spoken with claim to hate Jews.  As one very influential young man told me, "Let me be straightforward towards you.   Like my friends I too am against Jews, and dislike Jews and their views.  It doesn't matter what you think about me after this comment of mine. I might have lost Israelite roots but I reject that and I declare I have Aryan roots from now on, so that I don't be related or bonded with any Jew."

Historically, some people from the 10 tribes remained in their homeland living with the other remaining 2 tribes.  They most likely were absorbed with the last Judean exiles who were deported to areas nearby in 597-586 BCE such as Media, Assyria and Mesopotamia.   The Pashtuns could have been part of this group who have definitely assimilated but still recall  their past history.  What they'd like to do is just take all of Israel and especially Jerusalem, as many Muslims have as a goal.

Throughout history, we have received reports of such claims.  Eldad Ha-Dani thought he found them in  African mountains. Today the Lemba tribe is found to have the Cohen gene, tested and found by Tudor Parfitt in his search for the Ark of the Covenant. A group of Ethiopians claim descendancy from the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon.  They have been airlifted to Israel. Their dna does not reflect this with today's testing, but they have been practicing much of Judaism for a long time and see themselves as Jews.     Benjamin of Tudela heard rumors of them living in Central Asia.  David Reuveni said he was the brother of one of their rulers somewhere in Arabia.  We now know that there were many  Jewish tribes in Saudi Arabia at the time of Muhammad (570-620 CE).  Antonio de Montezinos said he found them in South America.  Shabbetai Tzevi (1626-1676) was  a false messiah from Turkey,  appointed rulers over various tribes. The Turks forced him to convert to Islam.   One rumor was that they were the Japanese, and another thought the Anglo-Saxons were the lost tribes, even thinking that the royalty of Britain were from them.

If we are still depending on our final Redemption to take place when our 10 tribes unite with us remaining 2, it is not happening soon.  It would be wonderful, though, if only in peace.

Reference: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.taroscopes.com/miscellanous-pages/medes.html
http://www.aina.org/brief.html about Assyria
The Lost Ark of the Covenant b Tudor Parfitt
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/geo/Jezreel.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/desert.html - Negev
http://www.geni.com/projects/Where-are-The-Ten-Lost-Tribes-of-Israel/3474
Tanach, The Stone Edition, Art Scroll Series