Watch Out-Them's My Holocaust Family Members

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                                      Jews in Central Europe-Galicia-Pre-Poland in 1722

I lost family members up to oodles of 5th cousins in the Holocaust.  I lost 6 million cousins and other relatives!                              

     Lithuanian Jews walking to their ultimate deaths 1939-1945

 We're so closely related, that I'm finding all these facts through DNA matches. Even in the beginning, Abraham was the Uncle of Sarah, his wife.  Jacob, whose name changed to Israel,  was the son of Isaac and Rebecca, and Isaac was the the son of Abraham and Sarah.  Abraham's family members tended to marry into their own family;  mainly because they didn't know or trust the OTHERS surrounding them.  Abraham had brought his theory of ONE GOD, and OTHERS were polytheistic. Being polytheistic meant that they could be practicing human sacrifices to their many gods, and who wants a spouse that might get mad at you and offer you on the fire of the awaiting sacrifice?  

Yet, some of Abraham's children by Hagar, the handmaid of Sarah, who had Ishmael when Abraham thought Sarah was barren,  did turn about and marry into the OTHERS.  In that act, they left this clan of Abraham.  That's how we see the separation between Isaac and his twin sons, Jacob and Esau .  Esau was born first, so by their law, was deserving of his fathers blessings, but Jacob managed to outwit him with his mother's help,  and received it instead.  They haven't gotten along ever since.  

             American Jews 

We've been scattered throughout the world, but those alive are the following:  6 million live in the USA;  6 million live in Israel, and about 2 million are in smaller groupings around the world like England, France, etc.  In fact, many have already left from these countries to make aliyah to Israel because of anti-Semitism.  We're from the tribe of Judah, with a few Benjaminites and Simeonites who were living with them at the time.  

         Pashtuns found from  India to Afghanistan, seem to have  some of the same values as  Jews, thought to be our long lost 10 Tribes.  The Pashtuns are an ethnic group of people who live in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and are also known as Pakhtuns, Pushtans, or Pathans:  The majority of Pashtuns live in the eastern and southern regions of Afghanistan, and in the northwest region of Pakistan. There is also a significant Pashtun diaspora in neighboring countries, such as Iran and India. Pashtuns speak Pashto, an Iranian dialect that has been an official language of Afghanistan since 1936. They also speak Pakhto, another Iranian dialect, and often use Farsi for trade.

         Assyria:   Light Green in 871 BCE   Dark Green was the Assyrian  Empire in 824 BCE; Opens in new tab

The 10 other tribes were taken away when the Assyrians attacked Israel.  It was King Hosea of Israel in 726 BCE who tried to throw off the Assyrian hold which led to Shalmaneser V's siege of Samaria (as in Judea-Samaria)  who captured the land and people by 721 BCE who deported 27,290 Israelites to Assyria and Media, and replaced them with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners.  So, we see that many Middle Eastern males have the Y haplogroup that Jews do, which is J1 and J2.  They are our very distant cousins.  

      

Authorities name 715 soldiers, 66 police officers killed in Gaza war:  Five colonels among the dead, the most senior officers killed in combat in recent memory; 346 IDF troops killed in ground offensive. 

Now, when someone is killed in Israel, I realize it's a family member.  We've been living together for all these reasons and because we've also been forced to live together as in ghettos, sometimes even locked up in ghettos.  

How Did The Pashtuns Turn Into the Religiously Evil Taliban ?

Nadene Goldfoot 

Year: 5783/2023                                             

The Taliban are a predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021 after waging a twenty-year insurgency. 

Taliban fighters hold a flag for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in August 2022. Ali Khara/Reuters

Pashtuns (also called Pushtan, Paktun or Pathan) are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Though their exact numbers are uncertain and as with other communities are contested, previous estimates have suggested that they make up around 42 per cent of the population.

Pashtuns are actually the remnant of the Northern Tribes of Israel that were kidnapped by the Assyrians in 721 BCE.  At least 7 of the 10 tribes made up the people taken away. The Assyrian Shalmaneser V's siege of Samaria and its capture by his successor, Sargon annexed the country, and deported 27,290 Israelites to Assyria, Media and replaced them with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners.  

TALIBAN FORCES patrol in front of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 2(photo credit: STRINGER/ REUTERS)

 They have showed Dr. Shalva Weil of Hebrew University of Jerusalem  some of their customs which are Jewish customs.  Pashtun practices include circumcision on the eighth day and refraining from mixing meat and milk — Is there a connection to ancient Hebrews?  Are they our long-lost relatives, descendants of the Israelites who were cast into exile by the Assyrian empire more than 2,700 years ago?

Weil has published extensively on the Ten Lost Tribes historically and in contemporary times. In particular, she has written on the Beta Israel, the Bene Israel, and the Pashtuns, as well as on Judaising groups all over Africa, China and elsewhere. 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". She is on the international board of ISSAJ [International Society for the Study of African Jewry], and presented a paper at their latest conference in Nairobi on the Jews of Africa. She also held an important meeting for all in Jerusalem on the Pashtuns several years ago.  

A group has visited Jerusalem already.  Assyrian cuneiform states that 27,290 captives were taken from Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, by the hand of Sargon II.

      Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSRxeXV0T8Y

The American movie, Lone Survivor, tells of  a riveting story chronicling Operation Red Wings, where four highly trained Navy SEALs are sent on a mission to kill a dangerous “Al Qaeda” leader in a remote mountain village of Afghanistan, but they are discovered and overrun by enemy fighters.   Mohammad Gulab, follows the ancient Pashtun code of honor called, Pashtunwali.  The main principals of Pashtunwali are hospitality, protection for all guests, justice against wrong doers, bravery, loyalty to family, righteousness, belief in Allah, courage, and protection of women. Gulab is the Afghan village leader who risks his own life, his family’s life and perhaps his village’s future security to give this stranger, the 4th Seal, Marcus Lattrell, refuge from his enemies.   

This unwritten code of conduct among traditional Pashtun tribes serves as a system of law and governance in parts of Afghanistan.  It has its origin in the teachings of Moses, I'm sure.  

The Taliban is a Sunni Islamist nationalist and pro-Pashtun movement founded in the early 1990s that ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until October 2001.

The Taliban have imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law despite pledges to respect the rights of women and religious and ethnic minority communities. Meanwhile, as they have transitioned from an insurgent group to a functional government, the Taliban have struggled to provide Afghans with adequate food supplies and economic opportunities.                           

                        Pashtuns visiting in Jerusalem

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 Maghzan-e-Afghani who compiled a history for Khan-e-Jehan Lodhi in the reign of Mughal Emperor Jehangir in the 16th century CE. Another book, that corresponds with most Pashtun historical records, Taaqati-Nasiri, states that in the 7th century a people called the Bani Israel settled in Ghor, southeast of Herat, Afghanistan and then migrated south and east. These Bani Israel references are in line with the commonly held view by Pashtuns that when the twelve tribes of Israel were dispersed (see Israel and Judah and Lost Ten Tribes), the tribe of Joseph, among other Hebrew tribes, settled in the region. Hence the term ' Yusef Zai' in Pashto translates to the 'sons of Joseph'. A similar story is told by Ferishta.

Sorry, but we had no tribe of Joseph.  Joseph was Jacob's 11th son by Rachel who had been sold by his brothers to a camel caravan and taken to Egypt where he became the pharaoh's right hand man.  Joseph's rights of ownership of land in Israel were given to Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Their mother was Asenath.  (Gen.41:50.) They could have come from them, as they were taken by the Assyrians.   

Maghzan-e-Afghani's Bani-Israel theory has largely been debunked due to historical and linguistic inconsistencies. The oral tradition is believed to be a myth that grew out of a political and cultural struggle between Pashtuns and Mughals, which explains the historical backdrop for the creation of the myth, the inconsistencies of the mythology, and the linguistic research that refutes any Semitic origins.

Other Pashtun tribes claim descent from Arabs including some even claiming to be descendants of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad (popularly referred to as sayyids). Some groups from Peshawar, and Kandahar, such as the Afridis, Khattaks, and Sadozais, also claim to be descended from Alexander the Great's Greeks. The Khakwani tribe found in an area from Khogyani district in Nangarhar province to as far east as Bahawalpur city in the south of Punjab claims to be Sayyid descendants of Muhammad.

Genetics                                 

  Genetic study sets out to uncover if there is a 2,700-year-old link to Afghanistan and Pakistan, decided on 13 years ago in 2010.  

 Paradoxically it is from the Pashtuns that the ultra-conservative Islamic Taliban movement in Afghanistan emerged. Pashtuns themselves sometimes talk of their Israelite connection, but show few signs of sympathy with, or any wish to migrate to, the modern Israeli state.

Now an Indian researcher has collected blood samples from members of the Afridi tribe of Pashtuns who today live in Malihabad, near Lucknow, in northern India. Shahnaz Ali, from the National Institute of Immuno­haematology in Mumbai, is to spend several months studying her findings at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa. A previous genetic study in the same area did not provide proof one way or the other.

Some have claimed to have found traces of them in modern day China, Burma, Nigeria, Central Asia, Ethiopia and even in the West. But it is believed that the tribes were dispersed in an area around modern-day northern Iraq and Afghanistan, which makes the Pashtun connection the strongest.

"Of all the groups, there is more convincing evidence about the Pathans than anybody else, but the Pathans are the ones who would reject Israel most ferociously. That is the sweet irony," said Shalva Weil, an anthropologist and senior researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Pashtuns have a proud oral history that talks of descending from the Israelites.

Their tribal groupings have similar names, including Yusufzai, which means sons of Joseph; and Afridi, thought by some to come from Ephraim. Some customs and practices are said to be similar to Jewish traditions: lighting candles on the sabbath, refraining from eating certain foods, using a canopy during a wedding ceremony and some similarities in garments.

Weil cautioned, however, that this is not proof of any genetic connection. DNA might be able to determine which area of the world the Pashtuns originated from, but it is not at all certain that it could identify a specific genetic link to the Jewish people.

Some are more certain, among them Navras Aafreedi, an academic at Luck­now University, himself a Pashtun from the Afridi tribe. His family trace their roots back to Pathans from the Khyber Agency of what is today north-west Pakistan, but he believes they stretch back further to the tribe of Ephraim.

"Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Israel finds mention in a number of texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists," Aafreedi said.

But Weil said the work was absorbing, well beyond questions of immigration. "I find a myth that has been so persistent for so long, for 2,000 years, really fascinating," she said.

Moreover, we linked the unexplored genetic 

connection between Ashkenazi Jews and 

Pashtun. The presence of specific haplotypes J1b (4%) and K1a1b1a (5%) pointed to a genetic connection of Jewish conglomeration in the  Khattak tribe. Khattak or Khatak (Pashto: خټک, Urdu خٹک), is the name of an Afghan tribe belonging to the Karlan branch of the Afghans. The tribe's history is quite ancient. One of the earliest references about them are found in the 4th century BCE in Median Empire (Media And Arachosia). "The Medes were the sons of Japheth (son of Noah)  and mentioned in the Bible.  They cooperated with the Babylonians.   in the 6th century BCE.  Then they were defeated by Cyrus, the Jews' hero.  It's highly possible that some of our northern Israelite tribes were sold to the Medes, and that's my opinion.    

This was a result of an ancient genetic influx in the early Neolithic period that led to the formation of a diverse genetic substratum in present day Pashtun.

I checked Family Tree DNA and they have over 300 in a group testing the haplotypes of people from Afghanistan and Pakistan.  https://www.familytreedna.com/public/dna_afghan_pak?iframe=yresults  They tested with haplogroups that Jews also are found to have, with a lot of R, J1, J2, then they had L, O, C,H, and G.  There were men with Q, and my father was a Q. (QBZ67) to be exact.    I saw Q-M242 and that's ours at the beginning of our testing.  

Pashtun

As Chabad tells us:  In the year 3154, one hundred and ninety years after the two kingdoms had split, 

Menahem ben Gadi (743-736 BCE) seized the throne by assassinating Shallum (743) —who had ruled for a mere month—and became the sixteenth king of Israel. His brutal treatment of the citizens of Tiphsah, who refused to open the gates  of the city, is recorded in II Kings, 15:16.  When Tiglath-Pilser III invaded Syria and Israel, King Menahem was forced to pay him a heavy tribute.  

It was during his reign that the Assyrians invaded the land of Israel. King Menahem, a brutal monarch who at the slightest hint of rebellion would destroy entire cities, had to contend both with his rapidly decreasing popularity and with the Assyrian invasion. 

As such, rather than resist the invaders, he preferred to levy a heavy tax on his subjects in order to pay tribute to the Assyrians in exchange for a promise to support his rule.

The weight of Assyria’s dominion over the land of Israel began to bear down more heavily. King Pekah (735-730 BCE) seized the throne after assassinating King Pekahiah (736-735 BCE), Menahem’s son. Seeing that there was no escape from complete subjugation by Assyria, he joined the revolt which King Rezin of Syria had organized against Assyria, in the hope of enlisting Egypt in an effort to stem the tide of the Assyrian conquest.

That's what the northern tribes were left with when the Assyrians marched them away, brutality in their own land.  It's a wonder they had learned about candles on a Friday night that they still practiced, not knowing why.  They would have met up with brutality practiced by the Assyrians as well.  Considering the environment they had lived under, it's amazing they held onto Pashtunwali, the creed of creating a kinder society.  

Following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the original regime in 2001, the Taliban regrouped across the border in Pakistan and began taking back territory less than ten years after their ouster. By August 2021, the Taliban had swept back into power. Their swift offensive came as the United States withdrew its remaining troops from Afghanistan as outlined in a 2020 peace agreement with the group.

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, twenty years after their ouster by U.S. troops. Under their harsh rule, they have cracked down on women’s rights and neglected basic services.

Reference:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

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

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/17/israel-lost-tribes-pashtun

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

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

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan

https://muslimbaniisrael.wordpress.com/khattak-the-tribe-of-manasseh/#:~:text=Khattak%20or%20Khatak%20(Pashto%3A%20%D8%AE%D9%BC%DA%A9,Empire%20(Media%20And%20Arachosia).

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/are-the-taliban-descendants-of-israel-678995

The Hateful Syrian Rulers From Greece of the Hellenistic Period: Chanukah

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

There was a family from Greece who held an awful lot of power in ancient Hellenistic times.  It was the Seleucus family who produced many descendants that also held that power.  This line was called the House of of Seleucus.  The first of the line that was noteworthy was Antiochus  III, a king,  and that power stayed with the males of this family.                                  

Antiochus III was followed by 12 other Greek kings of the House of Seleucus who ruled Syria in the Hellenistic Period.  

Antiochus III  reigned from 223 to 187 BCE. He transferred 2,000 Jewish families from Babylon to Lydia and Phrygia. After his capture of Jerusalem in 198 BCE, he treated the Jewish with understanding.   It had been Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE and then again in 586 BCE that (Israelites) Jews  had been taken out of Judah (southern Israel) in the first place and brought to Babylon, so these Jews had remained there for about the past 400 years. 

Located in western Anatolia (Asia Minor) a peninsula in SW Asia, and bordered by the kingdom of Phrygia to the east and Ionia to the west, the kingdom of Lydia flourished during the first millennium B.CE. Much of what is known about Lydia derives from the Greek historian Herodotus (fifth century B.C.).

Could it be that some Turks of today carry some Jewish genes?

Antiochus IV Epiphanes reigned from 175 to163 BCE.  He decided to attack Egypt but was turned back by Rome on his 2nd expedition in 168 BCE.  He occupied Jerusalem, plundered the Temple treasure, and endeavored to hellenize Judea by force in order to convert it into a  province he thought was reliable, beaten down.  From this episode comes our history and remembrance with the festival of Chanukah.   This brought about a rising which Antiochus suppressed with great cruelty:  thousands of Jews were killed and many sold into slavery. 

Antiochus IV Epiphanes followed it up with bringing in foreign settlers into Jerusalem and fortifying Acra as a stronghold of the Hellenizers to dominate the city.  He now began a fierce religious persecution of the Jews, forbidding circumcision and observance of the Sabbath, desecrating the Temple altar, setting up pagan altars in the provincial towns, and compelling the Jews to participate in pagan ceremonies.  His excesses caused the Hasmonean uprising and what we know about Chanukah.  

Antiochus V reigned from 164 to 162 BCE.  He was the son of Antiochus IV.   He continued the war against the Jews until 163 BCE, when he granted them religious and some political autonomy in return for their acceptance of his rule.  

Antiochus VII Sidetes reigned from 138 to 128 BCE and reasserted the Seleuicid claims on Judea.  After an initial repulse in 138 BCE, reasserted the Seleucid claims on Judea.  After and initial repulse in 138 BCE, he again invaded Judea and besieged Jerusalem in 135-134 BCE.  John Hyrcanus was forced to surrender, destroy the walls of Jerusalem, cede his conquests outside Judea, and pay tribute, but after Antiochus VII's death in 129 BCE, he reasserted his independence. John was the son and successor of Simon the Hasmonean who ruled from 135 to 104 BCE.  During his father, Simon's lifetime, John Hyrcanus was governor of Gezer (once the Canaanite center in 3rd and 2nd millennia, held by Egyptians who gave it to Solomon as dowry for his daughter, then recaptured by Pharaoh Shishak.), but after the murder of his father and 2 brothers by his brother-in-law Ptolemy, escaped to Jerusalem.  Simon was one of the 5 sons of Mattathias of Modiin of our Chanukah story who rebelled against Antiochus IV and his hellenizing policy. From 166 to 164 BCE, the Hasmoneans fought a number of successful battles against the Syrians and in 164 BCE Judah captured Jerusalem back and rededicated the Temple that they cleaned out, taking their idol of Zeus out as well.  This was followed up with a series of raids to rescue the Jewish population of Ammon, Idumea, Gilead, and Galilee.

Antiochus IX Cyzicenus reigned intermittently from 125 to 95 BCE and was severely defeated in  107 when endeavoring to assist Samaria (what had once been Israel, land of 10 of the 12 tribes that had split when Solomon died in 920 BCE which was under siege by a Jewish army. Samaria had been the capital under Jeroboam, Solomon's overseer who took command, then referred to all the land surrounding Samaria).

To hellenize the Jews meant to erase all connections that they had with their beginnings and turn them into the populace they were then living among; and here it was the Syrians who had already been turned into Greeks.  We see it happening to American Jews as well, who have intermarried with American gentiles and have dropped the customs of their ancestors.  They have been hellenized, are products of assimilation. There are groups of distinct gentiles in the USA who have maintained their ancestral customs such as the Swedes.  They can return today to Sweden  for holidays to rejuvenate their roots if they want.                                    

Journey of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan

 Jews go back 4,000 years to their roots, so they have gone through so much hellenization, going through many cultures, yet keeping their religion just barely by today.  Most show through DNA testing that marriages have been kept among Jews and not too much intermarriages due to the hatred other people have for Jews.  Intermarriages have occurred more in the  20th century  and this brings about more hellenization.  

We find the Pashtuns, a distinct people found in Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India  who have been practicing a few Jewish cultural acts without even knowing its origins or why they do so, who should win the prize for keeping something of their Jewish roots.  However, they have long since stopped their Jewish thoughts and have accepted Islam, but they still have kept their own "Pashtunwali" precepts, which we find come from the Torah.  DNA testing also shows our connection to these people.                 

Remembering Chanukah, our story of stopping hellenization or assimilation is done with lighting of the Chanukiah, and giving out presents and eating Potato latkas, a fried in oil potato pancake with onion that is so delicious.  Also, for  dessert, we have, at least in Israel, sufganiot, a special donut reserved for Chanukah and eaten because it's another product fried in oil.  It's the oil in the Chanukah story that is to be remembered --at least by the children.  I remember that if the brave family of Hasmoneans hadn't stopped such hellenizing, Judaism would have been erased completely.  I leave it to you to understand the repercussions of that.  We'd all be honoring Zeus today and every day. 

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia    

The Mixed Population of Samaria and What Developed From All That Mixing

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

                                                         Mount Samaria 

Date trees mixed with fir trees, such lovely green for the landscape,  and such lovely blue skies; where would you ever hope to see such a sight?  

  The Northern tribes had gone through a huge population shift.  This northern part of the original Israel took on the name of Samaria, in Hebrew, Shomron.  Samaria had been the capital after King Solomon had died in 920 BCE and there had been a civil war between them and the tribe of Judah, the southern tribe containing Jerusalem. Samaria was founded in 880 BCE by King Omri of Israel on a hill bought from Shemer (I Kings 16:24)  The city covered 25 acres.  Sargon II of Assyria had resettled it with Cutheans who then intermingled with the remnants of the former population, and became the ancestors of the Samaritans.     

 The Kutim is the Talmudic term for Samaritans, alluding to their reported origin (II Kings 17:24); the term was used occasionally to denote any persons or group rejecting the Oral Law.  It is also the name of one of the minor tractates appended to the Talmud in which the relationship between Samaritans, Jews and Gentiles are discussed.                          

Ten of the twelve Tribes of Jacob lived in Northern Israel.  They were:  Dan, Asher, Naphtali, Zebulun, Manesseh, Gad, Ephraim, Reuben, Simeon, part of Benjamin.  Assyria with Shalmaneser in the lead,, held a siege of Samaria and capture in 721 BCE the lands.  Sargon II, the next Assyrian in line, then deported 27,290 Israelites to Assyria and Media, and replaced them with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners.                                     

One hundred thirty-five years later, Babylonia pulled the same move.  They had taken Assyria's place and deported many more Jews to Babylonia in 586 BCE from Judah which would have been from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Simeon.  .  They were able to join and blend in with the earlier Jews that had been kidnapped.  That caused Jews from all 12 tribes to be found in Babylonia, but what in Samaria?

Samaria would have had the remnant left from the first exchange of population of all 10 of the 12 tribes and the new population of Syrian and native Babylonian former prisoners.  Originally, the 10 tribes were true to their religion and to Jerusalem's holiness, but not with the zeal of the Judeans whose land Jerusalem resided.  With a foreign population now neighboring them,  the interest waned even more, though it was given a rush by Ezra, who had returned from Babylon to cause the interest.               

Ezra was a member of the priestly family (Cohens-J1's Y haplogroup) of the Zadok family, born in the 5th century BCE.  He had served as a scribe in the employment of the Persian government.  When he heard that the Jewish community, his homeland, was deteriorating even though it had been re-organized some 60 years before by the original group of returning Jews that Cyrus had allowed, even insisting that they go back to rebuild the Temple.  They had returned from Babylon under Zerubbabel.  So Ezra decided to lead a new party of Babylonian Jews who would firmly establish the Mosaic law in Judah. In 458 BCE, he received permission from Arataxerxes I of Persia and went to Jerusalem with 1,734 returning exiles.  He and Nehemiah persuaded the people to keep the Torah, to observe the Sabbath and the sabbatical year, to pay their Temple dues, and to reject intermarriage with gentiles by 444 BCE.

The Talmud credits Ezra with reintroducing biblical laws after it had been forgotten and notes that Ezra and his group introduced the many ancient laws as well as the square Hebrew letters, the precise determination of the text of the Pentateuch, and the establishment of the great Assembly (Knesset ha-Gedolah).  Actually, they tried to cover all that Moses had originally taught.  Many of these people had not been a part of the Israelites at all and never knew a thing.  

Nehemiah, also born in the 5th century BCE, was the Governor of Judah.  while acting as cupbearer to the Persian king, Artaxerxes I, he heard of the deplorable conditions in Jerusalem and asked permission to go there.  The king agreed and appointed him the governor of Judah in 444 BCE.  When he reached Jerusalem, he organized the repair of its walls-and the job was finished in 52 days despite interference by neighboring peoples.  

Then he devoted himself to social reforms, such as practicing Sabbath observance which evidently had been stopped.

He reinstituted the cancellation of debts owed by the poor.  the leaders of the people had to pledge themselves to maintain the temple regulations and pay their tithes.

The security of Jerusalem was ensured by arranging for a tenth of the people to take up residence there. 

After 12 years, Nehemiah returned to Susa, Persia, but later returned to Jerusalem to renew his drastic activity.  In 433-432 BCE, he took steps against mixed marriages, etc., in conjunction with Ezra.  His work was decisive in the rebuilding of Judah.  Nehemiah's memoirs form the basis of the biblical Book of Nehemiah which is a continuation of the Book of Ezra in the Hagiographa.  

As for the best and brightest of the population that had been taken by the Assyrians from 721 to 715 BCE, they never appeared again to our new Northern tribes. They were spoken about as the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. 

 They became most important because of the prophecies by Ezekiel (37:16), which associated the final Redemption with the reunion of the whole House of Israel...the coming of the Moshiach with all of the Jewish people.  As long as the earth's surface was imperfectly explored, the Jewish world was periodically excited by reports of the discovery of the Lost 10 tribes in many different places. 

Eldad ha-Dani reported them in the mountains of Africa.  Benjamin of Tudela heard of them in Central Asia.  David Reuven claimed to be the brother of one of their rulers in some region of Arabia.  Antonio  de Montezinos found them in South America.   Shabbetai Tzevi appointed rulers over the various 10 tribes. They were associated with the Japanese, another theory had them in the Anglo-Saxon countries. 

In historical fact, some members of the 10 tribes had remained in Palestine, where apart from the Samaritans, some of their descendants long preserved their identity among the Jewish population, which others were assimilated, while another group had presumably were absorbed by the last Judean exiles who in 597 to 586 BCE were deported to areas adjacent to the place of exile of the 10 tribes, such as Media, Assyria, and Mesopotamia. 

Now, we find it quite clear that the Pashtun people of Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India were members of our lost 10 tribes.  They have retained many of the Jewish elements of our culture, not realizing where their habits had originated from.  They of course at present are Muslims, and strict ones at that, though the also have their own creed of Pashtunwali, which seems to be the remnant of our Mosaic creed.   A group has traveled to Jerusalem for a visit.  There is a group on Facebook of Israelis and other Jews that talk with Pashtuns interested in their history.  

The past sum of years has been a time of the ingathering of our lost people, and it seems that all but the Pashtuns have settled down in Israel, even some American Jews.  Quite a few are from Great Britain, and other English-speaking countries.  They have created a group to help each other called Americans and Canadians of Israel (ACI). 

Update: 5/3/22 10:20am: 

Most half a million Jews and 1.8 million Arabs live in an area of about 2290 square miles, and in portions of that space they work together, shop together and battle the same chronic traffic jams.

Cousins are getting to know cousins.  We've been separated from each other for one heck of a long time. To figure how many great grandparents  we have, we start with our 2 parents and times (X) the number by 2 each time. So we have 4 grandparents.  From having 8 great grandparents, we can figure that by the 18th generation, we'd have 1,048, 576 great grandparents.  We have a lot of ancestors!  Psst:  a generation is 25 years.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia 

https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-704160#:~:text=Almost%20half%20a%20million%20Jews,the%20same%20chronic%20traffic%20jams.