Science reveals Stuff about Jewish Genetics

In a study sure to make snotty, self-absorbed Sephardi Jews feel even more inherently superior to the unrefined plebeians who took them out of the caves of the Atlas Mountains, not that I’m talking about anybody who writes for Jewlicious or anything, researchers at the Technion and the Rambam Medical Center discovered that 40% of Ashkenazi Jews, or about 3.5 million people, are descended from only four women.

Each woman left a genetic signature that shows up in their descendants today, he and colleagues say in a report published online by the American Journal of Human Genetics. Together, their four signatures appear in about 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews, while being virtually absent in non-Jews and found only rarely in Jews of non-Ashkenazi origin, the researchers said.

They said the total Ashkenazi population is estimated at around 8 million people. The estimated world Jewish population is about 13 million.

Ashkenazi Jews are a group with mainly central and eastern European ancestry. Ultimately, though, they can be traced back to Jews who migrated from Israel to Italy in the first and second centuries, Behar said. Eventually this group moved to Eastern Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries and expanded greatly, reaching about 10 million just before World War II, he said.

Apparently something happened to Ashkenazi Jewry during World War II. Possibly something kugel-related, I don’t know, I’m not a historian.

Interestingly, the research also indicates that the four women had near-Eastern genetic signatures, which somewhat contradicts previous research that hypothesized that the European Jewish community was founded chiefly by Middle Eastern men who converted European women in the aftermath of the major Roman expulsions from Judea. And, much to the chagrin of legions of neo-Nazis, anti-Zionists, and the aforementioned Sephardim, it indicates that we are actually not Khazars. But, I can’t debate, our food still does suck.

Of course, someone as concerned with the future of the Jewish people as I am can’t help but worry about the potential ramifications of such inbreeding. I mean, take a walk through Meah Shearim, Geulah, Bnei Brak or other mostly-Ashkenazi, super-Charedi insular communities. You’ll see plenty of genetic cocktails that you wouldn’t want to sip from, if you know what I mean. So, with the need to diversify our genetic portfolio, I propose a revolutionary program: “Don’t Inbreed, Interbreed!”* The goal of my program? Simple. The encouragement of Israel’s various ethnic Jewish tribes to make babies with each other for a stronger, healthier Jewish nation.

Strong and robust? Marry a sunken-chested, pale Ashkenazi Charedi! Don’t have enough body hair to keep warm in the fierce Jerusalem winter? Think of your future children and marry a lustrous-coated Persian! Want the kids to be bookish, intellectual and helpless in the kitchen? Sounds like you need a Yekke! Want plenty of doctors in the family and a 17% controlling share in Russia’s vast oil fields? Marry a Russian! Physically unfit and personally abrasive? Marry an Ethiopian and have polite, skinny kids who can run from Jerusalem to Addis Ababa and back on one plate of injara! Own stock in hair gel, tight jean and lousy cigarette concerns? Go Moroccan! Want to raise a passle of insufferable twats who will mooch off your credit card well into their thirties to make Shabbat dinner for their shiftless hippie friends? Ohhhh, say can you seeeeeee / by the dawn’s early liiiggghhhhttt! Not enough of an intolerable prick? Well, my friend, French aliyah is booming! Brazilians! Uzbeks! Canadians! Iraqis! South Africans! Indians! Bulgarians! Tunisians! They’re all here, they’re all kosher, they’ve all got different genetic material and all come fully stocked with broad ethnic stereotypes! Think of the future. Think of the children. Don’t inbreed, interbreed.

*Note to Syrian/Lebanese Jews: You are, of course, exempted from the “Don’t Inbreed, Interbreed” program, for as we are all aware, a Syrian/Lebanese Jew marrying a non-Syrian/Lebanese Jew, or, chas v’chalilah, an Ashkenazi, would cause the firmament to topple into the sea and snuff out all life on this earth. Please carry on.