FEATURE
Incest: Good for the Jews |
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| The benefits of a small tribal gene pool | |
 by Joey Kurtzman, January 1, 2007 |
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Ashkenazim aren’t the only group that has kept outsiders out of the gene pool. Most other such groups, however, are isolated, rural populations, like the Amish or the inhabitants of Australia’s Norfolk Island. Ashkenazim are the best-studied group of cousin-kissers on the planet because they’re convenient. A scientist doesn’t need to trek out to the boonies to do her research when she’s got a million Ashkenazi Jews outside her door in the same city where she lives and works.
So endogamy and cosmopolitanism go a long way towards explaining why Jewish DNA has been the source of a gobsmacking number of important genetic findings. Unfortunately, the news coverage of those findings has focused primarily on the negative: genes that predispose us to Tay-Sachs disease, breast cancer, intestinal disease…and the list goes on.
But not all the startling stories hiding in Ashkenazi DNA are bad. Freakishness has its benefits. Some of our genetic eccentricities are more Übermensch than sissy-pants, more Schwarzenegger than DeVito.
Here’s a brief tour through four of the happier genetic quirks discovered about the Ashkenazi wing of our tribe in recent years.
RESISTANCE TO HIV
Yes, you still need to use condoms. But a significant proportion of Ashkenazi Jews have a mutation in a gene called CCR5, and the most common strain of HIV uses the protein produced by CCR5 to climb inside people’s cells. The mutation prevents HIV from exploiting that protein to gain access. If you get two copies of the mutant gene, then most strains of HIV will have little to no chance of getting into your cells. If you get one copy, you’re still less likely to contract HIV, and, if you do, your prognosis is better.
The number of Ashkenazi Jews who have the mutation varies among different Jewish subgroups. According to a study conducted at the Center of Neurogenetics in Paris, a whopping 45 percent of Litvaks (Jews from Lithuania) have at least one copy of the mutation. Ethiopian Jews, on the other hand, don’t have it at all.
Population geneticists aren’t sure why Jews have the mutation in such high numbers. Some of the microbes responsible for Europe’s plagues may have used the same protein, and, as one theory goes, the plagues hit Jews harder than most other European populations, leaving us with a genetic advantage today. Wearing the same heavy clothes every day and never bathing may have had its benefits.
LOW RATES OF ALCOHOLISM
“Shicker iz a goy, shicker iz a goy, shicker iz er, trinken muz er, vahl er iz a goy!” That racist old Yiddish ditty translates: “The goy is a drunk! The goy is a drunk! He has to drink, because he’s a goy!” Classy stuff.
Jews made a mint in Europe by distilling alcohol and selling it to Gentiles, and then we sang songs about what drunks they were. But it turns out Gentiles really are more likely than Jews to become drunks, and it’s not because young Jews learn how to drink responsibly by quaffing Manischewitz at the Seder table, or any of the other old, folk explanations.
Twenty percent of Ashkenazi Jews have a genetic mutation on chromosome nine that causes an unpleasant reaction to alcohol—headaches, nausea, flushing—which in turn makes heavy drinking and alcoholism less likely. This mutation is almost nonexistent among non-Jewish Europeans, but common among Asians.
It’s a model minority thing, apparently.
LOW RATES OF CERVICAL CANCER
It’s not cause you’re not a slut, that’s for sure. The low incidence of cervical cancer among Jewish women has been a longstanding mystery to scientists. People used to think that a circumcised penis was like a magic wand, protecting Jewish women from a nasty cancer that was far more common among non-Jews. That partly explains why American Gentiles started doing like the poor biblical boys of Shekhem and slicing off their foreskins. Once all these Gentiles started circumcising their kids, the bad news came in: Low rates of cervical cancer have nothing to do with circumcision.
The low incidence of human papilloma virus (HPV) among Jewish women may partly explain their low rates of cervical cancer. And scientists have recently discovered that a genetic mutation called p53-D12 predisposes some women to cervical cancer; that mutation is rare among Jewish women.
HIGH RATES OF INTELLIGENCE
“The world is riddled—riddled!—with dumb Ashkenazi Jews,” as Leon Wieseltier reminds us. Too true, Leon. But with the tribe’s lineup including Freud, Einstein, and Speed Levitch, and Ashkenazim possessing an exceedingly high mean IQ, Jews have more than their share of smarties. They’ve also got more than their share of neurological disorders such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher’s disease. According to a recent study at the University of Utah, there’s a connection: The same genes that cause diseases such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher’s can also help make you a little Einstein.
The genes in question promote the growth of brain cells. Basically, if you get two of those genes, your brain cells will be afflicted by the kind of extreme and disordered cell growth associated with Tay-Sachs. Get only one of those genes and the cell growth within your brain is enhanced, meaning your grandma will never shut up about you at the mah-jongg table. Or so the Utah researchers argue.
The theory attempts to answer the question of what causes higher rates of intelligence among Jews. And as the theory’s premise is clear and testable, we’ll know for certain in a few years whether it’s the right answer. As to the question of why the gene is there in the first place, it’s all conjecture from here on in.
Some think it’s because our smartest guys became big Talmud chachams and got the girls, while the smartest non-Jewish Europeans became priests and spilled their seed into bed sheets. Or, others postulate, maybe it’s because Jews had to pursue talky, cognitively taxing professions because they weren’t allowed to own land or join guilds. Whatever the explanation may be, Jews got the smahts, baby.
N E X T
Do: What do DNA and endogamy mean for Jewish chauvinism – and antisemitism? Leave your comments below.
Go: Feel certain that your family tree takes you directly back to King David himself? Then meet thousands of other crazies like yourself at the Eternal House of David Reunion in Jerusalem on May 28-30, 2007.
Read: Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker wrote [subscription necessary] on Jewish IQ in The New Republic in June 2006. A more controversial evolutionary psychologist Kevin MacDonald has spent a career addressing Jewish group characteristics, which he terms an “evolutionary strategy” to keep tribal chromosomes exclusive. Judith Shulevitz called MacDonald “Evolutionary Psychology’s Anti-Semite” six years ago in Slate.
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Joey Kurtzman is former president of Jewcy Partners, LLC, and co-founding editor of Jewcy.com |
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Anonymous
Great article. Back in the old country, my great grandparents had the same last name BEFORE they were married. I'm as nervous and inbred as a chihuahau.
Anonymous
jews are not a race.
the stories of the bible are myths.
there is no 'tribe'.
although, so-called ashkenazi jews really are inbred to a degree, but so are the amish.
this is what happens when a small religious community tends to stick with its own kind.
JewcyCraig
Let's hear it for Anon's scientific method! ...There better be one, at least, because his rhetoric is woefully inadequate.
Anonymous
Could not be any worse than Jewish thinking, could it?
The constant mantra Jews repeat about being the worlds 'oldest nation', the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, blah blah blah.
Why don't you do some research instead of your bigoted ad hominem attacks?
People are finally realizing the Jewish race myth, even individuals from Jewish families are beginning to see through the lies they were raised to believe.
There was never an ancient Israel empire or the characters in the bible. All stories.
Yiddish is a Slavic language traced back to the Khazars.
I could go on and on, but with narrow minded bigoted prejudice individuals reading this stuff, whats the point?
Michael Nehora
I don't know which "people from Jewish families" you're talking about, but this Jew doesn't buy a word you're saying. So I will not address you further. I can't make people like you go away, and the Jewcy staff correctly tread lightly when it comes to censoring comments, but I'm asking you politely not to bother those of us who don't appreciate being told our history is a lie. There are plenty of other websites for you to visit.
However, for the benefit of those non-Jews visiting this site who may be unfamiliar with Jewish history, I should point out that Yiddish, for all its admirable qualities, is not the original, ancient Jewish language. That would be Hebrew. The so-called "Jews are Khazarians" nonsense somehow fails to explain where Hebrew came from. And it also disregards the many archeological corroborations of ancient Jewish life, far before the Khazars were a gleam in their parents' eyes. Google Hezekiah's tunnel, the Lachish letters, the Dura Europos synagogue...I could go on and on.
Anonymous
Your sacred history is not a lie, its just a story in a book. A story which is just that, a story.
You said:
The so-called "Jews are Khazarians" nonsense somehow fails to explain where Hebrew came from. And it also disregards the many archeological corroborations of ancient Jewish life, far before the Khazars were a gleam in their parents' eyes. Google Hezekiah's tunnel, the Lachish letters, the Dura Europos synagogue...I could go on and on.
______________________________________________________________________________
There is a difference between the modern Hebrew spoken today and ancient biblical Hebrew.
Yiddish as well as modern Hebrew is traced back to Khazaria.
They are both actually Slavic languages as crazy as that may sound at first.
Yiddish is a Slavic language that was relexified with a mostly German vocabulary, and modern Hebrew is also a Slavic language that was relexified with a mostly ancient Hebrew vocabulary.
No Jews in Europe ever spoke ancient Hebrew.
The theory that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars does explain where modern Hebrew comes from, does not say much about ancient Hebrew, though that language was probably spoken by a people called the Habiru.
Basically, when the Khazars were converted to Rabbinic/Talmudic Judaism, they also excepted the Hebrew alphabet which they used for their Asiatic language. Once the Khazarian empire fell to Kievan Rus and the Byzantines, Khazars fled to various parts of Europe, and during that time they Judaized a group of Western Slavs called Sorbs. Infusing their Asiatic language with the Hebrew alphabet they received with the Sorb's slavic language, they created the proto-Yiddish. Sometime in the 11th or 12th century, it was relexified with a German vocabulary. The language that is today known as Yiddish is a typologically Slavic language with a Hebrew alphabet and a mostly German vocabulary.
There are Ashkenazi Jews today with last names such as Khazarov, Khazarin, Kozar (Hungarian word for Khazar), Kagan (it was the title given to the Khazars leader), Kaplan, Halpern, Berman, Berkman. All these names are of Khazar origin. I was also told that there are several Turkic words in Yiddish. I don't know about that though. The word 'yarmulka' sounds very Turkic.
I checked out Hezekiah's tunnel, the Lachish letters, and Dura Europa. I've also read about The Menenptah Stele, The Moabite Stone, and the Elephantine Papyrus, among others. But that stuff is hard to believe since Jews and Christians alike have an agenda to prove biblical mythology as historical fact.
____________________________________________________________________________
Origins of Yiddish traces to Khazaria:
http://www.degruyter.com/rs/bookSingle.cfm?id=IS-9783110172584-1&l=E
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid...
The truth about the Khazars:
http://www.iahushua.com/JQ/factsR3.html
More about the Khazars:
http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Contributor17.htm
Hapologrup Q links ashkenazi jews to the khazars:
http://www.jogg.info/11/coffman.htm
The hidden truth of the 13th tribe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INur2LrEAgc
The true Semitic race phenotypes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieqoFdTd6Jo
A synagogue at Dura Europa has a rendering of Pharaoh's naked daughter (right side of the page):
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/rabinicjudaism.html
Evidence for ancient israel/israelites debunked:
http://www.giwersworld.org/history.phtml
http://www.giwersworld.org/ancient-history/index.phtml
The non-semitic origin of contemporary jews:
http://mama.indstate.edu/users/mouldmey/NSOCJ.PDF
Why there is no such thing as an 'atheist jew' or a 'secular jew':
http://njatheist.org/atheismandreligiondontmix.html
Anonymous
maN I get so S_ick of Jews with there "I'm so jewtacular" attitudes. If jews are so great then why didn't they stop the Holocauset? and they thouight they was so smart Now they know better! this only proves that jews arent'''' real humans cause they like there sisters vag like hardcore yo. case closed
j/k ok; don't flip your shiznit.
JHZolitor
Khazars were a Turkic tribe. Their language was Turkic. They converted to Judaism. They were eventually conquered by the Rus (Vikings & Slavs)
Modern Hebrew is a rather recent linguistic construction from biblical Hebrew.
Dude, all of your references with regard to the Khazars are web sites. You may also want to read a few historical, and well researched books on the subject. I highly recommend anything by Kevin Alan Brook, one of the leading, if not the leading scholar on the subject.
Thanks to Joey for compiling the research.
Jeff Zolitor
David N. Friedman
This is raw antisemitism of the first order. This myth has grown through the internet like wildfire and this kind of really stupid myth-making is simply beneath contempt.
The history of the human race is well documented. We may not have an overwhelming amount of data concerning the first temple period but with the invasion of the Greeks onward, there is simply indisputable proof concerning the origin of the Jewish people. Millions of people known as Jews and living in the land of Israel cannot be disputed any more than millions of Jews living in Israel today. There is simply way too much history from way too many sources to concoct another history of the Jewish people.
Every gross lie has a small bit of truth and there were Jews living in Khazar but this explains only a tiny percentage of the Jewish people. Indeed, after the Roman conquest (can someone really deny that the Romans expelled hundreds of thousands of Jews from the land of Israel 2000 years ago--is this really a serious argument?) Jews ended up in many parts of the globe.
I suppose this is the last resort of the antisemite. The suggestion that there really is no Jewish history, no Jewish people is perhaps the ultimate insult and the ultimate in irrationality. Perhaps this proves that people can literally believe ANYTHING without even a sense of shame or pride but note that it is posted anonymously.
ChevyNazi
They have endured much for 3000 years and are still flourishing!
naftali
The point of our Anonymous friend, is that any discussion of Jews as a race, as a genuine ancient people, all of this is bait that must be taken. Especially, great effort must be put in to discount our recorded history. Because if any or, heaven forbid, all of what Joey Kurtzman has written or implied is true, then the Jews have a historical claim to the land of Israel.
Mr or Ms Anonymous can't have that.
ChevyNazi
have a historical claim to the land of Israel. They are the masters of that nation plain and simple and no one under heaven can say otherwise!
zbird
But Friedman is 100% right. I have nothing more to add.
--Z
Adriaan
It makes me wonder what anonymous thinks a 'Race' is. It's simply a group of people that have maintained some form of group in-breeding long enough to have a recognizably unique genetic heritage.
It makes me wonder what Anonymous thinks we are taking about what we talk about the Asian 'Race' or the Caucasian 'Race' - Does he think there is anything more there than a convenient grouping of people who's shared phisical characteristics indicate a high probability of shared ancestors?
As to certain rights of ownership of parcels of land accruing to a the 'Race' identified as 'Jewish' based on some oral and textual histories- that's a question that can presumably be debated - I'm certainly not an expert in this area but I know how tenuous history can be. The question would be: 'Is the 'Race' currently identified as Jewish closely related to the group of people resident in ancient Israel?
Assuming this is proven to a high degree of certainly, Another question that arises is: Does having ancestors that lived in an area a long time ago give you (or your group) rights to an area that superceeds those of the later inhabitants?
Though this question is a bit moot at this point since Britain rammed through the creation of Israel, evicting the palestinians, and Israel took over 'protectorate' lands after being attacked. What right do palestinians have to _their_ ancestral lands?
If we attempted to repatriate every displaced group in the history of the world, we'd have endless war that would make the middle east conflicts look like a playfight. At some point we need to lose our historical baggage, forgive the wrongs done to our group by other groups, and carry on in the present attempting to treat all people with equal respect. Attempting to redress a historical wrong generally just creates whole new injustices to carry forward into the future.
hesad
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Anonymous
Try this buddy: http://4rapidsearch.com