Spengler does it again!
Just Spengler (David Goldman) being Spengler, From “Zionism is Racism” to “Judaism is Racism”:
Judaism has nothing to do with race-there are Jews of every race-but it does have to do with family. Jews are members of Abraham’s family. Not only tradition, but a great deal of DNA evidence support this claim. To insist that Jews adopt the criterion of “belief” for membership is to rule that God must act in accordance with a human court’s notion of the permissible range of God’s behavior. No wonder the Reform Jews and the British Humanist Association support this.
1) Yes, Jews are genetically distinct.
2) But, they are also the product of genetic admixture.
3) And, it seems more likely that that admixture arrived via maternal lineages, that is, gentile female ancestors (the mtDNA results are somewhat confused, but the Y lineages seem to be relatively strongly Middle Eastern in provenance in comparison to total genome content).
In light of the fact that the debate is over the validity of the criterion of maternal descent as to “Who is a Jew,” it seems deceptive to appeal to genetics when that field opens up more questions in regards to Jewish tradition than it closes. Of course, this sort of shell-game is normal behavior for Spengler. Someone should really put a “For Entertainment Purposes Only” sticker on his blog.
Labels: Genetics, Jewish Genetics
You’re right this is a Spengler shell game. The way most people see it is that religion is based on beliefs, race is based on heritable physical characteristics. What Spengler wants is for the world to accept the definition of Judaism based on heritable physical characteristics, but that it shouldn’t be called race. This is as transparent as the lawyer’s promise.
Its clear that Spengler does not want this physical definition of Judaism to be race-based because he wants them to be able to discriminate on this basis without having to accord all of the same rights of discrimination to everyone else. He wants discrimination for me, but not for thee.
All I can say is, whats fair for one is fair for all. If he wants it such that Jewish people can define and discriminate on the basis of such physical characteristics, he must accord the rest of us the same right. I should be able to create a new religion, called “Germanism” or perhaps “Germanic Gnosticism” and have its members being defined as the literal decedents of whatever Germanic historical figure I can come up with and we should have the same right of discrimination as Spengler. Somehow, I don’t think he would go along with this.
The only way that Spengler can be consistent with this belief is if he argued that discrimination on any basis whatsoever should be perfectly legal.
In the forum thread to his post, David Goldman/Spengler makes the following comments:
“DNA tests are pretty conclusive that the Kohanim (priestly) caste among Jews have a common ancestor who lived around 2,100 BC. If ever there were genetic markers establishing the continuity of a people, they are present among the Jews. Everything else is prejudical blather.
How does one convert to Judaism?
According to Rabbi Prof. Michael Wyschogrod, a miracle occurs: the convert becomes a physical descendant of Abraham and Sarah. He adds that as miracles should occur infrequently, conversion should not be too common.”
“The Jewish people are a multi-racial extended family due to intermarriage of numerous races over the centuries.”
i believe that most recent genetic work suggests they’re 3 different extended families.
Jews are genetically distinct.
Well, only if you limit the term “Jews” to the Ashkenazim. Ashkenazim are distinct because they are at least 60% European and have been mostly reproductively isolated from the general European population since the onset of the Dark Ages.
But Mizrahim have substantial admixture with non-European Middle Easterners. One could argue Ahkenazi and Mizrahi Jews are both religiously Jewish but genetically distinct in a number of ways (though not perfectly distinct, obviously).
And then there are the Ethiopian Jews who are clearly not ethnically related at all to the Ashkeanazi.
Nearly 85% of the Ethiopian Beta Israel community, comprising more than 110,700 people, have emigrated to Israel under its Law of Return, which gives Jews and those with Jewish parents or grandparents, and all of their spouses, the right to settle in Israel and obtain citizenship.
Well, only if you limit the term “Jews” to the Ashkenazim.
no, that’s wrong from what i know. do you know something i don’t? non-ashkenazi jews show plenty of evidence of genetic isolation from middle easterners too (e.g., compare the % of sub-saharan maternal ancestry in yemeni jews vs. non-jews). but i’m not too interested in jewish genetics as such, so i’ll be curious to pointers to papers.
here’s something from ASHG on jews. paper should be interesting.
p.s., from what i know “at least 60% european” is probably wrong too. seems like the estimate will be somewhat north of 50%, so 60% will be close to our current median expectation, not the low bound.
non-ashkenazi jews show plenty of evidence of genetic isolation from middle easterners too (e.g., compare the % of sub-saharan maternal ancestry in yemeni jews vs. non-jews). but i’m not too interested in jewish genetics as such, so i’ll be curious to pointers to papers.
Yes, I was aware Mizrahim show traces of the original Jewish people which they share with the Ashkenazim. That’s why I added the qualifier “not perfectly distinct” to my comment.
p.s., from what i know “at least 60% european” is probably wrong too. seems like the estimate will be somewhat north of 50%, so 60% will be close to our current median expectation, not the low bound.
I knew that, but the paper used Tuscans as a proxy for Southern Europeans. Jews are actually closer to Greeks than Northern Italians. If the researchers didn’t compare Jews with Greeks, then the European estimate of admixture might be a tad on the low end.
Yes, I was aware Mizrahim show traces of the original Jewish people which they share with the Ashkenazim. That’s why I added the qualifier “not perfectly distinct” to my comment.
no, that’s not the issue i was alluding to. rather, all jews seem to show some similar levels of isolation from gentiles after the rise of christianity and islam. IOW, i don’t see the dynamic as limited to ashkenazi jews. what did you mean by “limit the term to ashkenazi jews”?
I knew that, but the paper used Tuscans as a proxy for Southern Europeans. Jews are actually closer to Greeks than Northern Italians. If the researchers didn’t compare Jews with Greeks, then the European estimate of admixture might be a tad on the low end.
fair enough. but do note that these “tuscans” might not be representative north italians. remember that this is the population which showed evidence of anatolian ancestry due to etruscans. that made some gene frequencies a little more intelligible to me when i was poking around the HGDP browser.
what did you mean by “limit the term to ashkenazi jews”?
My point was Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews are genetically similar because they share common ancestry but also genetically differ because of admixture with local populations.
no, that’s not the issue i was alluding to. rather, all jews seem to show some similar levels of isolation from gentiles after the rise of christianity and islam.
Sorry. I misread your point. Obviously that is true and I do not dispute the fact Jews later became genetically isolated.
I was referring more to how various Jewish groups both genetically differ and relate to each other.
coo. we agree.
This seems more like an argument to not have religious schools funded by governments.
This issue seems to some extent connected to the issue that Dawkins is fond of discussing, namely that we label children in general by their parents religion and somehow that is ok. If one accepts that sort of notion then it doesn’t seem unreasonable to let Jews decide this by the mother, Muslims by the father, etc. I don’t think that this is in fact racist by nature due to the possibly of conversion. It may be ridiculous, but that doesn’t make it racist.
The failure to acknowledge that genetic evidence seems to me to be more part of a general trend in in Orthodox Judaism to happily accept scientific evidence when it supports pre-existing beliefs and to deny it when it doesn’t. However that said, I think many Jews would say that the only sense that Jews are of the same family is in some spiritual sense, whatever that means. So Spengler’s contortions may be due to his own theological predilections rather than more general attitudes. Of course, reevaluating his theology in light of evidence is out of the question.
There are also some complexities in this case since the mother had a conversion that just isn’t considered valid by most Orthodox Jews. The entire issue of conversions and which are accepted is very controversial and complicated. In one of the more extreme recent issues with this, some ultra-orthodox Rabbis have recently declared that any conversion is invalid if it is overseen by Rabbis who are not young earth creationists. There’s a funny trend in Judaism where you have a large string of linearly ordered groups all of whom considered the groups on one side of them to have unacceptable conversions and consider the lack of acceptance of their own conversions by groups to their other side as deeply offensive.
I wonder if Spengler would be ready to take his assumption to its logical conclusion, i.e. deny the status of Jew to anybody whose mtDNA is not compatible with a Middle Eastern origin?
He’s clearly not aware of the “One Law For All” campaign in the UK, opposing Sharia and Beth Din courts.
In the UK (as in the US) we make laws by voting. Jewish UK citizens are welcome to suggest changes in the law and persuade the non-Jewish majority of their rightness. But the argument must be “justiciable”. It must work across the board, for Jewish and non-Jewish UK citizens alike, treating them as legally equal subjects. Spengler doesn’t even begin this conversation.
According to Jewish Law, you’re Jewish if your mother is Jewish or you convert. Does that make Jews a race? A family? Does it matter? Once you give up trying to shoe-horn reality into Platonic concepts, it’s not too hard to understand. But why you think Spengler is playing a shell-game? I would interpret his meaning as being that the physical characteristics of Jews fit many racial archetypes, but there is also a lot of genetic continuity. This is true, how is it a shell game, except for the fact that trying to shoe-horn reality into Platonic concepts is always something of a shell game?
As far as the legal issue goes, it’s not clear to me why it focuses on the race issue, rather than the conversion issue…
But why you think Spengler is playing a shell-game? I would interpret his meaning as being that the physical characteristics of Jews fit many racial archetypes, but there is also a lot of genetic continuity.
it’s a shell game because the genetic continuity is of a sort which likely contradicts the reality of matrilineal descent, which is a major part of the issue under debate.
the genetic continuity is of a sort which likely contradicts the reality of matrilineal descent, which is a major part of the issue under debate
Assuming the women converted, the facts are consistent with the claims.
Assuming the women converted, the facts are consistent with the claims.
*shrug* i don’t really care that much about that. but it is an interesting point that there is some circumstantial evidence now from the genetic distance data that the “conversions” might have happened in italy *before* the crystallization of talmudic judaism.
*shrug* i don’t really care that much about that
Then I don’t understand your point. What else could you mean by “contradicts the reality of matrilineal descent”?
“conversions” might have happened in italy *before* the crystallization of talmudic judaism
That’s not a problem, but you probably don’t want me to get into that!
BTW None of my comments should be seen as support for Spengler’s ideas in general.
Data is incomplete in that I haven’t seen this number calculated for every possible Jewish subgroup, but Ashkenazi Jews are genetically closer to Italians than to any Middle Eastern group yet measured. It would seem likely that they are closer to southern Europeans than to any other Jewish group – while still being genetically distinct from Europeans.
This is consistent with the observation that their mtDNA looks mostly European. For example, that very common K lineage whose closest sister lineages were found in Italy, Portugal, France, and Morocco – looks like an Italian lineage that spread over part of the Roman empire, to me.
This has some relevance to our hypothesis about selection. There is more European admixture than we had guessed (50-60% rather than ~ 40%), but that’s still compatible with a rate of inward gene flow low enough to allow differential selection. In fact, since the admixture seems to be predominantly from southern Europe, most of it must have happened _before_ the Ashkenazi show up in the Rhineland. During the period in which they were historically visible, (all north of the Alps and Pyrenees) inward gene flow must have been very low. The point being that admixture that happens _before_ the period of selection does not interfere with selection at all.
Then I don’t understand your point. What else could you mean by “contradicts the reality of matrilineal descent”?
david, i don’t think goldman’s readers are as punctilious as you are in terms of their coherency. i think it is therefore important for people to know the nature of introgression of non-mid eastern genes in light of the asymmetrical importance of geneaology.
This is consistent with the observation that their mtDNA looks mostly European. For example, that very common K lineage whose closest sister lineages were found in Italy, Portugal, France, and Morocco – looks like an Italian lineage that spread over part of the Roman empire, to me.
There was a sizable and many centuries old population of Jews in Anatolia during the age of the Hellenic Empire.
Do Ashkenazis show any notable similarity specifically with Turks, Greeks and Armenians, or is there not enough data to say either way?
To paraphrase Terry Eagleton, doing something for a very long time is not the same as being right.
Might the proto-ashkenazim have all gone to some particular corner of Italy in the diaspora, being or becoming a fairly elite group that christian women would marry with, even if they had to convert? In a more xenophobic time it woulda been particularly sensible for them to all move to the same place, as e.g. Hmong immigrants today all move to Minnesota and Detroit. And naturally high-Openness cosmopolitan elites would be more likely to move to the enemy homeland, and would perhaps ease the conversion of gentile wives by tolerating a measure of christian syncretism. The fall of the empire might turn them more conservative, making them cleave to their faith and, importantly, endogamy, in a millieu that would have become more particularist and more volatile.
I dont know much history of the empire, so I cant really judge this idea as plausible or implausible.
In a more xenophobic time it woulda been particularly sensible for them to all move to the same place,
The Roman Jews on the Italian Peninsula were generally tolerated (if not exactly loved) and enjoyed legal rights from the second century BC to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. I’m not sure whether their rights became restricted between 70 AD and the twilight of the Empire.
The Jewish Diaspora: Rome
I’m not sure whether their rights became restricted between 70 AD and the twilight of the Empire.
well, they had rights even after their rebellion(s) (e.g., exemption from emperor worship). they were simply considered to be a difficult people who caused problems, and had no close connections to gentile elite as herodian dynasty did during the reign of augustus, tiberius and caligula. their main issues seemed to crop up after the rise of christianity, which tended to marginalize all organized non-christian within the empire. lots of problems manifested in the 5th and 6th century, though most of the stuff i’ve read is from the eastern empire.
There was more restriction on Jewish rights than that post 70 CE. Especially after Bar Kochbah’s rebellion in the 130s. However, my impression is that most of those restrictions only lasted for a few years. The exception to that was barring of Jews from being in Jerusalem which lasted some time.
Unfortunately, the sources from this time period aren’t great. Later Jewish sources tried to portray the failure of Bar Kochba as due to a lack piety of the Jews. The Talmud doesn’t discuss the period with much historical detail. And later Christian sources have their own agendas as well. Sorting out what happened when exactly in regards to the treatment of the Jews is difficult.
While we’re on the topic, it isn’t at all clear when the rule about maternal descent was adopted. Some have suggested that this was adopted late. It is at some level very strange that being Jewish or not is matrilineal but that pretty much everything else is patrilineal. For example, whether someone is a kohen, levi or yisrael is determined by the father barring some very narrow circumstances (such as if a kohen marries a divorcee the resulting children are not kohanim). Mamzerut (essentially the most severe form of bastardy in Judaism) is a possible exception in that there’s disagreement (as I understand it, I’ve never looked at the sources in detail) as to whether it is inherited just through the male line or through both lines with the more common position being that mamzerut is inherited through both lines.
gcochran:
Good you cleared up that matter of percentages. I was beginning to wonder about my fondness for linguini aliol with broccoli rabe; now I understand.
Razib,
At Secular Right you doubted whether Orthodox Jews voted heavily Republican.
I found a July 2008 Gallup poll that showed McCain and Obama split the vote between the 39% of Jews who felt religion was important in their lives.
Granted, the survey was taken months before the election and doesn’t focus on Orthodox Jews. Nonetheless, you might find it useful anyway because it adds to the pile of evidence that Jewish liberalism is correlated with their level of secularism:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108688/religious-intensity-predicts-support-mccain.aspx
These patterns, so starkly evident among white Christians, essentially disappear among Catholics who are Hispanic, and non-Catholic Christians who are black. Cultural considerations deriving from ethnicity and race among these groups are likely the dominant factors influencing their vote decision. The differential impact of personal intensity of religion within these groups, it appears to follow, is much less important than it is among other groups examined in this analysis.
Only 39% of U.S. Jews report that religion is important in their daily lives, well below the overall national average. Among this smaller group of religious Jews, however, Obama and McCain break even, 45% to 45%. This compares to Obama’s 68% to 26% lead among the majority of Jews for whom religion is not important.
At Secular Right you doubted whether Orthodox Jews voted heavily Republican.
i didn’t say that. i said i was skeptical that 75-85% of orthodox consistently vote republican. i was expressing quantitative, not qualitative skepticism.
http://secularright.org/wordpress/?p=3096#comments