דער יפה מראה
שרייבט לגבי הירושלמי (סוטה פ״א ה״ח) אודות שמשון:
📎 IMG_6895.jpeg
***
לגבי דעם צי זהות ״ישראל״ איז עטניש/ביאלאגיש צי סאציאלאגיש,
שרייבט דער דזשענעטיקער דר. ערן עלהאיק
(וועלכער האלט, עפ״י דזשענעטיקס, פונעם קאנטראווערסיאנאלע היפאטעזיע אז אייראפעאישע אידן שטאמען פון די כוזרים, וואס בתוך הכוזרים אָז האבן זיך צומישט אידן פון א״י) אין א שטודיע וואו ער וויל דורכטוהן וואס די מעגליכע דזשענעטיק מאַרקער וואס
אלע אידן (אשכנזי, ספרדי וכו') האבן טאקע איז:
Biological Jewishness emerged in the late 19th century and quickly became the leading scientific dogma despite its failure to furnish an empirical evidence for over two centuries. Although initially aiming to trace the origin of Jews, the pursuit of biological uniqueness among Jews quickly became a search for a biological link to the jüdische Typus, an idealized Jewish type representing the archetype of the ancient Judaeans or Hebrews. This pursuit has never ceased despite the constant failures, with seekers routinely embarking on new scientific technologies, oftentimes driving innovations themselves, claiming each time to unearth the hallmark of biological Jewishness, only to be disappointed again and again (Efron, 1994, 2013; Falk, 2014). Even today claims such as “the evidence for biological Jewishness has become incontrovertible” (Ostrer, 2012) are frequently made by geneticists and DTC genetic companies though unsupported by the evidence (Lewontin, 2012; Falk, 2014)
Our findings suggest that claimants of biological Jewishness make assertions that they are unwilling or unable to back in a blinded-experiment, but they do not prove the absence of biological Jewishness. Testing whether such genomic feature or trait exists requires sequencing the genomes of ancient Judaeans and meticulously comparing them with modern day Jewish and non-Jewish individuals, looking for biomarkers that are uniquely shared with the Jewish cohort. However, the potential outcomes of such experiment make it unlikely to be performed. In such case, we can ask whether it is reasonable to expect a Jewish biomarker to exist
Archeological evidence and recent historical thinking suggests that the first Israelites grew out of the sedentarization of local Canaanite populations and nomadic pastoral tribes of unknown origin drifting into Palestine sporadically in the late Bronze Age (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2002; Frendo, 2004). Interestingly, dietary restrictions were the sole difference from their neighboring tribes, as no swine remains were found in their campsites. It is unclear when these tribes have adopted Judaism, which was formulated with strict rules against exogamy much later, but it is reasonable to assume that the traditional bride-exchange, still common among modern day Bedouin tribes (e.g., Bailey, 2009), took place until then. Moreover, it is unlikely that the religion gained wide public acceptance until the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (5th century BC; Patai and Patai, 1975; Patai, 1990; Sand, 2009). Even after this period, the Judaeans remained under the influence of other cultures and faiths and exchanged genes with neighboring and invading populations. As long as Patrilineal Jewishness was the norm, offspring born to either Jewish or non-Jewish mothers were considered Jews through their paternal descent. It was not until around the 2nd century AD that the offspring’s Jewishness was determined by the matrilineal descent (Sigal, 1985). The Judaeans have been proselytizing their neighbors from their early days, but these activities intensified during the early centuries A.D. and encompassed several Old World populations (Patai and Patai, 1975; Sand, 2009). Even after the rise of Christianity (4th century AD) and Islam (7th century AD), the Judaisation of slaves continued for several centuries until banned by the religious authorieties (Sand, 2009). The last notable conversion took place in Khazaria in the mid-8th century AD and included the Khazarian elite and some of the Khazar people (Sand, 2009; Elhaik, 2013). Massive conversions to Judaism were renewed only after the establishment of the state of Israel (DellaPergola, 2005)
Conversions, assimilations, and later acceptance of individuals of non-Jewish backgrounds or even those with remote Jewish background into Jewish communities allowed Judaism to grow and expand throughout the Old World and sustain the Jewish population in Israel. These demographic processes contrast notions of imagined genomic homogeneity, which does not even exist within Judaean skeletons (Haas, 1970). The arguments in favor of genomic homogeneity are supported by two fictitious chapters in Jewish history (Sand, 2009). The first chapter tells of the “Roman Exile” that followed the destruction of Herod’s temple (70 AD) and introduced a massive Jewish population to Roman lands (e.g., King, 2001). The second chapter tells of a small group of 50,000 Jews who migrated from the Rhineland to Eastern Europe in the 15th century and then rapidly reproduced to 5,000,000 people at the beginning of the 19th century, forming the bulk of Ashkenazic Jews where: “entry into the community was possible through religious conversion, but that was not common. Jewish identity was maintained within these communities up to present day” (Ostrer, 2012). Since such an unnatural growth rate over half a millennium applying only to Eastern European Jews within this specific time period cannot be explained (van Straten and Snel, 2006) it has been termed a “demographic miracle” (Ben-Sasson, 1976; Atzmon et al., 2010; Ostrer, 2012). The assumption of biological Jewishness implied from these chapters forms the rationale for nearly every genetic investigation that focuses on Jews or more commonly Ashkenazic Jews (e.g., Bray et al., 2010; Goes et al., 2015)
The growing field of omics offers vast opportunities to search for such biomarkers throughout the genome, exome, methylome, cellome, chromatinome, transcriptome, alleome, proteome, lipidome, interactome, spliceome, ORFeome, phosphoproteome, metabolome, mechanome, epigenome, histome, and phenome. Advances in the antibodyome and auto antibodyome as well as connectome, glycome, and kinome should also be considered. Special attention should also be paid to the physiome and neurome. It is not inconceivable that the microbiome, virome, bacteriome, or overall mycobiome, might be surveyed scrupulously to detect telltale hallmarks of “Jewishness.” However, until robust and reproducible evidence is forthcoming, in which a benchmark of the kind proposed here is employed, the alternative hypothesis must be upheld: Jewishness lies in the "social"ome
ולגבי
די קשר פון א געמיינזאמע שפראך מיט זהות לאומי, און די שייכות וואס שפות אידיש ולשה״ק האבן דערצו, איז דא די קאנטראווערסיאנאלע
טעזע פון דר. פּאָל וועקסלער (אַן איזרעילי איד). ער טענה׳ט אז (מער-ווייניגער) שטאמט שפת אידיש נישט אזוי ווייט פון (וואו) דייטש (שטאמט), נאר עס איז מער מקורה אין די סאָרבּיען-סלאַווישע שפות, וועלכע מען האט דערנאך
רילעקסיפייד, והיינו געטוישט די ווערטער צו א נייע שפראך אבער געהאלטן די גראמאר און סינטעקס פונעם אלטן, ווען אידן האבן מער אימיגרירט צו די געגענט וואו מ׳האט גערעדט מער דייטשע שפראכן. ער טענה׳ט ווייטער אז היינטיגע עברית איז דאס זעלבע נאר פון אידיש: היינטיגע עברית איז פשוט א פושט צורה ולובש צורה פון אידיש, וואו מ׳האט נאר געטוישט די ווערטער, אבער מער-ווייניגער געהאלטן די אלטע אידישע גראמאר, ווי איידער די אריגינעלע גראמאר וכו׳ פון שפת יהודית של תנ״ך והמשנה. ווי
וויקיפידיע איז מסביר זיין טעזע לגבי עברית:
Wexler argued that Modern Hebrew is not a direct continuation of the ancient Hebrew language, but rather a Slavic language. He noted that several scholars of distinction had expressed a minority view casting doubt on the Semitic, as opposed to the European, character of modern Hebrew, among them specialists in Semitic languages like Gotthelf Bergsträsser and Henri Fleisch. Wexler also noted that one writer, K. Kacnelson, even suggested in 1960 that modern Hebrew was a dialect of Yiddish. He argued that the modern language spoken by Israelis was simply Yiddish relexified to Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew. Wexler advanced the view that Yiddish itself arose from Sorbian, and, given the strong influence of the former on Modern Hebrew, in this perspective Modern Hebrew can be considered a Slavic language
ער האט שפעטער
מאדיפיצירט זיין טעזע לגבי שפת אידיש, און דאס איז וויאזוי דר. אנדרי דאנילענקאָ איז דאס
מסכם אין זיין רעצענזיע דערויף:
Wexler advances several “revolutionary new ideas”. First, the author outlines important parallels and contacts between Arabic and Yiddish, though he admits that Arabic surfaces in Yiddish covertly. Second, until ca. 1,000, the overwhelming majority of Jews in the world resided in the Iranian Empire; conversion or a looser form of adherence to Judaism was common among non-Jews. Third, because Aramaic was the spoken language of a sizeable minority of people in the Iranian Empire, the Jews in Iran could preserve knowledge of closely related written Old Hebrew. Fourth, the Afro-Asian imprint influenced all aspects of the Yiddish language, which now has to be defined as a highly Iranianized Slavic language. Fifth, most ethnically and linguistically mixed Irano-Slavic and Turko-Slavic confederations known to have resided in Slavic and German lands lost Asian languages and merged with Slavs by the 10th century; Yiddish, according to Wexler, appears as a heavily (mainly covertly) Iranianized, Arabicized (and mildly Turkicized) Slavic language — with a German impact found almost exclusively only in the lexicon. This is why, as Wexler reiterates, the Jews are not a “people” of Semitic origin but a “religious community” of heterogenous ethnic origins, of which “Semitic” Arabs and Aramaeans are minimal contributors to the Judaic ethnogenesis
***
אגב, דר. דוד גלאט-גלעד (עפ"י דר. דזשעפרי טיגאי)
לערענט אפ אז אריגינעל האט די איסור פון "לא יבא בקהל ה'" בדברים פרק כג געמיינט, אז די סארט מענטשן וואס ווערן דארט אויסגערעכענט (ווי צב"ש ממזרים עמונים ומואבים) טארן נישט האבן א חלק אין רעגירן און ציווילע סארט פונקציעס - זיין א בירגער "בקהל" ה'. אבער עס איז ל"ד געווען אַן איסור חתנות. עזרא האט דאס שפעטער אויסגעטייטשט אויף איסור חתנות. און מיט דעם דינגט ער זיך אויף וואס דר. יעקב מילגראם האט
גע'טענה'ט אז דאס וואס די איסור פון לא יבא בקהל ה' אויף עמונים ומואבים דארט, וועלכע זענען לפי התורה בבראשית ממזרים מלוט עם בנותיו, איז הארבער ווי אויף מצריים ואדומיים, איז מעגליך אלס א פּאָלעמיק קעגן בית דוד וועלכע שטאמט פון רות המואביה ונעמה העמונית (און דאס איז אויך פארוואס ספר דברים, ביים פרשת המלך בפרק יז פסוק טו, לייגט אזא דגוש אויף דוקא "מקרב אחיך"). וויבאלד דאס גייט באדייטן אז "לא יבא בקהל ה'" האט טאקע אריגינעל אויך געמיינט איסור חתנות.
דארט שרייבט דר. מילגראם לגבי ספר דברים ואיסור חתנות עם, ומצות חרם על, הכנענים אין איר היסטארישע קאנטעקסט לפי המבקרים:
D's anxiety over intermarriage with Canaanites implies that the Canaanites abound in Israel at the end of the monarchy, in large enough numbers to give ethnic-centered circles such as D grave concern. Thus D declares intermarriage with alien populations in Canaan a cardinal sin: had they been wiped out at the time of the conquest as God commanded to Moses (Deut 20:17) there would be no apostasy in Israel!
Having set forth the motivation for D's herem against the Canaanites, we can also see its cited rationale in a new light, "You shall not intermarry with them . . . for you are a people holy to the Lord your God" (Deut 7:3, 6). Israel as an 'am qadosh is another deuteronomic innovation. Now it becomes possible to point to the main reason for its invention: since every Israelite is inherently holy, he or she should not become contaminated by intermarriage. There can be no doubt that herein lies the base upon which Ezra constructed his halachic midrash banning all intermarriages among the returnees to Zion
In any event, D's law of the herem and its concomitant ban on intermarriage presumes that Canaanites qua Canaanites continued to thrive at least into the eighth century. Furthermore, by positing, with many scholars, that the origins of D lie in eighth-century northern Israel, this thesis receives additional support. For the great urban blocks of Canaanites, to judge by the list of city-states that Israel could not conquer (Judg 1:27-35), are all located - with the exception of Jerusalem (v 11) - in the north. It was these Canaanite enclaves assimilating at such an alarming rate - not through conversion but through intermarriage - which gave rise to the intermarriage-apostasy-herem-holy people sequence in the herem law of D
