DNA: Revealing more Jewish roots

It's always reassuring to read that major Jewish publications are carrying stories on what Tracing the Tribe and many others already know. A case in point is the new Forward story on how DNA tests are revealing hidden Jewish roots.

The story by Elie Dolgin - "Newer DNA Tests Uncover Hidden Jewish Bloodlines" - discusses both 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA.

It covers University of Chicago genetics doctoral student Joseph Pickrell's DNA odyssey along which revealed similar results to an Ashkenazi Jew, New York attorney Dan Vorhaus. Pickrell was raised Catholic but his results led him to ask his mother about the results.

She did some sleuthing among other relatives, revealing that:

"her father’s father — Pickrell’s maternal great-grandfather — had been raised Jewish in Poland before moving to the United States, where he married a Catholic woman and left his Jewish upbringing behind.

“It’s amusing that using genetics, I could wrestle this out of the bushes,” Pickrell said.

The story also mentioned FamilyTreeDNA.com's tests to uncover Jewish origins. Many Hispanic Americans descended from Jews forced to convert or hide their religion more than 500 years ago in Iberia. 

The story does explain 23andMe's test and why it produces those results.

A molecular anthropologist in Estonia, Richard Villems, is quoted as cautioning against jumping to conclusions based solely on DNA unless there is corroborating evidence, like Pickrell's ancestor.

Another section goes further, answering in part the question about what happens once a person discovers such a link.

Pickrell said he has no plans to start going to synagogue. And since “genes do not define the Jews,” according to Edward Reichman, an Orthodox rabbi and physician at Yeshiva University in New York, the Jewish community at large probably won’t embrace him, either. But according to Bennett Greenspan, president and CEO of Family Tree DNA, many people who learn of Semitic ancestry through DNA often end up converting to Judaism.


Elliot Dorff, a conservative rabbi and ethicist at American Jewish University in Los Angeles, welcomes these conversions. “We would really want to encourage such people to rediscover their Jewish roots,” he said. Although people who find Jewish origins through DNA are not strictly Jewish, halachically speaking, Dorff noted that many people in this situation already feel a deep-seated connection to the religion.

The comments, as always on this type of article, are always interesting and cover the spectrum of belief. One, by "Jack," reads:

Bennett Greenspan regularly presents the services of Family Tree DNA at Crypto-Jewish studies symposia. Also in attendance at these events are Hispanic Americans interested in the potential Jewish ancestry of their families. It would not be an overstatement that a Levantine genetic signal only confirms the Jewish background that many of the test subjects either already suspected or were convinced of. The DNA test is merely a confirmation, not a revelation, afterwards conversion to Judaism is a small step.

Read the complete story and all the comments at the link above.

Tracing the Tribe always recommends that those with known or suspected Jewish roots test with FamilyTreeDNA because it has the largest DNA database, which also includes the largest Jewish DNA database. Nearly all Jewish genealogists test with the company because of the large number of samples, which increases the probability of genetic matches.

There's a related 2010 Forward story covers how Rabbis and Halacha Grapple With Advances in DNA Technology:

Advances in genetic analysis and its medical applications are bringing unprecedented, if uneven, change to the world of Jewish law. Most often, the matter of genetics is considered in the context of issues on either end of life’s spectrum: those that relate to fertility and to the identification of post-mortem human remains.

“DNA analysis is gradually meandering its way through the halachic literature,” said Dr. Edward Reichman, an Orthodox rabbi and associate professor of emergency medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he is also an associate professor of bioethics and education.

“Science has opened up a huge area of research and treatment in the area of the genetic code that just didn’t exist 25 years ago. All of those developments have required authorities in Jewish law to consider what effect it has on their approach,” said Rabbi Avram Reisner, spiritual leader of Baltimore’s Congregation Chevrei Tzedek and a bioethicist who sits on the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.

Read that complete story at the story link above.

Sephardi, Mizrahi: Book series, resource guide

Looking for more information on your Sephardic or Mizrahi ancestors? This 91-page guide of Sephardic studies resources seems very likely to provide good information for those just beginning a quest as well as for those who have been on this journey for some time.

The depth and breadth of list resources should provide helpful information to many researchers, regardless of experience. There are sources for Jewish history, music, genealogy, and many more interrelated topics.

The guide - "Sources for Sephardic Studies: A Library Research Guide" - was prepared byPrinceton University librarian Dr. Rachel Simon, in spring 2006.

My peeve is that none of the books on Iranian Jews were listed, although some volumes have a chapter or two.

Also, genealogists on the trail of their non-Ashkenazi ancestors will be interested in a new series of books by Indiana University Press. The Indiana Series in Sephardi and Mizrahi Studies will be edited by Hebrew University's Harvey E. Goldberg and Indiana University's Matthias B. Lehmann.

The first volumes are expected in late 2009 or early 2010. Readers with questions or proposals for the series should contact Lehmann, who is associate professor of history and Jewish studies.

The study of Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries has emerged as a growing and cutting-edge field within Jewish Studies. As scholars of modern Judaism have focused on new topics such as the Spanish-Portuguese Jews of the port cities in the Atlantic world or non-European Jews in the world of Islam, they have begun to reshape our understanding of the modern Jewish experience.

Older models of Jewish historiography have given way to a new, postmodern vision of Jewish history with a multicultural narrative. Jewish cultures, often referred to in the plural, are now appreciated in their diversity and as closely intertwined with the host cultures among which Jews have lived. Sephardi and Mizrahi Studies, as an interdisciplinary endeavor, have played an important role in this repositioning of Jewish Studies.

The aim is to encourage Sephardi and Mizrahi studies within Jewish Studies, as a multi-disciplinary approach including history, religious studies, anthropology, folklore, literary studies, and the arts. The broad definition will include medieval Iberian Jewry and the post-1492 Sephardi Diaspora, the Jews of the Islamic Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.

In addition to contributing to Jewish studies, the offerings will be selected to contribute to both specific fields and to other area studies, and it appears that the series will offer information of value to genealogists.

Sephardic studies: Grants available

UCLA Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies at the school's Center for Jewish Studies invites applications for faculty incentive grants to encourage scholars of any rank to deepen or develop their scholarship and teaching on Sephardic history or culture.

Grants may be used to develop or transform a course or to conduct research on or engage in the writing of a scholarly project with significant Sephardic content. Funding will not exceed $5,000 for any single applicant; typical grants will be in the range of $3,000. The work is expected to be conducted by the end of the 2009-2010 academic year; funds may not be used for the purchase of technology.

Applicants must submit by March 2, a cover letter (750 words maximum)detailing the project, its feasibility, and its contribution to the field of Sephardic Studies; a detailed budget; and contactinformation for two references. Send questions to Vivian Holenbeck.

For more information on the Maurice Amado Foundation, click here.

A major focus of the Maurice Amado Foundation is to ensure that Sephardic heritage is woven into the fabric of American Jewry. The Foundation has a special interest in integrating information about the religious life and culture of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors originated in the Iberian Peninsula into the education of all American Jews, with a special emphasis on reaching leaders, both present and future, of American Jewry. The heritage of Sephardic Jews includes a) the history and contributions to Jewish thought of the Spanish Jews before the Inquisition, b) the effects of the Inquisition on Jewish religious, cultural and intellectual life, c) the history of the Sephardim in the lands of their dispersion after the Expulsion, and d) modern Sephardic cultural and religious contributions to Jewish life.

Maurice Amado established the foundation in 1961. He was a descendant of Sephardic Jews who settled in the Ottoman Empire after the 1492 Expulsion from Spain. He immigrated to New York from Izmir, Turkey in 1903 and moved to Los Angeles in 1940. He supported organizations that perpetuated Sephardic heritage and culture.