Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People

by Harry Ostrer

Who are the Jews--a race, a people, a religious group? For over a century, non-Jews and Jews alike have tried to identify who they were--first applying the methods of physical anthropology and more recently of population genetics.

In Legacy, Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist and authority on the genetics of the Jewish people, explores not only the history of these efforts, but also the insights that genetics has provided about the histories of contemporary Jewish people. Much of the book is told through the lives of scientific pioneers. We meet Russian immigrant Maurice Fishberg; Australian Joseph Jacobs, the leading Jewish anthropologist in fin-de-si�cle Europe; Chaim Sheba, a colorful Israeli geneticist and surgeon general of the Israeli Army; and Arthur Mourant, one of the foremost cataloguers of blood groups in the 20th century. As Ostrer describes their work and the work of others, he shows that to look over the genetics of Jewish groups, and to see the history of the Diaspora woven there, is truly a marvel. Here is what happened as the Jews migrated to new places and saw their numbers wax and wane, as they gained and lost adherents and thrived or were buffeted by famine, disease, wars, and persecution. Many of these groups--from North Africa, the Middle East, India--are little-known, and by telling their stories, Ostrer brings them to the forefront at a time when assimilation is literally changing the face of world Jewry.

A fascinating blend of history, science, and biography, Legacy offers readers an entirely fresh perspective on the Jewish people and their history. It is as well a cutting-edge portrait of population genetics, a field which may soon take its place as a pillar of group identity alongside shared spirituality, shared social values, and a shared cultural legacy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Judaism, Jewish

264 pages, Hardcover

First published April 19, 2012

Reviews

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harry Ostrer's Legacy promises to demonstrate a biological basis for Jewishness, whatever that is supposed to mean. Is "Jewishness" a biological trait? Does it refer to inborn behavioral actions? Alternatively, does it refer to inborn behavioral deficits? Is it a set of beliefs? Customary behaviors? Is Jewishness in the genes? Does it differ from being Jewish? If so, how does one define 'being Jewish'? Are there biological markers of Jewishness that only Jews have, and Non-Jews, however they're defined, don’t have?

Whoa! That's circular reasoning. If you distinguish Jews by their possession of certain genetic markers, then those who have them are Jewish, and, it follows that those who don't are Non-Jews. In other words, you’ve created a group by taking a biological marker, typically one you have no idea of what it marks, and say that anyone with it is Jewish. Then, people who don’t share it are, by definition, not Jewish. Since unrelated people may share certain biological markers, certain strands of DNA, which one do you choose as the Jewish one? What makes it a marker of Jewishness?

Is Jewishness definable by a shared history? Or, does Jewishness depend on putative descent from people named in a set of ancient books known as the Torah and also The Bible? Is there a group of such people who have unique markers? If so, then couldn't we discover descendants who belonged to the famous lost tribes of Israel? That is, if we find the DNA peculiar to modern Jews, if such exists, in those who are putative descendants of Biblical Jews, then doesn't it follow that other peoples who are not Jewish historically, culturally, behaviorally, or religiously but who have "Jewish" DNA are, nevertheless, Jews?

And I'm only on the first sentence of the Preface! This study purports to find biological markers of a non-defined group of people from all over the world. The task is complicated by Ostrer's noting that "DNA threads-not shared among all [Jews], because not all Jewish people are the same." (p.13). Indeed, as the book progresses, it is repeatedly shown that Jews, however defined, share DNA with Non-Jews in the same region. Because Jews intermarried for centuries, there is often a higher degree of sharing among Jews than among Gentiles. However, the markers are not unique to Jews. Perhaps this is because the Jews in the region were converted from Gentile religions. Perhaps, it's because originally distinct Jews converted to other religions. I'm presuming Ostrer is identifying Jews as a religious group who, because of centuries of forced isolation, also developed their own cultures.

When Western peoples think of Jews, they think of Ashkenazim, perhaps Sephardim as well. Ostrer, in contrast, discusses all claimants to Judaism: Indian (from India), Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian, Yemeni, Ethiopian, Afghanistani, North Africans, the Lemma, Chinese, Central Asian, including Chosars. These last speak Turkish, Kazakh, Uzbek, Uigar, and Kirghiz, to give an idea of the variety of non-Germanic Jews Orster rightfully includes.


In short, not only are Jews not one people, or even one race, however defined, there are no uniquely Jewish genetic markers, just some that are more common among the Jews of a region. The famous Cohan marker, supposedly inherited from the priest Aaron, although widespread among Jews all over the world, is also found in Gentiles. Even what I thought was a uniquely Ashkenazi birth deficit, Tay-Sachs, appears among Christians in the Slavic regions.(p.113).

I was interested in Ostrer's proof that the ancient Khazars could not have been the founders of Ashkenazi Jews in southern Russia. Having read Al Khazari, I and others, presumed that the Khazars converted to Judaism in the 8th century and a Jewish kingdom was established, lasting until the 10th century, when they were defeated by the Russians. According to Ostrer, the DNA evidence, which does show ancient migrations and settlements, shows this to be false. On the other hand, he does show that Roman Jews founded Ashkenazi Jewish groups in the Rhineland. In fact, his work is most interesting when he traces the routes of Jews, such as noting the prevalence of Y chromosomes associated with Jews in the peoples who live near the ancient Silk Road. That makes sense. Jewish merchants might have married or just had sex with women along the way. That there is no corresponding Mitrochondrial DNA, which is passed down by mothers, that can be matched to any Jewish group, reinforces that conclusion . But this raises another question. Are those with the DNA strand associated with Jewish males, themselves Jewish? Ostrer doesn’t say that any of them or their ancestors ever practiced Judaism or claimed that they were Jewish

For want of space, I have to omit Ostrer's detailed discussion of Jewish IQ's. It's a complex subject and he does it well However, I will warn you that you may need to do a lot of googling to find out what nomenclature like “the g factor” means.

One caveat, especially in the opening chapters, Ostrer speaks of groups having more or fewer matching DNA strands, or a higher or lower percentage of some traits. Words like more, less, higher and lower have no scientific validity by themselves. What counts is if the differences can just be by chance, or whether they signify a real difference. That's what statistics is all about.


Finally, to my astonishment, Ostrer says:

[Finding a Jewish genetic marker...]… might provide fodder for anti-Semitism by providing evidence of a genetic basis for undesirable traits that are present among some Jews

This implies that anti-Semitism arises from actual traits of Jews, traits that are deemed undesirable. Anti-Semitism arose from the fact that Jews refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. St. Mark said, in essence, if the Jews are correct, then Christianity is wrong, but if the Christians are right, then the Jews are wrong. It was not lost on Mark and his contemporaries in the budding Church hierarchy, that Jews had reasons for not believing that Jesus died for humanity’s sins, so it was essential that Jews be isolated, even demonized. Up until that time Jews and Christians still worshipped together and were not separate groups. A Catholic priest, my colleague, told me that it was the Christian church hierarchy who forbade Jews to pray with Christians in the 3d century, and Jews were demonized so that they couldn't dissuade Christians from believing their priests. In other words, if they were claimed to be in league with Satan, Christians shouldn’t listen to what Jews said.

Then, too, I know of no non-desirable traits that are unique to Jews, or to Christians, for that matter.

[Seth Benzell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely dissapointing effort from a book that seemed to have all the right ingredients: A fascinating topic, manageable length, and an erudite and worldly narrator who globehopped in support of some of scientific investigations.

What this book actually is, is a muddled mess. 70% of the ink is devoted to old or discredited views -- in a science book I want to read about the latest science, not a list of people who have been discredited. A more historically focused book might have been good, but this is a confused march without any sense of why previous views are being discarded.

10% is devoted to a really abbreviated summary of modern Jewish culture that also fails to connect to the best modern scholarship. We get the view of Einstein on his Jewishness. Why Einstein? There's no overall picture, just a short list of two very secular anecdotes.

The remaining 20% is actually on the book's title issue. That's what gets this book two stars. But the author fails to communicate very well about the modern science. He places extremely interesting figures from his own paper in the book but:
>They're often 3d images on a 2d surface (this is not explained)
>They have no labels and are not explained in any detail
oh and by the way, they're colored images printed in black and white!

The actual history I was able to learn (I think?) is interesting. Ashkenazi Jews came to Germany/Eastern Europe at the start of the dark ages from Rome. There was some intermixing of semetic Jews with some German stock to make ashkenazis. There may have also been some Khazar nobles mixed in as well, but its hard to say how many. This is a slightly refined version of what I understood going in, but I'll take what I can get.

I want to take a class from this guy, or maybe a lecture. But this book is trash. It goes to show how in need the world is of a good book on this subject that I still learned something from this trash book.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a strange mix of dumbed-down and highly technical. I have a few years' experience with genetics as applied to Jewish genealogy, so perhaps I am not the target audience, but much of this was a rehash of other books and articles and much went way into the weeds of genetics. It wavered between anecdote and review of scientific papers. I agree with Harlan that the author is "unable to formulate a coherent narrative of either Jewish history...or genetic research..." I do not recommend this either for the layman or for someone who knows a bit about the Y-chromosome and wants to understand more.

[Harlan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty disappointed. Ostrer gets lost in the weeds of particular genetic variations, and is unable to formulate a coherent narrative of either Jewish history, supported by data, or genetic research, focusing on Jewish people. I suspect five more years of research will allow a clearer story, and a different author will be able to tell it more compellingly. Still, for those quite interested in the topic, there is a lot of data presented, and quite a few tidbits about migration that were new to me.

[Mira Perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The information was good but the writing, particularly at the end, was dreadful.

[Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating book. But it was more on medical genetics than population genetics. The scientific analysis appealed to that part of my brain, things like the biological mechanisms of certain disorders, and rates of disorders within certain Jewish populations.

There are three books about this subject, and this was the most recent one (2012). I was hoping for a review on all the studies done on Ashkenazi Jews, but they mentioned only a couple, including one that he did.

And I think it left a lot of questions unanswered. He said that the study found that the middle Eastern people the Ashkenazi Jews were most closely related to were the Bedouin, Druze, and Palestinians. But the book doesn't mention testing any other Middle Eastern group in that study. So how would they know?

At the point of writing, Ostrer concluded that the Khazar-Ashkenazi hypothesis has been disproved. The hypothesis holds that Ashkenazi Jews are primarily descended from the elite of the Khazarian kingdom who converted to Judaism in the 10th century. Khazars a a Slavo-Turkic-Iranian group. Since the DNA of Ashkenazim were different from that of the Turks, they are not descended from Turks.

Since the publication of this book, Eran Elhaik has came out with two studies of Yiddish speakers that have since located the origin of Ashkenazi Jews to a location in Turkey with four towns that sound like Ashkenaz. I'm currently in search of any criticism from a geneticist of Elhaik's findings.

I wonder how different geneticists can pin the Levantine contribution to the Ashkenazi genome to anywhere from 41% to 3% (Elhaik). I thought biology was a natural science???

[Kara Palley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here’s the TL;DR We are related to the original Jews in the Holy Land.

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike the hyped reviews, this book does not conclude that Jews are a ‘race.’ The author is a professor of genetics who is concerned about the prevalence of Jewish genetically heritable diseases. Those ‘Jews’, however, are really variegated clusters of mostly endogamous populations—such as N. African Jews. Their genetic signatures have family resemblances to other Middle Eastern peoples. New ways of measuring genetic patterns, however, show that these populations can be mapped onto some big Jewish historical events. The author is dangerously ambivalent on claims of ‘race’, showing an amateurish account of the concept. While historically sound claims about Jewish migration over the last thousand years seem plausible, going back to ‘Abraham’ to make genetic claims less so. Though I side with cultural and nurture explanations, there does seem to be something to these studies though less than the amateur historians make of it and certainly no definitive physical or IQ marker of Jewishness.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provides a fascinating insight into the prevalence of certain diseases among elements of the Jewish population and the significance of migratory patterns in contributing to genetic changes and mutations.

Explores the relatively high occurrence of intelligence and other traits in the Jewish population in the context of the "nature vs nurture" debate. Touches on both the positive and negative impacts that these issues have had historically.

Drawing on many studies done over the past century the author attempts to make the case for a biological base for Jewishness. in that regard I expected a more forceful argument and I thought the book ended prematurely. While I may not be qualified to say so, I'm not sure the book broke any new ground.

[obs20 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Those genes which are associated with disease were discussed extensively because those genes have been the subject of the most research. The distribution of these genetic markers are the best tools we have at the moment in defining a population. This is not the most compelling of narratives but it is the best we have at the moment. The author does the best with what the material he is presenting and I for one did enjoy the book but I'd be careful of who I would recommend this book to.
The material here does present a case for the possibility of developing a genetic indicator for Jewish ancestry. However the author warns of the potential misuse of such knowledge.

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author makes the argument that Jews around the world all share a common genetic history. In other words, different types of Jews, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, etc. are all in some sense genetically linked. Personally I dont I dont know how much one can actually prove from genetic studies. Additionally, I believe its possible that such studies have some political motivation behind them.

[Merry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it. I was specifically hoping for a timeline of where the ancestors of the Ashkanazim lived between Israel and the Pale, and I didn't quite see it.

[Uyar · Rating 2 out of 5]

i could hardly finished.. somehow too many repetitions

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard to read, very detailed science was above my head. Not as interesting as I thought it would be. Slogged through it, but was disappointing.

[evananda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great depth without prejudice

I was able to learn very quickly quite a l about genetics, in addition to a focus on genetics as it applies to Jewish ness.

[Jessica Feinstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting!