27 February 2001

A study by Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin, Ph.D., "Are today's Jewish priests descended from the old ones?", has recently been published in the German journal "HOMO: Journal of Comparative Human Biology - Zeitschrift fuer vergleichende Biologie des Menschen" (volume 51, no. 2-3, 2000, pp. 156-162). Zoossmann's study casts doubt on the hypothesis expounded by Michael F. Hammer, Karl Skorecki, and their colleagues in their January 2, 1997 paper in Nature volume 385 entitled "Y Chromosomes of Jewish Priests" and that of Karl Skorecki, David Goldstein, et al. in Nature volume 394 entitled "Origins of Old Testament Priests" as well as the related study with the Lemba tribe of South Africa (American Journal of Human Genetics volume 66) and Jewish populations around the world (PNAS volume 97 issue 12). These studies asserted that Ashkenazic Cohens are strongly related to Sephardic Cohens and that today's Cohens are descended from common paternal ancestors. Zoossmann concludes that the existing studies of Jewish priests are problematic and arrive at conclusions that are not supported by all available data.

In Zoossmann-Diskin's summary, he writes that "Careful examination of their [Skorecki's and Thomas's] works reveals many faults that lead to the inevitable conclusion that their claim [that most Cohenim share a common origin] has not been proven. The faults are: the definition of the studied communities, significant differences between three samples of Jewish priests, failure to use enough suitable markers to construct the Unique-Event-polymorphisms haplotypes, problematic method of calculating coalescence time and underestimating the mutation rate of Y chromosome microsatellites. The suggestion that the 'Cohen modal haplotype' is a signature haplotype for the ancient Hebrew population is also not supported by data from other populations." (p. 156)

Specifically, Zoossmann explains that:

* The studies of the Cohens merge together the Sephardic populations even though they are too diverse to be considered one unit. Even the North African Jewish communities have genetic differences, as Batsheva Bonne-Tamir et al. noted in a study in 1978 that is cited in Zoossmann's paper.

* The SRY4064, SRY 465, Tat, and sY81 polymorphisms were useless for the purposes of the studies.

* Some useful markers were not used in the studies that should have been included.

* The Cohen modal haplotype is the most common haplotype among Southern and Central Italians*1, Hungarians*2, and Iraqi Kurds*3, and is also found among many Armenians*4 and South African Lembas*5. This calls into question the notion that the haplotype was a marker for the ancient Hebrew population.

Zoossmann's study contains detailed statistical information, charts, and 19 references.

Full citation:

Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin, "Are today's Jewish priests descended from the old ones?" HOMO: Journal of Comparative Human Biology - Zeitschrift fuer vergleichende Biologie des Menschen 51:2-3 (Urban & Fischer Verlag, 2000): 156-162.

News release footnotes:

*1: A. Cagli et al., "Increased forensic efficiency of a STR-based Y-specific haplotype by addition of the highly polymorphic DYS385 locus." Int J Leg Med 111 (1998): 142-146.

*2: S. Fredi et al., "Y-STR haplotyping in two Hungarian populations." Int J Leg Med 113 (1999): 38-42.

*3: C. Brinkmann et al., "Human Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in a Kurdish population sample." Int J Leg Med 112 (1999): 181-183.

*4: Levon Yepiskoposyan, Dr.Sc., Head of the Institute of Man, President of the Armenian Anthropological Society.

*5: M. G. Thomas et al., "Y chromosomes travelling south: the Cohen modal haplotype and the origins of the Lemba - the 'Black Jews of Southern Africa'." Am J Hum Genet 66 (2000): 674-686.

Library: Medical News Keywords: genetics, lineage, male, chromosome, DNA, Jews, Cohen, Jewish, Cohanim, Y chromosome, Lemba

News Release Copyright (C) 2001 Kevin Alan Brook

For a complete guide to Jewish DNA research, visit Russian Jewish Genetics: Abstracts and Summaries http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

Published 30 October 2000 in Science Now: a daily science news up-date from Science magazine A publication of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Jews and Arabs Share Recent Ancestry

COLD SPRING HARBOR, NEW YORK--As fighting continues in the Middle East, a new genetic study shows that many Arabs and Jews are closely related. More than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men whose DNA was studied inherited their Y chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years.

The results match historical accounts that some Moslem Arabs are descended from Christians and Jews who lived in the southern Levant, a region that includes Israel and the Sinai. They were descendants of a core population that lived in the area since prehistoric times. And in a recent study of 1371 men from around the world, geneticist Michael Hammer of the University of Arizona in Tucson found that the Y chromosome in Middle Eastern Arabs was almost indistinguishable from that of Jews.

Intrigued by the genetic similarities between the two populations, geneticist Ariella Oppenheim of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who collaborated on the earlier study, focused on Arab and Jewish men. Her team examined the Y chromosomes of 119 Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews and 143 Israeli and Palestinian Arabs. Many of the Jewish subjects were descended from ancestors who presumably originated in the Levant but dispersed throughout the world before returning to Israel in the past few generations; most of the Arab subjects could trace their ancestry to men who had lived in the region for centuries or longer. The Y chromosomes of many of the men had key segments of DNA that were so similar that they clustered into just three of many groups known as haplogroups. Other short segments of DNA called microsatellites were similar enough to reveal that the men must have had common ancestors within the past several thousand years. The study, reported here at a Human Origins and Disease conference, will appear in an upcoming issue of Human Genetics.

Hammer praises the new study for "focusing in detail on the Jewish and Palestinian populations." Oppenheim's team found, for example, that Jews have mixed more with European populations, which makes sense because some of them lived in Europe during the last millennium.

See See David Clark's The Cohanim Modal Haplotype page

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