{"id":668576,"date":"2019-10-04T07:15:36","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T04:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/tr\/content\/?p=668576"},"modified":"2022-12-01T11:17:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T08:17:43","slug":"scientists-reveal-jewish-historys-forgotten-turkish-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2019\/10\/04\/scientists-reveal-jewish-historys-forgotten-turkish-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists reveal Jewish history&#8217;s forgotten Turkish roots"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"top-container-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"top-container image\">\n<div class=\"top-container-inner \">\n<p>Israeli-born geneticist believes the\u00a0Turkish\u00a0villages of\u00a0Iskenaz, Eskenaz and Ashanaz\u00a0were part of the original homeland for\u00a0Ashkenazic Jews<\/p>\n<div class=\"meta-wrap\">\n<ul class=\"meta\">\n<li class=\"author author-last \">David Keys <span class=\"location\"> Archaeology Correspondent <\/span> <span class=\"author-twitter\"> @davidmkeys <\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"publish-date\"><time datetime=\"2016-04-19T23:15:00+01:00\">Tuesday 19 April 2016 23:15<\/time><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"article-actions\">\n<div class=\"share-bar\">\n<div class=\"social-share-wrap\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"hero-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"hero-wrapper-inner\">\n<figure class=\"hero hero-image\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrap\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrap\"><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"caption\">A group of Ashkenazic Jews in Jerusalem, circa 1885 <span class=\"copyright\"> ( Getty Images ) <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"main-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"main\" class=\"main\">\n<div class=\"main-content\">\n<div class=\"body-content\">\n<p>New research suggests that the majority of the world\u2019s modern Jewish population is descended mainly from people from ancient Turkey, rather than predominantly from elsewhere in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>The new research suggests that most of the Jewish population of northern and eastern Europe \u2013 normally known as Ashkenazic Jews \u2013 are the descendants of Greeks, Iranians and\u00a0others who colonized what is now northern Turkey more than 2000 years ago and were then converted to Judaism, probably in the first few centuries AD by Jews from Persia. At that stage, the Persian Empire was\u00a0home to the world\u2019s largest Jewish communities.<\/p>\n<div id=\"mpu0ArticleBody\" class=\"ad-wrapper ad-wrapper--mobile ad-wrapper--mpu0\"><\/div>\n<p>According to research carried out by the geneticist, Dr Eran Elhaik of the University of Sheffield, over 90 per cent\u00a0of Ashkenazic ancestors come from that converted partially Greek-originating ancient community in north-east Turkey.<\/p>\n<div class=\"connatix\">\n<p><a> <\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"resize-triggers\">\n<div class=\"expand-trigger\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"connatix\">\n<div class=\"resize-triggers\">\n<div class=\"expand-trigger\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"contract-trigger\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ad-wrapper ad-wrapper--teads\">\n<div id=\"teads\"><iframe id=\"90140ab1fc10828bc2211570161500711\" width=\"3\" height=\"3\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>His research is based on genetic, historical and place-name evidence. For his geographic genetic research, Dr Elhaik used a Geographic Population Structure computer modelling system to convert Ashkenazic Jewish DNA data into geographical information.<\/p>\n<div id=\"teads-amp-ad\" class=\"ad-wrapper ad-wrapper--mobile\"><\/div>\n<p>Dr Elhaik, an Israeli-born geneticist who gained his doctorate in molecular evolution from the University of Houston, believes that three still-surviving Turkish villages \u2013\u00a0Iskenaz, Eskenaz and Ashanaz \u2013 on the western part of an ancient Silk Road route were part of the original Ashkenazic homeland. He believes that the word Ashkenaz originally comes from Ashguza &#8211;\u00a0the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian name for the Iron Age Eurasian steppeland people, the Scythians.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to the names of the three Turkish villages, Dr Elhaik points out that \u201cnorth-east Turkey is the only place in the world where these place-names exist\u201d.<\/p>\n<div id=\"taboola-carousel-thumbnails\" class=\"ad-wrapper ad-wrapper--inline-taboola ad-wrapper--mobile\"><\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-media align-none\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrap\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrap\"><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"caption\">Ulta-orthodox Ashkenazic Jews during a protest in Jerusalem last year (Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>From the 690s AD onwards, anti-Jewish persecution by the Christian Byzantine Empire seems to have played a part in forcing large numbers of Jews to flee across the Black Sea to a more friendly state \u2013 the Turkic-ruled Khazar Empire with its large Slav and other populations.<\/p>\n<p>Some analyses of Yiddish suggests that it was originally a Slavic language, and Dr Elhaik and others believe that it was developed, probably in the 8th and 9th centuries AD, by Jewish merchants trading along some of the more northerly Silk Roads linking China and Europe.<\/p>\n<p>By the 730s, the Khazar Empire had begun to convert to Judaism \u2013 and more people converted to the faith.<\/p>\n<p>But when the Khazar Empire declined in or around the 11th century, some of the Jewish population almost certainly migrated west into Central Europe. There, as Yiddish-speaking Jewish merchants came into contact with central \u00a0European, often German-speaking, peoples, they began to replace the Slav words in Yiddish with large numbers of German and German-derived words, while retaining some of its Slav-originating grammar. Many Hebrew words also appear to have been added by that stage.<\/p>\n<div class=\"body-content\">\n<p>The genetic modelling used in the research was based on DNA data from 367 Jews of northern and eastern European origin and more than 600 non-Jewish people mainly from Europe and western Asia.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Elhaik says it is the largest genomic study ever carried out on Ashkenazic Jews. His research\u00a0will be published\u00a0in the UK-based scientific journal, <em>Genome Biology and Evolution<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Further research is planned to try to measure the precise size of the Semitic genetic input into Jewish and non-Jewish genomes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli-born geneticist believes the\u00a0Turkish\u00a0villages of\u00a0Iskenaz, Eskenaz and Ashanaz\u00a0were part of the original homeland for\u00a0Ashkenazic Jews David Keys Archaeology Correspondent @davidmkeys Tuesday 19 April 2016 23:15 A group of Ashkenazic Jews in Jerusalem, circa 1885 ( Getty Images ) New research suggests that the majority of the world\u2019s modern Jewish population is descended mainly from people [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4092,"featured_media":668577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2939,922],"tags":[10162,10480],"class_list":["post-668576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultureart","category-world","tag-turk-yahudiler","tag-yahudiler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}