Jews in Arab Lands: Then and Now

                                                                          

                            Ofrah Hazah, singer from Yemen

At one time there were 100,000 Jews living in Iran. Persia, as it was called, was the home of Queen Esther or Hadassah, who was married to King Ahashuaros. It was she who saved her people by telling her husband of the plot of Haman to kill all the Jews. She had to expose herself to her husband who did not know that she was Jewish in order to do this. The brave woman readied herself on a diet of seeds and nuts for three days in order to approach him on this delicate subject, no doubt to fit into that special dress. 

   My favorite singer in Israel from Yemen, Ofrah Hazah

Today there are about 11,000 Jews left in Iran. In my own family, a cousin's husband escaped from Iran on a camel in order to leave the country.

Algeria had 140,000 Jews and now less than 100 remain.

Egypt had 75,000. I taught in the same school as an Egyptian Jewish gal in Israel. She was teaching English. Today there are less than 100.

Iraq had 150,000 Jews, much to my surprise, although Ur is in Iraq. This is the ancient city where Abraham was born and had left. By 2009 there were about 35 Jews remaining there.

Lebanon had 20,000 Jews. Now it has less than 100.

Libya had 38,000 but now has none.

Morocco had a whopping 265,000 Jews. The heads of our English Department in Safed were from Morocco. Michelle loved Paris and had clothes from her mother from there. Many Moroccans lived in Safed. Today there are about 5,500 Jews there.

Syria had 30,000 Jews. Today they have less than 100.

Tunisia had 105,000 Jews. Today they have about 1,500.

Yemen was the home of 55,000. Today there are about 200 left. I believe this had been the home of my favorite Israeli female singer, Ofrah Hazah. She became very famous in Israel, and fell upon sad times by dying from drug overdose. I was heartbroken. She was such a wonderful and young singer.

Israel declared itself a state in May 1948 with the blessing of the U.N. Immediately war broke out causing 800,000 Jews to be forced to leave Arab countries where they had been living for two millennia. They moved to their new country of Israel, ready or not, as their native country had turned against them.

Living in Israel was not easy for them. These Jews had to compete with Ashkenazi Jews, many of which were more educated. The army duty was a place where all were treated the same and became a place of integration. Many of the towns these Jews came from were quite primitive, so they had cultural changes. Now we see that this new melting pot is doing quite well.

Resource: Stand With Us's Pocket Facts of Israel

The Jewish and Arab DNA History Over the Past 4,000 Years

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

    Judea, from which today's Jews come from, was made up of  people from the tribe of Judah and  Simeon who were full brothers sharing the parents, Leah and Jacob.  Also, some of the population were from the tribe of Benjamin whose parents were Rachel, Leah's sister and Jacob.                           

     Jews of today are finding that people have within their genes, a haplotype, like a tag that tells who you came from originally, like the name of the company that produced you.  We are told that the 12 tribes were fathered by Jacob, son of Isaac, who was son of Abraham.  However, the mothers of the 12 tribes were:  two sisters-Leah and Rachel and their two handmaids who had 2 sons each;  Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah had six and Rachel had two who turned out to be most important;  Joseph, the favorite son, and Benjamin, born when Rachel died in childbirth.  

Their haplogroups would be expected to all be the same as Abraham since a haplotype is passed in each generation by the male to his sons.  All the sons of Jacob should be the same-which reflect Abraham's haplotype.  However, we have a group of Jewish haplogroups common to us instead of one single type. 

The problem is that not every generation produced sons, or sons that continued their line with sons.  A daughter most likely became the progenitor of the family and her husband's haplogroup became the tag showing his origins, not the daughter's.  That tells us who the available men were to the women.  

Jacob and Rachel in the center with Joseph; Leah on the left with the 6 boys;  she will have Dinah, the only girl;  On the left are Zilpah and Bilhah and

We assume that J1 was the Cohen gene.  Every tribe had someone from the tribe of Levi (also brother of Leah and Jacob) who were direct descendants of Aaron, brother of Moses, who became the priests or Cohens. I have even found that many Arabs also carry the J1 gene, different with the tag endings showing it was an Arab line and not a Jewish line, like this one:  J1c3d.  As you get into genetics, SNPs become important.  "When same tribes cluster under same SNP, it draws clear distinction to their tribe YDNA signature and the all others who get same SNP are linked to same tribe Genetically.  "  There are several common SNPs that Arabs have that differentiate them from the Jewish Cohens. 

(J1) haplogroup had expanded to the rest of the world all over history but distinctively during two main periods. It had expanded out of Fertile Crescent about 7000-9000 years ago during the Neolithic times (last part of the stone age). The other period was during Arab migration with the expansion of Islamic empire on 6th century AC. (source Nadia Al-Zahery et al research). 

 They were not to inherit land for their tribe like the other siblings, but the tribe was broken up and the men served among their siblings teaching them. It was an honor of service.  It's also the most common identification for Jews today.

Other male haplogroups are E, which is quite large, G, I, Q (which my father is) J2, and R.  A popular female line is K.    

Judea was that part of ancient Israel's southern end and was the area left untouched when the Assyrians attacked the Northern tribes and took away most of the population there in 721 BCE.  "Assyria, named for the god Ashur (highest in the pantheon of Assyrian gods), was located in the Mesopotamian plain. It was bordered on the west by the Syrian desert, on the south by Babylonia, and on the north and east by the Persian and Urarthian hills (see J. D. Douglas, ed., The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Assyria,” 1:137). This area today is primarily the nation of Iraq."

Then in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE the Babylonians had attacked when they destroyed Solomon's Temple, and took most of their population to Babylon, allowing them with the choice of returning 50 years later in 538 BCE or staying in Babylon.  Some did return and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem.  

In 70 CE, Jerusalem was burned down and the 2nd Temple destroyed by the Romans. We were left with threats of not to return by the Romans.  Other empires took the land.   Jews divided  in fleeing for their lives and in getting out of Jerusalem.  So many had died from starvation, slaughtered, taken as slaves to Rome, and those who could still walk went in 3 directions:  to Spain and became the Sephardim;  neighboring communities and became the Mizrachim, or to Germany via Rome becoming the Ashkenazim.  That was 1,953 years ago.  

Our DNA tests manage to go back about 1,000 years to gain more information about our origins.  Then some tools can go back further, which FTDNA has in their program.  Mostly, we will be told of people who are at the most 5th (or further) cousins.  I have read that we Jews are all at least 20th cousins, and that's going back quite a ways.  Gedmatch.com has tools that can connect people with the smallest amount of measurable DNA, 3cMs where FTDNA uses 6 cMs for their smallest amount.  I have a Goldberg who shares DNA with my brother who is a 3rd to 5th cousin.  We share 5 segments on 4 chromosomes amounting to 53 cMs.  He's not a Q but an E.  Most other Goldbergs who share with my brother are 4th cousins. 

We were almost wiped out by the Holocaust and were left with 6 million living now in Israel, 6 million in USA and 2 million elsewhere in the world. so we make up only 0.2% of today's world population.  

In retrospect, for a people such as the Palestinians sharing a wee bit of their DNA with some of us from the past , the J1 haplogroup, we are as different as can be in morality and how we view life.  For many years the genealogists said that there was no connection with Palestinians compared with other Middle Eastern countries.  Tools are now more efficient and evidently SNPs have been found.   

Resource:

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/arabian-ydna-j1-project/about/results

Tanakh, (Bible) The Stone Edition