What haplogroup Do Pashtuns Be?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

Pashtuns have the oral history of being Beni Israel, sons of Israel.  Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, accounting for about 42 percent of the population,

I see that the company, FAMILY TREE DNA has 219 members of Afghan Pakistani DNA, now.  This is good.  They say, "Please visit our blogsite at www.dna-afghan-pak.blogspot.com and our Facebook Page, where members share their research and opinions on issues."

Male Y haplogroups of Pashtuns

C3-M217, Afghanistan's ethnic group, found in East Asia 2.04% in Pashtuns, In ***** 3 people carried this in the sample, 1 found in FTDNA's testing, Originated in southern Asia, found with highest diversity in India. 

E,  In *****1 person carried this in the sample.  Originated in Africa some 50,000 years ago, common ancestry with D.  Found in Middle East. 

F, In ***** 1 person carried this in the sample first in Africa some 45,000 years ago, 2nd wave of expansion out of Africa, ancestor of the Y chromosome haplogroups, oldest one. 

*G2b-M377, part of G2 is found in some Pashtuns who are Iranic and on a much lower scale among all major Jewish groups, Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians.  Up to the time of WW2, it was most common in Eastern Europe.  Distribution of G2b is sparse, unique.  The extreme rarity of G2b in northern Pakistan might mean it originated outside the country, brought there a historic period from further wet.  Pakistan was part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire conquered by Alexander the Great, then part of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom.  These 2 Pakistani G2b haplotypes are divergent from the Ashkenazi Jewish clade, do not indicate a recent common origin.  Turkish G2b is closer but not the same.  With Jews in Israel from many places, G2b was 3.7% of population in one study.  Afghanistan study of 5 Pashtuns in Wrdak region, 60% of sample, maybe due to local founder effect. Possible it started about 1,000 CE in NE West Asia from G2 (P287), highest frequency in Pashtuns, Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, SW Syria.  In ***** 12 people carried this in the sample.    4 found in FTDNA's testing  May have originated along the eastern edge of the Middle East or in India or Pakistan 30000 years ago .  G2 branch of this lineage containing the P15 mutation is found most often in the Caucasus, Balkans, Italy and Middle East.  7% of Ashkenazi Jews have this. 

H-M69, found in India' Pashtuns 20.41%, In ***** 4 people carried this in the sample. 6 found in FTDNA's testing, arose 20,000 to 30,000 years ago and almost entirely restricted to India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan where it probably originated. 

J1,  In ***** 3 people carried this in the sample.  3 found in FTDNA's study, 10,000 to 15,000 years ago in Fertile Crescent includes Jews, Arab, Armenians, Kurds, highest in Iran and Iraq, carried by traders to central Asia, India and Pakistan.  While the majority of J is not Jewish, the majority of Jewish men are J's.  The Cohen Modal Haplotype is found in haplogroup J1. 

J2-M172, Afghanistan's ethnic group, In ***** 7 people carried this in the sample.  Found in Central Asia, Mediterranean and south into India.   11 found in FTDNA's testing. connected to the spread of agriculture during Neolithic Period from Anatolia, found in central Asia, Mediterranean, south into India. Many Jews carry this, also.  

*L-M20, Afghanistan's ethnic group, also in India at 20.41%, In ***** 8 people carried Lin the sample.  6 found in FTDNA's testing
  L1a, 2 found in FTDNA's testing
  L1b, 1 found in FTDNA's testing
  L1c,  Known Pashtuns, 6 found in FTDNA's testing; L is common in India, likely originated here 30,000 years ago. 

P,   In ***** 1 person carried this in the sample, originated in Eurasia 35,000 to 45,000 years ago, in Europe, all indigenous people of the Americas.

Q, 1.3% finding 2 people.   In ***** 1 person carried this in the sample.in southern Afghanistan.   
       Q is found in 5% of the male Jewish Ashkenazi population.  13 found in FTDNA's testing. , originated 15,000 to 20,000 years ago migrated through northern Eurasia into Americas, lately found in Ur, Iraq where Abraham lived. My Jewish father's line is Q, and at 111 allele testing is QBZ67

*R1a1a-M17, Afghanistan's ethnic group, found in Eurasia, 51.02% in Pashtuns, in *****97 people carried this in the sample.  ( Overall, only haplogroups R1a1a*-M198 (62.1%), L3*-M357 (7.4%) and G2c-M377 (5.3%) display frequencies >5% and collectively comprise nearly three-fourths of the Afghanistan paternal gene pool in one study ). 18 found in FTDNA's study, 8 from India, Bangladesh, 9 known Pashtuns, Believed to have originated in NW Asia between 30,000 to 35,000 years ago. This is the line that so many Jewish Levites carry as their Y haplogroup that I've been writing about (12/22/2021).  
R-M512 , 9 Pashtuns of Afghanistan, Pakistan

R1b1b2, In *****, 1 person was found in the sample.  3 from Pakistan in FTDNA's study

R2a-M124, found in India's Pashtuns 20.41%, In ***** 5 people carried this in the sample, 5 from FTDNA's testing , Much rarer than R1, found only in Indian, Iranian and central Asian populations.

Undecided 31 people as yet not classified in a group on FTDNA's testing

Genotyping revealed 32 haplogroups present in Afghanistan's ethnic groups among our samples. Haplogroups R1a1a-M17, C3-M217, J2-M172, and L-M20 were the most frequent when Afghan ethnic groups were pooled, together comprising >66% of the chromosomes. 

Resource: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/dna_afghan_pak/default.aspx?section=yresults

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_G-M377

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034288

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2012/03/rare-look-at-y-chromosomes-of.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267787589_The_origin_of_the_Pashtuns_Pathans *****

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/dna-afghan-pak/about/background

Book:  Abraham's Children, race, identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People, by Jon Entine

Jerusalem and the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
Jerusalem "Yerushalayim." was and is the capital of Israel.  It's located in the center of the Judean Mountains.  It is sometimes called "Zion," which was the name of King David's fortress.  It was also known as the City of David (1000-960 BCE)  .  Poetic names are city of righteousness,   faithful city, city of G-d, the holy city, and city of truth. King David was a warrior.  His son, King Solomon brought in the religious aspects of Judaism by building the Temple.  This city was and still is the most important religious city to the Jewish people.  Jews pray in the direction of Jerusalem.  We are told not to ever forget this city on the threat of losing the use of our right hand.  We are back.

Jerusalem was taken by the pagan Romans in 70CE.  From then on many countries have tried to take it since Christianity placed Jesus in Jerusalem and the area.  In 1099 it was stormed by the Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon.  They made it the capital of the Latin Kingdom.  Then in 1187 Saladin, the Ayyabid sultan retook the city for Islam.  Under the Ottoman Empire it decayed. In 1492 Jews were forced out of Spain and many removed to Jerusalem, but their numbers were restricted by the Muslim government.     By the 18th century the population of Jews and Muslims was under 10,000 with most of the city lying in ruins.  The 19th century brought the Aliyote of Russian Jews who had bought land and started building.  By 1838 there were 50,000 Jews from many countries with the population of 68,000.  They were able to bring about a railway line to connect the city with Jaffa by the 1880's.  In 1898 the German Emperor William II visited Jerusalem.  He met with Theodore Herzl who represented the Zionist Organization.

World War I came along in 1914 and the population fell to 50,000.  December 1917 found the city occupied by General Allenby of the British Army.  British were given the Mandate to rule the land. that had been under the Ottoman Empire called Palestine, named by the previous Romans.  Jewish immigration in 1946 caused the population to reach 165,000 of which 100,000 were Jews.  Fighting broke out between Muslims and Jews.  The Arab Legion shelled and starved the Jews living in Jerusalem but the Jews didn't surrender to them.   May 15, 1948 saw the re-birth and establishment of Israel once more.  By 1949 the government and Knesset were transferred to Jerusalem.  I note that King David and King Solomon's Israel was far larger than today's extremely small Israel.

East Jerusalem held the homes of Muslims.  The city was divided into 2 parts from 1948 till 1967.  East Jerusalem had been under Jordanian domination.  June 5, 1967 was the start of the Six Day War when all the neighboring Arab states attacked Israel and lost.  Jordan had bombarded the city. The whole city came under Israeli control.  The first thing Jews did was go to the Western Wall and pray.  They had been kept from this most important site by the Muslims for almost 20 years.

On June 29, 1967, Israel formally united the 2 parts of the city and barriers that had divided them were taken away.  The Eastern part of the city had 139,600 Muslims and Christians and were united with the rest so that the total population in 1990 was 493,500, which is the same population as Portland, Oregon..  The Jerusalem Law of 1980 extended Israeli sovereignty over the whole city.  This brought many updates to the Arab section.

Israel has 1.4 million Arab citizens today.  There are plenty of mosques throughout the state.  In Jerusalem, starting on November 8th of this year at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music is a month long "Nights of Tarab" celebration as part of an Arab Jerusalem Festival.  I have one of Edward Said's books.  He was a Muslim fighter against Israel.  Here we see the only Democratic country in the Middle East truly practicing democracy.  I hope the Muslims appreciate the state they live in safely.  While the Muslim Gazan terrorists  are shelling southern Israel's Jewish communities, there are Muslims that are enjoying  living in Jerusalem.

The fight continues with Muslims from many countries threatening to take Jerusalem, Iran and her neighbors being among them.

 From the time of King David who died in 960 BCE to losing 10 of the 12 tribes of Jacob to the Assyrians from 721-715 BCE, we see that 239 years after King David died, we lost our 10 tribes, taken from us by force. which means the children of Zilpah and Bilhah the handmaidens, and Jacob's 2nd wife, Rachel.  Leah, the first wife of Jacob and sister of Rachel  was the mother of 6 tribes.  Out of those, only Judah and Levi remained.  Reuben, Simeon, Issachar and Zebulun were most likely part of the kidnapped group as well.  Judah was the largest of all the tribes that remained.

 We read from the prophecies of Ezekiel,  who lived in the 6th century BCE and probably served in Solomon's Temple before its destruction in 586 BCE what is foretold for the Lost Ten Tribes and the Jews.  .  He was one that was exiled to Tel Abib on the river Kebar in Babylonia where he prophecied for about 22 years from 592-570 BCE.   In   Ezekiel  37:16, our 37th prophet,  which associates the final Redemption with the reunion of the whole House of Israel, I read:  . "Now you, Son of Man, take for yourself one piece of wood and write upon it, "For Judah and for the Children of Israel, his comrades; and take one piece of wood and write upon it, "For Joseph, the wood of Ephraim and all the House of Israel, his comrades.    Then bring them close to yourself, one to the other, like one piece of wood, and they will become united in your hand.  ....Thus said the Lord Hashem/Elohim:  " Behold, I am taking the wood of Joseph which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his comrades, and I am placing them and him together with the wood of Judah;  and I will make them into one piece of wood, and they will become one in My hand."

"Behold, I am taking the Children of Israel from among the nations to which they have gone;  I will gather them from all around and I will bring them to their soil;  I will make them into one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel, and one king will be  a king for them all;  they will no longer be two nations, and they will no longer be divided into two kingdoms, ever again.  ....I will purify them;  they will be a nation to Me,  and I will be a G-d to them.  My servant David will be king over them, and there will be one shepherd for all of them;  they will follow My ordinances and keep My decrees and fullfill them.  They will dwell on the land that I gave to My servant Jacob, within which your fathers dwelled;  they and their children and their children's children will dwell upon it forever;  and My servant David will be a leader for them forever.  I will seal a covenant of peace with them;  it will be an eternal covenant with them...then the nations will know that I am *Hashem/G-d Who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary will be among them forever.  

 Jews have been awaiting this time, and so the reports have come in from all over of finding them.  Eldad Ha-Dani reported them in the mountains of Africa.  Benjamin of Tudela heard of them in Central Asia.  David Reuveni claimed to be the brother of one of their rulers in some region of Arabia.  Antonio de Montezinos stimulated Manasseh ben Israel's political activity in  England with reports of finding them in South America.  Japanese and Anglo Saxons were thought to be them.  Finally it was thought that some were still in "Palestine" or assimilated, or absorbed by the last Judean exiles in 597-586 or were deported to an area  earlier such as Media, Assyria and Mesopotamia.  Today we see the Pashtuns of Pakistan and Afghanistan claiming descent of the Lost 10 Tribes.  Being Muslims, they are found to side with Iran in their hatred for Jews but with the desire to take their very teeny country.  What would  Ezekiel say to all this?  How are we ever going to be reunited peacefully?

* Jews do not want to over-use the word "G-d"  so use "HaShem" which means in Hebrew: "the name".  In respect, the orthodox do not even write out the word but use the dash instead of the o.

Re: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xU9CauJP4Pg#! on Jerusalem
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia on Jerusalem
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/Jerutoc.html  Jerusalem
Tanach, the Stone Edition; Torah, Prophets, writings
Update: 6/14/16 http://www.israelrising.com/the-pashtuns-are-the-tribes-of-israel/?utm_source=fb-pashtun-tribes&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=lost-tribes

Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan-The Lost Israeli Tribes

Nadene Goldfoot
Pakistan is made up of 172,800,000 people who are 97% Muslim of Sunni as the main sect with Shi'a and the main fiqh (Islamic law (fiqh) or how they follow the laws of Sharia being Hanafi.    Pakistan is an Islamic state.

Afghanistan has a smaller population of 28,395, 716 who are 99% Muslim with the same makeup but including the Jafari fiqh as well.  This is as of wikipedia's 2011 information.

The Pashtun Tribe found in Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India claim to be of the Lost Tribes of Israel.  It is said that the exile was caused by the Assyrians in 732 BCE.    It was first thought that they were either killed or assimilated into the Assyrian populace.  Evidence is very powerful through cultural behaviors and found parchments saying that the Pashtuns could be them, coming mainly from the tribe of Ephraim..    Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the second largest ethnic group in Pakistan.  There are over 40 million in the world with over 10 million in Afghanistan, and over 30 million in Pakistan.

"There are also discussions in the Talmud as to whether the Ten Lost Tribes will eventually be reunited with the Tribe of Judah, that is, with the Jewish people."

One of many interesting writers on the subject is Mirza Ghulam Ahmad,who is not considered a Muslim , nor is his so called sect a Muslim, but is said to be the  founder of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community,  who wrote a book named Jesus in India where he argued that Afghans, Pashtuns and Pathans are descendants from the Tribes of Israel.  Another is Issachar Katzir, Afghanistan Jew living now in Israel who wrote the book, "Lost Tribes from Assyria" by A. Avihail and A. Brin, 1978, in Hebrew.  "This is an introduction to the world of the ' lost tribes' of those Jews who were taken into exile at the fall of the First Temple. Rabbi Avichail is the world's foremost expert on the whole subject of crypto- Jews and has traveled throughout the world seeking to identify such communities"  It's a very expensive book to buy.  Hopefully one day it will come out in English.

Evidently Jewish children of Afghanistani parents heard the stories about the 10 Tribes that were lost who still "kept Jewish customs and names,  who had preserved their forefathers' tradition, bearing arms and awaiting the day of redemption. "  The Pathans lived on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and called themselves the sons of Israel, even though they live as Muslims and are known for their physical strength.  They are tall, light-coloured and handsome, good soldiers, diligent, intelligent and are known as wonderful hosts.  Two million of them even live as beduins.  They look very much like the Jews.

One misconception people may have about the people of Afghanistan is that all the men belong to the Taliban terrorists.  This was not true in 2010 as one of the largest Pashun tribes, the Shinwari with 400,000 people  had declared war on the Taliban citing that they were robbing them and taking their sons to fight.  Their tribe is as large as our city of Portland, Oregon.

Update 7/26/15  The Taliban have killed 35,000 Pashtuns who are fighting against them.  (Resource-Pashtun contact in Pakistan).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiqh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Pashtun_descent_from_Israelites
http://www.dangoor.com/74069.html  A Must Read Excellent information
http://www.amazon.com/lost-tribes-Assyria-Eliyahu-Avichail/dp/B0007B0ENK/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345488584&sr=1-2&keywords=Lost+Tribe+From+Assyria
http://mydailyclarity.com/2010/01/pashtun-taliban-%E2%80%93-the-lost-tribe-of-israel/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/israel-lost-tribes-pashtun
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/world/asia/28tribe.html?pagewanted=all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim-majority_countries
Updated 3/15/14 on information about Mirza Ghulam

One Lone Jew Left in Afghanistan with the Taliban: Can They Be Related?

Nadene Goldfoot
After a 2,500 year history of living in Afghanistan, we have one Jew left there.  All that were there have emigrated, mostly to Israel, Pakistan and the USA.  Zablon Simintov, b: ca1920 has remained and cares for the run-down synagogue in the capital of Kabul.  Sympathetic Muslims and Jews around the world send him aid.  I'm glad to see that there are kind Muslims with the Taliban operating from there.  This is a hot spot, as of yesterday, the USA has had 1,740 soldiers die there since the Afghanistan War that started October 7, 2001. 

Zablon had a Jewish friend, Isaac Levy, also born ca. 1920 until he died in January 2005.  Simentov is alone amongst 30 million Afghanis.  He's trying to recover a confiscated Torah.  A man, a Taliban member,  had stolen it, now in US custody in Guantanamo Bay.  His wife and 2 daughters live in Israel.  Simentov ran a store selling carpets and jewelry until 2001.  He and Levy had lived in opposite ends of the synagogue and didn't like each other, winding up in Taliban jails. 

The Taliban are fundamental Sunni Muslims made up mostly of the tribe of Pashtun.  They dominate much of Pakistan by terrorism and want a puritanical caliphate.  They don't like democracies and feel they are an offensse against Islam.  Their brand of religion is close to Saudi Arabia's form of Wahhabism, though differs.  They are even stricter in following their Sharia law.  Al Qaeda supported them by importing fighters to help their cause.  They were the ruling political party in Afghanistan but have been replaced by Operation Enduring Freedom in 2004 with President Hamid Karzai who has been influenced more by the USA. 

The Taliban are opening a political office/mission in Qatar in order to negotiate over the endgame in the Afghan war.  Karzai agreed to this a week ago.  Karzai is interested in talking about reducing tensions rather than a comorehensive solution to the war.  Qatar's religious leader, Qaradawi, hates Jews.  He's the main leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Emir of Qatar's great friend.  Both men have been doing a lot to reach out and be most friendly and influential  with groups in the USA. 

It is believed by many Muslim and some Jewish scholars that the exiled Lost Tribes of Israel had settled here. They made up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, now the 2nd largest in Pakistan.  This would be the Pashtuns.  This theory was written in 1612 The History of the Afghans  by Nimat Allah al-Harawi.  I'd love to see them take dna tests through familytreedna so we could find out their deep history. 

How can the Pashtun tribe who is now the Taliban have a Jewish history and have become the most strict of all Islamists?  This is indeed wild.  They are a wild terrorist group that think nothing of killing.  The USA entered a war on 7 October 2001 and 1,742 soldiers have died.  USA has soldiers in NATO, and out of 566 troops who died, 418 were Americans.  8 NATO troops just died in 3 attacks in southern Afghanistan on the 5th and 6th and 4 of them were Americans  The US-led NATO command is slowly handing over responsibillities to the Afghan government. The Taliban is still strong in the south, like in Kandahar, where trouble began in the 1990's.  Roadside bombs are the usual method of killing soldiers. 

At any rate, Jewish history can be traced back to the Babylonian Exile and Persian conquest with records of a Jewish population going back to the 7th century (when Islam started) with the Tahqat-i-Nasiri that mentioned people called Bani Israel settling in Ghor. 

It is claimed that "Kabul" is deried from Cain and Abel and the name "Afghanistan" from Afghana, a grandson of King Saul.  Historians V. Minorsky, W.K. Frazier Tyler and MC Gillet say that "afghan" appears in a 982CE book called Hudud-al-Alam, with this reference. 

   Saul, a pleasant village on a mountain has Afghans living in it.  This village probably was near Gardez, east of Ghazni in afghanistan.  The book tells about a village near modern Jalalabad where the local king had many Hindu, Muslim and Afghan wives. 

Benjam in Tudela in the 12th century counted 80,000 Jews living there and in 1080, Moses ibn Ezra mentioned 40,000 Jews paying tribute to Ghazni.  Then Genghis Khan invaded in 1222 and reduced the Jewish communities to isolated groups.  In 1839, the population increased by receiving refugees from Persia and had a population of 40,000 again. 

By 1948, 5,000 Jews lived in Afghanistan, and were allowed to emigrate in 1951.  By 1969, 300 Jews remained but left after the Soviet invasion of 1979, leaviing only 10 Afghan Jews there in 1996, just enough for a minion in Kabul.  Probably there are 10,000 Jews residing in Israel with Afghan descent.  More than 200 families live in New York City.  However, Zablon is in no hurry to leave. 

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_afghanistan
http://middleeast.about.com/od/afghanistan/ss/me080914a.htm
Oregonian newspaper page A3; Taliban's Qatar move may signal peace talks
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/talking/79_Qaradawi.html and all my references on Qaradawi in this jewishfactsfromportland. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Afghanistan.html
http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id =251913 Scrolls raise questions as to Afghan Jewish history by Gil Shefer
Oregonian newspaper 1/7/12 page A5  8 coalition troops killed in 3 attacks