The Tribe of Levi That Moses Was From

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Jacob had 12 sons who were the origins of the famous 12 Tribes of of Jacob.  Levi was Jacob's 3rd son with Leah, his first wife.  The Levites were the tribe that Moses and his brother, Aaron, were from.

                                                   

Aaron was made high priest by Moses, and all his sons were to follow in his footsteps.  His DNA has been found to be called J1 or the Cohen gene.  Supposedly, all the Levites should have carried the same Y haplogroup of Jacob, and Jacob would have been carrying the same as his father, etc.                         

Scientists have found that this is true of the Cohens who lived under special conditions like not marrying a divorced woman, other  conditions, but is not proving to be true for the group designated as the Levites.                                       

                 Daniel Eskow, Levite, Russian Jewish,  painting by me

Levites:  In very ancient times, all the male descendants of the tribe of Levi were consecrated by Moses to serve in the  the Temple and to instruct the people.                       

 In those days, the 1st-born of each family served as priest, but because of the loyalty of the Levites during the incident of the Golden Calf, they replaced the first born of everyone. 

Each family of Levites was assigned specific duties connected with the transport and assembly of the parts of the future Temple in the wilderness.  The family of Aaron was singled out for service as priests within the Temple-to-be (as a temporary site, referred to as the Tabernacle.)                             

             Bon Voyage party before moving to Israel to teach

After the conquest of Canaan, the Levites were enjoined to teach the Torah to the people, being therefore excluded from any territorial inheritance but receiving 48 towns with their environs throughout the country, as well as a tithe of the agricultural produce.  This arrangement worked somewhat differently to practice.   Daniel, above, finally became a high school history teacher, and he was amazing at it in Oregon.

                                                

Certain towns assigned to the Levites were only captured a long time after the conquest, or not at all, and there is no evidence to show how effective was the collection of tithes.  Consequently, some of the Levites served at High Places, especially in the Northern Kingdom after Jeroboam had instituted independent worship.  

According to Chronicles at the very end of the Tanakh, when the Temple service was organized, traditionally by David, the Levites were divided into groups, each engaging in different work (singers, instramentalists, gatekeepers, assistants to the priests during the sacrifice, etc.  Like the priests, every group was divided into 24 sections, each serving for a week at a time.                        

Out of the tribe of Levi, with the Cohens being the direct line of Aaron, the Levites outnumbered the Cohens.They had become a 2nd-class priesthood.  They got to read from the Torah after the Cohens.  Temple-sacrifice privileges--at the very core of Jewish sacred ritual--were limited to the sons of the high priest Zadok (Cohens), whereas Levites became responsible for more mundane tasks such as day to day upkeep of the Temple, guarding the door, and transporting the Ark of the Covenant.                                                      

     Danny in Israel, teaching.  Under Israeli pressure now in my painting. He's wearing the Israeli style prayer shawl.  

In 2nd Temple times, the Priests outnumbered the Levites, and apparently shared their tithes.  In halakhah, or the law, the Levite is regarded as 2nd to the Priest, and has the privilege of having the Priest's hands before the latter blesses the people.  They had less influence and prestige than the Cohanim.  The Levite position was therefore ambiguous:  of high status but impoverished, "priestly" but not high priests.  Dan never felt impoverished in the status of a Levite but very proud to be one and took it seriously.  Sadly, he died without being DNA tested. 

 However, their responsibilities grew to include composition and performance of liturgical music, as well as teaching, administration and interpretation of Jewish law and ritual.  These functions became especially important during the Hellenistic period and, long before the destruction of the 2nd Temple, helped steer Jewish worship away from the Temple and into the homes and new synagogues.

About R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites

According to a 2003 study, about 52% of Ashkenazi men with a tradition of Levite descent belong to the R1a haplogroup. That haplogroup is less common among Ashkenazim without a tradition of Levite descent (and R1a-Y2619 men without a tradition of Levite descent are often able to determine from genealogical records or tombstones that their direct male line is in fact Levite). The haplogroup is found only rarely among Sephardim (both Levites and non-Levites).

Men belonging to this R1a cluster of Ashkenazi men have become known as R1a1a Ashkenazi Levites or, more recently, as R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites (Y2619 is a single-nucleotide polymorphism ("SNP") that is shared by all R1a1a Ashkenazi Levites.) It is possible that the origin of this haplogroup comes from Khazaria.

Many Levites have been found to carry the R-M17 haplogroup line, and it is now thought to have originated from Khazaria. The Khazar Empire stood to the east of the area of the Ashkenazi Jews, between the Dnieper and Volga rivers, and reached south into the modern nation of Georgia. Khazaria was established by Central Asian Turkic speaking people whose empire converted to Judaism when confronted that they were trading with Christians, Jews and Muslims, and so the Bulan or king actually chose Judaism and all followed. The people were no doubt Slavic and carriers of R-M17. We can't be sure, but it's a good possibility.

Today, the tribe of Levi, made up of the Cohanim and Levites, is the only tribe left out of the 12 Tribes of Jacob, though one would have thought that it wound be the tribe of Judah! Why is that? Similar to the modern-day Cohanim, non-Cohen Levites are estimated to account for some 4% of the contemporary Ashkenazi community and somewhat less of the Sephardi population. They are found in synagogues all over the world. Remember, they were scattered among all the tribes, and didn't have their own plot of land. In more observant congregations, Levites continue to discharge their historical religious functions. While they no longer have occasion to enforce rectitude at sword point as they once did, in some congregations, they still wash the hands of the Cohanim before the contemporary "priests" deliver their blessings.

In my experience, I have 3 DNA matches of the Y haplogroup E-L117, father and son, with son being very musical, a pianist, and another being a musician, playing the clarinet in his band. Could they also be Levites? Or could this just be coincidence? I wonder about the Cantors of Judaism? How many of them are Levites?

One would think that the general public of Jews, who are called the Israelites, would be the group who suffered the most in the Holocaust, being the remainder of the tribe of Judah, not counting the Cohens and Levites. Jews remaining are only 0.02% of the world population. Jews make up 2% of the USA population.

We're a very small group that should be protected, yet we still suffered from anti-Semitism. We're a group made smaller on our own as well by marrying outside out faith and assimilating., as well. We also have a 3rd danger of our own people turning against us in their desire to be liked by their own peer group; self-hating Jews. Sometimes I think they're out biggest danger.

Resource:

Updated with title: 12/29/2021, 10pm Pacific Time

https://sites.google.com/site/levitedna/home 

Book: Jacob's Legacy : A Genetic View of Jewish History

We Are People OF Our History: Take a Look At Passover

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                           

Eating matzos during 8 days of Passover; no regular bread
this is unleavened;  flour and water only.

Here we see Jewish children under 6 at a special dinner called a Seder
designed as a teaching lesson about the Exodus.  At the table is a textbook called a Haggadah that tells the story.  The food you see plays a part that reminds us of certain events and facts.  We will recite these facts.  Our youngest child is to ask 4 questions about it:  Why is this night different? Why do we eat bitter herbs on this night?  Why do we dip the herbs twice when we never do this?  Why, tonight, do we all recline when we sat up straight?
We learn that there are 4 types of children:  an intelligent one, a wicked one, a simple one and one still too young to ask questions.

A child's personality and makeup are created by the time they are 6 years old.

  It only takes that long to develop inherited and learned personality traits, and we are set for life.  Luckily, some bad traits can be redefined with the help of a good psychologist, but so much of us affects the genes we inherit
to be good or bad traits.  Whether we were fortunate enough to have wonderful, intelligent parents or the type that were child-beaters,  sometimes our genes outweigh and save us under even the harshest of horrible conditions of our environment. 
                                                               

            

So it is with nations and the people within.  The world's population since cave man has been under attack at different periods of time.  I often feel so lucky to have been born in 1934 after WWI and all preceding it into a modern world to wonderful parents.  My original inbred shyness has been remodeled to become an outgoing teacher with her classes.  Was it my paternal grandmother who was shy?  Was it my mother?  How is it that my Jewish ancestors have suffered so much in this world?  Has it always been so?  Why do the Arabs hate Israelis so much?  Why do some nations continually attack others?  
                                                                             

Jews in Poland being forced into one area to live in,
then to be transported to death camps to be gassed.
This turned out to be the total extinction of 6 million Jews in Europe
and other places.  

From the beginning of the birth of Judaism, Jews have found themselves in hot water.  Christians can read about the Jews' history and have been doing so since the history of Jesus in about 37 CE; that is for the past 2,000 years at least. The Greek Syrians and then the Romans occupied Jerusalem in c 312 BCE and took over the Temple until the Romans burned Jerusalem down in 70 CE.  We first read about it in our story of Chanukah with the eternal light returning to the Temple that lasted for 8 days and nights instead of one night. With that final blow, Jews were massacred while most others escaped to all parts of the world.  We were then in what was called the Diaspora, and found we were not accepted, for our  religion was so different.                                                     

The Old Testament in Deuteronomy 14:2 states:  "For you are a holy people to the Lord your G-d, and the Lord has chosen you to be his own treasure out of all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth."  In other words, originally, G-d chose the Jews as his favorite.  Because of this, the rest of the Christians must have felt a lot of jealousy.  In fact, some Protestant groups insist that they have replaced us and we are no longer special.  Well, as Tevia said in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Ha Shem, why couldn't you have picked someone else?"  What is the "Old Testament?"  "The Old Testament (abbreviated OT) is the first part of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh), a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites believed by most Christians and religious Jews to be the sacred Word of God. "  We believe that the 1st 5 books in it were written by Moses himself.  Moses gave the Jews (the Israelites) 613 laws to follow in order to be molded into very special and moral people in order that they would be the light of the nations; the example of good behavior.  Moses saved these people from 400 years of living in Egypt of which most was spent in slavery-servitude to the Egyptians.  All who were these slaves followed Moses to freedom of which we celebrate with the upcoming holiday Wednesday night of Passover.  
                                                     

Hillel, a 1st century BCE also called, "The Elder";  a scholar,
founded a school "House of Hillel"
Born in Babylonia, settled in Eretz Yisrael (Judah) , was a laborer working
with his hands while studying with well-known teachers-Shemaiah and Avialyon, just before the time of Jesus.  

Second most famous Jewish words comes from the original teachings of Torah and is called the Golden Rule written by Hillel who said simply,  "Don't do to others what you don't want to happen to you."  

                                                      

Moses, b: 1391 BCE-d: 1273 BCE at 120 years.
Wandered with 600,000 Israelites for 40 years before
reaching Canaan and could not enter with Joshua and others
because he had lost his temper once.

The ancient Hebrews, as Israelites came to be called because they spoke Hebrew, were the 1st to base their life as a nation under Kings Saul, David and Solomon on the idea of One G-d, the G-d of all nations and all peoples.  In a very real sense, the ancient Hebrews were also "chosen" to bring this message to the world.  The most famous lesson was the Ten Commandments. Just think, laws are made to fix things and make them better.  We have the law of wearing seat belts when driving, and this was to keep people from being killed in an accident.  The Ten Commandments are found in Deut. 4:13;10:4, etc proclaimed by G-d on Mt. sinai and transmitted through Moses to Israel.  This is considered the fountainhead of all the other laws.  They are given in Exod. 20:2-14   The 1st 5 describe man's duties to G-d, and the last 5 his responsibilities to his fellow-man.

 An example: 1. Belief in G-d;  2, Prohibition of idolatry;  3. Prohibition of vain oaths, 4.  The Sabbath,  5.Honor your father and your mother, so that your days will be lengthened upon the land that Hashem, your G-d, gives you.  6: "You shall not kill;  7. you shall not commit adultery;  Prohibition against kidnapping-meaning stealing... you shall not steal;  9. you shall not bear false witness against your fellow, 10. you shall not covet your fellow's house, You shall not covet your fellow's wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your fellow.  
                                                    

Esau and Jacob, twins of Isaac
DNA of J1c3d
as different as day and night

So, in our beginning, we were a people who were strong and free with Abraham as our founding father reaching back as far as 1948 BCE or in the 2nd millennium BCE who through his son Isaac and then his son Jacob, wound up during a famine and migrated to Egypt which was our only choice available at the time.  From there our story began.  Since then we have felt the slings, arrows, stones and bullets, rockets, and missiles real and of hatred from so many; Crusaders, Spanish Inquisition, on and on to the Holocaust, and now the Arabs in the Middle East.  For over 3,000 years we have believed in one G-d and the need of our moral compass given to us by Moses to be a compassionate and good people, only to find we are not acceptable in this world.  If Moses were to return to earth today, he would recognize much of the Torah, the Hebrew language, and many of the traditional teachings of our people.  Empires have come and gone since his time here, but ours continues.  
                                                      

That makes our history unique.  Since we have so often been ruled by those who sought to destroy us and they are gone and we remain makes it striking:  like the Hellenizers of Ptolemaic rule and then the Seleucids, the surrounding kingdoms of Israel, Philistines and Phoenicians.  

During our history we have changed the life and thought of humanity, bringing to the world ideals of equality, decency, and morality which, however imperfectly carried out, are the driving forces of today's civilization."

We see the world as good, believing that G-d has a plan for the universe, a plan in which each of us plays a part.  No individual is hopelessly evil.  Every person can choose to do good, and in that way help perfect the quality of life on earth.  
                                                 

Isaiah, painting by Raphael
lived during 740 to 701 BCE, prophesizing in Jerusalem
of a noble family, closely connected with the royal court under king
Hezekiah; against moral laxity;
Kindness, pity, and justice to the poor and underprivileged are more significant to G-d than offering sacrifices.  

                                         As Isaiah  2:2-4 put it: 
And it shall come to pass in the end of days,
That the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the top of the mountains,
And He shall judge between the nations,
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nations,
Neither shall they learn war anymore,   

Resource:
My People --Abba Eban's History of the Jews, adapted by David Bamberger
Passover Haggadah with a new translation by Chaim Raphael
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

The World of Moses

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                           

According to the Jewish timeline, Moses was born in 1391 BCE and died at the age of 120 in 1271 BCE.  That was 3,411 years ago in Egypt.  He was born to the slaves Jochebed and Amram of the tribe of Levi in Egypt.  Israelites had wandered into the Egyptian land many years ago and at this period in time, the Egyptians had become worried about their increased growth and had solved the way to stem it.  They had decreed the slaughter of all new-born males of Israelites.  

Jochebed hid her baby Moses among the reeds of the Nile River where he was found by the Pharaoh's daughter who raised him in her own household as a prince.  When he grew up and learned of his ancestry, he took a great interest in them and wound up killing an Egyptian overlord who was beating a Hebrew slave and knew that he himself had to flee or be killed for it.  
                                                      

He fled Eastward to Midian, which was a Beduin tribe related to the Hebrews where he survived by becoming a shepherd of sheep for the local priest, Jethro, and even married his daughter, Zipporah who gave him two sons, Gersham and Eliezer.  The Midianites would travel in caravans of incense from Gilead to Egypt and later to other countries. 
                                                     

 The strange thing is that later on in the desert period, the princes of Midian cooperated with Moab against Israel, and even later on conducted a plundering expedition against the Valley of Jezreel, repulsed by the Hebrew,Gideon during the period of the judges.  They lived near the Moabites and Edomites.  From the 2nd Temple times of 539 BCE, the Land of Midian was thought to be located in NW Arabia. 
                                                                           

The miracle of Judaism lies in remembering and celebrating this event which was the foundation of Judaism, for Moses became the lawgiver for Judaism, though he never knew the name, Judaism, for that was the name of the last of the 12 tribes of Jacob, grandson of Abraham, the tribe of Judah.  They are the ones who carried on the laws of Moses for about the past 3,293 years.  To be able to want to do this shows us how powerful an event this had been.  That's why we read about it every year since then and remember it in our holiday of Passover where we reenact it at our table of special foods with the unleavened bread called matzos that we eat for 8 days in replacement of leavened (with yeast) bread.  We suffer in this way like our ancestors who were led by Moses to freedom of slavery.  
                                                         

The Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, of that time  was not remembered by his name.  Pharaoh means the "Great House", referring to their royal palace.  People have been guessing since then which pharaoh it was who decreed killing babies to control populations.  

Egypt, the powerful nation

Thutmose IV's rule is significant because he established peaceful relations with Mitanni and married a Mitannian princess to seal this new alliance. Thutmose IV's role in initiating contact with Egypt's former rival, Mitanni, is documented by Amarna letter EA 29 composed decades later by Tushratta, a Mittanian king who ruled during the reign of Akhenaten, Thutmose IV's grandson. Tushratta states to Akhenaten that:"

                                                        

From Thutmose IV's tomb in Valley of Kings in Egypt

Pharaoh Menkheperure Thutmose IV 1400-1390 BCE
Probably he was the pharaoh that Moses and Aaron, his brother,  had to deal with.  Moses is said to have been born in 1391 BCE, the year before his ended.

" Little is known about his brief ten-year rule. He suppressed a minor uprising in Nubia in his 8th year (attested in his Konosso stela) around 1393 BC and was referred to in a stela as the Conqueror of Syria, but little else has been pieced together about his military exploits. Betsy Bryan, who penned a biography of Thutmose IV, says that Thutmose IV's Konosso stela appears to refer to a minor desert patrol action on the part of the king's forces to protect certain gold-mine routes in Egypt's Eastern Desert from occasional attacks by the Nubians."

The first dynasty of pharaohs goes back far more than Moses does.  Moses was quite recent in Egyptian history.  They started having kings in 3,150 BCE or 5,170 years ago.  The pharaoh we are interested in was not of the old kingdom or the middle kingdom but of the New Kingdom who reigned from 1400 BCE to 1390 BCE and that was Thutmose IV. He was the son of Amenhotep II and ruled at the height of Egypt's power.  This was a period of the rulers of the 18th dynasty.                                      

Son of Thutmos IV:  Amenhotep III  

                                                                                                        
Or, it could have been the next king who was Amenhotep III, who ruled from 1390 BCE to 1350 BCE and was the grandfather of Tutankhamun.  He was the son of Thutmos IV. Remember,  Moses was born in 1391 BCE, the year before Amehotep III's rule.  

Notice that the intelligence of the Egyptians at this time could only fathom how to draw profiles but not a full face or even a three-quarter face, yet they could draw the front view of the body.  I remember going through that period as a young child in trying to draw the back of the head showing the hair.  I think this is a sign of their mental development.  We teachers of primary grades could understand a child's intelligence by a drawing test called "DRAW A MAN TEST."  i gave points for each part of the drawing.  Naturally, a stick figure was pretty low in age development.  Yet their ability to use clay and such in creating statues was remarkable for even us today.  It could be they just preferred this artistic style.  

King Tut or Tutankhamun , grandson of the pharoah known to Moses:1342-1325 BCE; this is his death mask.  

                                                     

Limestone crudely carved  Stela of  Pharaoh Thutmose IV
adoring goddess Astarte-of 18th dynasty.

A Torah, First 5 books of Moses:  Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy; in Hebrew
called: Bereishis, Shemos, Veyikra, Bamidbar and Devarim;
read every Saturday (Shabbat) morning in a synagogue
out loud to congregation in Hebrew, starting with the Cohens,
then the Levites, then the Israelites. A man will know if he is
a Cohen or a Levite, information passed on through the centuries.
  

 Compare this with the information given to Moses in laws through G-d.  Not only that, but the whole story of Moses is amazing.  How about the 10 plagues brought onto the Egyptians as a result of Pharaoh's refusal to permit the Israelites to leave the country after being there for 400 years?   They were:
1. water of the Nile turning to blood; 2. frogs all over the place, 3. lice attacking man and beast; 4. flies (tsetse) or wild beasts; 5. murrain affecting the cattle (mad cow disease?)(anthrax)(any infectious disease)  6. boils; 7. heavy hail; 8. locusts devouring crops; 9. 3 days of darkness; 10. death of 1st-born of man and beast.  Part of our Seder tells about this every year.   

Since Moses, we have the return of Jews to Palestine causing the birth of modern Israel on May 14, 1948.  In Israel, orthodox Jewry reign.  There are very few Conservative and Reformed Jews living there.  The opposite is true of the USA.  In 2016 it was found that Conservative and Reform outweigh Orthodox Jews 5 times over.  I must add that after living in Haifa and then Safed for over 5 years, one cannot help but become orthodox in their beliefs.  You are living and breathing in the air that does things to you.  Seeing and living in the paths of ancient people of the bible causes one to have goosebumps.  I myself changed from just teaching to become a writer and producer and actress in my own plays.  I wouldn't have done that in the states.  In Israel in 1980 you were a pioneer, and called upon all your resources in helping to achieve anything.  Moses called upon G-d.  Or was it that actually G-d called upon Moses.  

The laws Moses gave us that shaped Judaism are upheld the most in Israel where it all began.  There are 613 laws total we are to follow, most of which are done normally anyway today.  We can certainly appreciate our ancient laws of food and sanitation, like washing our hands, etc, in these modern days of the Corona pandemic.  In fact, that was where we were in trouble many times living in other countries when a plague hit.  They would die and Jews may have lived through it, thought to have brought it about.  The Arabs are trashing us with this ancient accusation right now from Gaza.  

We will miss our family seder during Passover this year due to the Pandemic virus, and hope that all stay safe during this time.  We will attempt to do what we can in order to remember this time and look forward to doing a bang up job of it next year to help our children to remember.  Samayach Pesach, everyone!!

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharaohs 
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/15/unlike-u-s-few-jews-in-israel-identify-as-reform-or-conservative/
Honest Reporting: We are already seeing antisemites trying to blame Jews and Israel for the coronavirus, journalists accusing Israel of being isolationist or even racist by limiting entry into the country, and of course there’s media bias related to non-virus issues, like Israel’s democracy, borders and security. (4/1/2020)
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Moses-Hebrew-prophet

How the Cohen Gene of J1 Is Being Found in Jews and Palestinians and Other Arabs

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

Challah, a special bread made for Friday night, the start of Shabbat, a Jewish custom.  Bread in the bible days was considered the main element of any meal and a blessing is said over it.

There are those that do not believe much in what is in the 5 books of Moses found in the Old Testament in which tells us that there was an Abraham who fathered an Ishmael by Hagar, an Egyptian woman who was his wife's handmaiden, and Isaac by his wife, Sarah.
                                                                           

Yet, DNA is proving that the story is correct in that we are finding the Cohen gene, which is haplogroup J1c3d,  is being found in the Jewish Cohens, men who are first to read from the Torah in the synagogue because they are Cohens who count their main ancestor as Moses's brother, Aaron who came from Abraham through Isaac, and in the Arab communities as well from Abraham through Ishmael.  Scientists can tell if the haplogroup is from the Jewish or the Arab branches.  What thrills me is that this was written by Moses who lived from 1391 BCE to 1271 BCE.  He knew that there was a connection between the Israelites, later to be called the Jews and the rest of the the Middle Easterners, and that is is just something  now proven scientifically 3,300 years later.  Actually, Jews have always spoken of the Arabs as our cousins because of Moses's writings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV619rQus1s&list=PLgHUqrFleJ0WBn0rs_sjLbnqz_-bysVnG&index=2

                                                                               

      A handshake between Hussein I of Jordan and Yitzhak Rabin, accompanied by Bill Clinton, during the Israel-Jordan peace negotiations, July 25th, 1994

The latest revelation, which Dr. Jon Entine, author of the book, Abraham's Children," lectures in a video made in 2011, tells about finding out more about the Palestinians' DNA and that there are also those who are Bedouins in Judah and Samaria also have the Cohen gene. Some of these people are interviewed on the video and profess to be interested in going back to Judaism now.  Others must be found in and around Judah and Samaria who had lived there for a long time.

We know that Assyria had struck Israel and took away the cream of the Israelite people in 721 BCE, the best of the population.  The Babylonians did the very same thing in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE.  When the Romans came along and conquered Jerusalem in 70 CE they also had taken the best of the population as slaves, just like they had taken the Greeks before.  So that means that the laborers, the general population were left in pockets, hiding out where they couldn't be found.  Some of these people were forced to convert to Islam, so thus we have these Palestinians who had been Jewish tribes.

The video opens  with Mike Nichols, a Jewish movie director with Russian and German ancestors finding out he has the Cohen gene and that he matches with Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Muslim American surgeon with Turkish ancestors.  Dr. Oz, when interviewed told how he was surprised at this finding and that it shows how we are so similar with the difference only in how we think about things.  That may be the crux in our differences.  Here's where environment may come into play to show its affect on people even more than genetics.  Yet genetics is showing how similar we are, as well.

Some of these clans or even tribes have preserved Jewish customs of lighting candles,   only are doing it on both Thursday and Friday nights.  They have Challah.  The boy babies are circumcised.  They found tefillin.  Prayers were done in secret, showing a behavior similar to the Anusim (originally called Marranos) who were from Spain and Portugal and through the Spanish Inquisition of 1492 had to hide their Jewishness for fear of death.

It showed they have a practice I hadn't heard of and that is of lighting candles at the graveside   One village had the name which translates into wine makers.  This is definitely not coming from after 632 CE since Muslims have a taboo against drinking wine or any other spirits, so they must have been a village of wine makers.

Jewish artifacts were found such as the Star of David on homes, and others that had been disguised by embellishment on the original star.  90% of one town was originally found to have been Jewish at one time. The researcher did run into people who did not want cameras on their homes showing some of these artifacts.

One fellow could recite his ancestors back 8 generations, which was done as shown in the book "Roots" when Alex Haley went to Africa to find his roots and ran across his tribe who could recite a very long and involved history of their genealogy.  Another thought it was his grandfather who converted to Islam.

Who cares if  there are some Palestinians who have   Jewish roots?  What difference does it make?  Who cares at all about the DNA of people?  Like Dr. Oz mentioned, the difference may only lie in the way we have learned to think.  So far, Muslims have been taught, for political reasons, that we Jews stem from monkeys and apes.  Really?  Now that they might learn we truly are cousins, is it wise to say this, or would it be better for all if we recognize that we are brothers under the skin and learn to get along and work together.
That's what I'm hoping.  So far this has been a one man crusade of someone putting all his money into this endeavor of research.  He's an Israeli and I'm saying, more power to him.  This is a wonderful find.

We know that much of this is also true of many of the Pashtuns, who number into the millions. Some believe that they are descended from the Lost Ten Tribes.  Many present people could be extensions from the Persian Jewish community.  Most Afghan Jews speak Judeo-Persian.   Some, or even a few of them may have Jewish DNA since they still have continued some Jewish customs as well, but they lately profess a fighting spirit against the Israelis today and are deep into their Islamic beliefs.  My own Jewish father's DNA haplogroup matches with a few Pashtuns, which tells me we are connected somewhere along our line of existence, possibly from our stay in Persia.    Some of the Pashtuns have become Talibanists, terrorists, and of course this is an environmental thing.

The video has many aspects to it all involving Jewish DNA findings.  It's well worth studying.  I must add that this was produced in 2011 and that there have been many advances in autosomal DNA testing since then.  I'd love to have an update on that one aspect as we are finding some fantastic things through this type of test as well.  Doing genealogy required having written records of our ancestors.  When that isn't available, we can turn to autosomal testing and find people who share segments of our 23 chromosomes.  Because of this, I've found connections to the Rabbi of Worms through  a triangulation method who in turn has written records of his ancestry to Rashi, who has the known oral history of being connected to King David.

DNA science is making leaps and bounds while connecting to other  subjects of history, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, Linguistics and population genealogy, of course.

As Dr. Ariella Oppenheim, geneticist in Israel,  said, "this shows a genetic connection only."   We know we are missing the key to all our problems, which is how we have grown to think differently about each other.  Israel has set up programs which connect Jews and Arabs into mutual community events and had always hoped that eventually the two groups would learn to tolerate each other.  While Israel has been doing this, schools in the PA held areas of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) have been busy with their textbooks teaching a hatred for the Jews.  Politics have been destroying any advent of a mutual co-existence.  That must change, but how?

I spent a sleepless night thinking of what can happen.  I think spreading the knowledge that there is this blood connection would be a good starting point that might lead to joining mentally as well eventually.  The Palestinians have been saying that the Jews have no connections to Israel.  They are in complete denial of our history and roots.  Maybe showing this video or something similar which will teach people more about this history would be helpful for starters.

Of course we're going to run into competition with Islam.  Muslims will be against other Muslims converting back to Judaism.  Their political upbringing is not as open-minded as the Jews have been.  As I look at the history of the Muslim  countries, they have had nothing but fighting going on between them and are very competitive with each other, so there they are, most likely all cousins, and yet they don't always get along, so maybe I have too high a hopes.  The same with Europe.  They're probably all interrelated, too, but have warred against each other throughout the generations into 1944.  After all, Cain killed Abel, and they were brothers.  Well, we've advanced in so many ways.  Now we need to advance past the Cain and Abel stage of thinking.  For those who don't know who they were, they were Adam and Eve's sons.  

Resource:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV619rQus1s&list=PLgHUqrFleJ0WBn0rs_sjLbnqz_-bysVnG&index=2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Haley
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia