#genetic study

A popular meme circulating on social media claims that a genetic study published by Johns Hopkins proves 97.5% of Ashkenazi Jews in Israel have no ancient Hebrew DNA, suggesting that they are not “Semites” and have no genetic ties to the region.

This meme has been shared by hundreds of accounts on X, Facebook, and other mainstream social media platforms—many with hundreds of thousands of followers—even though no such study exists.

The meme is a fabrication, loosely based on a 2012 study by Dr. Eran Elhaik. In this study, he suggests that a significant number of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazars—a diverse group of Turkic peoples from the Caucasus region who allegedly converted to Judaism.

This theory is known as the Khazarian Hypothesis and has been discredited as junk science by the academic community.

Elhaik’s study was methodologically flawed from the beginning. There is no Khazar DNA to compare with Ashkenazi Jews, as the Khazars have no living descendants. Elhaik’s use of modern Georgian and Armenian populations as proxies for ancient Khazars has been rejected by leading scientists, who have published indisputable evidence in numerous journals, including the prestigious journal Science.

In addition to the lack of genetic links to the Khazars, the theory is further weakened by the absence of linguistic connections. If Ashkenazi Jews were truly descendants of the Khazars, they would have spoken a Turkic language, not Yiddish, which is a Judeo-Germanic language.

The meme takes the erroneous results of Elhaik’s study even further. The paper was published in the Genome Biology and Evolution journal, not at Johns Hopkins, and it only focused on the DNA of European Jews, not Israelis, as confirmed by the author. Additionally, the figure of 97% does not appear anywhere in Elhaik’s research.

Numerous studies on Ashkenazi DNA have been conducted, and while none have proven a link to the Khazars, the overwhelming majority of genetic studies have confirmed that Ashkenazi Jews are genetically linked to the Levant.

Sources:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3595026/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khazar

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yiddish-language

https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/study-misrepresented-in-jewish-ancestry-claim/

https://www.science.org/content/article/roots-jewishness

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/humanbiology.85.6.0859

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4987117/

https://www.haaretz.com/2010-06-10/ty-article/landmark-study-proves-90-of-jews-are-genetically-linked-to-the-levant/0000017f-e0bb-df7c-a5ff-e2fba5950000 (archived copy)

https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1003316

https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2013/12/new-genetic-study-more-evidence-for-modern-ashkenazi-jews-ancient-hebrew-patrimony.html

J-men ancestors point to (first) Neolithic Northern Fertile Crescent farmers and shepherds forefathers of Kurds, and at the same time indicate the closest genetic relationship between Kurds, and Jews (and in a wider range also including Armenians) ever measured so far.

Conclusions of cited authors: Nebel et al. (2001): “Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to their Arab neighbours.” [Turks = Anatolians in Turkey of today]. The Armenian DNA Genealogist Levon Yepiskoposyan agrees: “Our data confirm the results of other researchers and indicate that Jews, Armenians, and Kurds belong to indigenous Near East and Anatolian populations who were the founders of the European and Middle East civilisations.”

This data indicate, that Kurdish descendants (speakers of the “Kurdish Complex”), who are still living in large numbers on ancient Hurrian-Mitanni soil, show the highest ever measured ethno-genetic percentages of R1a1 men ancestors in Eurasia. If it holds, that migrating (militarily organized) elites of R1a1 clanmen were also involved in linguistic processes of Indo-Europeanizations in ancient Anatolia and Hurri-Mitanni areas as early as 2240-1140 B.C. from South Russia, ancestors of Kurds (speakers of the “Kurdish Complex”) could have been substantially involved.

The Mysterious Decline of Neolithic Populations At the conclusion of the Stone Age, approximately 5,300 years ago, there was a dramatic decline in the populations of Scandinavia and northwest Europe, resulting in the disintegration of farming communities. “People ceased constructing megalithic structures such as Stonehenge,” remarked Frederik Seersholm, a geneticist at the University of…

His name's Tendo. Red Roan Lace Blanket with Split Stripe.

The Kanji ("神の罰") scar on his cheek translates to "God's Punishment"

It was carved into him after he was cast out of his idyllic homeland when he challenged the gods when they decreed his son would be born dead. A pious man, until they took everything from him. ;u;