Could Western Jews (Ash. and Seph.) descend from Aegeans and Levantine admixture?

[Agamemnon]

You're deforming his claims : He shows that not only south europeans used to convert sometimes but also many berber tribes, himyarites or khazars for example which is historically well attested (don't forget he's a historian not a geneticist).

[...]

he explicitely says that ashkenazi jews descend from south european converts and judeans ?

[...]

these autosomal results support his claims/theories

Great, now show us a single passage in his book where Shlomo Sand states that Ashkenazi Jews are a mixture of Judeans and Southern European converts, as opposed to a mixture of Khazars and Slavs. Good luck!

[Cabaon]

Great, now show us a single passage in his book where Shlomo Sand states that Ashkenazi Jews are a mixture of Judeans and Southern European converts, as opposed to a mixture of Khazars and Slavs. Good luck!

Wait are you denying the whole chapter about conversions in Greece and Italy ? After posting quotes I can't find, you now imply he never spoke about these south european converts while he wrote a whole chapter about it. If you don't deny it then it's just logical deduction based on what he presents and indeed when modelling modern western jews they have a main italian/aegean component.

[Agamemnon]

Wait are you denying the whole chapter about conversions in Greece and Italy ? After posting quotes I can't find, you now imply he never spoke about these south european converts while he wrote a whole chapter about it. If you don't deny it then it's just logical deduction based on what he presents and indeed when modelling modern western jews they have a main italian/aegean component.

Still waiting for that quote. You claimed that Shlomo Sand "explicitely says that ashkenazi jews descend from south european converts and judeans", your words. Time to put your money where your mouth is, after all it's not like Shlomo Sand claims we're a bunch of Khazars, right?

[Cabaon]

Still waiting for that quote. You claimed that Shlomo Sand "explicitely says that ashkenazi jews descend from south european converts and judeans", your words. Time to put your money where your mouth is, after all it's not like Shlomo Sand claims we're a bunch of Khazars, right?

No need to play on semantics, your reasoning starts to be irrational : why does he mention south european converts then ? If ashkenazi jews are khazars then where went these south european converts ?

[Agamemnon]

No need to play on semantics, your reasoning starts to be irrational : why does he mention south european converts then ? If ashkenazi jews are khazars then where went these south european converts ?

The only reason why he mentions Roman and Greek converts is to show that (1) there was no exile of Jews following the Jewish-Roman wars and (2) that Judaism spread through mass conversions, and therefore that the Khazars who were converted en masse are ancestral to Ashkenazi Jews. Nowhere does he claim that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Greco-Roman converts, let alone Judeans, hence your inability to provide a single quote.

Does that answer your question, or are you still going to pretend that Shlomo Sand's entire career isn't based on reviving the Khazar hoax?

[Cabaon]

The only reason why he mentions Roman and Greek converts is to show that (1) there was no exile of Jews following the Jewish-Roman wars and (2) that Judaism spread through mass conversions, and therefore that the Khazars who were converted en masse are ancestral to Ashkenazi Jews. Nowhere does he claim that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Greco-Roman converts, let alone Judeans, hence your inability to provide a single quote.

Does that answer your question, or are you still going to pretend that Shlomo Sand's entire career isn't based on reviving the Khazar hoax?

Not really, you clearly haven't read his book or you're intentionally twisting his claims to fit your narrative : He made it clear that talking about "exile" is meaningless because it isn't supported by any historical evidence not even zionist historians believe in this. Therefore he asked the question : so how can we explain the presence of such large and numerous jewish communities ? And he then proceeds to explain how conversion/proselytism was common (bringing explanations for greece, anatolia, italy, yemen, north africa, Mesopotamia, northern Levant, khazaria, etc).

Never in his book does he explicitely say that ashkenazi jews descend exclusively from Khazars (also 3/4 of his book if not more isn't even about khazars) so what do we conclude for european jews ? He brought these greco-roman converts for a reason.


I find it quite dishonest to discredit his whole career and works simply based on a supposition made more than a decade ago.

[passenger]

Not really, you clearly haven't read his book or you're intentionally twisting his claims to fit your narrative : He made it clear that talking about "exile" is meaningless because it isn't supported by any historical evidence not even zionist historians believe in this. Therefore he asked the question : so how can we explain the presence of such large and numerous jewish communities ? And he then proceeds to explain how conversion/proselytism was common (bringing explanations for greece, anatolia, italy, yemen, north africa, Mesopotamia, northern Levant, khazaria, etc).

Never in his book does he explicitely say that ashkenazi jews descend exclusively from Khazars (also 3/4 of his book if not more isn't even about khazars) so what do we conclude for european jews ? He brought these greco-roman converts for a reason.


I find it quite dishonest to discredit his whole career and works simply based on a supposition made more than a decade ago.

I'm hesitant to intervene in this discussion as I'd really rather not contribute to this tangent, but for those who are interested, a transcription of the entire book is available on archive.org if you google it. Judge for yourselves.

I make no statement with regard to Sand's entire career. He's written things I agree with as well as things I vehemently oppose. That's besides the point.

I will say, though, that although you are right that the Khazar theory is only one part of the book, it is really an essential part. Sand does not explicitly say that all Jews are descended from Khazars. Rather, he hops from region to region trying to demonstrate - through extremely faulty and (ironically) entirely teleological pseudo-historical research - that the main Jewish groups, wherever they emerged, were mainly the product of conversion. It just so happens that the last chapter (in terms of the pre-20th century discussion) in this disconnected sequence is the Khazar chapter. He doesn't explicitly connect it to the Jewish present, because, frankly, he has no evidence to do so. He leaves it to the unversed reader to fill in the historical blanks, but the ideological framing of the questions is quite clear, as is the direction in which he pushes the reader. The fact that he heaps lavish praise on Arthur Koestler is surely not coincidental either.

Nobody questions - or rather nobody should question - the fact that Jewish history is extremely complex and does not take the form of a straightforward narrative of continuity. Most of us here on this thread are aware that conversion and intermarriage have played a role at various points in the histories of different Jewish groups. But Shlomo's narrative, or rather non-narrative, in The Invention of the Jewish People, is one of cherry-picked factoids (and some fabrications) aiming to tell a story of a series of disconnected mass conversions, with no effort to flesh out any potential continuity between different periods of Jewish history and between different branches of the Jewish diaspora. Here of course, I am talking about that book in itself, and not of his other work. However, as this part of the discussion started with the book itself, perhaps it is best to concentrate on that.

[Agamemnon]

Not really, you clearly haven't read his book or you're intentionally twisting his claims to fit your narrative : He made it clear that talking about "exile" is meaningless because it isn't supported by any historical evidence not even zionist historians believe in this. Therefore he asked the question : so how can we explain the presence of such large and numerous jewish communities ? And he then proceeds to explain how conversion/proselytism was common (bringing explanations for greece, anatolia, italy, yemen, north africa, Mesopotamia, northern Levant, khazaria, etc).

Never in his book does he explicitely say that ashkenazi jews descend exclusively from Khazars (also 3/4 of his book if not more isn't even about khazars) so what do we conclude for european jews ? He brought these greco-roman converts for a reason.


I find it quite dishonest to discredit his whole career and works simply based on a supposition made more than a decade ago.

Haven't you noticed how I keep quoting his book in this thread? How am I supposed to do that without having read it, exactly? You OTOH are completely unable to quote him even once to highlight the baseless claims that you make, how peculiar.

The truth is that you're projecting your own behaviour here, you are the one making baseless claims and twisting Sand's work so as to make it fit the mould of the genetic data which so blatantly contradicts his insane theory (the same genetic data he equates with Nazi pseudoscience no less). A simple check of the reviews of his book on Amazon shows as much:

 

There are many more reviews of the sort (and I have a lot of stuff like that in store, as I said earlier I intend to document the hoax), all conclude that Shlomo Sand's theory is that Ashkenazi Jews are "Eastern European" or "Khazar" converts with "no Jewish blood", in other words a bunch of impostors. None of them concluded that Jews "descend from south european converts and judeans". Likewise, a look at his book's Wiki page informs us that "According to Sand, the ancestry of Central and Eastern European Jews stems heavily from mediæval Turkic Khazars". Not a single person who read this book got away with the impression that Ashkenazi Jews are not Khazars but rather a mixture of Judeans and Southern Europeans, anyone but you that is.

You also make it sound as if this were a mere "supposal" he made a long time ago and that he did not repeat. While in fact, the Khazar hoax is the only product he has to offer, as late as 2019 he published a novel in French entitled The Red Khazar's death, I could quote some more recent articles he wrote last year where he reiterates that Ashkenazi Jews are Khazars for that matter. As I said, that's his shtick, the only positive point as far as I can tell is that with his novel he seems to be moving towards sci-fi, which is a step towards honesty in his case.

Long story short, you're not convincing anyone but yourself.

[StillWater]

If that's all he was saying, do you really think he would be pilloried here?

This conversation does make me a bit curious about what the average Jew's attitudes are towards the ancestry of major Jewish groups. For those who have known enough Jews to have an opinion about this, would you say most Jews have a fairly accurate impression (in broad strokes) of the ancestral breakdown for the various Jewish groups? Is this even a topic people discuss in polite company?

I find it hard to believe there are very many Jews walking around who believe that they are pure or nearly pure descendants of Judaeans, so Shlomo is attacking a strawman even in the most charitable reading of his work.

The more Jews you talk to, the crazier things you'll hear.

And this applies in all directions. I've met Orthodox Zionist Jews who believe we're only left with an undetectable trace of Judean ancestry.

[Erikl86]

The hoax is simple: There is no Jewish people, this is just a Zionist "invention", an illusion. Judaism is but a religion, no different from Christianity or Islam, and Jews are a religious group only. There was no exile, Judaism spread through mass conversions, therefore North African Jews are Judaised Berbers and Ashkenazi Jews are Khazars mixed with Slavs and so on and so forth while Palestinian Arabs are the only true descendants of the Ancient Israelites.

This is by far the best "to the point" summary of Sand's book.

Now if I may - an Israeli Jew here, who'd not only read Sand's work in the author's native language (there's always something "lost" in translation when dealing with literature with artistic "merit", as opposed to scientific literature which Sand isn't writing), but also had the "pleasure" of attending one of his visits in TAU after his book came out, and I find it quite amusing when people actually take his work as "scientific". It isn't. Well, perhaps is academic work is, I haven't read it, but his pulp-fiction books are anything but.