All experts agree the female line is European !!! Mostly Italian with little German and little Slavic the paternal line is a mix of European , Middle eastern , Turkish ( from khazars ) and even Persian as Jews were under Persian rule for centuries I will say white Jews are 60-75 percent European and maybe 25-40 other I hope one day they will Know Due to intermarriage in the USA they are almost fully European . When I grew up most Jewish boys had dark curly hair , small bodies , long faces and short height
Well keep in mind the population in the Middle East probably used to look whiter than they do today. (The muslim/Arab invasions of the Seventh Century completely changed the face of the Middle East). So it might be a partial mistake to assume that, because the Jews look more European and less like modern-day people in the Middle East, it must mean they have European ancestry. That's likely only somewhat true. As for Khazar origins, Khazaria was on the opposite side of the Caspian Sea from Iran, so I believe that sort of look would be very similar to Iranians, except paler skin, and very slightly more European features. We are talking about Caucasian people - from the Caucasus (not to be confused with European-descent white people, in this context). It's a strange ethno-group. There have been huge mass migrations of population in the Caucasus region, so it's very difficult to tell exactly what the original inhabitants in that region looked like. I'm sure they looked at least somewhat like the people in the modern-day countries of Georgia and Azerbaijan, but we really don't know. They were closely related to the European ethno-group, but off a different branch. And we also have to remember there was a huge diaspora, so Khazar origin does not necessarily completely preclude Israel origin. The paternal genetic line being more Jewish than the maternal line is not surprising, since mixed ethnic families would be more likely to hold onto the religion, and pass it down to the next generation, if the father was Jewish than if the mother was Jewish. From the research I have seen, it looks like the origins of the majority original group in Europe came from Italy, then moved into France (joined by a smaller group of Sephardic Jews who were expulsed from Spain), and then moved into Germany (in equal parts from both France and Italy). Some then moved further East, and their numbers continued to naturally increase there. (to a point that eventually after several centuries their numbers in Eastern Europe would far exceed what the numbers had ever been in Germany) However, there was already a thriving Jewish community in what is present-day southern Russia, from ancient times, going back to around the time of the Greeks (especially Hellenistic Age). (Probably after the Persian Empire fell, many headed north to greener pastures) There are very little records from this time to be able to track the movement of people well. There were expulsions and persecutions at various times in various countries, making the history more complicated. On the whole, it was a relatively international community, with more movement of people between countries, which is not that surprising. The muslim countries of course often tended not to be the most hospitable places to other religions, which probably explains why the majority of the Jews ended up moving north. For those not familiar with history, Israel, and really most of the Middle East, was under Roman occupation, with Italy being the center of the Roman Empire and all the wealth and commerce concentrated there. Which naturally of course explains why so many Jews from would have ended up in Italy.
Of course, if this above overview is accurate, it would preclude the original Jews in Western Europe from having been Ashkenazi. However, there was a larger reverse migration from Eastern Europe into Western Europe later, beginning at the end of the Nineteenth Century and start of the Twentieth Century.
I have pale skin like Europeans However I have that skinny long Jewish ashkenszi face lol My origins ???
Yes many Jews move into Italy after the Romans sacked Israel Many believe that ashkenszi women are Italian converts While the men are from Middle East I see many Jews I grew up with as slightly Arabic and moderately European looking
But that could be due to gradual interbreeding over many centuries, with for example some Jewish man taking a wife from the local population and her converting to Judaism, which was not extremely unusual. Thus local genes would be brought into the genepool. Even if only 1 percent of Jewish people married outside their community, that still cumulatively adds up to a high rate over more than 2000 years. And the Jewish communities in the Middle East are by far the oldest. (with the Babylonian captivity beginning 597 BC, and then the Persian conquest of Israel, we know from the book of Esther there were already at that time large groups of Jews in many provinces) Actually there was a quite large community of Jews in Yemen, but many of them later left after the rise of Islam. (Long but fascinating historical read here: https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2011/bowersock-jewish-arabia )
I did touch on Russia, if you read my post. The real question is what percentage of Russian Jews originally had come from Western Europe / Italy in lineage, and what percentage were there since much more ancient times (the Khazar theory would fall into this category). Likely they entered the Caucasus region during the Persian Empire, and then slowly diffused north, perhaps first to the Turkic Khazar kingdom, and then later deeper into Russia. No one really knows for sure.
