DNA Consultants Home of the DNA Fingerprint

It used to be thought that the Sorbs, a medieval East German Slavic population, formed the core of a group of Jews who ended up as the dominant element of Ashkenaz, Eastern Jews in Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Silesia and Russia. No longer.

According to an article published in European Journal of Human Genetics (2011) 19, 995-1001, "Genetic Variation in the Sorbs of Eastern Germany in the Context of Broader European Genetic Diversity," by Veeramah et al., the Sorb "population isolate" is not that isolated but was "less than that observed for the Sardinians and French Basque," true isolates. Sorbs are in reality part of the larger population of West Slavs, including Poles and Czechs, and scarcely distinguishable from them.

Histories of Judaism will have to revise their accounts of the genesis of Ashkenazim accordingly. The story of European Jews is more diversified and dynamic than most history or coffee-table type books allow.

Abstract.

For an example of a research article on Ashkenazi roots overemphasizing Sorbs, see Behar et al. who theorizes they were a leading constituent of Levites.



Charlemagne subjugates pagans in Germany.