Why do Ashkenazi Jews look more like Northern Europeans than Sephardic Jews do?

Question

DNA testing has shown that Ashkenazi Jews are ethnically Middle Eastern. So why do they look so much more like Northern Europeans than do Sephardic Jews and other Middle Easterners?

Answer 1

Do you even know what it means to be a Jew?

Answer 2

Yes genetically Ashkenazi Jews are pretty middle Eastern probably about 65-70 percent. There are a few things that need to be addressed first of all most ahkenazis I have met and know do not look like northern Europeans, some do yes but most no. Alot look southern Europeans and some look very middle Eastern. Does Einstein look nothern European? No actually he looks pretty similar to alot of people from the Levant. The thing is Jews were not very dark to begin with. They were not Saudi arabians. People from Syria and lebonon are quite light. I knew a lebonese girl who was tan but had bright green eyes and light brown hair. So if u put some European genes with levantine genes the children won't be very dark. Again though I think alot of Jewish people look very much like people from the levant

Answer 3

It's slightly more complicated than you are suggesting - which appears to be based on one piece of research (reported at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/14/science/14gene.html?ex=1182916800&en=c7247260dbb32397&ei=5070 ) L'Chaim's explanation is borne out completely by the papers cited at http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html Science is not as simple as you are implying, and even the NY Times article is not as absolute as you seem to be (I've not read the original research - have you?). It is suggested that even if there are these four common Middle Eastern female ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews, there will have been later intermarriage.

It is obvious that living in a place - with its particular climate etc - has an impact on appearance, so that will be one part of the answer in any case. Some intermarriage - even if not a great deal - will have an impact. And no-one will deny that while Ashkenazi Jews look MORE like North Europeans than do Sephardi Jews, they are often quite distinctively Jewish. This is what one would expect - a small amount of intermarriage means that some Jews will look more like the surrounding population as those genes assert themselves (and some will be dominant genes) while others will be more like the further-back ancestors. So I don't really think your question has much validity.

Answer 4

Speaking as a 100% Ashkenazi Jew who has HAD my DNA tested (for a research study), I am the same as many other Ashkenazi Jews - a mixture of Middle Eastern (Semitic) roots and European (probably through long ago intermarriages. I'm about 50% Middle Eastern/Semetic and 50% assorted European - Italian, French, Latvian, Lithuanian, Austrian, Slavic, Armenian, Greek, Spanish, Georgian, etc. I am a natural blonde, as were my mother and both of my grandmothers, but there are a variety of looks in my family from brunette to redhead to blond. Oh, and my four grandparents all had different eye colors - one brown, one hazel, one green and one light blue. I just think of myself as the same as many other Americans - a little of this and a little of that but 100% all American.

Answer 5

My understanding is after the Romans kicked the Jews out of Judea around 70 AD/CE (see Jewish_diaspora) Some Jews traveled into Eastern Europe and Russia and intermarried with local nomadic tribes that were willing to convert While some traveled through North Africa all the way to Spain and assimilated in all but religion. The Ashkenazi Jews developed a distinct culture and liturgy influenced, to varying degrees, by interaction with surrounding peoples, predominantly Germans, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Kashubians, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Letts, Belarusians, and Russians, During the Middle Ages, Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two groupings: the Ashkenazi (Northern and Eastern European Jews) and Sephardic Jews (Spanish and Middle Eastern Jews). These groupings incorporate parallel histories sharing many series of persecutions and forced expulsions, which finally culminated in events in the 20th century that led to the State of Israel.

Answer 6

i'm no expert in this yet I asked a Sephardic Jew this question as quickly as and right that's what they advised me: Ashkenazi Jews are only like the White, possibly eu Jews on an analogous time as the Sephardic Jews are as a rule darker complexion (no longer consistently although) and that they are in a position to return from places like Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt etc. i do no longer think of they hate one yet another yet i grow to be additionally advised that the Ashkenazi Jews tend to look down on different sects. and that i think of their cultures would fluctuate a splash. i think of the Ashkenazi Jews are greater non secular or have some diverse customs. desire I helped a splash. i be responsive to it rather is not the main precise answer.

Answer 7

You should check your facts about DNA testing. The only Jews with a direct line come from the priests. There have always been conversions to Judaism, except during those periods when Christians were doing their best to exterminate Jews. Jews are not a race -- they look very much like the people they live among, because they ARE a part of that people. Jews are not a separate race any more than Americans are a separate race!
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Answer 8

The same reason anyone living in Europe looks European: natural selection.

In the days before sunscreen and Vitamin D pills, people's skin color had to do with where they lived. In hot climates, people with light skin would get cancer, so darker-skinned people had the most children. In cold places like Europe, people with dark skins suffered from Vitamin D deficiancy, so people with light skin had more children.
So when a bunch of dark-skinned Middle-Eastern Jews moved to Europe, they eventually became white.
In addition, some ethnic Europeans converted to Judaism, and some Jews intermarried with the local gentiles.

Answer 9

link to the DNA tests?

Ashkenazim Jews are Northern European and Sephardic are from the Middle East/ North Africa.

Answer 10

Ashkenazi jews ARE european. I would like to see the results of the DNA test you mentioned.

Answer 11

Very simple explanation indeed!

First let us understand how DNA testing works? It basically intends to decipher two parameters: the Y-chromosome DNA test and the mitochondrial DNA (MT-DNA). the former determines the EARLIEST ANCESTOR on the male side and the latter, represents the earliest ancestor on female side.

Who is a Jew now? Anybody who marries a Jewish person, technically becomes a Jew. Regardless of male or female. In the Middle Ages of Europe in places like Germany and France (Northern Europe), it was common for Jewish girls to marry Christian, White men. As a result, the Jewish ancestry (semitic) on the maternal side was passed down the ages, I mean the MT -DNA. Even though generations of contact gave the Jews a Caucasian, White appearance - the Middle-Eastern origin was hard to reliniquish. It was evident in the facial forms of Jewish people and reserved up to today.

While Caucasian, Nordic Whites have straight noses and wavy eyebrows; Jews are renowned to have hooked-noses (aquiline) and curly eyebrows and short, reduced frame. Also, Jews have some specific genetic diseases not known elsewhere - e.g. a variety of Alzheimers, a bone marrow disease and much more.

Many Jews have been LOST OUT in the White race completely, e.g. those who married Christians and converted to Christianity, they by 3-4 generations, lost everything Jewish in them. Many "Nordic" Whites may have a trace of Jewish ancestry back to say, the 13th or 14th century. It doesn't matter anymore, because it's been extinguished almost.

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So, it is evident that for Jews that remained Jews since 2000 years, they still have the same Semitic genes that was common in Jerusalem and Arab area.
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There is a lot in common between Hebrew and Arabic languages, food, culture and issues such as pork consumption, ritual animal slaughter etc.