Most Jews are not Semites

Jews are not Semites, Scholar Claims

"On May 7, 2013, Rita Rubin reported in the Jewish daily Forward about a young Jewish DNA expert who dares to attack the dogma that Jews are a race and have descended from Semitic ancestors originating in what is today’s Israel.

"Needless to say that neither Koestler’s original thesis nor Elhaikon’s genetical undergirding of it has been welcomed in particular by the Jewish academic establishment. After all, at stake is much more than an academic question. The very existence of Israel depends on the claim that its Jewish inhabitants are descendants of people who, some 2,000 years ago, used to dwell in that land.

"It also goes without saying that, even if this claim were true, this is no justification for the colonial occupation of Palestine. With the same reasoning Hitler could have claimed close relationship of today’s Germans with the Germanic Goths who, until roughly 500 A.D., dwelled in what is today’s Ukraine, hence justifying the occupation of that country, the expulsion of its Slavic population, and the establishment of a new Germanic-Gothic country. Would anyone in the world have agreed with that? If not, why do most people agree with such a line of reasoning when it comes to Israel?" News Link