I don't know how people with such white skin (my children are the same) can survive the Israeli sun without burning to a crisp.
In certain parts of E. Europe, there is almost total cloud cover from Sept. to June so anyone with a shred of skin pigmentation would have suffered from Vitamin D deficiency (keeping in mind that there would have been no green vegegtables in that period either). What is strange in the case of some Jews (my daughter) is that while the skin is as pale as can be, the hair has remained as dark as any Semites'. This is one of the things (along with the characteristic large noses) that made many Jews physically distinctive from the surrounding population.
Mark Twain once said something to the effect that when he was 16 he was certain that his parents were exceedingly stupid and that when he turned 20 he was amazed how much his parents had grown in wisdom over those 4 years. Someday your daughter will be as proud of you as you are of her.
K, all is relative. In Argentina Jews are stereotyped as red heads with freckles. In this Middle East peopled by Arabs, Armenians, Beduins, and so, Ashkenazim stand out because of their (relatively, statistically...) short and straight noses !!
"What is strange in the case of some Jews (my daughter) is that while the skin is as pale as can be, the hair has remained as dark as any Semites'."
Well, per Razib of GNXP in a comment to one of his posts from several months ago, the European admixture component in Ashkenazim is around 47% (from sequencing data he has observed). So it's not entirely unreasonable that mixed genotypes would lead to mixed phenotypes, although, to the extent we know them, the genes for hair and skin color don't act entirely independently of each other.
What is European admixture? German admixture? Ashkenazim in average are blonder than Germans. Isnt it totally stupid to be spend time meditating on the color of ... hair? Why not on the color of one's liver or kidney? The lenght of the colon? I am specially proud of the gracility of my humerus.
Hair/ Skin Color is just a proxy for other racial characteristics. This can lead you astray of course - some south Indians are as dark as Africans, but their intelligence is closer to European levels. Not to mention that individual behavior/characteristics often deviates from their racial stereotypes/averages.
Ashkenazim are only blonder than Germans in childhood, if one even believes the pre-WWII data based on studies of German Jewish children. I come from a Jewish family with a relatively high frequency of blond and red-headed children over several generations, but nearly all of the blonds end up with dark hair as adults.
The source of European admixture in Jews is not well-settled. It is presumably mostly southeast European or Italian rather than German or Slavic, and it is thought to be ancient based on the fact that similar admixture is shared with true (Iberian-descended) Sephardim and Syrian Jews (though present at lower levels in these groups). It is essentially absent in Iraqi and Persian Jews. So far, the population genetics studies haven't been able to pinpoint the sources of the admixture.
Anon is right about liver color. Lets feel proud of the color of our teeth. Shining white teeth is an African indicator. My teeth are small and yellow from birth and I lack upper canines - beautiful! superior! We shall unite and discriminate against lowly phosphorescent toothed creatures.
Surely the solution to the source of the European contribution to the Ashkenazi genome is to look amongst different candidate European populations for the highest proportion of Jewish genes, since there must have been some drifting in the other direction as well.
In the long Ashkenazi wandering from Rome to the North, they may have settled longer in Northern Italy (known then as Italia Gallica) and exchanged genes with the Lombardii, Venetii and other Gallic-Germanic tribes.
"Surely the solution to the source of the European contribution to the Ashkenazi genome is to look amongst different candidate European populations for the highest proportion of Jewish genes"
Actually, I think that a better method would be to separate out the proposed European-origin loci in the Jewish genomes and compare those to numerous European populations. One problem with the population genetic studies is that being both recently inbred as well as European and Middle Eastern hybrids, Ashkenazim tend to form their own uninformative cluster. If the Middle Eastern loci were taken out of the analysis, one aspect of that distortion would go away.
16 comments:
"My pride is not reciprocated".
Anon.
Thanks for the correction.
A shayne maidl.
I don't know how people with such white skin (my children are the same) can survive the Israeli sun without burning to a crisp.
In certain parts of E. Europe, there is almost total cloud cover from Sept. to June so anyone with a shred of skin pigmentation would have suffered from Vitamin D deficiency (keeping in mind that there would have been no green vegegtables in that period either). What is strange in the case of some Jews (my daughter) is that while the skin is as pale as can be, the hair has remained as dark as any Semites'. This is one of the things (along with the characteristic large noses) that made many Jews physically distinctive from the surrounding population.
K
Mark Twain once said something to the effect that when he was 16 he was certain that his parents were exceedingly stupid and that when he turned 20 he was amazed how much his parents had grown in wisdom over those 4 years. Someday your daughter will be as proud of you as you are of her.
K
The other one's better.
K, all is relative. In Argentina Jews are stereotyped as red heads with freckles. In this Middle East peopled by Arabs, Armenians, Beduins, and so, Ashkenazim stand out because of their (relatively, statistically...) short and straight noses !!
"What is strange in the case of some Jews (my daughter) is that while the skin is as pale as can be, the hair has remained as dark as any Semites'."
Well, per Razib of GNXP in a comment to one of his posts from several months ago, the European admixture component in Ashkenazim is around 47% (from sequencing data he has observed). So it's not entirely unreasonable that mixed genotypes would lead to mixed phenotypes, although, to the extent we know them, the genes for hair and skin color don't act entirely independently of each other.
What is European admixture? German admixture? Ashkenazim in average are blonder than Germans. Isnt it totally stupid to be spend time meditating on the color of ... hair? Why not on the color of one's liver or kidney? The lenght of the colon? I am specially proud of the gracility of my humerus.
Hair/ Skin Color is just a proxy for other racial characteristics. This can lead you astray of course - some south Indians are as dark as Africans, but their intelligence is closer to European levels. Not to mention that individual behavior/characteristics often deviates from their racial stereotypes/averages.
K
There is generally very little variation in the colour of anyone's liver, kidney or colon.
If there is, then that individual has other, more serious things to meditate about.
Anon.
Ashkenazim are only blonder than Germans in childhood, if one even believes the pre-WWII data based on studies of German Jewish children. I come from a Jewish family with a relatively high frequency of blond and red-headed children over several generations, but nearly all of the blonds end up with dark hair as adults.
The source of European admixture in Jews is not well-settled. It is presumably mostly southeast European or Italian rather than German or Slavic, and it is thought to be ancient based on the fact that similar admixture is shared with true (Iberian-descended) Sephardim and Syrian Jews (though present at lower levels in these groups). It is essentially absent in Iraqi and Persian Jews. So far, the population genetics studies haven't been able to pinpoint the sources of the admixture.
Intuitively I feel that Northern Italians are the closest to us.
They have style. Dress well, eat well, drive nice cars. They are very productive and rich.
Anon is right about liver color. Lets feel proud of the color of our teeth. Shining white teeth is an African indicator. My teeth are small and yellow from birth and I lack upper canines - beautiful! superior! We shall unite and discriminate against lowly phosphorescent toothed creatures.
Surely the solution to the source of the European contribution to the Ashkenazi genome is to look amongst different candidate European populations for the highest proportion of Jewish genes, since there must have been some drifting in the other direction as well.
Anon.
In the long Ashkenazi wandering from Rome to the North, they may have settled longer in Northern Italy (known then as Italia Gallica) and exchanged genes with the Lombardii, Venetii and other Gallic-Germanic tribes.
"Surely the solution to the source of the European contribution to the Ashkenazi genome is to look amongst different candidate European populations for the highest proportion of Jewish genes"
Actually, I think that a better method would be to separate out the proposed European-origin loci in the Jewish genomes and compare those to numerous European populations. One problem with the population genetic studies is that being both recently inbred as well as European and Middle Eastern hybrids, Ashkenazim tend to form their own uninformative cluster. If the Middle Eastern loci were taken out of the analysis, one aspect of that distortion would go away.
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