Who is a Jew? Dangers of obsessing over ‘Jewish genetics’

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The Jewish world has been obsessing over genetics recently. Are we or are we not white? Has the Khazar hypothesis been conclusively disproven? All these are interesting questions that are fun to discuss, but it’s time to take a breather. Not only are the tests that tell you your ancestry less reliable than people believe them to be, but more importantly, from a Jewish point of view, genetics are much less important than people think they are.

When a non-Jew becomes a Jew, his or her genes become 100% Jewish as well. I take this discussion more personally than most because my wife is a Convert. She is Korean, born in Korea to Korean parents, and has Korean features. She was converted by an Orthodox religious court. When she married me, she became an Ashkenazi Jew.

Unless you are talking about hereditary diseases, population migrations or some other topic that requires an understanding of scientific genetics, it has become pernicious to discuss genetics vis-à-vis Judaism. If you believe, as I do, that Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel, using genetics to prove our connection to the land is playing someone else’s game by someone else’s rules.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Seriously, We’ve Got To Stop Obsessing Over Jewish Genetics

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