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Dumb Pollock's avatar

Ron Unz suspected that the Punics mass-converted to Judaism after the Punic Wars, which would explain a lot of weird stuff later.

Phoenician/Carthaginian origin for the Jews

https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-true-origin-of-the-jews-as-khazars-israelites-or-canaanites/

https://www.unz.com/article/religious-implications-of-the-carthaginian-theory/

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Sectionalism Archive's avatar

Interesting theory, but a little bit unfalsifiable. Sure, Phoenicians (along with other Levantine groups) probably bred into the Jewish population, but we will never know to what degree due to the genetic similarity of these peoples. It would be like saying "How much Central Italian ancestry do Southern Italians have?"

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Aristhenes's avatar

Good read, enjoyed it

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Johannes De Silentio's avatar

Shout out to emperor Julian for trying to rebuild Solomon’s temple, he a real nigga fo dat one, on hashem

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Sectionalism Archive's avatar

It wasn’t a bad idea

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JohnTrain's avatar

In all consideration the best South European source for Ashkenazim is probably Tuscan-like or Lazio like, not because they mixed with them but because IBD analysis suggests they mixed more with Western Europeans and Spaniards (Xue et al 2017) than previously thought (Tuscany is probably close to the average South Euro they mixed with after homogenizing), using LA Italians still gives them 30% on the low end albeit, and bypassing using Italians altogether and using Republic Era Italians and West Byzantines shows 30-35% for Roman Levantine, probably closer to 37-42% for them on average as theres some overlap between Anatolian and Levantine ancestral components. Their Y-DNA is overwhelmingly non-European and closer to Lebanese than any European population, and high 30s or low 40s on average isnt too far from using unipaternals

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