Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora

Doron M. Behar; Ene Metspalu; Toomas Kivisild; Saharon Rosset; Shay Tzur; Yarin Hadid; Guennady Yudkovsky; Dror Rosengarten; Luisa Pereira; Antonio Amorim; Ildus Kutuev; David Gurwitz; Batsheva Bonne-Tamir; Richard Villems; Karl Skorecki

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002062

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora

Doron M. Behar,

Affiliation Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel
⨯
Ene Metspalu,

Affiliation Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia
⨯
Toomas Kivisild,

Affiliations Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia, Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
⨯
Saharon Rosset,

Affiliation Data Analytics Research Group, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights., New York, United States of America
⨯
Shay Tzur,

Affiliations Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
⨯
Yarin Hadid,

Affiliations Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
⨯
Guennady Yudkovsky,

Affiliation Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
⨯
Dror Rosengarten,

Affiliation Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
⨯
Luisa Pereira,

Affiliations Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
⨯
Antonio Amorim,

Affiliations Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
⨯
Ildus Kutuev,

Affiliations Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia, Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa, Russia
⨯
David Gurwitz,

Affiliation Department of Human Genetics, Sackler School of Medicine, Ramat Aviv, Israel
⨯
Batsheva Bonne-Tamir,

Affiliation Department of Human Genetics, Sackler School of Medicine, Ramat Aviv, Israel
⨯
Richard Villems ,

* E-mail: rvillems@ebc.ee

Affiliation Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia
⨯
Karl Skorecki

Affiliations Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
⨯

Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora

Doron M. Behar,
Ene Metspalu,
Toomas Kivisild,
Saharon Rosset,
Shay Tzur,
Yarin Hadid,
Guennady Yudkovsky,
Dror Rosengarten,
Luisa Pereira,
Antonio Amorim

Published: April 30, 2008
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002062

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How does this map to the Torah?

Posted by mbenjam on 05 May 2008 at 04:47 GMT

Since we now have a comprehensive picture of the genetics of the entire Jewish community, are we able to make a statement about the accuracy of the Torah? Are there in fact twelve unique tribal mothers from whom every Jew descends? Something tells me the reality is more complicated than that, and we may never know, but I think it's an interesting question. See my post at http://www.interactmd.com...

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Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora

Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora

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How does this map to the Torah?

Posted by mbenjam on 05 May 2008 at 04:47 GMT