Israel’s Contributions to the World
As you have read earlier in the issue the subject of the Lost Tribes of Israel is still a hot topic not only in Israel, but around the world. The game-changing discovery of verifying that the Lemba of Zimbabwe were descendants of the Jewish priesthood also known as the Kohanim took the field of tracing genetic ancestry to new heights.
Dr. Karl Skorecki is an only child of Holocaust survivors and is responsible for this transformative finding that has spawned a significant and sustained interest in helping individuals obtain information about where genetic markers indicate they descend from around the world.
His intrigue with finding this Y-DNA sequence (male DNA) came after attending synagogue with a visiting Sephardic Kohen with North African ancestry that had obviously significant different physical features than his own even though they both were from the same tribe.
According to the Torah all Kohanim are direct descendants of Aaron, the brother Moses. The Kohanim genes are passed down patrilineally. An expert nephrologist and physician with degrees from the University of Toronto with additional research training at Harvard, Dr. Skorecki hypothesized that the descendants of Aaron should have a common genetic signature (genetic markers) or a common haplotype, and that as a whole Kohanim should cluster into a limited number of Y-chromosome marker groups (haplotypes).
When asked what it was like when his suspicion turned into reality Skorecki said, “I didn’t think there would be a lot of interest and I didn’t think it would expand beyond a very small cohort of geneticists or Jewish scholars, I didn’t think it would attract such interest that would be sustained for so long. Nor did I anticipate that it would lead me and others to a whole new discipline of genetic genealogy of using DNA signatures as a tool to look at Jewish demographic history.”
He added, “I was most excited that these signatures were identical in Diaspora Jewish communities which had been geographically temporally separated for so many centuries. That in North Africa, Lithuania, Iraq and among the Lemba, to see DNA signatures that are identical amongst communities that are dispersed and only united by a tradition of being part of the Jewish people or descendants of the ancient Israelites that to me was more exciting.”
Like any good scientist Skorecki said he wouldn’t have been devastated if his hypothesis wasn’t correct, he said that he was also excited because he knew this discovery was going to be a key to do this type of research in other populations not just Jewish populations around the world.
This is in fact true as there are reputable companies in the U.S. and other countries that are helping people understand more about their history.