Especially with Jewish life in the Diaspora and on the whole being a mixed experience with high points and tremendous devastating low points. So this experiment is something in my opinion worth trying and I’m part of it.
Karl Skorecki, Technion
Q. Thoughts on 10 lost tribes theory?
A. I think people use this term in two different ways. One I would call the classical meaning of the traditional Biblical history of the Southern Kingdom of Judea and the Northern Kingdom of Israel which comprised ten of Israelite tribes. During the Assyrian rule over the region they were scattered.
Q. How many were exiled?
A.Some say there were 23,000 or so exiled, but it isn’t that clear of the exact number that were forcibly exiled. Then they would have been relocated initially to geographic locations where many approaches have been utilized to try to locate and identify their descendants. Over the years there have been stories and theories on how to find them. So the question arises can DNA signatures help?
Theoretically they can. So if there was movement in a settlement in some part of the world and that group of people grew, then it is possible we could find DNA signatures where we could say unlike their neighbors this group of people who maintain some sort of cultural identity actually are the descendants of this event. The other is a broader meeting – referring to many contemporary individuals with Jewish ancestral heritage, even if they were not part of the Biblically described “lost tribes”.
This is likely to be a much larger number.
Q. Have we been successful in locating these people?
A. Well there are many candidates. To do it right you’d have to sample everyone in a reasonable area. There are certain optimal parts of the world say in the Middle East and going as far as Afghanistan.
On the other hand there are a number of communities that have been pointed out by scholars of this discipline that say we have a feeling these are the people and why don’t you go and check them. We haven’t had that much activity in this domain, a little bit. For example with the Bnei Manashe.
But we have not looked closely yet at the Pathans (Pashtuns) of Afghanistan and expatriates in Lucknow province for example, and several others which have been pointed out for one reason or another because of custom or some narrative. We have not really pursued that with as much vigor as one might.
There are reasons for this, some scientific, some not. Some of this has to do with funding. These can be costly and sometimes politically sensitive projects and our main priority is to do projects related to human disease. Some of the geographic areas are very hard or dangerous to access and I do believe in the future that when things are more peaceful or accessible these questions may be easier to clarify.