Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Q1b1 Clade: A North African Berber Jew
Nadene Goldfoot
I have been contacted by someone who has the Q1b1 haplogroup or clade just like my family. The difference is that he is a Jewish Berber from North Africa while my male paternal ancestors came from Telsiai, Lithuania. How did this clade become so diverse in its travels?
Berber turns out to be a generic term for a similar people, most of which are Muslims today. Now I learn that Jews have lived in North Africa who had not become Jewish through conversion.
I find that Judaic presence in the continent of Africa goes back to Abraham in the Nile Delta of Goshen where he and his family and herds of cattle waited to pass through during a drought in Canaan, where they had sought refuge after living in Ur, which is today's Iraq.
Also, Joseph, who became the vizier to the Pharaoh, sent for his family to join him in Egypt. Many Israelites followed as settlers, but then later became slaves captured in Canaan by the "Warrior Pharoahs." That's when we were put to work building for 400 years as slaves which led to Moses freeing us in the Exodus.
Much later after Jews had their state, it became divided into Israel and Judah. This was a time when Judaic traders traveled westward along the African coast with the voyagers of Tyre and Sidon, the Canaanite sea-farers called "the Phoenicians" by the Greeks. Israel was referred to in Egyptian records in 1209 BCE. It became a power in the 9th century BCE but fell in 722. Judah fell in 486 BCE and then after being reborn again fell in 63 BCE from Pompey, and of course Jerusalem fell in 70 CE.
Jews made up a major part of the population of the North African Canaanite settlement at Carthage, or "New City," which today is called Tunisia. "There were Jews already living in Carthage before its destruction by the Romans." Jewish presence has been well documented in other places along the coast during the Pre-Roman period. The Romans called the Canaanite settlers the Peonicus Carthagenians, translated as "Punic Peoples."
Carthage and Utica, the Canaanite city-states, were ruled by a Soffut, similar to the Israelite shoffet or judge. The legend is that Jews settled in NW Africa before the destruction of the 2nd temple in 586 BCE, as discusssed by George Gilbert in "the Mellahs (the Jewish quarters) of Morocco. To support this idea are Hebrew inscriptions on tombstones in the Roman town of Volubilis (west of modern Fez).
The Romans fought 3 Punic Wars with Carthage, and Carthage lost in the 3rd and final one in 146 BCE called "The battle of Carthage." All people left alive were sold into slavery.
Jews were always allowed to be in trades that other cultures deemed as unworthy for themselves. Jews practiced their artisan trades in North Africa under the Romans who considered manual trades base and inappropriate for themselves. Finally, Emperor Hadrian Augustus complimented the industrious Jews of Alexandria in a report to his consul, Servianus. He placed them among the proletariat of the city and allowed them the revolutionary process of glassblowing. However, it was also he who wouldn't allow Jews to circumcise their sons, leading to the Bar Kokba revolt in 133-135 CE which we lost.
It was said that the Jews in Alexandria were prosperous, rich and fruitful, and in it no one was idle. Some were blowers of glass, others makers of paper, all were weavers of linen or seem to belong to one craft or another. " The lame have occupations and the wounded have theirs as well as the blind as well as those with crippled hands (arthritis?). None of the Jews were idle. "
My friend tells me that after Cathage was destroyed by the Romans, the Jews went West to the North African mountains where invaders wouldn't find them as the mountains were dangerous. So it seems that the Romans weren't able to sell them into slavery. When the Muslims invaded in 600 CE the Jews stopped the progress of their invasion for about 4 years and were led by the Berber queen Kehana, which means Cohen. She died in the last battle and the Islam Jihad continued onto Morocco and then Spain, and up to the middle of France before being forced out and into Spain in 732.
His theory is that his line of Berber Jews "came from the 10 lost tribes and could have escaped the Assyrian invasion of 732 BCE before the Babylonians invaded the kingdom of Judah and exiled the remaining Jewish tribes of Judah and Israel. Jews were cohabitating with Phoenicians of southern Lebanon and were probably traveling with them for trade and commerce."
He went on to say that archaeologists have found a Jewish settlement and temple on Elephantine Island on the Nile River dating back from 500 BCE, showing that Jews traveled much more than we believed."
Tunisia today is the 23rd largest populated state of Sunni Muslims, the state religion, who amount to 98% of the population of about 10,383,577 people. Before 1948 there were 110,000 Jews living there. In the 50's half moved to Israel and the other half moved to France. That left about 1,000 Jews there. In January of this year riots were found to be chanting, Death to the Jews.
The latest news is that on Friday, the President of Tunisia fled the country and widespread violence ensues. Dozens of Jews are again faced with the same choice, France or Israel. There is no security, food or work, they reported. Their Muslim friends are fearful as well.
Research: from Albert
http://www.hebrewhistory.org/factpapers/africa19-I.html The Berbers and the Jews
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah
http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/Berber.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_majority_countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Tunisia
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/tunisjews.html
I have been contacted by someone who has the Q1b1 haplogroup or clade just like my family. The difference is that he is a Jewish Berber from North Africa while my male paternal ancestors came from Telsiai, Lithuania. How did this clade become so diverse in its travels?
Berber turns out to be a generic term for a similar people, most of which are Muslims today. Now I learn that Jews have lived in North Africa who had not become Jewish through conversion.
I find that Judaic presence in the continent of Africa goes back to Abraham in the Nile Delta of Goshen where he and his family and herds of cattle waited to pass through during a drought in Canaan, where they had sought refuge after living in Ur, which is today's Iraq.
Also, Joseph, who became the vizier to the Pharaoh, sent for his family to join him in Egypt. Many Israelites followed as settlers, but then later became slaves captured in Canaan by the "Warrior Pharoahs." That's when we were put to work building for 400 years as slaves which led to Moses freeing us in the Exodus.
Much later after Jews had their state, it became divided into Israel and Judah. This was a time when Judaic traders traveled westward along the African coast with the voyagers of Tyre and Sidon, the Canaanite sea-farers called "the Phoenicians" by the Greeks. Israel was referred to in Egyptian records in 1209 BCE. It became a power in the 9th century BCE but fell in 722. Judah fell in 486 BCE and then after being reborn again fell in 63 BCE from Pompey, and of course Jerusalem fell in 70 CE.
Jews made up a major part of the population of the North African Canaanite settlement at Carthage, or "New City," which today is called Tunisia. "There were Jews already living in Carthage before its destruction by the Romans." Jewish presence has been well documented in other places along the coast during the Pre-Roman period. The Romans called the Canaanite settlers the Peonicus Carthagenians, translated as "Punic Peoples."
Carthage and Utica, the Canaanite city-states, were ruled by a Soffut, similar to the Israelite shoffet or judge. The legend is that Jews settled in NW Africa before the destruction of the 2nd temple in 586 BCE, as discusssed by George Gilbert in "the Mellahs (the Jewish quarters) of Morocco. To support this idea are Hebrew inscriptions on tombstones in the Roman town of Volubilis (west of modern Fez).
The Romans fought 3 Punic Wars with Carthage, and Carthage lost in the 3rd and final one in 146 BCE called "The battle of Carthage." All people left alive were sold into slavery.
Jews were always allowed to be in trades that other cultures deemed as unworthy for themselves. Jews practiced their artisan trades in North Africa under the Romans who considered manual trades base and inappropriate for themselves. Finally, Emperor Hadrian Augustus complimented the industrious Jews of Alexandria in a report to his consul, Servianus. He placed them among the proletariat of the city and allowed them the revolutionary process of glassblowing. However, it was also he who wouldn't allow Jews to circumcise their sons, leading to the Bar Kokba revolt in 133-135 CE which we lost.
It was said that the Jews in Alexandria were prosperous, rich and fruitful, and in it no one was idle. Some were blowers of glass, others makers of paper, all were weavers of linen or seem to belong to one craft or another. " The lame have occupations and the wounded have theirs as well as the blind as well as those with crippled hands (arthritis?). None of the Jews were idle. "
My friend tells me that after Cathage was destroyed by the Romans, the Jews went West to the North African mountains where invaders wouldn't find them as the mountains were dangerous. So it seems that the Romans weren't able to sell them into slavery. When the Muslims invaded in 600 CE the Jews stopped the progress of their invasion for about 4 years and were led by the Berber queen Kehana, which means Cohen. She died in the last battle and the Islam Jihad continued onto Morocco and then Spain, and up to the middle of France before being forced out and into Spain in 732.
His theory is that his line of Berber Jews "came from the 10 lost tribes and could have escaped the Assyrian invasion of 732 BCE before the Babylonians invaded the kingdom of Judah and exiled the remaining Jewish tribes of Judah and Israel. Jews were cohabitating with Phoenicians of southern Lebanon and were probably traveling with them for trade and commerce."
He went on to say that archaeologists have found a Jewish settlement and temple on Elephantine Island on the Nile River dating back from 500 BCE, showing that Jews traveled much more than we believed."
Tunisia today is the 23rd largest populated state of Sunni Muslims, the state religion, who amount to 98% of the population of about 10,383,577 people. Before 1948 there were 110,000 Jews living there. In the 50's half moved to Israel and the other half moved to France. That left about 1,000 Jews there. In January of this year riots were found to be chanting, Death to the Jews.
The latest news is that on Friday, the President of Tunisia fled the country and widespread violence ensues. Dozens of Jews are again faced with the same choice, France or Israel. There is no security, food or work, they reported. Their Muslim friends are fearful as well.
Research: from Albert
http://www.hebrewhistory.org/factpapers/africa19-I.html The Berbers and the Jews
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah
http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/Berber.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_majority_countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Tunisia
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/tunisjews.html
Labels: Berber Jews, Q1b1
