A just-published, “definitive” study of Jews of North African
origin has set their place on the genetic map of the Jewish
Diasporas. This completes research of contemporary Jewish
populations following previous work on Ashkenazim, Sephardim and
Mizrahi Jews who originated in Europe and the Middle East. The
study – led by Prof. Harry Ostrer of the departments of
pathology, genetics and pediatrics at the Albert Einstein
College of Medicine at New York’s Yeshiva University, was just
published online in the Proceedings of the US National Academy
of Sciences... The findings support the historical record of
Middle Eastern Jews settling in North Africa during classical
antiquity, converting non-Jews to Judaism and marrying local
populations, thereby forming distinct populations that stayed
largely intact for more than two millennia... In addition, each
group showed Middle-Eastern ancestry and varying degrees of
mixing with surrounding populations. Two of the major Jewish
populations – Middle Eastern and European Jew