45 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Y DNA 12 markers, November 4, 2007
This review is from: When Scotland Was Jewish: DNA Evidence, Archeology, Analysis of Migrations, and Public and Family Records Show Twelfth Century Semitic Roots (Hardcover)
The DNA evidence in this work only includes DNA-Y 12 markers. Everyone in the business knows that the 12 marker is ONLY used to disprove relationships. It takes 37 markers in a Y-DNA test to prove a relationship!
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Provocative and well worth reading, July 13, 2010
This review is from: When Scotland Was Jewish: DNA Evidence, Archeology, Analysis of Migrations, and Public and Family Records Show Twelfth Century Semitic Roots (Hardcover)
This volume will enrage some, puzzle others, and hopefully open some new avenues for thought and inquiry.
The authors make a decent case, via biography, naming conventions, history, genealogy, iconography, linguistics, and, to a lesser extent, DNA for many of those historically in very high places in Scotland having come from Jewish roots -- and, to some extent, having preserved them despite abundant reasons to abandon them. I don't think that they prove the case implicit in their ambitious title; indeed I doubt the authors would actually argue that they had done so, probably feeling that if they have opened the question for discussion they have done their work well. I think they have done that, and good for them!
I do have a few quibbles:
1. While I understand it's now stylistically correct to have the footnotes at the end of the book, this is an example where the book would have been greatly improved by having the footnotes on the pages they reference. Too many times a reference in the text was not clear to me when I was reading the text, but when I subsequently read the footnotes I had an "aha!" moment. I wonder how much more I would have gotten out of my reading if I had had the aha! moment when reading the text. The footnotes, by the way, are excellent.
2. I had recently read Abba Rubin's excellent "Images in Transition: The English Jew in English Literature, 1660 - 1830" and noted that the authors could have supported their case with Rubin's book. It belongs in the bibliography at any rate.
3. It's perfectly human when writing family history (this book is to some extent a family history) to choose one's examples from one's own history. Thus, it was no surprise that the authors did so here. However, I wish they had elected to expand their Jewish DNA argument to include some of the J1 and J2 haplotypes found in Scotland. While the R1bs they use may have been Jewish at some point, virtually all the J1s and J2s (which include the Cohanic Modal Haplotype) can be traced to the Middle East with little or no ambiguity -- unlike the R1bs. Another reviewer has noted that 12 markers is also pretty limited to draw firm conclusions from (that's true), and the authors are apologetic about their sample size and obvious selection biases (again true), but I'm willing to give them a bye on this given their 2006 copyright date. For the time, it was pretty good data. No doubt better data is available today.
Since I mentioned family history, I'll add that the book was personally useful to me since I was surprised a year or so ago to find that I have a J1 haplotype, and with the surname of Brown and a very elusive family tree prior to 1800, and that most of my closest DNA matches are with men surnamed Graham. Well, I may not have found the specific non-marital event that produced my line, but I feel much closer to knowing the geography in which it occurred thanks to this book -- and the clear association between the two families it describes.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun to read and honest, January 9, 2011
This review is from: When Scotland Was Jewish: DNA Evidence, Archeology, Analysis of Migrations, and Public and Family Records Show Twelfth Century Semitic Roots (Hardcover)
This book belongs to the genre, "The Jews did everything!" That said, it's an interesting review of Scottish history, beginning around the departure of the Romans from Britain in the 5th Century C.E. and going to the Reformation and beyond. Disclaimer: I'm a Jewish bagpiper, and ever since reading this book I've been teasing my Scottish bandmates.
The authors are honest in distinguishing known facts from speculation, but they are not reticent about advancing their arguments that traditionally Scottish things, ranging from the Presbyterian Church to the bagpipe, might have had Jewish roots. If you demand certainty you won't enjoy this book. If you are ticked by the idea that the mysterious St. Machar--who has a church dedicated to him in Aberdeen, but about whom virtually nothing definite is known--has a Jewish name, the same as the character in Sholem Aleichem/Fiddler on the Roof, then you will find it pretty interesting.
The first of the two central ideas of the book is that Scottish culture, beginning in the Dark Ages, was much more advanced, complex and independent than most histories, written from an English point of view, would make it seem. (Anytime you conquer a people, it's routine to try to make them seem stupid and barbaric.) The second is that a large number of Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution in southern Europe ended up in Scotland, and that these people, though outwardly Christian, nevertheless continued many Jewish traditions which have left permanent traces in the nation. Though difficult to prove beyond any doubt, these ideas are both pretty interesting.
I'm not conversant with the subtleties of DNA tracing, and so can't comment on that part of argument. The style of the book is very readable. The cost is an obstacle. I found a half-price copy through Amazon.
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