*or Lack Thereof
The “Cohen Gene”, or Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH)
Excerpted from “Jesus, the Black Prophet and the Ancient Black Hebrews of Israel”, by Wesley Muhammad, PhD
Discovered in 1997 by Jewish scientists, this paternal genetic marker (it is found on the Y-chromosome) has a high frequency among the Jewish (Askenazi and Sephardic) priesthood (Cohanim) and is thought to be a signature of ancient Hebrew ancestry. The haplotype (CMH) is indeed part of a haplogroup (Hg J) that originated in Black Arabia or Afrabia ca 30 kya (thousand years ago) and in high frequencies is believed to indicate “Semitism.”
While early reports, largely from Ashkenazi (white) Jewish writers, tended to portray this discovery as evidence that Ashkenazi Jews are truly Hebrew with a legitimate claim to the Holy Land, further genetic tests and reports demonstrated just the opposite.
Dark Secrets Revealed
There was a further “discovery” that the “purest” surviving remnant of the Children of Israel identified by CMH tests is the tribe of Black Jews in India, the Bene Israel and the Black Jews of Cochin, who show a genetic affinity not only to Ethiopians and Yemenis, but also to the tribe of Black Jews in South Africa, the Lemba, whose relation to the ancient Hebrews has also been confirmed by the presence of high frequencies of the CMH.
Other reports confirm that, though the CMH is found in high frequencies among the priestly class of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewry, this class only represents 4-10% of this Jewry. Most Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews lack this signature and in fact have been shown to be genetically related, not to Semites, but to Gentiles: Kurds, Turks, East Europeans, etc.
Only about 15% of lay Ashkenaz and 12% of lay Sephardim possess this marker. The presence of this marker in non-priestly segments of the populations may be accounted for by gene flow from the Cohanim or priests.
Myth: Palestians and Israelis are Genetic Cousins
In comparison with data available from other relevant populations in the region, Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Cresent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to their Arab neighbors. Genetic proximity of these European/Syrian Jewish populations, including Ashkenazi Jews, to each other and to French, North Italian and Sardinian populations favors the idea of non-Semitic Mediterranean ancestry in the formation of the European/Syrian Jewish groups.
Ashkenazi & Sephardic Jews are NOT Semitic
The CMH clad belongs to the J haplogroup. J has two major derivative subclads associated with it: J1 and J2.
- The CMH belongs to JI, which originated in Black Arabia and signals African Semitic ancestry.
- J2, on the other hand, which is found among Ashkenazis at a frequency twice that of JI, has a characteristically non-Semitic European distribution and is believed to have originated from a mutation that occurred in the Aegean area! Because Jewish populations possess approximately twice as much J2 as they do J1, their ancestry more closely matches that of Turkish and Transcaucasian populations.