Why are Eastern European Jews White?

Lady Godiva

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 10:55 am

solo wrote:

ive heard such comments and questions b4 and it always makes me wonder
who decided jews were originally olive skinned or dark haired?
for some reason I seem to remember that sara imenu was noticed and taken by paroh beacuse her looks were different from the dark skinned people of his kingdom.

is there any hiostoric description of what the avot or shevatim looked like?
ant proof that they werent fair skinned and blue eyed?

I believe that the Gemara describes the coloring for a Jew. I was told this by somebody, but I don't want to write what I was told, lest it is wrong. Anybody know about this?

hadasa

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 11:01 am

First of all, how do you know the original Jews were dark? Wasn't Esav red, although he was Yitzchak and Rivkah's son? David Hamelech was a red-head, too, but he descended from a Giyores.

Secondly, thousands of years in a certain country does have an effect. In fact, I see sometimes children of parents who moved to a different country have the "look" of that country.

But I'd probably agree that it's largely due to conversions etc.

Raisin

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 11:10 am

Chloe wrote:

Raisin wrote:

my ashkenazi son looks like he's from the middle east. He certainly doesn't look german or polish.

And its not like all jews are blond and blue eyed. Maybe 1% are. look at your kids school pics, if they go to a predominantly ashkenazi school, and count the blonds.

It's more than 1% according to the girls in my kids class, according to my neighbors and certainly according to my family. I'd say at least 40% have blue or green eyes and 30% have light color hair.

well, obviously if you are blond your family is more likely to be blond. saying that 50% of the people in one family has blond hair does not mean 50% 0f jews are blond.

How do you get that figure? I have green eyes and NOT ONE of my kids has green eyes. I am reconciled to the fact that it is a recessive gene and less likely to appear then brown eyes.

But even with my green eyes no one by the wildest stretch of imagination could possibly describe me as a blonde.

I often think israelis are sefardi when they are in fact ashkenazi. a suntan can do that.

solo

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 11:46 am

my fried is brown eyed as are both her parents. her husband is blue eyed as is one of his parents.
all 6 of thie children have blue eyes.
I mentioned this to someone who told me that the is a dominant gene for some bleu!
dunno if its tru but I thought it was interesting.

but thats totaly irrelevant to my original point.
does anyone have a verifiable source describing the coloring of our earliest ancestors - avot and imahot?

entropy

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 11:55 am

solo wrote:

that fits the simplified classic model because one of her parents probably has a recessive blue.

2 blue-eyed parents with a brown-eyed kid would contradict the model, and I also heard the same explanation
about a dominant blue. Maybe it's true, but since I don't know of any such cases personally (and I've been paying attention to this question for many years) I'd sooner suspect adoption/infidelity/hospital-mixup.

Tamiri

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 12:06 pm

entropy wrote:

Right, that's common.

Does anyone know of 2 blue-eyed parents with a brown-eyed kid?

Yeah, the kid is adopted. Even if the eyes LOOK brown, the child of 2 blue eyed parents can't have a brown-brown child. They eyes may be hazel. DH, the ex biology major says all this is true if what we were taught back then, that blue eyes are recessive, still holds. Not that you have to be an ex biology major. You just have to pay attention in HS biology class. Which I didn't. Anyhooooo.... Since everything is constantly changing, science can't commit to anything anymore.

Ruchel

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 12:06 pm

There is an eye colour predictor website, somewhere on the internet. I've lost the address but I remember it said only a few % of chances for that, maybe even less (under 1%)

Weirdly, this other predictor says no way
http://museum.thetech.org/ugen......html

amother

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 12:21 pm

I think that in the Holocaust, the largest percent of survivors were the 'aryan looking' ones, which may account for the fact that there are so many Caucasions. My grandparents, both blonde & blue, survived as children in Europe because of their looks. I am a 'purebred', I.e. we can trace direct line from gedolim for several hundred years and more, and my family has a dominant blue eyed/blonde haired look, as does my husband's family, from a different region completely. I believe that either the Jews never had that Middle Eastern look, or that we did evolve to look like our neighbors over time. My mother took a trip to Czech-Hungary with her siblings and noted that she felt like they very much resembled the Czech women there. Go figure!

Ruchel

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 12:27 pm

Once upon a time conversion was much easier, for a slave or even a random [gentile]. There were also waves of conversions in many countries over time: Idumeans (Herod's family), Khazars, Berbers, Subbotnikim, San Nicandro... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....daism

entropy

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 12:47 pm

Tamiri wrote:

Even if the eyes LOOK brown, the child of 2 blue eyed parents can't have a brown-brown child.

If it quacks like a duck..

Personally, ever snce learning this in HS biology I've bee on the lookout for a contrary example and the best I've managed is internet strangers who claim they are certain a child is legitimate. HLM, how can you be certain? maybe there was a mix-up in the ivf lab, or who knows what? People wouldn't advertise these things, would they?
(I have heard of more such cases btw, and I tend to believe there exists a very rare dominant blue gene somwhere, I just never saw it myself)

GreenEyes26

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 12:54 pm

HA! I used the eye calculator (which is so cool btw) - my DH always says that "his genes are dominant" and are kids cannot possibly have blue or green eyes. But HA! The eye calculator says that there is a 10% chance for blue, 30-something chance for green, and 60% for brown! So it's more likely, but not IMPOSSIBLE. Mwah ha ha ha! Can't wait to show him this!!

amother

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 12:58 pm

The middle east sun does have an effect. Fair people who have lived in Israel for a decade change. I've seen it on many people. It doesn't necessarily take thousands or millions of years for racial features to adapt.
I'm not talking about a temporary tan here, I'm talking about skin and hair darkening long-term, blondes becoming brunettes, etc.

Isramom8

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 1:01 pm

A woman I know wanted to adopt a baby but said s/he HAD to have blue eyes, since both she and her dh did, and if not then everyone would know.

Tell me, why are there so many more light skinned, light hair colored Jews in America than in Israel? Why do my kids look so white among their classmates? I mean the Ashkenazi Israelis.

flowerpower

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 1:05 pm

Isn't it the same reason that the middle eastern population is olive skinned and the hungarian/polish population is fair skinned? I think it has to do where they were born/growing up....

Chloe

Mon, Jun 14 2010, 1:14 pm

Quote:

I think that in the Holocaust, the largest percent of survivors were the 'aryan looking' ones, which may account for the fact that there are so many Caucasions.

I also think that must be one of the reasons. Fair colored children had a higher percentage survival rate.