Facts-n-Findings : Who are the Jews?

By Cheryl Ciambotti

With all the talk about the U.S. and a nuclear deal with Iran, and then the talk about Iran wanting to annihilate the Jews, I thought I’d ask myself….Who are the Jews?

According to Dr. Eran Elhiak, an atheist doctor, the majority of Jews today are not really Jews at all. He asserts that only the Sephardic Jews are “real Jews” and the Ashkenazi Jews are not. (These are the two major groups.)

Here are a few reasons why that is a false statement and not researched very well.

The Sephardic Jews originated in the Middle East and then ended up in Spain and Portugal and then seemed to migrate south to North Africa after being forced out of Spain in 1492.

The Ashkenazi Jews are the lighter skinned Jews that either live in, or descended from, Eastern Europe, (Germany, Ukraine, Poland, etc), or from western Russia. They have a “more homogeneous genetic background compared to the general population” according to the majority of the DNA studies.

It was also concluded by one study that the Ashkenzie Jews did not originate in the Middle East but in the Caucuses and Eastern Europe and thus are not Jews at all. It is believed this idea is perpetuated to attempt to disprove the Ashkenzie ancestral rights to their inherited land. The legend says that they decided to choose Judaism to avoid accepting Islam or Christianity in the 700’s but many do not believe this.

If you research this curously there is not one notable study done on the Jews that were captured and taken into captivity by the Assyrains in 740-722 BC. Only ones that identify the capture of the Jews by the Babylonians in 597, 587 and 582 BC. Ancient records say that the Assyrians took 200,150 captives, which the empire extended as far as the Black Sea, and they could have easily migrated west/ north and to the area we call Russia today.

It is hard for me to see how people could say that the Ashkenzie Jews are not Jews after all with all the purported evidence to the contrary and the fact that no one takes into account the Assyrian capture. One thing we do know, God’s Word is true and there are several verses saying they are coming Home from the North!

Jeremiah 16:15 - “… As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them. For I will restore them to the land I gave their ancestors.”