The case that the Falasha (Ethiopian jews) and the Jews of India are primarily (or significantly, in the Indian case) descended from local converts looks pretty strong here, though I don’t know if that’s controversial or accepted in previous studies.

I wouldn’t say false, but maybe misdirected. I haven’t read through the report and don’t really understand the point of the data. but there is a point to ponto’s comment. Even in the biblical account, even if there was a heavy focus on marrying within your tribe, or even within the twelve tribes, there were a considerable amount of converts. Judaism being the “true” religion of that time and record it was also a sort of melting pot. I think the main point that was trying to be made was that as peoples of the Jewish faith, rather than of the tribe of Judah, spread out they brought converts into the faith thus dispersing their genes into other populations and vice versa. I wouldn’t say that this fact discredits the data, just makes it more difficult to find. Hence there is a very general distinction of Jewish genes in the data. In fact, it is rather astounding that there was even a distinction between Northern and Southern.

you pretty much show you haven’t familiarized yourself with all that “too much” with the other comments you made. a lot of what you say is false. you’re going in a maximalist direction, and the data do not allow for maximalism of either sort (i.e., jews-are-converts of local populace vs. jews-are-middle eastern).

European Jews, the A and the S, are Europeans, mostly the results of conversions among Southern Europeans, Italians, Greeks, pre Turkish Anatolians women and some men, with a few Middle Eastern immigrants during the Greco-Roman times. Those people don’t differ much from Southern Europeans like Sicilian Italians, Calabrian and other south Italians and Greeks, on dna tests using half a million SNPs. It would be extremely difficult to separate those European Jews, all grandparents Jews, from Southern Europeans like Sicilians and Greeks, all grandparents Sicilian and Greek. Even Dr. Doug McDonald who has a BGA test using SNPs has admitted that a number of times.

Middle Eastern Jews are Middle Eastern people from the areas where they are found. So Yemeni Jews are the converts of Yemenis. Basically the same applies to all other Jews: Indian Jews are Indian converts, Ethiopian Jews are Ethiopian, Chinese Jews are Chinese. In other words, all Jews are genetically derived from the area they come from, all of majority convert stock with just a little admixture from real Jews who came from the Middle East.

One day, a test will show that all the who-ha about Jews and their putative origins in the Middle East is just a lot of fabrication based on some Holy books and religious adherence to the three so called monotheistic religions.