The Indian Jews of Colorado

Original article in French here

According to geneticists at the Sheba Medical Center – Tel Hashomer, Tel Aviv a tribe of Indians in Colorado, USA, has characteristics similar to those found DNA from Jews expelled from Spain.

The common label is a single mutation of a gene (BRCA1), commonly known as «Ashkenazi mutation», found in Ashkenazi Jewish origin, traditionally associated with a higher risk of developing ovarian and breast cancers.

It began with a series of research on cancer of genetic origin led by Professor Jeffrey Weitzel, California.Student a sample of 110 Hispanic American families, he discovers the home BRCA1 and in 2005 he published an article pointing to the common gene and the possibility of a genetic affiliation with the Jews expelled from Spain, retracing the route arrival of these families in the U.S., from Latin America.Seeking a possible link with the European Jews, it is a publication produced by the Sheba Medical Center, and published in the European Journal of Human Genetics which provides this link:

Ashkenazi mutation was also found in the Mexican Indians who immigrated to United States over the last two centuries, and are fixed in the state of Colorado.The combination of research on these populations and processed by powerful computer systems shows that they all have a common ancestor: the Jewish populations in South America arrived from Europe, probably during the period during which Christopher Columbus arrived on American shores (1492-1493) and the Jews were expelled from Spain (1492).

Research began once again on the subject by Prof. Eitan Friedman (Director of oncogenetic unit of Sheba center), and its students, to try to identify the source of the genetic mutation.The team worked on a diverse sample of 115 families from diverse backgrounds (families of Iraqi origin, or Ashkenazim, Jews from Cochin, India – Malaysian and British families), all carrying the mutant gene, which sample was added 16 families of Mexican Indians Colorado.

The works are divided on the basis of research conducted by the Sheba center, fifteen years ago: the first genetic mutation in these families would place some 2500 years earlier, during the exodus after the destruction of the First Temple.The new research – which concerned this time 15 different genetic markers associated with the mutation – showed that among Iraqi Jewish populations, the mutated gene only dated from 450 years, probably during migration of Ashkenazi Jewish merchants of origin to the Iraq.It appeared that mutations against the Indians in Colorado was older (over 600 years).The result shows that the Jewish populations expelled from Spain who won the New World have set in Latin America by mixing with local populations (intermarriage) whose descendants then emigrated to the U.S..These Indians, whose customs have been studied, however, have never demonstrated a Jewish practices or oral tradition linking them to Judaism.

by Gerard Fredj, translation by Stephen L. Gomes

Source: IsraëlInfos 31.5.2012

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