WHO IS ISRAEL? - DO YOU REALLY KNOW?


Who is Israel? Interpretation of the Parable







The Jews




Diane Bahler
December 11, 2001

The Lord gave Abraham a blessing that He would multiply his descendants
as the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore. (Gen. 26:4) The
word translated "multiply" means to increase, exceedingly, become numerous, great.

The blessing given to Isaac's wife, Rebecca was "Be the mother of
thousands of millions" or "myriads." (Gen. 24:60) Together they passed on their blessing to Jacob: "May God…make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a congregation of peoples." (Gen. 28:3) The blessing given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was that of a great congregation of physical descendants. In other words, bunches and bunches of baby heirs, "gargantuan groups of great-great-great grandchildren" (Wooten).

The word for congregation is translated from the word ekklesia that is
derived from two Greek words. Ek means "out of" and Kaleo means "to
call out." Put together the purest meaning of ekklesia is "an assembly,
congregation or gathering of called out ones." The Father said that
Jacob, who was renamed Israel, would bring forth a huge ekklesia.

Ekklesia is the word that has been mis-translated as "church" in the
scriptures. The word "church" was coined many centuries later and
comes from the old English word "kirk". King James ordered his translators to substitute the word church because at the time the Church of England had become a political and religious institution. Translating ekklesia as "an assembly of called out ones" would have jeopardized the king's control as the head of the Church of England. The word "church" is not one Jesus or His apostles ever used.*

If the ekklesia are "called out ones" then one might ask "What are they
called out FROM?" We'll get to that later. Back to the story:

Jacob passed on the patriarchal blessing and gave the birthright of the
first born son to his beloved Rachel's firstborn son, Joseph and to Joseph's son Ephraim. The birthright included a double portion and the right to act as the next family ruler. The firstborn was considered the "priest of the whole family" and received the right to inherit family leadership, preferential status, sanctity, authority, sovereignty, and responsibility for the continuance and welfare of the family. When Jacob blessed Ephraim before he died, passing on the patriarchal blessing from Yahweh, he essentially said that those of Ephraim would become a "fullness of Gentiles (nations)! The abundance of the nations! They would be so numerous that they would have to inhabit the lands of other nations!" The blessing went from being passed from individual to individual to the NATIONS!

Israel was betrothed to the Lord at Mt. Sinai. I can't find in scripture where she was ever replaced as His intended wife. She was destined to be the bride and wife of God and to bear Him myriads of children but first she ended up spending a lot more than 40 years wondering in the wilderness. It's been more like a few thousand.

After Jacob blessed Ephraim, Ephraim's descendants were regarded as a
single tribe. Later ten of Israel's twelve tribes collectively became known as Ephraim, Ephraimites and/or Israel. Ephraim separated from Judah and Benjamin in what was essentially a civil war of brother fighting brother. Ephraim became the northern kingdom and Judah and Benjamin formed the southern kingdom. The term "Jew" comes from "Judah" and refers primarily to those of the southern kingdom. Therefore, all who are Jews are Israel but not all who are Israel are Jews.

Eventually Ephraim and Judah were both taken captive by hostile invaders. Judah was taken captive by Babylon but stayed mostly intact as a people and race. They held onto their identity as Israelites and to their religious heritage. Judah returned to rebuild the temple and primarily composes the people who reclaimed and now populate the geographical nation of Israel in the Middle East.

Ephraim on the other hand fell to Assyria about a hundred years before
Judah was taken captive. The Assyrians had an unusual policy of scattering their captives and so the tribes were "swallowed up by the nations." (Hosea 8:8) Ephraim began to mix with the pagan nations, adopted their customs and religions and essentially "forgot" that they were Israel by blood. For all outward appearances they became "foreigners" or "Gentiles" even though genetically they were very much Israel.

Ephraim became the "lost" ten tribes of Israel, except that they
weren't really lost. Researchers have a pretty good idea of where they went: Scotland, Britain, Wales, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Belgium,
Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Spain. There is the possibility of descendants in Iran. The descendants of these tribes are now in those areas or in North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Israel only lost her identity, not her birthright and patriarchal
blessing. Scripture makes it clear that Israel will be restored and reunified with Judah before the second coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of the promise of Abraham to make his descendants more numerous than the stars.

The single stick of Judah and Ephraim joined together in the Lord's
hand in Ezekiel 37 is speaking of this end time reunion. "I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms." (Ezekiel 37: 21-22)

Yeshua/Jesus came to fulfill this prophecy and to gather the lost sheep
of Israel. He DID reunite them in one stick - THE CROSS. Although Judah as a nation rejected Him as bridegroom not all Jews refused him as Messiah, but her national rejection opened the door for Ephraim to be re-gathered. The Lord sent His JEWISH apostles and prophets to the gentile nations to extend grace to those without Israelite heritage and to gather the scattered remnant of Israel that was scattered among them. Ephraim's Jewish brothers and sisters composed one stick of the "Ekklesia." They became a congregation called out from the law to live by the Spirit. They were sent to find Ephraim. Ephraim began to wake up and hear the call of the good news. Those of Israelite bloodlines but lost memories, and those who were truly "gentiles" by birth but who had been adopted as full sons and grafted in by grace, became a second congregation of "called out ones" from the pagan religions. The two sticks were beginning to come together in the CROSS.

For the first couple of hundred years progress was being made in the
rejoining and awakening of Israel. The Ekklesia was growing and
expanding. The Gospel was being preached throughout the known world. Satan knew that the fulfillment of this reunion would result in the return of Christ and an end to his reign of terror on the earth so he commissioned his "queen" Babylon (a demonic principality) to put a stop to it. Babylon took the two powers that conspired to kill Yeshua - politics and religion - and united them to kill the young Ekklesia of Israel. The political power of Rome established the Christian church system as a sanctioned religious institution. Babylon gained control of Israel and began to turn her against her sister Judah. The Jews became subject to persecution often by members of their own family of Israel. In response they hardened their hearts to the news of the Messiah. Ephraim, who had not fully regained the memory of her birthright, fell under the spell of the promises of Babylon. Believing she was becoming rich, she handed over her inheritance and became lost again among the nations. The church system of Babylon stole her identity, began to
misuse the name of her betrothed, moved into her house and began
spending her inheritance!

One of the MAIN points I want to make concerning the descendants of
Israel is that there are MANY, MANY believers sitting in the Christian church system who genuinely care for Israel and pray for her and who have NO idea that they ARE Israel. There are also probably many who hate Israel or at the least care nothing for her and have no idea that they also ARE Israel. Not only have they come to accept themselves as "gentiles" but they have no idea that they carry within them the blessing of Abraham and the birthright of the firstborn of Israel. They have accepted a counterfeit in place of the real thing. They have become "the church" instead of the "Ekklesia." The "church" HAS replaced Israel in a sense! But it is time for Israel to COME OUT OF HER
and take her proper position as the bride of Yeshua which is a ruling
position of authority.

Many who are truly Israel by bloodline or by engrafting grace have COME
OUT of this false system but because they have forgotten who they are they don't know exactly what to do with themselves now. They think they are wondering in the wilderness when in fact it is the wilderness they are coming out of! Many of them are still trying to patch up their wounds from the church system and trying to figure out which way to go next. They are poised to enter into the Promised Land but because they lack the understanding of who they are, where they originally came from, and the destiny of Israel they can't find a clear direction to get there.

There are others who have come out of the church system and may not
fully understand why but have been drawn back to their Jewish roots. They have embraced the Hebraic heritage but the problem is that many of them have traded one Babylon for another. After beginning with the Spirit they have become "bewitched" and are trying to attain their goal by human effort again by returning to Jewish ritual. They become very legalistic in their return to their roots. (Galatians 3) Many Messianic Jews seem to fall prey to this same problem. They can't seem to get free of the old covenant and enter fully into the new.

Then there are those who come out of the system and try to return to a
"New Testament model" for church. The problem with that is that the New
Testament Church was the SEEDLING, not the full grown oak that would come with maturity. We have entered into the fullness of times which means the age of maturity. We have not yet seen what the Ekklesia is to look like when she reaches full stature but it will not be what she looked like as an infant and toddler. Still, some insist on returning to their childhood.

Then there are many, many, many who are genetic or engrafted Israel who
are still trapped in Babylon believing they are supporting a good system
approved and sanctioned by God. They support and defend the church system with fierce loyalty having no clue that they are trapped in a slave system. They are trapped by tradition, ignorance (no one has taught them differently), fear, manipulation by false shepherds and a variety of other chains.

And then there are those who are in the system who are just totally
lost. They call themselves Christians but they are really unbelievers. They are probably more lost and harder to reach than the ones who know they're unbelievers. Some of them may be in waiting for a true encounter with the Holy Spirit but most of them are the ones the enemy uses to support and run the current church system. He especially likes to put them into positions of leadership and then he is able to manipulate the system and the sheep through them. These are the false shepherds, antichrists, false prophets and Jezebels that oversee the prison system and that keep the true remnant of Israel in bondage and darkness.

Later we'll look more at Israel and the "new creation" she is supposed
to become and expand our vision of the Promised Land and the boundaries of Israel, but first let's expose the false church system with more depth. Isaiah 47: 3 says of Babylon: "Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered." In the next installment we'll begin to uncover the truth of the "Circus Maximus."

* For more in-depth study of the Ekklesia there is an excellent article
by Pastor Terry Parks posted on the website of the Rock Church. The
address is: "http://www.therockchurch.ws/ecclesia.htm"

Highly recommended reading: Who is Israel? By Batya Wootten and
Restoring Israel's Kingdom by Angus Wooten. Published by Key of David
Publishing, Saint Cloud, FL; Distributed by House of David, PO Box 700217, Saint Cloud, FL 34770 "http://www.mim.net"





HOUSECLEANING PART: 4
Expanding our Vision

Diane Bahler
December 13, 2001

Before we go any further I think we need to begin to expand our vision.
I mentioned earlier that the Lord sees things from ALL perspectives. We
have got to begin to see things more from HIS perspective than ours if we're going to understand the times we are living in. It is difficult to put into words but let me see if I can share an illustration He gave me this summer.

On a plane trip home this summer I looked out the window across the
aisle to the west where the sun was beginning to set but looked in line with our plane. I saw the most incredible rainbow I have ever seen. It began on one side of the sun and seemed to circle the entire sky so that I could see it out of my window to the east and came full circle back to the other side of the sun. Below this rainbow the sky was cloudy and gray and hid the earth from view. Above this rainbow however the sky was perfectly clear and blue with a bright moon shinning.

Think of revelation like this: The Lord's perspective is from the top
of the mountain. It is the clear blue sky. He can see in every direction, from top to bottom, inside to outside and beginning to end. Our ability to see on the earth is gray and cloudy. Our vision is very darkened and very distorted by the clouds. The clouds represent our own souls and also the interference and lies of Satan. In between heaven's perspective and earth's, however, the Lord has placed a spiral staircase that takes us to the top of the mountain.

Imagine it as the rainbow in the shape of an upside down whirlwind. On
the earth the circle is very wide but gets tighter the higher you climb.
The rainbow is the Word and promises of God. It contains the written word and the revelatory word and they are swirling around in the wind of the Spirit. The higher you climb, the clearer the revelation. The higher you climb, the steeper and more difficult the stairway becomes because it requires putting your soul to the cross to keep moving upward.

Here is a KEY point: Revelation has NOTHING to do with "giftedness"
but EVERYTHING to do with PROXIMITY TO GOD.

In other words, the gift of prophecy is the gift of prophecy no matter
what level you're on. Prophecy is the testimony of Jesus, therefore, we are all called to be prophets when we become believers. You do not become an "office" prophet because you can see more clearly. There are NO offices. In fact, those who are at the highest levels are usually the ones who are the least likely to look for office "titles." Jesus was about as close to the Father as you can get and He never claimed a title. He warned against it. Instead He operated in whatever gifting was needed at the time.

The TRUTH about the "five-fold ministry" is that we are all to be
functioning in ALL of the ministries just as Jesus did. We should all be doing the work of a pastor, teacher, apostle, prophet, evangelist, etc. as the Spirit leads us and flows through us. We'll talk more about this when we get into the subject of the mature bride but let's stick to the subject of revelation for right now.

Revelation progresses from the lower levels to higher levels. The
lower the level, the more concrete and reflective of things on the earth and also the more distorted by the soul and the confusion of the enemy. The higher the level the purer it becomes and the more abstract, complex and reflective of the mind and heart of God. This is why we should all eagerly desire the gift of prophecy and pursue it. (1 Cor. 14:1) It brings us closer to the mind and heart of Christ.

The truth is that RIGHT NOW most of even the "seasoned" and
"respected" prophets are seeing things on a very low level. Their revelation may be true but they are interpreting it on a very concrete, earthly level and there is a lot of interference from the enemy and interpretations coming from their own souls. (Actually, those who are prophesying on higher levels right now are mostly unrecognized "no names" who have been out in the desert with nobody to talk to but the Lord for a long time!)

Let me give an example: Today I read this prophecy on a popular
prophetic list:

"On 11/20/01, I was given a vision of an enormous seismic event, which
was so large that it caused mountains to explode across the entire continent of North America. Many of these mountains had no known history of volcanic activity. I was told in the vision that "If America wishes to divide Jerusalem in half, then America shall be divided in half." Unless the United States discontinues pressuring Israel to give up land allocated to her by God, the day is soon coming that America will be literally ripped in half like a garment, and the land masses of America drastically reduced."

This may be a true prophecy and the interpretation may be true also on
ONE LEVEL but it may also be true on other levels. I do not believe that the Lord wants Jerusalem divided on ANY level and so to completely
understand the message and warning of the prophecy we have to be able to look at it on multiple levels.

On one level the Lord is speaking of the literal, physical city of
Jerusalem. On another level He may be speaking of America refusing to recognize that she is a sister to Judah and that she houses a huge unrecognized population of Israel in the descendants of Ephraim who migrated here. Her refusal to acknowledge her own Hebraic roots is dividing the greater population of the spiritual city of Jerusalem from one another.

We have got to expand our vision of WHO Israel is if we are going to
begin to properly interpret the revelation the Lord is giving us these days. I intend to talk about America in more depth later but for now one of the things we have got to begin to understand is that the enemy - who on the highest level is SATAN, not the Taliban - (although they are certainly an enemy on the earthly level) KNOWS who Israel is better than we do. He knows that America is one of the "annexes" for Israel. We are more than a political supporter. We are a SISTER. America IS Israel in a sense as well as the Middle Eastern Israel. When America is attacked, ISRAEL is attacked. When Israel is attacked, AMERICA is attacked.

Now, this understanding does NOT negate the revelation that we are to
pray for the literal land of Israel and Judah. We are to pray for the peace of the earthly Jerusalem and for the land and people of the geographic land. But we also need to expand our vision for what the boundaries are of Israel and the Promised Land.

Isaiah 54: 2 says: "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent
curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your
stakes. 3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your
descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate
cities."

The little geographic region of Israel, even if she reclaims all of the
land given to her originally, won't be big enough to hold the seed of
Abraham when the promise is fulfilled. Israel will DISPOSSESS NATIONS. It will take the geographic land of NATIONS to contain her because she will become so numerous! She already IS if we include all of Ephraim that has been dispersed throughout the nations.

Psalm 24 says "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the
world, and all who live in it." The WHOLE earth is the promised land of Israel. We are to take back the entire land that was stolen from us by our highest level enemy - Satan. We are also to DISPOSSESS HIS nation which is a spiritual kingdom as well. Which brings us to an even higher level of understanding and that is that the Lord Himself is our Promised Land and the NEW JERUSALEM is a spiritual kingdom that we are to also possess.

We are to possess BOTH HEAVEN AND EARTH. There ARE NO BOUNDARIES FOR
ISRAEL. We own it ALL and need to take it ALL back from the lowest
earthly level to the highest spiritual level.

The difference between the lowest level revelation of this truth and
the highest level is that the lowest level REFLECTS THE HIGHEST LEVEL.
What happens on the earthly level, how we pray for and respond to the truth to pray for and protect the earthly Israel, reflects what we should be doing for Israel on the HIGHEST level. Ultimately our goal should be to see the NEW JERUSALEM which is the Kingdom of Heaven come to earth. Then we will truly have dispossessed both earthly nations and spiritual nations and reclaimed the WHOLE LAND AND KINGDOM AND INHERITANCE THAT BELONGS TO ISRAEL.

We have got to begin to see outside of the box if we are ever going to
truly possess the promises of God. Jerusalem is more than a city in the
Middle East that is being fought over with the Arabs. It is also a larger nation that fills the earth and is a SPIRITUAL CITY - a city of LIVING STONES that cover the earth and are not in just one little geographic region. This spiritual city is ALSO being fought over by spiritual forces. Believe me, the battle at this higher level will determine what happens at the lower level. Right now the battle is that the devil wants to keep Israel divided. He does not want Ephraim to wake up and find out who she is and reunite with Judah. He wants to keep Ephraim lost in the nations and thinking that she is a "gentile."

Think of this: What if America woke up and realized that a great part
of her population is truly Israel? America probably houses the largest
representation of the "lost" tribes of Israel who are genetic descendants as well as the engrafted gentiles who are Israel by the grace of the promise. What would the effect be on the geographic region of Israel and Judah if America realized this? Wouldn't it be to the benefit of the land of Israel if America began to see herself as more than just a supporter and more of a sister - a member of the family? Who fights harder - a drafted soldier or a brother?

We'll go into some of these issues in more depth later, including the
issue of prophecy and prophets, but this is enough for tonight. Blessings.

Ezekiel 36:
7 Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I swear
with uplifted hand that the nations around you will also suffer scorn. 8 "'But
you, O mountains of Israel, will produce branches and fruit for my
people Israel, for they will soon come home.
9 I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown,
10 and I will multiply the number of people upon you, even the whole house of Israel. The towns will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt.
11 I will increase the number of
men and animals upon you, and they will be fruitful and become numerous. I will settle people on you as in the past and will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD. 12 I will cause people, my people Israel, to walk upon you. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance; you will never again deprive them of their children.



"The Genetic Bonds Between Kurds and Jews"

by Kevin Alan Brook

Kurds are the Closest Relatives of Jews

In 2001, a team of Israeli, German, and Indian scientists discovered that the majority of Jews around the world are closely related to the Kurdish people -- more closely than they are to the Semitic-speaking Arabs or any other population that was tested. The researchers sampled a total of 526 Y-chromosomes from 6 populations (Kurdish Jews, Kurdish Muslims, Palestinian Arabs, Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazic Jews, and Bedouin from southern Israel) and added extra data on 1321 persons from 12 populations (including Russians, Belarusians, Poles, Berbers, Portuguese, Spaniards, Arabs, Armenians, and Anatolian Turks). Most of the 95 Kurdish Muslim test subjects came from northern Iraq. Ashkenazic Jews have ancestors who lived in central and eastern Europe, while Sephardic Jews have ancestors from southwestern Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East. The Kurdish Jews and Sephardic Jews were found to be very close to each other. Both of these Jewish populations differed somewhat from Ashkenazic Jews, who mixed with European peoples during their diaspora. The researchers suggested that the approximately 12.7 percent of Ashkenazic Jews who have the Eu 19 chromosomes -- which are found among between 54 and 60 percent of Eastern European Christians -- descend paternally from eastern Europeans (such as Slavs) or Khazars. But the majority of Ashkenazic Jews, who possess Eu 9 and other chromosomes, descend paternally from Judeans who lived in Israel two thousand years ago. In the article in the November 2001 issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics, Ariella Oppenheim of the Hebrew University of Israel wrote that this new study revealed that Jews have a closer genetic relationship to populations in the northern Mediterranean (Kurds, Anatolian Turks, and Armenians) than to populations in the southern Mediterranean (Arabs and Bedouins).

A previous study by Ariella Oppenheim and her colleagues, published in Human Genetics in December 2000, showed that about 70 percent of Jewish paternal ancestries and about 82 percent of Palestinian Arabs share the same chromosomal pool. The geneticists asserted that this might support the claim that Palestinian Arabs descend in part from Judeans who converted to Islam. With their closer relationship to Jews, the Palestinian Arabs are distinctive from other Arab groups, such as Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis, and Iraqis, who have less of a connection to Jews.

A study by Michael Hammer et al., published in PNAS in June 2000, had identified a genetic connection between Arabs (especially Syrians and Palestinians) and Jews, but had not tested Kurds, so it was less complete.

Many Kurds have the "Jewish" Cohen Modal Haplotype

In the 1990s, a team of scientists (including the geneticist Michael Hammer, the nephrologist Karl Skorecki, and their colleagues in England) discovered the existence of a haplotype which they termed the "Cohen modal haplotype" (abbreviated as CMH). Cohen is the Hebrew word for "priest", and designates descendants of Judean priests from two thousand years ago. Initial research indicated that while only about 3 percent of general Jews have this haplotype, 45 percent of Ashkenazic Cohens have it, while 56 percent of Sephardic Cohens have it. David Goldstein, an evolutionary geneticist at Oxford University, said: "It looks like this chromosomal type was a constituent of the ancestral Hebrew population." Some Jewish rabbis used the Cohen study to argue that all Cohens with the CMH had descended from Aaron, a High Priest who lived about 3500 years ago, as the Torah claimed. Shortly after, it was determined that 53 percent of the Buba clan of the Lemba people of southern Africa have the CMH, compared to 9 percent of non-Buba Lembas. The Lembas claim descent from ancient Israelites, and they follow certain Jewish practices such as circumcision and refraining from eating pork, and for many geneticists and historians the genetic evidence seemed to verify their claim.

However, it soon became apparent that the CMH is not specific to Jews or descendants of Jews. In a 1998 article in Science News, Dr. Skorecki indicated (in an interview) that some non-Jews also possess the Cohen markers, and that the markers are therefore not "unique or special". The CMH is very common among Iraqi Kurds, according to a 1999 study by C. Brinkmann et al. And in her 2001 article, Oppenheim wrote: "The dominant haplotype of the Muslim Kurds (haplotype 114) was only one microsatellite-mutation step apart from the CMH..." (Oppenheim 2001, page 1100). Furthermore, the CMH is also found among some Armenians, according to Dr. Levon Yepiskoposyan (Head of the Institute of Man in Yerevan, Armenia), who has studied genetics for many years. Dr. Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin wrote: "The suggestion that the 'Cohen modal haplotype' is a signature haplotype for the ancient Hebrew population is also not supported by data from other populations." (Zoossmann-Diskin 2000, page 156).

In short, the CMH is a genetic marker from the northern Middle East which is not unique to Jews. However, its existence among many Kurds and Armenians, as well as some Italians and Hungarians, would seem to support the overall contention that Kurds and Armenians are the close relatives of modern Jews and that the majority of today's Jews have paternal ancestry from the northeastern Mediterranean region.

The Jewish Kingdom of Adiabene in Ancient Kurdistan

In ancient times, the royal house of Adiabene and some of the common people of Adiabene converted to Judaism. The capital city of Adiabene was Arbela (known today by Arabs as Irbil and by Kurds as Hawler). King Izates became closely attached to his new faith, and sent his sons to study Hebrew and Jewish customs in Jerusalem. His successor to the throne was his brother Monobazos II, who also adopted Judaism. In her 2001 study, Oppenheim references the kingdom of Adiabene, but suggests that while Adiabene's conversion to Judaism "resulted in the assimilation of non-Jews into the community... This recorded conversion does not appear to have had a considerable effect on the Y chromosome pool of the Kurdish Jews." (Oppenheim 2001, page 1103). Some of the Jewish Adiabenians may have eventually converted to Christianity.

Conclusions

Research has just begun into the ancient ties between Kurds and Jews. It would be interesting to see if the various Jewish groups have as strong a family tie to Kurds in the maternal lineages as they do in the paternal lineages. Preliminary studies indicate that Jewish populations in eastern Europe and Yemen have maternal origins that contain much more non-Israelite ancestry than their paternal origins. Despite this admixture with other groups, the Jewish Judean people ultimately began their existence in an area within or nearby Kurdistan, prior to migrating southwest to Israel. This exciting research showing that Kurds and Jews may have shared common fathers several millennia ago should, hopefully, encourage both Kurds and Jews to explore each others' cultures and to maintain the friendship that Kurds and Jews enjoyed in northern Iraq in recent times (as chronicled in Michael Rubin's recent article "The Other Iraq"). As Rubin indicates, the Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani once visited Israel and met with Israeli government officials. Rubin refers to the Iraqi Kurds' "special affinity for Israel" and writes that "In the safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Jews and Israel are remembered fondly, if increasingly vaguely." Let us hope that this relationship can be renewed and strengthened.

Bibliography:

Brinkmann, C., et al. "Human Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in a Kurdish population sample." International Journal of Legal Medicine 112 (1999): 181-183.

Brook, Kevin A. The Jews of Khazaria. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1999.

Hammer, Michael F., et al. "Y Chromosomes of Jewish Priests." Nature 385 (January 2, 1997): 32.

Hammer, Michael F., et al. "Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish Populations Share a Common Pool of Y-chromosome Biallelic Haplotypes." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS) 97:12 (June 6, 2000): 6769-6774.

Oppenheim, Ariella, et al. "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews." Human Genetics 107(6) (December 2000): 630-641.

Oppenheim, Ariella, et al. "The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East." The American Journal of Human Genetics 69:5 (November 2001): 1095-1112.

Rubin, Michael. "The Other Iraq." Jerusalem Report (December 31, 2001).

Siegel, Judy. "Genetic evidence links Jews to their ancient tribe." Jerusalem Post (November 20, 2001).

Thomas, Mark G., et al. "Y Chromosomes Traveling South: the Cohen Modal Haplotype and the Origins of the Lemba -- the 'Black Jews of Southern Africa'." American Journal of Human Genetics 66:2 (February 2000): 674-686.

Traubman, Tamara. "Study finds close genetic connection between Jews, Kurds." Ha'aretz (November 21, 2001).

Travis, J. "The Priests' Chromosome? DNA analysis supports the biblical story of the Jewish priesthood." Science News 154:14 (October 3, 1998): 218.

Zoossmann-Diskin, Avshalom. "Are today's Jewish priests descended from the old ones?" HOMO: Journal of Comparative Human Biology 51:2-3 (2000): 156-162.