Dawn

Dawn

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Reader Ana has kindly responded to my query about the Spanish genetic make-up by citing a recent American Journal of Human genetics study which found that “20% of Spanish and Portuguese men have Sephardic Jewish ancestry and 11% have DNA which reflects Moorish ancestors”. These are treacherous waters so I’ll just quote this sentence from a Wikipedia article which refers to this study:– “The Sephardic result is in contradiction to or not replicated in all the body of genetic studies done in Iberia and conflicts with mainstream historiography.”

Coincidentally, I’ve been meaning to refer to this El País article on Spanish attitudes towards Israel, which opens with this paragraph:- It’s five centuries since the Jews were expelled from Spain but, at times, it seems there still circulates in Spain the ghost of the Jews, not in Gerona’s streets or in Toledo’s synagogues, but in the soul of some Spaniards in whom there persists – buried and shameful – the ancient anti-Semitic prejudice.

Even more coincidentally, in his book "The Disinherited", Henry Kamen makes the point that, in 2006, there were only 20,000 Jews in Spain. Which compares with 4.7 million in Israel, 5.6 million in the USA and 600,000 in next-door France.

I think I’ll just leave it at that for today. And wait for the flak from the troll who trawls the web by the hour to see whether any imbecile is having the temerity to say or imply that anyone in Spain has Arab blood.

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