27 February 2001

A study by Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin, Ph.D., "Are today's Jewish priests descended from the old ones?", has recently been published in the German journal "HOMO: Journal of Comparative Human Biology - Zeitschrift fuer vergleichende Biologie des Menschen" (volume 51, no. 2-3, 2000, pp. 156-162). Zoossmann's study casts doubt on the hypothesis expounded by Michael F. Hammer, Karl Skorecki, and their colleagues in their January 2, 1997 paper in Nature volume 385 entitled "Y Chromosomes of Jewish Priests" and that of Karl Skorecki, David Goldstein, et al. in Nature volume 394 entitled "Origins of Old Testament Priests" as well as the related study with the Lemba tribe of South Africa (American Journal of Human Genetics volume 66) and Jewish populations around the world (PNAS volume 97 issue 12). These studies asserted that Ashkenazic Cohens are strongly related to Sephardic Cohens and that today's Cohens are descended from common paternal ancestors. Zoossmann concludes that the existing studies of Jewish priests are problematic and arrive at conclusions that are not supported by all available data.

In Zoossmann-Diskin's summary, he writes that "Careful examination of their [Skorecki's and Thomas's] works reveals many faults that lead to the inevitable conclusion that their claim [that most Cohenim share a common origin] has not been proven. The faults are: the definition of the studied communities, significant differences between three samples of Jewish priests, failure to use enough suitable markers to construct the Unique-Event-polymorphisms haplotypes, problematic method of calculating coalescence time and underestimating the mutation rate of Y chromosome microsatellites. 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." (p. 156)

Specifically, Zoossmann explains that:

• The studies of the Cohens merge together the Sephardic populations even though they are too diverse to be considered one unit. Even the North African Jewish communities have genetic differences, as Batsheva Bonne-Tamir et al. noted in a study in 1978 that is cited in Zoossmann's paper.
• The SRY4064, SRY 465, Tat, and sY81 polymorphisms were useless for the purposes of the studies.
• Some useful markers were not used in the studies that should have been included.
• The Cohen modal haplotype is the most common haplotype among
  • Southern and Central Italians*¹
  • Hungarians*²
  • and Iraqi Kurds*³
    
  and is also found among many
  
  • Armenians*4
  • South African Lembas*5.
  
  This calls into question the notion that the haplotype was a marker for the ancient Hebrew population.