title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: From then on, several of the new, wholly privately owned UK independent airlines and US supplemental carriers started regular air services to Tempelhof from the UK, the US and West Germany. These airlines initially carried members of the UK and US armed forces stationed in Berlin and their dependants as well as essential raw materials, finished goods manufactured in West Berlin and refugees from East Germany and Eastern Europe, who were still able to freely enter the city prior to the construction of the infamous Berlin Wall. This operation was also known as the "Little Berlin Airlift". One of these airlines, UK independent Dan-Air Services would subsequently play an important role in developing commercial air services from Tegel for a quarter century.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: During the early-to-mid-1950s, BEA leased in aircraft that were bigger than its Tempelhof-based fleet of DC-3/Pionair, Viking and Elizabethan piston-engined airliners from other operators to boost capacity, following a steady increase in the airline's passenger loads. (This included an ex-Transair Vickers Viscount 700 belonging to its newly formed independent rival British United Airways, which was damaged beyond repair on 30 October 1961 at Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport at the end of a passenger flight that had originated at Tempelhof.)


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: By 1954, a year that saw 671,555 passengers pass through the airport, Tempelhof had established itself as the third-busiest airport in Europe. From 6 June of that year, Pan Am. began re-equipping its Tempelhof-based fleet with larger, pressurised Douglas DC-6B propliners. Compared with the DC-4, the new type had 16 additional seats.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: In 1958, BEA began replacing its piston airliners with Vickers Viscount 701 turboprop aircraft, in a high-density 63-seat single class seating arrangement. Up to ten new, state-of-the-art Vickers Viscount 802s, which featured a more spacious 66-seat single-class seating arrangement, soon replaced the older series 701 aircraft. The greater range and higher cruising speed of the 802 series enabled BEA to inaugurate a non-stop London Heathrow – Berlin Tempelhof service on 1 November 1965. this was the only non-stop international scheduled air service from Tempelhof


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: On 19 November 1959, a Pan Am DC-4 became the first aircraft to operate a scheduled all-cargo service from West Berlin. This service linked Tempelhof with Rhein-Main Airport once-nightly, all year round.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: On 2 January 1960, Air France, which had served Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Nuremberg and its main base at Paris Le Bourget/Orly during the previous decade with DC-4, Sud-Est Languedoc and Lockheed Constellation/Super Constellation piston-engined equipment, shifted its entire Berlin operation to Tegel because Tempelhof's runways were too short to permit the introduction of the Sud-Aviation Caravelle, their new short-haul jet, with a viable payload. (Air France's Caravelle IIIs lacked thrust reversers that would have permitted them to land safely on Tempelhof's short runways with a full commercial payload.)


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: On 1 March 1960, Pan Am launched its second dedicated scheduled all-cargo flight from Berlin, linking Tempelhof with Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: 1960 was also the year Pan Am withdrew its last DC-4 from Tempelhof. As a result, all of the airline's Berlin routes were exclusively served with DC-6Bs as of 27 June of that year. Although the DC-6B was a less advanced aircraft than either the Viscount or the Caravelle, it was more economical. By the early 1960s, Pan Am had a fleet of 15 DC-6Bs stationed at its Tempelhof base, which were configured in a higher-density seating arrangement than competing airlines' aircraft. (Pan Am's DC-6Bs were originally configured in a 76-seat, all-economy layout. The subsequent introduction of subsidies for all scheduled internal German services from/to West Berlin resulted in steady network growth as well as service frequency and passenger load increases. To cope with the sharply higher traffic volumes, aircraft seat densities were increased twice – initially to 84 and subsequently 87 seats.) This fleet eventually grew to 17 aircraft, which gave Pan Am the biggest aircraft fleet among the three main scheduled operators flying from West Berlin. It furthermore enabled it to compensate for the DC-6's lack of sophistication with higher frequencies than its competitors, thereby attaining a higher market share (60%) and capturing a greater share of the lucrative business travel market than its rivals. During that period, Pan Am moreover achieved an ultra short-haul load factor of 70% on its eight scheduled internal routes from Berlin, making the airline's Berlin routes the most profitable in its worldwide scheduled network.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Following the completion of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961, the West German government introduced a route-specific subsidy of up to 20% for all internal German scheduled air services from and to West Berlin to help the airlines cope with the resulting falloff in traffic and maintain an economically viable operation on these lifeline routes. These came into effect on 1 March 1962 for all tickets sold in Germany, including Berlin. (To qualify for the subsidised rate under this system, the passenger was required to purchase a round-trip ticket for a scheduled internal German flight from/to West Berlin in Germany. Once he/she had checked-in at the airport, the airline collected a coupon attached to his/her ticket, which was subsequently handed in to the relevant German authorities for reimbursement.)


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: By the early 1960s, a number of UK independents and US supplementals began operating regular charter flights from Tempelhof. These carried both inbound tourists from the US, the UK and other countries as well as local outbound tourists to the emerging holiday resorts in the Mediterranean. London Gatwick-based UK independent Overseas Aviation (CI) was among the first airlines the Allied Air Attachés in Bonn licensed to operate a series of regular charter flights from West Berlin. It used Vikings and Argonauts on these services, which operated from Tempelhof under contract to the Berlin Senate and the city's Technical University as well as Berliner Flugring, a local package tour operator that began as a consortium of 70 West Berlin travel agents arranging IT flights to holiday resorts in Europe.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: By 1964, BEA operated up to 20,000 flights each year from and to Berlin. These represented approximately half of the airline's total yearly flights to/from Germany and generated profits of £1 million per year. 1964 was also the year US supplemental Saturn Airways began operating a comprehensive inclusive tour (IT) charter flight programme from Tempelhof under contract to local package holiday consolidator Flug-Union Berlin, using Douglas DC-6A/Cs and DC-7Cs. On 2 December of that year, a Boeing 727-100 became the first jet aircraft to land at Tempelhof. Boeing had leased the aircraft to Pan Am for a special flight from Frankfurt to Berlin to demonstrate to the airline the 727's ability to operate from Tempelhof's short runways. Pan Am indicated its intention to place an order for six 727s for its Berlin operation, as a result of the aircraft using only half the runway during landing.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: 26 October 1965 marked British Aircraft Corporation's new One-Eleven jet's first arrival at Tempelhof when a British United 200 series operating a trooping flight under contract to the UK Ministry of Defence diverted from Gatow.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: 22 January 1966 marked the first appearance of a British trijet at Tempelhof when Hawker Siddeley flew in its HS 121 Trident 1E demonstrator aircraft for evaluation by BEA. A week later, on 29 January, BEA began evaluating the BAC One-Eleven's suitability for its Berlin operations, with the start of a series of test flights conducted on its behalf by BAC's 475 series demonstrator. This included a number of takeoffs and landings at Tempelhof to test the aircraft's short-field performance.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: On 18 March 1966, Pan Am became the first airline to commence regular, year-round jet operations from Tempelhof with the first examples of a brand-new fleet of an initial eight Boeing 727-100 series, one of the first jet aircraft with a short-field capability. These aircraft were configured in a single class featuring 128 economy seats.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Pan Am's move put BEA at a considerable competitive disadvantage, especially on the busy Berlin–Frankfurt route where the former out-competed the latter with both modern jet planes as well as a higher flight frequency. BEA responded to Pan Am's competitive threat by increasing the Berlin-based fleet to 13 Viscounts by winter 1966/7 to enable it to offer higher frequencies. This entailed re-configuring aircraft cabins in a lower-density seating arrangement, as a result of which the refurbished cabins featured only 53, Comet-type first-class seats in a four-abreast layout instead of 66, five-abreast economy seats. In addition, BEA sought to differentiate itself from its main competitor by providing a superior in-flight catering standard. (BEA's "Silver Star" service included complimentary hot meals on all flights whereas Pan Am merely offered free on-board snacks. Sections of the local press dubbed the contrasting strategies of the two main protagonists plying the internal German routes from Berlin – estimated to be worth £15–20 million in annual revenues – the "Dinner oder Düsen?" (Dinner or Jet?) battle.) Henceforth, the airline marketed these services as "Super Silver Star".


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: The introduction of Pan Am's 727s to the Berlin market represented a major step change because of the aircraft's ability to carry more passengers than any other contemporary aircraft type used by scheduled carriers in the short-haul Berlin market, and its ability to take off from and land on Tempelhof's short runways with a full commercial payload as only light fuel loads were required on the short internal German services. Compared with BEA, Pan Am's 727s carried 20% more passengers than the British carrier's Comet 4Bs and up to times as many passengers as the latter's Viscounts.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Within two years of Pan Am's introduction of jet equipment on the bulk of its internal German services from/to West Berlin, its market share rose from 58% to 68%. Despite the huge increase in capacity over the DC-6B (128 vs. 87 seats), load factors dropped during the first year of operations only. (Pan Am's second year of jet operations from Tempelhof saw load factors steadying while the third saw a slight increase.) The lower seat density in BEA's re-configured Viscounts combined with higher flight frequencies, superior catering and increased promotion proved insufficient to counter the appeal of Pan Am's new jets, which were laid out in a comparatively tight, pitch seating configuration. This resulted in BEA's market share declining from 38% at the beginning of this period to 27% at its end. On the other hand, BEA's reduced capacity in the domestic air travel market between West Berlin and West Germany enabled it to attain higher load factors than its competitors.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: From August 1968, BEA supplemented its Tempelhof-based Viscount fleet with de Havilland Comet 4B series jetliners. Although these aircraft could operate from Tempelhof's short runways with a restricted payload, they were not suited to the airline's ultra short-haul operation from Berlin (average stage length: ) given the high fuel consumption of the Comet, especially when operating at the mandatory altitude inside the Allied air corridors. This measure was therefore only a stopgap until most of BEA's Berlin fleet was equipped with 97-seat, single-class BAC One-Eleven 500s. BEA's re-equipment of its Berlin fleet with brand-new One-Eleven 500 jets was central to the airline's competitive strategy to regain ground lost to Pan Am's 727s. The new One-Eleven 500, which BEA called the "Super One-Eleven", operated its first scheduled service from Berlin on 1 September 1968. It began replacing the airline's Berlin-based Viscounts from 17 November 1968.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: 1968 was also the year all non-scheduled services, i.e. primarily the rapidly growing number of inclusive tour charter flights, were concentrated at Tegel to alleviate increasing congestion at Tempelhof and to make better use of Tegel, which was underutilised at the time.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Air France, West Berlin's third scheduled carrier, which had suffered a continuous traffic decline ever since the transfer of Berlin operations to more distant Tegel at the beginning of 1960 due to Tempelhof's operational limitations that made it unsuitable for its Caravelles, was worst affected by the equipment changes at the latter airport during the mid-to-late 1960s. Over this period, the French airline's market share halved from 9% to less than 5% despite having withdrawn from Tegel–Düsseldorf in summer 1964 and concentrated its limited resources on Tegel–Frankfurt and Tegel–Munich to maximise the competitive impact on the latter two routes. To reverse growing losses on its Berlin routes resulting from load factors as low as 30%, Air France decided to withdraw from the internal German market entirely and instead enter into a joint venture with BEA. This arrangement entailed the latter taking over the former's two remaining German domestic routes to Frankfurt and Munich and operating these with its own aircraft and flightdeck crews from Tempelhof. It also entailed repainting the fins of the BEA One-Eleven 500s in a neutral, dark-blue scheme featuring "Super One-Eleven" titles instead of BEA's "Speedjack" motif. The Air France-BEA joint venture became operational in spring 1969 and terminated in autumn 1972.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Commercial air traffic from/to Berlin Tempelhof peaked in 1971 at just above million passengers (out of a total of 6.12 million passengers for all West Berlin airports during that year). This represented more than 90% of West Berlin's commercial air traffic and made its iconic city centre airport Germany's second-largest. With million passengers, Pan Am accounted for the bulk of this traffic while almost all of the remaining 2 million accrued to BEA. 1971 was also the year the latter's last Berlin-based Viscount departed the city.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: East Germany's relaxation of border controls affecting all surface transport modes between West Berlin and West Germany across its territory from 1972 onwards resulted in a decline of scheduled internal German air traffic from/to West Berlin. This was further compounded by the economic downturn in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. The resulting fare increases that were intended to recover the airlines' higher operating costs caused by steeply rising jet fuel prices led to a further drop in demand. This in turn resulted in a major contraction of Pan Am's and BEA's/British Airways's internal German operations, necessitating a reduction in both airlines' Berlin-based fleets and workforces in an attempt to contain growing losses these once profitable routes generated by the mid-1970s.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: On 1 September 1975, Pan Am and British Airways moved their entire Berlin operation to the newly built terminal at Tegel Airport. Following Pan Am's and British Airways's move to Tegel, commercial operations at Tempelhof ceased, resulting in exclusive use by the US military.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: From 1978, Pan Am relocated its 727 flightdeck crew training from Miami International Airport to Berlin Tempelhof. This involved [re-]training all pilots and flight engineers who crewed the flight decks of the airline's 727 fleet, which at the time operated out of Miami to the Caribbean and Central America, as well as on the IGS routes from Berlin and intra-European feeder routes serving Frankfurt and Heathrow. Another airline that used Tempelhof to train its flightdeck crews was US supplemental Modern Air Transport. While all Modern Air commercial flights from and to Berlin principally used Tegel to take advantage of that airport's longer runways and the fact that it was not in a built-up area making for easier approaches, the airline conducted its training for Berlin-based flight deck crews at Tempelhof between 1968 and 1974. The latter was also the US supplemental's (and other Tegel-based operators') designated diversion airport in bad weather in the Tegel area.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Commercial operations restarted in 1981, when US-incorporated regional airline start-up Tempelhof Airways began a corporate shuttle between Tempelhof and Paderborn under contract to former German computer manufacturer Nixdorf whose main factories and offices were located in Paderborn and West Berlin respectively. Tempelhof Airways's initial equipment comprised Cessna Conquest and Piper Navajo executive aircraft. In 1985, the airline converted the Tempelhof–Paderborn corporate shuttle into a full-fledged scheduled service using a Nord 262 commuter turboprop.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: The end of the Cold War and German reunification opened Tempelhof for non-allied air traffic on 3 October 1990. US President Bill Clinton christened a new Boeing C-17 Globemaster III transport plane (serial number 96-0006) the "Spirit of Berlin" at Tempelhof on 12 May 1998, to commemorate the 49th anniversary of the end of the Berlin Blockade on 12 May 1949.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Towards the end, commercial use was mostly in the form of small commuter aircraft flying regionally. Plans had been in place to shut down Tempelhof and Tegel, and make the new Brandenburg Airport the sole commercial airport for Berlin.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: In 1996, the mayor of Berlin Eberhard Diepgen, Brandenburg minister-president Manfred Stolpe and the federal transport minister Wissmann established the so-called "Consensus resolution". The entire planning aimed at concentrating domestic and international air traffic in Berlin and Brandenburg at one airport: Berlin-Schönefeld International Airport.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: To ensure investment protection as well as to fend off opposition to Schönefeld International's expansion, it was mandated that first Tempelhof and then Tegel must be closed. On 4 December 2007, the Federal Administrative Court of Germany ("Bundesverwaltungsgericht") made the final decision as court of last instance to close Tempelhof Airport.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: An initiative for a nonbinding referendum against the closure was held and failed, after the initial number of signatures required were collected. According to the constitution of the state of Berlin, the number of supportive signatures that were required to be collected within four months in order to compel a referendum amounts to 7% of the population of Berlin entitled to vote – 169,784. After the four-month period for the collection of signatures 203,408 signatures had been lodged.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: The referendum was held on 27 April 2008. All eligible voters received an information brochure along with their notification. A majority of the votes was necessary to support the referendum, but this had to be at least one quarter of all eligible Berlin voters.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: The initiative for keeping Tempelhof open was supported by the "Interessengemeinschaft City-Airport Tempelhof" (ICAT) along with a couple of opposition parties in the Berlin city parliament: the Christian Democratic Union and the Free Democratic Party citing primarily the need for an inner-city airport for business and private flyers as well as nostalgic reasons. Representatives from the ICAT suggested keeping the airport open up until Schönefeld Airport was to be completed in about 2012. The Berlin government insisted on the closure of the airport for legal, long-term economic, and environmental reasons, in particular to ensure the expansion of Schönefeld International. Environmental groups and the Green party supported them in this.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Plans for the future would include for example a Berlin airlift museum in the old terminal building, commercial space for innovative businesses, new housing and industrial areas, sports facilities, and parks. Legally the decision in favour of closure at the end of October 2008 was irrevocable and the referendum was nonbinding. A subsequent reopening would have faced high legal barriers; but some legal experts claimed there may be means to circumvent this.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: The referendum of 27 April 2008 failed. Although 60.2% of the votes cast were for keeping the airport open, this was by only 21.7% of the eligible voters; short of the 25% required. Support had been highest in western districts of Berlin (up to 80%), but opposition (only 30% approval) and disinterest was prevalent in the eastern districts. Voter turnout of 36% was low. Air traffic at Tempelhof Airport ceased for good on 30 October and the official licence expired in mid-December.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: A "Goodbye Tempelhof" gala was held at Tempelhof airport for eight hundred invited guests in the last hours of 30 October. Meanwhile, protesters against the closing held a candle vigil in front on the Platz der Lufbrücke. The last commercial flight was a Cirrus Airlines Dornier 328 that departed at 22:17 towards Mannheim. "Time to Say Goodbye" was sung to the spectators on the apron at the conclusion. At precisely four and a half minutes before midnight, the last two airplanes – a historical Junkers Ju 52 and an airlift "raisin bomber" Douglas DC-3 – took off in parallel, waved their wings, and flew off south-east to Schönefeld airport. The runway and air field lights were switched off at midnight.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Three Antonov An-2 airplanes flying under VFR were left stranded at the airport, as weather conditions prevented them from taking off on 30 October. They were allowed to take off on 24 November 2008, making them the last aircraft to take off from the airport.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: In August 2009, Berlin city officials announced that the Tempelhof outfields would be opened in May 2010 as a city park. The city planned to spend an estimated €60 million on developing the park from 2010 to 2017. On the weekend of 8/9 May 2010, the outfield was festively opened as Berlin's largest public park named "Tempelhofer Feld". More than 200,000 Berliners visited the park to enjoy its wide open spaces for recreation ranging from biking and skating to baseball and flying kites.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: The opening ceremonies were slightly marred by some protesters unhappy about the fence that closed off the park during the night.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Entrance is free with park hours being from 6/7/7.30 a.m., depending on the season, until sunset. The grounds are maintained by "Grün Berlin", a company that also looks after several other gated parks in Berlin. About 80% of the former airfield is an important habitat for several redlisted birds, plants and insects. Usage of the park is seasonally restricted to limit disturbance of Eurasian skylark breeding grounds.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: In 2013, the Senate of Berlin introduced a plan to open the outer zones of the Tempelhof fields for construction of apartment and commercial buildings, and a new Berlin Central and Regional Library. An area of was to remain a park, but was planned to be landscaped with a rain water reservoir, a 60-meter artificial boulder, groves and other new features. Landscaping was supposed to begin in 2013 and be completed in time for Germany's world horticultural exhibition IGA that was to be hosted in the park in 2017.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: In a 2014 Referendum, Berlin's citizens decided to preserve the entire space of the park and prohibit any kind of development by law, thus putting an end to both construction and landscaping plans.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Tempelhof has been used since its closing to host numerous fairs and events. The first major events included a fashion tradeshow in July and the Berlin Festival 2009 concert in August. Fairs were held in the hangar. In September 2010, Tempelhof hosted the Popkomm, the international world's music and entertainment business meeting place and was one of the most important locations of the first Berlin Music Week.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: The place also hosted sports events. The Berlin Marathon fair, the main event preparation to runners, was held at Tempelhof every September. The FIA Formula E Championship raced on the airport runways in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022 - with the 2020 edition hosting 6 races in a nine-day period to complete the 2019/20 season. The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters executives were also discussing with government officials about hosting a round at Tempelhof.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: When Eurovision came to Germany, the airport would have been the site of the contest if Berlin was chosen as the host city. Later, Düsseldorf was chosen.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: The defunct airport is intended to be known as "Berlin Creative District", similar to Meatpacking District, Manhattan or Brompton Design District in Brompton, London. For instance, the former US Army officers' hotel will be altered to be a digital innovation center for startups and creative businesses, while a new visitor center was due to open in 2019.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: In 2022, Tempelhof was used as the site for the festival Tempelhof Sounds, a three-day music event consisting of mainly alternative, indie and rock music. There were over 30,000 visitors on each day of the festival. Shortly after the festival concluded, it was confirmed that the event would return in 2023.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Most airlines moved to Tegel or Schönefeld in the years before Tempelhof closed down. When it was actually closed down in 2008 there were only scheduled flights from Brussels Airlines and Cirrus Airlines still operating from there.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: Berlin Tempelhof also was an important base for air taxi services with the following operators flying from/to there: AAF Aviona Air, Air Service Berlin (scheduled sightseeing flights using a historic "raisin bomber" Douglas DC-3), AIRSHIP Air Service, Bizair Fluggesellschaft, Business Air Charter, Heli Unionair, Jet Club Deutschland Chartermanagement, Private Wings, Rotorflug, TAG Aviation and Windrose Air.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: On 12 June 1897, in one of the earliest recorded aircraft accidents, Friedrich Hermann Wölfert and his mechanic Robert Knabe were killed when Wölfert's lighter than air craft "Deutschland" caught fire at 200 m (670 ft) and crashed at Tempelhof Field.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: On 29 April 1952, an Air France Douglas C-54A (registration F-BELI) operating a scheduled service from Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport to Berlin Tempelhof came under sustained attack from two Soviet MiG-15 fighters while passing through one of the Allied air corridors over East Germany. Although the attack had severely damaged the plane, necessitating the shutdown of engines number three and four, the pilot in command of the aircraft managed to carry out a safe emergency landing at Tempelhof Airport.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: A subsequent inspection of the aircraft's damage at Tempelhof revealed that it had been hit by 89 shots fired from the Soviet MiGs during the preceding air attack. There were no fatalities among the 17 occupants (six crew, 11 passengers) despite the severity of the attack. The Soviet military authorities defended this attack on an unarmed civilian aircraft by claiming the Air France plane was outside the air corridor at the time of attack.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: On 19 January 1953, a Silver City Airways Bristol 170 Freighter Mark 21 (registration: G-AICM) operating a non-scheduled cargo flight from West Berlin crash-landed near Tempelhof Airport as a result of fuel starvation when bad weather at the destination forced it to return to Berlin. Although the accident damaged the aircraft beyond repair, both pilots survived.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: In 1978, LOT Polish Airlines flight 165 was hijacked and forced to land at Tempelhof. The US military authorities who were in charge of Tempelhof during the Cold War era arrested the East German hijacker on arrival. Following the hijacker's arrest, the US authorities returned the aircraft, its crew and those passengers who wished to resume their journey to Poland.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: In 1981, a LOT Polish Airlines Antonov AN-24 operating an internal scheduled service from Katowice to Gdańsk was hijacked en route and forced to land at Tempelhof. Jerzy Dygas, the hijacker, was on military service while taking over the aircraft. He was armed with a grenade and a single-shot pistol. The US military authorities arrested the hijacker on arrival and handed him over to the local police. At that time, he was expected to be sentenced to a five-and-a-half years prison term under West German law. Following the hijacker's arrest, the US authorities released the aircraft, its crew and all 50 passengers to resume their flight to Gdańsk.


title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport

text: On 26 June 2010, a private Socata TB 10 Tobago had to perform an emergency landing on the now closed Tempelhof Airport due to engine failure. It was on a sightseeing flight and the pilot was looking for a free space to land safely. The aircraft was occupied by the pilot and three passengers and had taken off from Tegel Airport. Upon consultation with air traffic control in Schönefeld, it was agreed to land on a Tempelhof runway. No one was injured during the emergency landing as the visitors of the now Tempelhofer Park scurried aside to make room for the TB 10, which came to a halt after a very short distance. Four days later, the Socata TB 10 Tobago was transported – with wings removed – by lorry back to Tegel airport. The Senate of Berlin now intends to prohibit sightseeing flights over Berlin by single-engine planes for safety reasons. It has been reported that the pilot had forgotten to switch over to the second fuel tank.


title: Ductility

text: Ductility is a mechanical property commonly described as a material's amenability to drawing (e.g. into wire). In materials science, ductility is defined by the degree to which a material can sustain plastic deformation under tensile stress before failure. Ductility is an important consideration in engineering and manufacturing. It defines a material's suitability for certain manufacturing operations (such as cold working) and its capacity to absorb mechanical overload. Some metals that are generally described as ductile include gold and copper. However, not all metals experience ductile failure as some can be characterized with brittle failure like cast iron. Polymers generally can be viewed as ductile materials as they typically allow for plastic deformation.


title: Ductility

text: Malleability, a similar mechanical property, is characterized by a material's ability to deform plastically without failure under compressive stress. Historically, materials were considered malleable if they were amenable to forming by hammering or rolling. Lead is an example of a material which is relatively malleable but not ductile.


title: Ductility

text: Ductility is especially important in metalworking, as materials that crack, break or shatter under stress cannot be manipulated using metal-forming processes such as hammering, rolling, drawing or extruding. Malleable materials can be formed cold using stamping or pressing, whereas brittle materials may be cast or thermoformed.


title: Ductility

text: High degrees of ductility occur due to metallic bonds, which are found predominantly in metals; this leads to the common perception that metals are ductile in general. In metallic bonds valence shell electrons are delocalized and shared between many atoms. The delocalized electrons allow metal atoms to slide past one another without being subjected to strong repulsive forces that would cause other materials to shatter.


title: Ductility

text: The ductility of steel varies depending on the alloying constituents. Increasing the levels of carbon decreases ductility. Many plastics and amorphous solids, such as Play-Doh, are also malleable. The most ductile metal is platinum and the most malleable metal is gold. When highly stretched, such metals distort via formation, reorientation and migration of dislocations and crystal twins without noticeable hardening.


title: Ductility

text: The quantities commonly used to define ductility in a tension test are percent elongation (sometimes denoted as formula_1) and reduction of area (sometimes denoted as formula_2) at fracture. Fracture strain is the engineering strain at which a test specimen fractures during a uniaxial tensile test. Percent elongation, or engineering strain at fracture, can be written as:


title: Ductility

text: According to Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design "significant" denotes about 5.0 percent elongation.


title: Ductility

text: An important point concerning the value of the ductility (nominal strain at failure) in a tensile test is that it commonly exhibits a dependence on sample dimensions. This is unfortunate, since a universal parameter should exhibit no such dependence (and, indeed, there is no dependence for properties such as stiffness, yield stress and ultimate tensile strength). This occurs because the measured strain (displacement) at fracture commonly incorporates contributions from both the uniform deformation occurring up to the onset of necking and the subsequent deformation of the neck (during which there is little or no deformation in the rest of the sample). The significance of the contribution from neck development depends on the “aspect ratio” (length / diameter) of the gauge length, being greater when the ratio is low. This is a simple geometric effect, which has been clearly identified. There have been both experimental studies and theoretical explorations of the effect - mostly based on Finite Element Method (FEM) modelling. Nevertheless, it is not universally appreciated and, since the range of sample dimensions in common use is quite wide, it can lead to highly significant variations (by factors of up to 2 or 3) in ductility values obtained for the same material in different tests.


title: Ductility

text: A more meaningful representation of ductility would be obtained by identifying the strain at the onset of necking, which should be independent of sample dimensions. Unfortunately, this point is not easy to identify on a (nominal) stress-strain curve, because the peak (representing the onset of necking) is often relatively flat. Moreover, some (brittle) materials fracture before the onset of necking, such that there is no peak. In practice, for many purposes it is preferable to carry out a different kind of test, designed to evaluate the toughness (energy absorbed during fracture), rather than use ductility values obtained in tensile tests.


title: Ductility

text: In an absolute sense, “ductility” values are therefore virtually meaningless. The actual (true) strain in the neck at the point of fracture bears no direct relation to the raw number obtained from the nominal stress-strain curve - the true strain in the neck is often considerably higher. Also, the true stress at the point of fracture is usually higher than the apparent value according to the plot. The load often drops while the neck develops, but the sectional area in the neck is also dropping (more sharply), so the true stress there is rising. There is no simple way of estimating this value, since it depends on the geometry of the neck. While the true strain at fracture is a genuine indicator of “ductility”, it cannot readily be obtained from a conventional tensile test.


title: Ductility

text: The Reduction in Area (RA) is defined as the decrease in sectional area at the neck (usually obtained by measurement of the diameter at one or both of the fractured ends), divided by the original sectional area. It is sometimes stated that this is a more reliable indicator of the “ductility” than the elongation at failure (partly in recognition of the fact that the latter is dependent on the aspect ratio of the gauge length, although this dependence is far from being universally appreciated). There is something in this argument, but the RA is still some way from being a genuinely meaningful parameter. One objection is that it is not easy to measure accurately, particularly with samples that are not circular in section. Rather more fundamentally, it is affected by both the uniform plastic deformation that took place before necking and by the development of the neck. Furthermore, it is sensitive to exactly what happens in the latter stages of necking, when the true strain is often becoming very high and the behavior is of limited significance in terms of a meaningful definition of strength (or toughness). There has again been extensive study of this issue.


title: Ductility

text: Metals can undergo two different types of fractures: brittle fracture or ductile fracture. Failure propagation occurs faster in brittle materials due to the ability for ductile materials to undergo plastic deformation. Thus, ductile materials are able to sustain more stress due to their ability to absorb more energy prior to failure than brittle materials are. The plastic deformation results in the material following a modification of the Griffith equation, where the critical fracture stress increases due to the plastic work required to extend the crack adding to the work necessary to form the crack - work corresponding to the increase in surface energy that results from the formation of an addition crack surface. The plastic deformation of ductile metals is important as it can be a sign of the potential failure of the metal. Yet, the point at which the material exhibits a ductile behavior versus a brittle behavior is not only dependent on the material itself but also on the temperature at which the stress is being applied to the material. The temperature where the material changes from brittle to ductile or vice versa is crucial for the design of load-bearing metallic products. The minimum temperature at which the metal transitions from a brittle behavior to a ductile behavior, or from a ductile behavior to a brittle behavior, is known as the ductile-brittle transition temperature (DBTT). Below the DBTT, the material will not be able to plastically deform, and the crack propagation rate increases rapidly leading to the material undergoing brittle failure rapidly. Furthermore, DBTT is important since, once a material is cooled below the DBTT, it has a much greater tendency to shatter on impact instead of bending or deforming (low temperature embrittlement). Thus, the DBTT indicates the temperature at which, as temperature decreases, a material’s ability to deform in a ductile manner decreases and so the rate of crack propagation drastically increases. In other words, solids are very brittle at very low temperatures, and their toughness becomes much higher at elevated temperatures.


title: Ductility

text: For more general applications, it is preferred to have a lower DBTT to ensure the material has a wider ductility range. This ensures that sudden cracks are inhibited so that failures in the metal body are prevented. It has been determined that the more slip systems a material has, the wider the range of temperatures ductile behavior is exhibited at. This is due to the slip systems allowing for more motion of dislocations when a stress is applied to the material. Thus, in materials with a lower amount of slip systems, dislocations are often pinned by obstacles leading to strain hardening, which increases the materials strength which makes the material more brittle. For this reason, FCC structures are ductile over a wide range of temperatures, BCC structures are ductile only at high temperatures, and HCP structures are often brittle over wide ranges of temperatures. This leads to each of these structures having different performances as they approach failure (fatigue, overload, and stress cracking) under various temperatures, and shows the importance of the DBTT in selecting the correct material for a specific application. For example, zamak 3 exhibits good ductility at room temperature but shatters when impacted at sub-zero temperatures. DBTT is a very important consideration in selecting materials that are subjected to mechanical stresses. A similar phenomenon, the glass transition temperature, occurs with glasses and polymers, although the mechanism is different in these amorphous materials. The DBTT is also dependent on the size of the grains within the metal, as typically smaller grain size leads to an increase in tensile strength, resulting in an increase in ductility and decrease in the DBTT. This increase in tensile strength is due to the smaller grain sizes resulting in grain boundary hardening occurring within the material, where the dislocations require a larger stress to bypass the grain boundaries and continue to propagate throughout the material. It has been shown that by continuing to refine ferrite grains to reduce their size, from 40 microns down to 1.3 microns, that it is possible to eliminate the DBTT entirely so that a brittle fracture never occurs in ferritic steel (as the DBTT required would be below absolute zero).


title: Ductility

text: In some materials, the transition is sharper than others and typically requires a temperature-sensitive deformation mechanism. For example, in materials with a body-centered cubic (bcc) lattice the DBTT is readily apparent, as the motion of screw dislocations is very temperature sensitive because the rearrangement of the dislocation core prior to slip requires thermal activation. This can be problematic for steels with a high ferrite content. This famously resulted in serious hull cracking in Liberty ships in colder waters during World War II, causing many sinkings. DBTT can also be influenced by external factors such as neutron radiation, which leads to an increase in internal lattice defects and a corresponding decrease in ductility and increase in DBTT.


title: Ductility

text: The most accurate method of measuring the DBTT of a material is by fracture testing. Typically four-point bend testing at a range of temperatures is performed on pre-cracked bars of polished material. Two fracture tests are typically utilized to determine the DBTT of specific metals: the Charpy V-Notch test and the Izod test. The Charpy V-notch test determines the impact energy absorption ability or toughness of the specimen by measuring the potential energy difference resulting from the collision between a mass on a free-falling pendulum and the machined V-shaped notch in the sample, resulting in the pendulum breaking through the sample. The DBTT is determined by repeating this test over a variety of temperatures and noting when the resulting fracture changes to a brittle behavior which occurs when the absorbed energy is dramatically decreased. The Izod test is essentially the same as the Charpy test, with the only differentiating factor being the placement of the sample; In the former the sample is placed vertically, while in the latter the sample is placed horizontally with respect to the bottom of the base.


title: Ductility

text: For experiments conducted at higher temperatures, dislocation activity increases. At a certain temperature, dislocations shield the crack tip to such an extent that the applied deformation rate is not sufficient for the stress intensity at the crack-tip to reach the critical value for fracture (K). The temperature at which this occurs is the ductile–brittle transition temperature. If experiments are performed at a higher strain rate, more dislocation shielding is required to prevent brittle fracture, and the transition temperature is raised.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Genetic studies on Jews are part of the population genetics discipline and are used to analyze the chronology of Jewish migration accompanied by research in other fields, such as history, linguistics, archaeology, and paleontology. These studies investigate the origins of various Jewish ethnic divisions. In particular, they examine whether there is a common genetic heritage among them.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Studies of autosomal DNA, which look at the entire DNA mixture, show that Jewish populations have tended to form relatively closely related groups in independent communities with most in a community sharing significant ancestry. For populations of the Jewish diaspora, the genetic composition of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jewish populations show significant amounts of shared Middle Eastern ancestry. According to geneticist Doron Behar and colleagues (2010), this is "consistent with a historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelites of the Levant" and "the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World". Jews living in the North African, Italian, and Iberian regions show variable frequencies of admixture with the historical non-Jewish population along the maternal lines. In the case of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews (in particular Moroccan Jews), who are closely related, the source of non-Jewish admixture is mainly southern European. Behar and colleagues have remarked on an especially close relationship between Ashkenazi Jews and modern Italians. Some studies show that the Bene Israel and Cochin Jews of India, and the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, while very closely resembling the local populations of their native countries, may have some ancient Jewish descent.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Recent studies have been conducted on a large number of genes, homologous chromosomes or autosomes (all chromosomes except chromosomes X and Y). A 2009 study was able to genetically identify individuals with full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. In August 2012, Dr. Harry Ostrer in his book "Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People," summarized his and other work in genetics of the last 20 years, and concluded that all major Jewish groups share a common Middle Eastern origin. Ostrer also refuted the Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry. Citing autosomal DNA studies, Nicholas Wade estimates that "Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews have roughly 30 percent European ancestry, with most of the rest from the Middle East." He further noticed that "The two communities seem very similar to each other genetically, which is unexpected because they have been separated for so long." Concerning this relationship he points to Atzmon's conclusions that "the shared genetic elements suggest that members of any Jewish community are related to one another as closely as are fourth or fifth cousins in a large population, which is about 10 times higher than the relationship between two people chosen at random off the streets of New York City". Concerning North African Jews, autosomal genetic analysis in 2012 revealed that North African Jews are genetically close to European Jews. This finding "shows that North African Jews date to biblical-era Israel, and are not largely the descendants of natives who converted to Judaism,"


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Y DNA studies examine various paternal lineages of modern Jewish populations. Such studies tend to imply a small number of founders in an old population whose members parted and followed different migration paths. In most Jewish populations, these male line ancestors appear to have been mainly Middle Eastern. For example, Ashkenazi Jews share more common paternal lineages with other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than with non-Jewish populations in areas where Jews lived in Eastern Europe, Germany and the Rhine Valley. This is consistent with Jewish traditions in placing most Jewish paternal origins in the region of the Middle East.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A study conducted in 2013 by Behar et al. found no evidence of a Khazar origin for Ashkenazi Jews and suggested that "Ashkenazi Jews share the greatest genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations, and among non-Jewish populations, with groups from Europe and the Middle East. No particular similarity of Ashkenazi Jews with populations from the Caucasus is evident, particularly with the populations that most closely represent the Khazar region. In this view, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews, together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate, corroborates earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region."


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In 2016, Eran Elhaik, together with Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler and Mehdi Pirooznia, advanced the view that the first Ashkenazi populations to speak the Yiddish language came from areas near four villages in Eastern Anatolia along the Silk Road whose names derived from the word "Ashkenaz", arguing that Iranian, Greek, Turkish, and Slav populations converted on that travel route before moving to Khazaria, where a small-scale conversion took place. The study was dismissed by Sergio DellaPergola as a "falsification", noting it failed to include Jewish groups such as the Italkim and Sephardic Jews, to whom Ashkenazi Jews are closely related genetically. Shaul Stampfer, a professor of Soviet and East European Jewry at the Hebrew University, called Elhaik's research "basically nonsense". Elhaik replied that the DNA of non-Ashkenazic Jews would not affect the origin of DNA hypothesized for the former. Prof. Dovid Katz, founder of Vilnius University's Yiddish Institute criticized the study's linguistic analysis. "The authors have melded accurate but contextually meaningless genetic correlations with laughable linguistic theories that now proliferate, sadly, as a consequence of a much weakened Yiddish academic environment internationally ... there is not a single word or sound in Yiddish that comes from Iranian or Turkish". In joint study published in 2016 by Genome Biology and Evolution, Pavel Flegontov from Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic, A. A. Kharkevich Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Mark G. Thomas from Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, UK, Valentina Fedchenko from Saint Petersburg State University, and George Starostin from Russian State University for the Humanities, dismissed both the genetic and linguistic components of Elhaik et al. study arguing that "GPS is a provenancing tool suited to inferring the geographic region where a modern and recently unadmixed genome is most likely to arise, but is hardly suitable for admixed populations and for tracing ancestry up to 1000 years before present, as its authors have previously claimed. Moreover, all methods of historical linguistics concur that Yiddish is a Germanic language, with no reliable evidence for Slavic, Iranian, or Turkic substrata." The authors concluded:"In our view, Das and co-authors have attempted to fit together a marginal and unsupported interpretation of the linguistic data with a genetic provenancing approach, GPS, that is at best only suited to inferring the most likely geographic location of modern and relatively unadmixed genomes, and tells nothing of population history and origin."The authors, in a non peer-reviewed response, defended the methodological adequacy of their approach. In 2016 Elhaik having reviewed the literature searching for a 'Jüdische Typus' argued that there is no genomic hallmark for Jewishness. While he allows that in the future it is possible that a 'Jewish' marker may turn up, so far, in his view, Jewishness turns out to be socially defined (a socionome), determined by non-genetic factors. On 31 October 2016 a corrigendum to the initial GPS paper by Elhaik et al. 2014 was published in Nature Communications. The GPS tool, remained freely available on the lab website of Dr. Tatiana Tatarinova, but as of December 2016 the link is broken. In 2017, the same authors further supported a non-Levantine origin of Ashkenazi Jews claiming that "Overall, the combined results (of linguistics study and GPS tool) are in a strong agreement with the predictions of the Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis and rule out an ancient Levantine origin for AJs, which is predominant among modern-day Levantine populations (e.g., Bedouins and Palestinians)." Elhaik's and Das' work was among others, strongly criticized by Marion Aptroot from University of Düsseldorf, who in the study published by Genome Biology and Evolution claimed that "Das et al. create a narrative based on genetic, philological and historical research and state that the findings of the three disciplines support each other...Incomplete and unreliable data from times when people were not counted regardless of sex, age, religion or financial or social status on the one hand, and the dearth of linguistic evidence predating the 15th century on the other, leave much room for conjecture and speculation. Linguistic evidence, however, does not support the theory that Yiddish is a Slavic language, and textual sources belie the thesis that the name Ashkenaz was brought to Eastern Europe directly from a region in the Near East. Although the focus and methods of research may be different in the humanities and the sciences, scholars should try to account for all evidence and observations, regardless of the field of research. Seen from the standpoint of the humanities, certain aspects of the article by Das et al. fall short of established standards".


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2020 study on remains from Bronze Age southern Levantine (Canaanite) populations found evidence of large scale migration from the Zagros or Caucasus into the southern Levant by the Bronze Age and increasing over time (resulting in a Canaanite population descended from both those migrants and earlier Neolithic Levantine peoples). The results were found to be consistent with several Jewish groups (including Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, and Sephardic Moroccan Jews) and non-Jewish Arabic-speaking Levantine populations (such as Lebanese, Druze, Palestinians, and Syrians) deriving about half or more of their ancestry from populations related to those from the Bronze Age Levant and Chalcolithic Zagros. The study modeled the aforementioned groups as having ancestry from both ancient populations.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In August 2022, Elhaik published a major critique of the methodology of PCA which lies at the core of attempts by population geneticists to identify ethnogenesis. Instancing work on the Ashkenazi Jews, among several others. His re-analysis concludes that the outcomes are generated by cherrypicking the data to obtain a foregone conclusion of origins - a Middle Eastern link in the case of the Ashkenazi - and argues that the circular reasoning in the procedure lends itself to eliciting 'erroneous, contradictory, and absurd results.'


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Approximately 35% to 43% of Jewish men are in the paternal line known as haplogroup J and its sub-haplogroups. This haplogroup is particularly present in the Middle East and Southern Europe. 15% to 30% are in haplogroup E1b1b, (or E-M35) and its sub-haplogroups which is common in the Middle East, North Africa, and Southern Europe.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In 1992 G. Lucotte and F. David were the first genetic researchers to have documented a common paternal genetic heritage between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews. Another study published just a year later suggested the Middle Eastern origin of Jewish paternal lineages.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In 2000, M. Hammer, et al. conducted a study on 1,371 men and definitively established that part of the paternal gene pool of Jewish communities in Europe, North Africa and Middle East came from a common Middle East ancestral population. They suggested that most Jewish communities in the Diaspora remained relatively isolated and endogamous compared to non-Jewish neighbor populations.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Investigations made by Nebel et al. on the genetic relationships among Ashkenazi Jews, Kurdish and Sephardi (North Africa, Turkey, Iberian Peninsula, Iraq and Syria) indicate that Jews are more genetically similar to groups in the northern Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks and Armenians) than their Arab neighbors, and suggest that some of this difference might be due to migration and admixture from the Arabian peninsula during the last two millennia (into certain current Arabic-speaking populations). Considering the timing of this origin, the study found that "the common genetic Middle Eastern background (of Jewish populations) predates the ethnogenesis in the region and concludes that the Y chromosome pool of Jews is an integral part of the genetic landscape of Middle East.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Lucotte et al. 2003 study found that (Oriental, Sephardic, Ashkenazic Jews and Lebanese and Palestinians), "seem to be similar in their Y-haplotype patterns, both with regard to the haplotype distributions and the ancestral haplotype VIII frequencies." The authors stated in their findings that these results confirm similarities in the Y-haplotype frequencies of this Near-Eastern populations, sharing a common geographic origin."


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In a study of Israeli Jews from four different groups (Ashkenazi Jews, Kurdish Jews, North African Sephardi Jews, and Iraqi Jews) and Palestinian Muslim Arabs, more than 70% of the Jewish men and 82% of the Arab men whose DNA was studied had inherited their Y chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors, who lived in the region within the last few thousand years. "Our recent study of high-resolution microsatellite haplotypes demonstrated that a substantial portion of Y chromosomes of Jews (70%) and of Palestinian Muslim Arabs (82%) belonged to the same chromosome pool." All Jewish groups were found to be genetically closer to each other than to Palestinians and Muslim Kurds. Kurdish, North African Sephardi, and Iraqi Jews were found to be genetically indistinguishable while slightly but significantly differing from Ashkenazi Jews. In relation to the region of the Fertile Crescent, the same study noted; "In comparison with data available from other relevant populations in the region, Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to their Arab neighbors", which the authors suggested was due to migration and admixture from the Arabian Peninsula into certain current Arabic-speaking populations during the period of Islamic expansion.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The Y chromosome of most Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews contains mutations that are common among Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population, according to a study of haplotypes of the Y chromosome by Michael Hammer, Harry Ostrer and others, published in 2000. According to Hammer et al. this suggests that the paternal lineages of Ashkenazi Jews could be traced mostly to the Middle East.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In Ashkenazi (and Sephardi) Jews, the most common paternal lineages generally are E1b1b, J2, and J1, with others found at lesser rates.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Hammer et al. add that "Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors." In addition, the authors have found that the "Jewish cluster was interspersed with the Palestinian and Syrian populations, whereas the other Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations (Saudi Arabians, Lebanese, and Druze) closely surrounded it. Of the Jewish populations in this cluster, the Ashkenazim were closest to South European populations (specifically the Greeks) and they were also closest to the Turks." The study estimated that on their paternal side, Ashkenazi Jews are descended from a core population of approximately 20,000 Jews who migrated from Italy into the rest of Europe over the course of the first millennium, and it also estimated that "All European Jews seem connected on the order of fourth or fifth cousins." The study also maintained that the paternal lines of Roman Jews were close to those of Ashkenazi Jews. It asserts that these mostly originated from the Middle East.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The estimated cumulative total male genetic admixture amongst Ashkenazim was, according to Hammer et al., "very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%. This could be the result, for example, of "as little as 0.5% per generation, over an estimated 80 generations", according to Hammer et al. Such figures indicated that there had been a "relatively minor contribution" to Ashkenazi paternal lineages by converts to Judaism and non-Jews. These figures, however, were based on a limited range of paternal haplogroups assumed to have originated in Europe. When potentially European haplogroups were included in the analysis, the estimated admixture increased to 23 per cent (±7%).


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The frequency of haplogroup R1b in the Ashkenazim population is similar to the frequency of R1b in Middle Eastern populations. This is significant, because R1b is also the most common haplogroup amongst non-Jewish males in Western Europe. That is, the commonness of nominally Middle Eastern subclades of R1b amongst Ashkenazim tends to "minimize" the Western European contribution to the ~10% of R1b found amongst Ashkenazim. A large study by Behar et al. (2004) of Ashkenazi Jews records a percentage of 5–8% European contribution to the Ashkenazi paternal gene pool. In the words of Behar:


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: For G. Lucotte et al., the R1b frequency is about 11%. In 2004, When the calculation is made excluding Jews from Netherlands the R1b rate is 5% ± 11.6%.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Two studies by Nebel et al. in 2001 and 2005, based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, suggested that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than they are to their host populations in Europe (defined in the using Eastern European, German, and French Rhine Valley populations). Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Kurdish Jews were all very closely related to the populations of the Fertile Crescent, even closer than to Arabs. The study speculated that the ancestors of the Arab populations of the Levant might have diverged due to mixing with migrants from the Arabian Peninsula. However, 11.5% of male Ashkenazim, and more specifically 50% of the Levites while 1.7% of the Cohanim, were found to belong to R1a1a (R-M17), the dominant Y chromosome haplogroup in Eastern European populations. They hypothesized that these chromosomes could reflect low-level gene flow from surrounding Eastern European populations, or, alternatively, that both the Ashkenazi Jews with R1a1a (R-M17), and to a much greater extent Eastern European populations in general, might partly be descendants of Khazars. They concluded "However, if the R1a1a (R-M17) chromosomes in Ashkenazi Jews do indeed represent the vestiges of the mysterious Khazars then, according to our data, this contribution was limited to either a single founder or a few closely related men, and does not exceed ~12% of the present-day Ashkenazim." This hypothesis is also supported by David B. Goldstein in his book "Jacob's legacy: A genetic view of Jewish history". However, Faerman (2008) states that "External low-level gene flow of possible Eastern European origin has been shown in Ashkenazim but no evidence of a hypothetical Khazars' contribution to the Ashkenazi gene pool has ever been found." A 2017 study, concentrating on the Ashkenazi Levites where the proportion reaches 50%, while signaling that there's a "rich variation of haplogroup R1a outside of Europe which is phylogenetically separate from the typically European R1a branches", precises that the particular R1a-Y2619 sub-clade testifies for a local origin, and that the "Middle Eastern origin of the Ashkenazi Levite lineage based on what was previously a relatively limited number of reported samples, can now be considered firmly validated."


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Furthermore, 7% of Ashkenazi Jews have the haplogroup G2c, which is mainly found among the Pashtuns and on a lower scale, it is mainly found among members of all major Jewish ethnic groups, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Behar et al. suggest that those haplogroups are minor Ashkenazi founding lineages.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Among Ashkenazi Jews, the Jews of the Netherlands seem to have a particular distribution of haplogroups since nearly one quarter of them have the Haplogroup R1b1 (R-P25), in particular sub-haplogroup R1b1b2 (R-M269), which is characteristic of Western European populations.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Ashkenazi men show a low level of Y-DNA diversity within each major haplogroup, which means that compared to the size of the modern population, it seems that there once was a relatively small number of men having children. This possibly results from a series of founder events and high rates of endogamy within Europe. Despite Ashkenazi Jews representing a recently founded population in Europe, founding effects suggest that they probably derived from a large and diverse ancestral source population in the Middle East, who may have been larger than the source population from which the non-Jewish Europeans derived.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The first largest study on the Jews of North Africa has been led by Gerard Lucotte et al. in 2003. This study showed that the Jews of North Africa showed frequencies of their paternal haplotypes almost equal to those of the Lebanese and Palestinian non-Jews. The authors also compared the distribution of haplotypes of Jews from North Africa with Sephardi Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, and "Oriental" (Mizrahi) Jews, and found significant differences between the Ashkenazim and Mizrahim and the other two groups.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The Jewish community of the island of Djerba in Tunisia is of special interest, Tradition traces this community's origins back to the time of the destruction of Solomon's Temple. Two studies have attempted to test this hypothesis first by G. Lucotte et al. from 1993, the second of F. Manni et al. of 2005. They also conclude that the Jews of Djerba's paternal gene pool is different from the Arabs and Berbers of the island. For the first 77.5% of samples tested are of haplotype VIII (probably similar to the J haplogroup according Lucotte), the second shows that 100% of the samples are of Haplogroup J *. The second suggests that it is unlikely that the majority of this community comes from an ancient colonization of the island while for Lucotte it is unclear whether this high frequency is really an ancient relationship. These studies therefore suggest that the paternal lineage of North African Jews comes predominantly from the Middle East with a minority contribution of African lineages, probably Berbers.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The largest study to date on Jews who lived in North Africa was conducted in 2012 and was led by Prof. Harry Ostrer of the departments of pathology, genetics and pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at New York's Yeshiva University, and was published online in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America", in it the scholars had found that the Jews who lived in Morocco and Algeria had more European admixture in their gene pools than the Jews who lived in Tunisia and Libya, probably as a result of a larger expelled Sephardi Jewish population settling in those two first mentioned lands post 1492 and 1497. All communities of North African Jews exhibited a high degree of endogamy.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A study by Inês Nogueiro et al. (July 2009) on the Jews of north-eastern Portugal (region of Trás-os-Montes) showed that their paternal lines consisted of 35.2% lineages more typical of Europe (R : 31.7%, I : 3.5%), and 64.8% lineages more typical of the Near East than Europe (E1b1b: 8.7%, G: 3.5%, J: 36.8%, T: 15.8%) and consequently, the Portuguese Jews of this region were genetically closer to other Jewish populations than to Portuguese non-Jews.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In the article by Nebel et al. the authors show that Kurdish and Sephardi Jews have indistinguishable paternal genetic heritage, with both being similar to but differing slightly from Ashkenazi Jews (possibly due to low-level European admixture and/or genetic drift during isolation among Ashkenazim). The study shows that mixtures between Kurdish Jews and their Muslim hosts are negligible and that Kurdish Jews are closer to other Jewish groups than to their long term host population. Hammer had already shown the strong correlation between the genetic heritage of Jews from North Africa with Kurdish Jews. Sample size 9/50 – 18% haplogroup T1.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2002 study by geneticist Dror Rosengarten found that the paternal haplotypes of Mountain Jews "were shared with other Jewish communities and were consistent with a Mediterranean origin." A 2016 study by Karafet at all found, with a sample of 17, 11.8% of Mountain Jewish men tested in Dagestan's Derbentsky District to belong to Haplogroup T-P77.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The studies of Shen and Hammer et al. show that the paternal genes of Yemenite Jews are very similar to that of other Jewish populations. They include Y haplogroups A3b2, E3b3a, E3b1, E3b1b, J1a, J2e, R1b10, and the lowest frequency found was Haplogroup T-M184 2/94 2.1% in one sample.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A study of Lucotte and Smets has shown that the genetic father of Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) was close to the Ethiopian non-Jewish populations. This is consistent with the theory that Beta Israel are descendants of ancient inhabitants of Ethiopia, not the Middle East.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Hammer et al. in 2000 and the team of Shen in 2004 arrive at similar conclusions, namely a genetic differentiation inother people in the north of Ethiopia, which probably indicates a conversion of local populations.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2010 study by Behar et al. on the genome-wide structure of Jews observed that the Beta Israel had similar levels of the Middle Eastern genetic clusters as the also Semitic-speaking Ethiopian non-Jewish Tigrayans and Amharas. However, compared to the Cushitic-speaking non-Jewish Ethiopian Oromos, who are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, the Beta Israel had higher levels of Middle Eastern admixture.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Genetic analysis shows that the Bene Israel of India cluster with the indigenous populations of western India, but do have a clear paternal link to the populations of the Levant.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A recent more detailed study on Indian Jews has reported that the paternal ancestry of Indian Jews is composed of Middle East specific haplogroups (E, G, J(xJ2) and I) as well as common South Asian haplogroups (R1a, H, L-M11, R2).


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Nephrologist Dr. Karl Skorecki decided to analyze the Cohanim to see if they were the descendants of one man, in which case they should have a set of common genetic markers.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: To test this hypothesis, he contacted Dr. Michael Hammer of the University of Arizona, a researcher in molecular genetics and a pioneer in research on chromosomes. Their article, published in Nature in 1997, has had some impact. A set of special markers (called Cohen Modal Haplotype or CMH) was defined as one which is more likely to be present in the Cohanim, defined as contemporary Jews named Cohen or a derivative, and it was proposed that this results from a common descent from the ancient priestly lineage than from the Jewish population in general.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: But, subsequent studies showed that the number of genetic markers used and the number of samples (of people saying Cohen) were not big enough. The last study, conducted in 2009 by Hammer and Behar et al., says 20 of the 21 Cohen haplogroups have no single common young haplogroup; five haplogroups comprise 79.5% of all haplogroups of Cohen. Among these first 5 haplogroups, J-P58 (or J1E) accounts for 46.1% of Cohen and the second major haplogroup, J-M410 or J2a accounts for 14.4%. Hammer and Behar have redefined an extended CMH haplotype as determined by a set of 12 markers and having as "background" haplogroup determining the most important lines J1E (46.1%). This haplotype is absent among non-Jews in 2009 analyzed in the study. This divergence would appear to be from 3000 ± 1000 years ago. This study nevertheless confirms that the current Cohen lineage descended from a small number of paternal ancestors.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In the summary of their findings the authors concluded that " Our estimates of the coalescence time also lend support to the hypothesis that the extended CMH represents a unique founding lineage of the ancient Hebrews that has been paternally inherited along with the Jewish priesthood."


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Molecular phylogenetics research published in 2013 and 2016 for Levant haplogroup J1 (J-M267) places the Y-chromosomal Aaron within subhaplogroup Z18271, age estimate 2638–3280 years Before Present (yBP).


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The Lemba of South Africa, a Bantu speaking people whose culture forbids pork and requires male circumcision, have high frequencies of the Middle Eastern Y-chromosome HgJ-12f2a (25%), a potentially SEA Y, Hg-K(xPQR) (32%) and a Bantu Y, E-PN1 (30%) (similar to E-M2). The Lemba tribe of Venda in South Africa claims to be Jewish and to have originated in Sena – possibly Yemenite Sena in Wadi Masila of the Hadramaut. There are indications of genetic connections with the Hadramaut, i.e., the Lemba Y-chromosomes and Hadramaut Y-chromosomes showed overlap. In addition, there was also present a Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH) within their subclan, the Buba – higher than the general Jewish population. It has been suggested by Tudor Parfitt and Yulia Egorova that their Jewish ancestors probably came along with general Semitic incursions into East Africa from South Arabia, and then moved slowly south through the area of Great Zimbabwe.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2003 study of the Y-chromosome by Behar et al. pointed to multiple origins for Ashkenazi Levites, a priestly class who comprise approximately 4% of Ashkenazi Jews. It found that Haplogroup R1a1a (R-M17), which is uncommon in the Middle East or among Sephardi Jews, but dominant in Eastern Europe, is present in over 50% of Ashkenazi Levites, while the rest of Ashkenazi Levites' paternal lineage is of apparent Middle Eastern origin. Behar suggested a founding event, probably involving one or very few European men, occurring at a time close to the initial formation and settlement of the Ashkenazi community as a possible explanation. Nebel, Behar and Goldstein speculated that this may indicate a Khazar origin.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: However, a 2013 study by Rootsi, Behar et al. found that R1a-M582, the specific subclade of R1a to which all sampled Ashkenazi Levites with R1a belonged, was completely absent of a sample of 922 Eastern Europeans and was only found in one of the 2,164 samples from the Caucasus, while it made up 33.8% of non-Levite Ashkenazi R1a and was also found in 5.9% of Near Easterners bearing R1a. The clade, though less represented in Near Easterners, was more diverse among them than among Ashkenazi Jews. Rootsi et al. argued this supports a Near Eastern Hebrew origin for the paternal lineage R1a present among Ashkenazi Levites: R1a-M582 was also found among different Iranian populations, among Kurds from Cilician Anatolia and Kazakhstan, and among non-Ashkenazi Jews.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Studies of mitochondrial DNA of Jewish populations are more recent and are still debatable. The maternal lineages of Jewish populations, studied by looking at mitochondrial DNA, are generally more heterogeneous. Scholars such as Harry Ostrer and Raphael Falk believe this may indicate that many Jewish males found new mates from European and other communities in the places where they migrated in the diaspora after fleeing ancient Israel.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: According to Thomas et al. in 2002, a number of Jewish communities reveal direct-line maternal ancestry originating from a few women. This was seen in independently founded communities in different geographic areas. What they shared was limited genetic additions later on the female side. Together, this is described as the founder effect. Those same communities had diversity in the male lines that was similar to the non-Jewish population. Two studies in 2006 and 2008 suggested that about 40% of Ashkenazi Jews originate maternally from just four female founders who were likely of Near-Eastern origin, while the populations of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish communities "showed no evidence for a narrow founder effect".


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: With the exception of Ethiopian Jews and Indian Jews, it has been argued that all of the various Jewish populations have components of mitochondrial genomes that were of Middle Eastern origin. In 2013, however, Richards et al. published work suggesting that an overwhelming majority of Ashkenazi Jewish maternal ancestry, estimated at "80 percent of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from women indigenous to Europe, and [only] 8 percent from the Near East, with the rest uncertain", suggesting that Jewish males migrated to Europe and took new wives from the local population, and converted them to Judaism, though some geneticists, such as Doron Behar, have expressed disagreement with the study's conclusions. Another study by Eva Fernandez and her colleagues argues that the K lineages (claimed to be European in origin by Richards et al.) in Ashkenazi Jews might have an ancient Near Eastern source.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Reflecting on previous mtDNA studies carried out by Behar, Atzmon et al. conclude that all major Jewish population groups are showing evidence for founder females of Middle Eastern origin with coalescence times >2000 years. A 2013 study by Richards et al., based on a much larger sample base, drew differing conclusions, namely, that the Mt-DNA of Ashkenazi Jews originated among southern European women, where Diaspora communities had been established centuries before the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE. A 2014 study by Fernandez et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews display a frequency of haplogroup K which suggests an ancient Near Eastern origin, stating that this observation clearly contradicts the results of the study led by Richards which suggested a predominantly European origin for the Ashkenazi community's maternal lines. However, the authors of the 2014 study also state that definitively answering the question of whether this group was of Jewish origin rather than the result of a Neolithic migration to Europe would require the genotyping of the complete mtDNA in ancient Near Eastern populations.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In 2004, Behar et al. found that approximately 32% of Ashkenazi Jews belong to the mitochondrial Haplogroup K, which points to a genetic bottleneck having taken place some 100 generations prior. Haplogroup K itself is thought to have originated in Western Asia some 12,000 years ago.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2006 study by Behar et al., based on high-resolution analysis of Haplogroup K (mtDNA), suggested that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women, or "founder lineages", likely of mixed European and Middle Eastern origin. They concluded that these founder lineages may have originated in the Middle East in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, and later underwent expansion in Europe. Moreover, a maternal line "sister" was found among the Jews of Portugal, North Africa, France, and Italy. They wrote:


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Both the extent and location of the maternal ancestral deme from which the Ashkenazi Jewry arose remain obscure. Here, using complete sequences of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), we show that close to one-half of Ashkenazi Jews, estimated at 8,000,000 people, can be traced back to only four women carrying distinct mtDNAs that are virtually absent in other populations, with the important exception of low frequencies among non-Ashkenazi Jews. We conclude that four founding mtDNAs, likely of Near Eastern ancestry, underwent major expansion(s) in Europe within the past millennium…


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2007 study by J. Feder et al. confirmed the hypothesis of the founding of non-European origin among the maternal lines. Their study did not address the geographical origin of Ashkenazim and therefore does not explicitly confirm the origin "Levantine" of these founders. This study revealed a significant divergence in total haplogroup distribution between the Ashkenazi Jewish populations and their European host populations, namely Russians, Poles and Germans. They concluded that, regarding mtDNAs, the differences between Jews and non-Jews are far larger than those observed among the Jewish communities. The study also found that "the differences between the Jewish communities can be overlooked when non-Jews are included in the comparisons." It supported previous interpretations that, in the direct maternal line, there was "little or no gene flow from the local non-Jewish communities in Poland and Russia to the Jewish communities in these countries."


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Considering Ashkenazi Jews, Atzmon (citing Behar above) states that beyond four founder mitochondrial haplogroups of possible Middle Eastern origins which comprise approximately 40% of Ashkenazi Jewish mtDNA, the remainder of the mtDNA falls into other haplogroups, many of European origin. He noted that beyond Ashkenazi Jews, "Evidence for founder females of Middle Eastern origin has been observed in other Jewish populations based on non-overlapping mitochondrial haplotypes with coalescence times >2000 years".


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2013 study at the University of Huddersfield, led by Professor Martin B. Richards, concluded that 65%-81% of Ashkenazi Mt-DNA is European in origin, including all four founding mothers, and that most of the remaining lineages are also European. The results were published in "Nature Communications" in October 2013. The team analyzed about 2,500 complete and 28,000 partial Mt-DNA genomes of mostly non-Jews, and 836 partial Mt-DNA genomes of Ashkenazi Jews. The study claims that only 8% of Ashkenazi Mt-DNA could be identified as Middle Eastern in origin, with the origin of the rest being unclear.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: If we allow for the possibility that K1a9 and N1b2 might have a Near Eastern source, then we can estimate the overall fraction of European maternal ancestry at ~65%. Given the strength of the case for even these founders having a European source, however, our best estimate is to assign ~81% of Ashkenazi lineages to a European source, ~8% to the Near East and ~1% further to the east in Asia, with ~10% remaining ambiguous... Thus at least two-thirds and most likely more than four-fifths of Ashkenazi maternal lineages have a European ancestry.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Regarding the origin of Ashkenazi admixture, the analyses suggest that "the first major wave of assimilation probably took place in Mediterranean Europe, most likely in Southern Europe, with substantial further assimilation of minor founders in west/central Europe." According to Richards, who acknowledged past research showing that Ashkenazi Jews' paternal origins are largely from the Middle East, the most likely explanation is that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Middle Eastern men who moved to Europe and married local women whom they converted to Judaism. The authors found "less evidence for assimilation in Eastern Europe, and almost none for a source in the North Caucasus/Chuvashia, as would be predicted by the Khazar hypothesis."


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The study was criticized by geneticist Doron Behar, who stated that while the Mt-DNA of Ashkenazi Jews is of mixed Middle Eastern and European origins, the deepest maternal roots of Ashkenazi Jews are not European. Harry Ostrer said Richards' study seemed reasonable, and corresponded to the known facts of Jewish history. Karl Skorecki of the Rambam Health Care Campus stated that there were serious flaws of phylogenetic analysis.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: David B. Goldstein, the Duke University geneticist who first found similarities between the founding mothers of Ashkenazi Jewry and European populations, said that, although Richards' analysis was well-done and 'could be right,' the estimate that 80% of Ashkenazi Jewish Mt-DNA is European was not statistically justified given the random rise and fall of mitochondrial DNA lineages. Geneticist Antonio Torroni of the University of Pavia found the conclusions very convincing, adding that recent studies of cell nucleus DNA also show "a very close similarity between Ashkenazi Jews and Italians". Diaspora communities were established in Rome and in Southern Europe centuries before the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2014 study by Fernandez et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews display a frequency of haplogroup K which suggests ancient Middle Eastern origins, stating that this observation clearly contradicts the results of the study led by Richards which suggested a predominantly European origin for the Ashkenazi community's maternal line. However, the authors also state that definitively answering the question of whether this group was of Jewish origin rather than the result of a Neolithic migration to Europe would require the genotyping of the complete mtDNA in ancient Near Eastern populations. On the study by Richards:


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: According to that work the majority of the Ashkenazi mtDNA lineages can be assigned to three major founders within haplogroup K (31% of their total lineages): K1a1b1a, K1a9 and K2a2. The absence of characteristic mutations within the control region in the PPNB K-haplotypes allow discarding them as members of either sub-clades K1a1b1a or K2a2, both representing a 79% of total Ashkenazi K lineages. However, without a high-resolution typing of the mtDNA coding region it cannot be excluded that the PPNB K lineages belong to the third sub-cluster K1a9 (20% of Askhenazi K lineages). Moreover, in the light of the evidence presented here of a loss of lineages in the Near East since Neolithic times, the absence of Ashkenazi mtDNA founder clades in the Near East should not be taken as a definitive argument for its absence in the past. The genotyping of the complete mtDNA in ancient Near Eastern populations would be required to fully answer this question and it will undoubtedly add resolution to the patterns detected in modern populations in this and other studies.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2022 study by Kevin Brook focused on the Mt-DNA of Ashkenazi Jews and used thousands of complete sequences. Brook found a total of six branches of haplogroup K in Ashkenazim that each represent separate founding women: K1a1b1*, K1a1b1a, K1a4a, K1a9, K2a*, and K2a2a1. He found that K1a9 is shared with Iraqi Jews and with non-Jews in Syria and Iran. K2a2a1 is shared with southern Europeans but might also match the variety of K2a2a in Mizrahi Jews from the Caucasus and is the maternal sister to the Arabian haplogroup K2a2a2. He therefore proposed that K1a9 and K2a2a1 could be of Hebrew origin. Brook similarly found Near Eastern roots for several more Ashkenazi haplogroups, including R0a2m and U1b1. K1a4a is interpreted as a lineage potentially from an ancient Greek or Italian convert to Judaism but also found it in Syria. Several haplogroups are seen as representing the assimilation of West Slavic women in east-central Europe, including V7a and H11b1. The debate over potential Khazar descent was also reexamined. Although Brook did not find any direct connection to Chuvash people nor to any of the medieval Khazar samples that have been collected to date, he pinpointed the Ashkenazic branch of N9a3 as the daughter subclade of a variety found among Bashkirs, a Turkic people of the Ural region, and proposes that the former could come from a Khazar woman. The back cover of Brook's book carries an endorsement by Skorecki.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Analysis of mitochondrial DNA of the Jewish populations of North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Libya) was the subject of further detailed study in 2008 by Doron Behar et al. The analysis concludes that Jews from this region do not share the haplogroups of the mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (M1 and U6) that are typical of the North African Berber and Arab populations.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Behar et al. conclude that it is unlikely that North African Jews have significant Arab, or Berber admixture, "consistent with social restrictions imposed by religious restrictions," or endogamy. This study also found genetic similarities between the Ashkenazi and North African Jews of European mitochondrial DNA pools, but differences between both of these of the diaspora and Jews from the Middle East.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: Genetic research shows that about 27% of Moroccan Jews descend from one female ancestor. Behar's study found that 43% of Tunisian Jews are descended from four women along their maternal lines. According to Behar, 39.8% of the mtDNA of Libyan Jews "could be related to one woman carrying the X2e1a1a lineage".


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: The data (mt-DNA) recovered by D. Behar et al. were from a community descended from crypto-Jews located in the village of Belmonte in Portugal. Because of the small size of the sample and the circumstances of the community having been isolated for so long, It is not possible to generalize the findings to the entire Iberian Peninsula.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: There was a relatively high presence of Haplogroup T2e in Sephardim who arrived in Turkey and Bulgaria. This finding suggests that the subhaplogroup, which resembles the populations who live between Saudi Arabia, Egypt and North Central Italy more than the local Iberians, occurred relatively early in the Sephardic population because if it appeared instead at the end of the community's isolation in Iberia, there would be insufficient time for its spread in the population. The frequency of T2e matches in Spain and Portugal are drastically lower than in those listed above Jews. Similarly, fewer Sephardic signature T2e5 matches were found in Iberia than in Northern Mexico and Southwest United States. Mt-DNA of the Jews of Turkey and does not include to a large extent mt-DNA lineages typical of West Asia. An Iberian-type lineage has been documented, which is consistent with historical data, i.e., the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula and their resettlement in Ottoman lands.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: According to the 2008 study by Behar, 43% of Iraqi Jews are descended from five women. Genetic studies show that Persian and Bukharan Jews descend from a small number of female ancestors. The Mountain Jews showed a striking maternal founding event, with 58.6% of their total mtDNA genetic variation tracing back to one woman from the Levant carrying an mtDNA lineage within Hg J2b.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: According to the study of G. Thomas et al., 51% of Georgian Jews are descended from a single female. According to Behar, 58% are descended from this female ancestor. Researchers have not determined the origin of this ancestor, but it is known that this woman carried a haplotype which can be found throughout a large area stretching from the Mediterranean to Iraq and to the Caucasus.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: In a study by Richards et al., the authors suggest that a minor proportion of haplogroup L1 and L3A lineage from sub-Saharan Africa is present among Yemenite Jews. However, these lines occur 4 times less frequently than among non-Jewish Yemenis. These sub-Saharan haplogroups are virtually absent among Jews from Iraq, Iran and Georgia and do not appear among Ashkenazi Jews. The Jewish population of Yemen also reveals a founder effect: 42% of the direct maternal lines are traceable to five women, four coming from western Asia and one from East Africa.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: For Beta Israel, the results are similar to those of the male population, namely, genetic characteristics identical to those of surrounding populations.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: According to the study of 2008 by Behar et al., the maternal lineage of the Bene Israel and Cochin Jews of India is of predominantly indigenous Indian origin. However, the MtDNA of the Bene Israel also includes lineages commonly found among Iranian and Iraqi Jews and also present among Italian Jews, and the MtDNA of Cochin Jews also has some similarities to MtDNA lineages present in several non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities. Genetic research shows that 41.3% of Bene Israel descend from one female ancestor, who was of indigenous Indian origin. Another study also found that Cochin Jews have genetic similarities with other Jewish populations, in particular with Yemenite Jews, along with the indigenous populations of India.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: These studies focus upon autosomal chromosomes, the 22 homologous or autosomes (non sex chromosomes), rather than on the direct paternal or maternal lines. The technology has changed rapidly and so older studies are different in quality to newer ones.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: An initial study conducted in 2001 by Noah Rosenberg and colleagues on six Jewish populations (Poland, Libya, Ethiopia, Iraq, Morocco, Yemen) and two non-Jewish populations (Palestinians and Druze) showed that while the eight groups had genetic links to each other, the Jews of Libya have a distinct genetic signature related to their genetic isolation and possible admixture with Berber populations. This same study suggested a close relationship between the Jews of Yemen and those of Ethiopia.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2006 study by Seldin et al. used over five thousand autosomal SNPs to demonstrate European genetic substructure. The results showed "a consistent and reproducible distinction between 'northern' and 'southern' European population groups". Most northern, central, and eastern Europeans (Finns, Swedes, English, Irish, Germans, and Ukrainians) showed >90% in the 'northern' population group, while most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards) showed >85% in the 'southern' group. Both Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardic Jews showed >85% membership in the "southern" group. Referring to the Jews clustering with southern Europeans, the authors state the results were "consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups".


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2007 study by Bauchet et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews were most closely clustered with Arabic North African populations when compared to the global population of that study. In the European structure analysis, they share genetic similarities with Greeks and Sicilians, reflecting their east Mediterranean origins.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2008 study by Price et al. sampled Southern Italians, Jews and other Europeans, and isolated the genetic markers that are most accurate for distinguishing between European groups, achieving results comparable to those from genome-wide analyses. It mines much larger datasets (more markers and more samples) to identify a panel of 300 highly ancestry-informative markers which accurately distinguish not just northwest and southeast European, but also Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry from Southern Europeans.


title: Genetic studies on Jews

text: A 2008 study by Tian et al. provides an additional example of the same clustering pattern, using samples and markers similar to those in their other study. European population genetic substructure was examined in a diverse set of >1,000 individuals of European descent, each genotyped with >300 K SNPs. Both STRUCTURE and principal component analyses (PCA) showed the largest division/principal component (PC) differentiated northern from southern European ancestry. A second PC further separated Italian, Spanish, and Greek individuals from those of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry as well as distinguishing among northern European populations. In separate analyses of northern European participants other substructure relationships were discerned showing a west to east gradient.