Genetics of Ashkenazi Jews

Mediterranean and Middle Eastern People in the European Diaspora

By: Joshua Robbin Marks

Narrated by: Joshua Robbin Marks

Length: 42 mins

Publisher's summary

From the author of Seed of Israel: DNA Guide to Tracing Your Jewish Ancestry comes this great dive into the history of Ashkenazi Jews. While controversial debates spark disagreements on the crystallization of this Jewish Diaspora, modern genetic studies and personal DNA samples finally conclude the Levantine Middle Eastern and Mediterranean roots of Ashkenazi ancestry: Judean people from the Holy Land that journeyed across the Mediterranean to the bottleneck of Europe.

©2021 Joshua Robbin Marks (P)2021 Joshua Robbin Marks

Not worth buying in my opinion…

Quite a disappointment. Interesting topic but far from scholarly. I discovered in my DNA ancestry I have Ashkenazi Jewish grandparents 8 generations back. I’ve go to look elsewhere for better information.

A short polemic

It contained interesting material, but was basically a very short polemic. It cannot not be considered an unbiased review.
It was not a professional presentation, but rather poorly read by the author.
No real discussion of the Y haplogoup Q, generally considered to be from central Asia.

Sounds like an undergraduate term paper

I will sum up the only coherent information presented so you don’t have to endure this painful narration.
Basically, the author says Ashkenazi Jews have their origins in the Middle East and Mediterranean.
I honestly never knew an individual could just pick up a microphone and record an audiobook like this author did.
It seems like he did some research on the topic but his analysis was very biased.
That is, from what I can tell. The narration was so horrible that most of this book was incomprehensible. The author simply read from his text in monotone the whole time. It sounded like he didn’t even bother to practice before recording. He stumbled over words almost every paragraph.

Unable to continue

This is a great topic, with a horrific narrator who struggles with pronunciation. Would it have been better with acoustics that don’t sound like he is recording in his bathroom or garage? Yes. Maybe. But the stumbling over words and topics through the second chapter (hoping it would improve) has me giving up.
Don’t waste your credit and more importantly your time.

Tell the truth…..

The author is not being truthful. The Ashkenazi Jew is no way a descendants from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

Enjoyable book on Ashkenazi Med/MENA origins

I highly recommend this excellent book proving the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern origins of Ashkenazi Jews which are similar to Sephardic, Italian, Greek, North African and other Western Diaspora Jews. The book does an amazing job destroying the persistent falsehoods that Ashkenazi Jews descend from Northern European or Khazar converts. The Ashkenazi Jewish autosomal DNA and haplogroups prove that this Jewish Diaspora group is mostly Levantine Middle Eastern and Southern European. The author cites scholarly studies and academic sources showing the origins of Ashkenazi Jews which are firmly Mediterranean and Middle Eastern.