The Self-Cannibalizing Organism
How very peculiar. Truly astounding. As in say it isn't so!The mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel has resounded throughout history. Much has been written about it, and much of it has been nonsense - if not all of it. There have even been claims that some North American Indian tribes represented one of the 10 Lost... It does make quite a bit of sense, however, to believe that, if Jews could have retained dim memories of ritual from millennia ago in places like India and China, why not throughout the Middle East?
The fact is, both Jews and Arabs are considered Semitic peoples. And over the thousands of years that Jews have lived in various parts of the Middle East after their expulsion from what is now called Palestine it's fairly reasonable to assume that much intermarriage took place, while a hard core of Jews retained their ancient culture and traditions, clinging against all odds to their monotheistic religion and their ancient scriptures.
It's more than likely that the genetic code of many Arabs, and Iranians as well, would show mixed heritage. So perhaps it shouldn't, after all, be surprising to believe that the Pashtun tribes of Pakistan and Afghanistan, those who support the Taliban and form part of that severely repressive ideological-religion of violent jihad might have Jewish genes.
Mumbai's National Institute of Immunohaematology believe that Pashtuns could represent one or more of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel. An Indian geneticist is being partially funded by Israel through a scholarship by the Foreign Ministry to genetically analyse blood samples taken from Pashtuns with respect to potentially identifying Jewish ancestry.
There exist an estimated 40 million Pashtuns, which includes the 14 million in Afghanistan and 28 million in Pakistan. Located for the most part in the dreaded, lawless North West Frontier Province and tribal areas hosting al-Qaeda, and providing the warm jihadist bodies of the Taliban. Can't you just imagine Israel inviting Pashtuns to return to their roots?
As legend has it the Pashtuns are descended from the Ephraim tribe, driven out of Israel by the Assyrian invasion of 700 B.C. Tombs inscribed in Hebrew have been discovered close to Afghanistan's border with Iran, in Herat. Most intriguing (and rather gruesome) of all, is last year's The Daily Telegraph revelation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's family history of Jewish descent.
Intriguingly, Rabbi Eliyahu Avichayil of Israel has spent his life looking for evidence of descendants of the Ten Tribes. He points to the Jewish customs discovered among the Pathans (Pashtuns), including sidelocks, ritual circumcision at eight days following birth of a male, four-cornered garments, ritual immersion for women, and levirate marriage, unalike Muslim customs.
According to Rabbi Avichayil, the very name, Afridi tribe (which are represented among the Taliban) betrays an origin from the Israelite tribe of Ephraim. "The Pathans, 22 million strong, include not only the Afridic tribe, some 7.5 million people, but also the Rabanis, the Gadis, the Asheris, etc. - indications that many of them are of the Ten Tribes."
Next step: invite the Taliban to an Israeli gathering and recommend a joint conference on traditions and skewed alliances....
Labels: Israel, Middle East, That's Life
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, January 12, 2010
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