Modern Slavs and Ashkenazi Jews

The two topics near and dear to my heart, being (mostly) a Russian-Ukranian and married to an Ashkenazi, are intricately intertwined.

Much has been published on these, especially Jewish history. Much has changed (and continues to change) in the recent decades. The widespread use of DNA testing — and particularly autosomal DNA rather than the far more limited Y or mtDNA — has brought new evidence into light that radically changes the narrative.

I’ve put together a slide deck capturing my own take on the origin of the Ashkenazim:

And one for Slavs:

But here is a summary and some additional thoughts.

1. European Jews are originally a diverse mixture of the ancient Mediterranean with additional genetic flows from various Eurasian Steppe nomads, mostly during the late Roman and early Byzantine Periods, and Balto-Slavs in the Middle Ages.
2. They likely came from various Mediterranean traders from the Levant, Anatolia, Greece, Balkans, Italy, Iberia, and North Africa, but did not necessarily practice Judaism until the Byzantine period, when it was the most neutral choice for someone who engaged in trade between the Christian and Muslim worlds.
3. The rise of Kievan Rus’ and the destruction of the Khazar Khaganate likely drove these (mostly) Byzantine-Anatolean traders to move further northwest into Europe, where at first they mixed to some degree with the local population, but soon found themselves in cultural isolation, which resulted in a genetic bottleneck.
4. Sephardic Jews parallel Ashkenazim on the opposite side of the Mediterranean, where they served as a neutral link between North African Muslims and West European Christians. However, this status quo collapsed after Roconquista, as the latter proved to be far less religiously tolerant than the former.
5. The Slavs most likely branched off of their northeastern European Balto-Slavic parent group in the late Roman period and especially during Viking Age, when centralized and powerful states began to emerge further south in Central and Eastern Europe.
6. While there had been significant genetic flow back and forth between Central Europe, the Baltics, and the Pontic Steppe for millennia, the newly established political boundaries and trade routes likely resulted in sharper delineation among Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic people.
7. The eventual rise of Kievan Rus’ as the dominant Slavic power preceding the Mongol Invasions put a barrier between Europe and Asia, preventing significant further genetic mixing with incoming eastern nomads in Central and Northern Europe past the age of the Great Migrations. The subsequent “conquer and leave” policy of the Mongol Empire, and especially the neutral position maintained by the Novgorod Republic further solidified the genetic and cultural split.