1

AncestralJewishLithuaniaAPrécis

ByRobertS.Sherins,MDPacificPalisades,California

March1,2019PagantribesgatheredfromBalticIndo-Europeanspeakersaboutthe7thcentury.ThepopulationincludedbothLithuaniansandLatvians.TheirsocialstructurewascomparabletothatoftheCeltsfrom2,000BCE.TheoldBaltictonguewasspokenas dialects of Old Prussian and Balt, which then progressed to Lithuanian andLatvianlanguages.

2

Fromthe12thcentury,adjacentregionsmergedfromtheformerKievanRusandRuthenia; theyunitedwith Lithuania. The region also includedparts of Belarus,Russia,PolandandAustria.OrthodoxChristianandpaganelementslatermergedwithin the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Some of the wives of Dukes remainedOrthodoxasopposedtoconvertingtoCatholicism.The monarchy and nobility of the Khazar Empire converted to Judaism; legaldocumentswerewritteninHebrew.However,whentheRussiansconqueredtheKhazarEmpireinthe13thcentury,theJewishpopulationdispersed.Sofar,therehas been no documentation of the whereabouts of the exodus population.Regional genomicsare known,but theirDNA trail hasbeen lost.Many theoriesaboundregardingwhethertheKhazariansmarriedintotheJewishcommunitiesinnearbyLithuania.Afterall,whatruralfarmerwouldresistornotwelcomeaniceyoungKhazarianJewishboyofferedinmarriageforhisisolateddaughters?Modern Lithuania began as a tribal association and merged into with Prussia(EasternBalts)andLithuania.ThetribesunitedastheGrandDuchyofLithuaniain the early 13th century; Prussians emerged from the Eastern Balts, and weresupported by the Holy Roman Empire to remain Catholic; Livonia emerged asLatvia.OtherunoccupiedregionsbecamepartofLithuania.

3

MapofFormerkingdomofPoland&theGrandDuchyofLithuania

4

MapoftheKievanRusandKhazarEmpire

ChristianizationofLithuaniafosteredfeudalisminthe15thcentury.Lithuanianoldlaw(Codex)dominatedtheGrandDuchy.TherulingclassspokeRuthenian,Polishand Latin, and the merchant class spoke both German and Italian. The uppersocial classes were highly educated at the Universities of Kraków and Prague.SpeakingtheLithuanianlanguagewasconsideredpatriotic,butthedominanceofRuthenian, Polish and Latin eventually diminished the authority of Lithuanianspeakers.LithuanianwaslittleknowningreaterEurope.

5

When the kingof Poland, Sigismund I Bona,married an Italianprincess, Polandadopted Catholicism. Protestant reform existed only in part of the culture ofLithuania. The educated Jesuit Orders predominated. Mindaugas, was the firstruleroftheGrandDuchy;hewascrownedasCatholicKingofLithuaniain1253.TeutonicKnightsofPrussiapressuredLithuaniatoremainRomanCatholic.Prussiawith the support of the Vatican’s Holy Roman Army dominated until the 14thcentury.MongolinvasionsdevastatedthewesternandsouthernregionsofLithuania,butBelaruswasunharmed. Lithuaniadefeated theMongols in1333-1339,after thedeathof theMongol leader,GenghisGreat Khan, in 1226.Genghis Khan’s sonswerecorruptandalcoholic;theywerenocounterpartfortheirfather’straditions.AnewStateofMoldaviawascreated.The finalMongoldefeatwas1362,whenthearmyoftheGrandDuchyfinallydefeatedtheforcesoftheGoldenHorde.Following theMongoland theAsianTatar invasions,aUnionof thekingdomofPoland and the Grand Duchy was created in 1386. The partnership expandedpolitical authority into the largest European polity that extended their landresources from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. A formal Union of theCommonwealthofPolandLithuaniawascreatedandsignedintolawin1569; itwasundertheauthorityofasinglePolishkingandoneparliament.Thisnewhugepolity succeeded until 1772-1795, when the Commonwealth was invaded andoccupiedbyRussia,PrussiaandAustria(PartitionsofPoland-Lithuania).

6

ItisassertedthatJewishtraderscametoLithuaniainthe8thcentury.Werethoseimmigrants unaccompanied traders? Or, did they establish small early Jewishcommunities? I was not able to find links to any documents regarding theirhistory. However, trading prospered and expanded in the Baltic region, Russia,LithuaniaandPoland.EarlyJudeo-SlavicandGermanicspeakingtradersmigratedtoLithuania,andgainedaccesstotheregionthatlaterbecametheGrandDuchyof Lithuania. Those theories remain uncertain; population migrations are nowverifiedbygenomicresearchmethods.Historically, Jewish migrations closely followed the boundaries of the powerfulempires of the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Greek Colonies and the RomanEmpire.Theunderlying reasonbehind thosehistoricalmigrations related to thelimitationsimposedbytheEmperors.Jewsoftenwereforbiddentoownlandorenter certain businesses or professions. Jews became traders and benefittedgreatly from their broad language skills and trading among other Jewishcommunities in North Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and Asia via the SilkRoutes, as well as Southern Asia via the Indian Ocean andMediterranean Sealanes. The early traderswere known asRadhanites. As a result, Jewish cultureandtraditionscloselyfollowedandoftenincorporatedthoseofthedistantJewishcommunities that had been established elsewhere in the known world.Differences among the Jewish communities were based upon locally available

7

foods, clothing styles and varied languages/dialects. There are estimated to beabout 38 dialects of Yiddish, according to their regional locations. Kosheringdependeduponwhichfoodswereavailable,forbiddenmeatssuchaspork,shellfish notwithstanding. Slaughtering methods (Shochet) remain rather consistentworldwide.

MapofRadhaniteTradeRoutes

8

MapofGreekColoniesThatIncludedJewishCommunities

9

MapoftheJewishSephardimintheDiasporafromSpain/Portugal

MapofEarlyJewishDiaspora

10

NewJewishCommunitiesWereEstablishedinChina,India,Arabia,NorthAfricaandtheMediterraneanRegion

CamelCaravan–MerchantTraders

Special rights and libertieswere established in Poland in 1264 by kings CasimirThe Great and Boleslaw of Kalisz; Lithuania created a special charter alsoregulating Jewish communities. Jewish judges were given special authorities inPoland(Voivode)andLithuania.Initially,regulationswerecreatedthatwerelaterextended to Lithuania. The Kahals were supervised by a council, known as theKehilah, thatwasmodelledafter thesystemofancient Israelat the timeof theSecondTemple.Supremeauthorityresidedinanappointedseniorrabbi,whowasselected by the Polish king. The Kahal imposed a singular authority over allmatterswith the community frombirth todeath.Decisions included koshering,marriage,circumcision,taxesonsabbathcandlesandkosheringwereapplied,aswell as taxation for the king, military draft and ultimately burial in the Jewishcemetery.DisobediencecouldresultinseverefinesimposedbytheCourtsoftheKahal, disciplines or even excommunication from the Jewish community. TheKahalcoulddenyburialintheircemetery.TheauthoritiesweredelineatedastheCouncil of the Four Lands and the additional Council of Lithuania. Kahals werefinally abolished by Poland, and a bit later in Lithuania.Within Lithuania werefamousRabbinic andChassidic Yeshivas, such as those schools located inVilna,Rovno,andKovno.

11

GenomicResearch,FamilyTreeDNA.com

LithuanianMutationsIdentifiedOurGeneticOrigins(MarqueeRedCircles)

1. Utena/Utyná,Lithuania2. Konotop,Russia/Ukraine

12

MapofPolandandtheGrandDuchyofLithuania

TownsoftheOriginofCherkinskyAncestorsIdentifiedDuringthe16thCentury,PolandBrieflyOccupiedtheCrownofRussiainMoscow

13

Mapof“LITA”(JewishLithuania)

MapofLithuania&Latvia

RegionofUtena,LithuaniaIdentified

14

EarlyJewishSettlers,Traders8th-12thCenturies

AmberRoad

15

MapoftheKievanRus

MapofUkrainianTradeRoutes

16

MapRomanTradeRoutes

MapofMedievalTradeRoutes

17

Utena,Lithuania

18

19

SatelliteImageofUtena,Lithuania

RiverofUtena,Lithuania

20

OrthodoxCheddar

21

Yeshiva

Karaites

22

23

ConfirmationoftheHumanGenomeOurLithuanian“Connection”

HumanDNAanalysisataffordablepricingbecameavailableforthepublicabouttheyear2000. Iwaswearyofthisnewsciencebecauseofmy inexperienceandmyrealconcernaboutthesecurityoftheinformation.Afterall,DNAisouruniqueprivatesignature.No individualsare identical,eventwinshaveDNAdifferences.Most importantly, I needed to know if my DNA code could be “hacked” bycriminals or worse, by a government. I learned that the information was veryadequatelyprotectedandthenproceededonthisfabulousjourneyofdiscovery.Genealogical researchbeganwithcollectingouroralhistories,an impreciseandoftenerroneouscollectionofstories(andmisinformation).Furtherprecisionwassought by delving into official documents and photographs. The written wordswere not so precise; official documents often contained errors, some were byomission, others by technicalmistakes. Digitalization of records in libraries andgovernmental agencies provided more rapid access to critical documentsworldwide.Theracetoperfectionwason…Due to cost, technical complexity and inexperience, the initial commercial DNAresearch began by investigating only the genes contained in our 23rdchromosome.Thosegenesregulategender,butnotourappearanceorfunctions.The23rdchromosomecontainsanestimated1,600genes,whereastheremaining22pairsofchromosomeinourgenome,our“autosomes,”containabout20,000genes that regulate our entire anatomical and physiological“being.” It has become increasingly manifest that our genes regulate ourpersonalities.MyfirstforayintoDNAanalysisbeganwithtakingamouthswabandsubmittingthe sample. The test searched for mutations among only 12-allele targets. Istudied both the parental Y-DNA from my father’s lineage and the mtDNA(mitochondria) from the X-chromosome) of my mother’s lineage. Both Y & Xchromosomespassthegenesfromthefirstmodernhuman(andbefore)toeachsuccessivegeneration.All cells inourbodiescontainalmostequal contributionsfrom both parents. Thus, our genome contains 50% of the genes from eachparent.Thisisoneexception.Inpreparationforconception,ourgonadalcellssplit

24

into½or “haploid” and containonlyone strandof the chromosomalDNA. Themajority of our chromosome are “diploid” containing both strands of theDNA.ThedoublehelixofDNAisboundbyconnecting“nucleotides”thatarecomposedofmaterialwith4biochemicalidentities:adenine,thymine,cytosineandguanine.Intheprocessofseparating intothehaploidcondition,mistakesmayoccurthatalter the content or position of those nucleotides. Themistakes are known asmutationsandaredetectable.Mutations,SNP(singlenucleotidepolymorphisms)arespecificandcanbeidentified,andaswell,provideanestimateofthetimeoftheir appearance in our genome. By comparison to the larger populationsworldwide, the SNPs provided the essential clues to calculate the evolutionaryprogressionofthemodernhumangenome.

RepeatedDNAtestingresultedinidentificationofmyparentallineage.Eachnewanalysiswasdeeperandbroader.EventuallythefullDNAanalysiswascompleted.I chose the Family Tree DNA laboratory at the University of Arizona, MichaelHammer,PhD,becausehehaddevelopedthemostextensivedatabaseofJewish

25

genomic evidence and his workwas themost all-encompassing.More detailedanalysiswasthenavailablefromMoscowbytheY-Fullgroup,whodevelopedtheworld’smostspecificDNAanalysesthroughmoreadvancedinstrumentscanning,a more complete set of biochemical probes and more advanced digitalalgorhythms.All of this advanceddata is availableonline toparticipants. I havebeen repeatedlynotifiedasnewdiscoverieswerepublished.The futureofDNAgenomic research is hopeful regarding gaining further insight into our genomichistory,aswellasindiscoveringmutationsthatinfluenceourhealth.DNAprobesarebeingdevelopedtoscanallofourchromosomes, theautosomes,aswellasthemoredetailedstudiesofthesexgametes.It is now estimated that the modern human has evolved over about 500,000years.WefirstappearedinAfrica,walkedoutofAfricaatleast200,00yearsago,andmigratedthroughouttheworld.Forfurtherdetails,pleaserefertomyothermanuscripts on this subject. As a result of the publication of the detailed DNAanalyses,Ihavebeenabletoproduceanevolutionaryindexofmygenome.Pertinenttothesubjectofthisdocument,Icanreportthefollowingresultsfromthetimeofmyinitialfamilyhistoryresearch:

1. Our first ancestors walked out of Africa about 100,000- 80,000 yearsago.TheywereBlackandpossessedallofthephysicalcharacteristicsofAfricans. Caucasian skin andblue eyes evolvedmuchmore recently inCentralAsiaandEurope.

2. Those ancestors traversed theMiddle East and settled around CentralAsiaabout80,000m-60,000yearsago.

3. MypaternalDNAhasbeenidentifiedamonghumansintheregionoftheCaucasusabout50,000-30,000yearsbeforethepresent(ybp).’

4. By15,000ybpourancestorsweresettled intheregionofGeorgiaandNorth Ossetia, particularly in the Kura Araxes valley, located betweentheBlackSeaandtheCaspianSea.

5. The specific Kura Araxes culture lived in mud-brick houses, pliedagricultural fields, husbanded domesticated herds of animals andcreatedauniquepottery.

6. Evidence of the next ancestral settlementswas confirmed in Anatolia,present-day Eastern Turkey. Their settlements were part of theAkkadianEmpire fromabout5,500BCE–about8,000–7,500ybp.As

26

suchourancestorsspokeadialectoftheproto-Semiticlanguage.Thus,we became “Semites”, as are the other descendant ethnicities of theArabs, Kurds, Phoenicians, Iranians among others. Our religiousPatriarch,Abraham,appeared in the same regionandabout the sametime.

7. The Kura Araxes culture can be next traced to Antioch, Syria/Turkeyabout3,000BCE;nextappearedintheSoutheasternregionoftheSeaofGalilee. The settlement was within the Hebrew tribal area of theNaphtali.

8. FurtherDNAmutationsdemonstratedthemigrationofourancestorsas“Ashkenazim” in Europe about 750 CE. Most likely they traversedNorthern Italy and eventually settled in Western Europe. As likelytraders, the ancestors possible settled in the region of Cologne,Germany,wherenumeroustradingroutesexistedamblingEastwardandelsewhere.

9. Wehavefurthermorespecificmutationsdatedaboutthetimeof1569,when Poland merged with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as the“Commonwealth.”

10. Detaileddocumentationofpasthistory,official records, aswell asourDNAmutations,aregoingtobesequencedandstudiestocompletethisfabulousresearchendeavor.Thegenomicstudiesareessentialandwillincludefurtherinvestigationofthesequencesoftandemrepeatsofournucleotides (STR), SNPs (unique single mutations) and other specificalterationsof chromosomalend targets, epigenetic alleles that controlsome of the surface features on the chromosomes and which areresponsible for the exposure of some of the genes of the foldedchromosomes.

11. Our most recent mutations are dated about 350 years ago, whichcorrespondstothetimethatourfamilyhistorycanbedocumentedbyofficialrecords.

I first learned from older relatives that our paternal forefathers originated inRussia specifically in “NershenehGubernya.”Gubernya is defined as a “politicalState” or Province. However, there is no official/political designation ofNershenehGubernya.ThedesignationreferredtotheautonomoussegregationoftheJewishcommunitiesofPolandsincethe14thcentury.IdiscoveredNezhinwas

27

acitywithintheregionofourancestralvillages,inthedistrictofKonotop(Uyezd).Theylivedamong5villages:Konotop,Bakmach,Tynitsia,KuranandHrigorovka.

28

IdentifyingourancestraloriginsinEuropeusingmapsprovidedmewiththebestresources.Atfirst,IthoughtofourOriginsasRussian;thatiswhatmyrelativestoldme.Mapsdemonstratedtheregionas“RussianOccupiedPoland.”Moreaccurately,ouroriginshouldhavebeen“RussianOccupiedCommonwealthofPoland-Lithuania.Inotedaconfusionamongmapsbecauseourtownswereoriginallypartofthe“GrandDuchyofLithuania,whichwasthepredominantgeographicterritoryofthemergedCommonwealthof1569.

29

ThelocationofourancestraltownsnowlieswithinthepoliticalboundariesofUkraine.However,atthetimeofthearrivalofourancestors,theregionwaspartoftheexpandedterritoryofRussia.Konotopwasestablishedin1634byagrantofaPolishkingtoaloyalmilitaryofficer.PolandheldsuzeraintyoverthisregionofRussiatotheintenseobjectionsandmilitaryactionoftheCossacks.Russiaprevailed,soouroralhistoryrecordedthefamilyasRussians.Therewere2alternativeopinionsamongthe“informed”researchers.Present-dayUkrainiansconsidertheNorthwesternregiontobeculturally“Belarusian.”OralhistoryofeveryonethatIspokewith,whohadoriginsin“NershenehGubernya,”toldmethattheywere“Lithuanians.”Thiscross-identitywasveryconfusing.

30

Thisweek,IreceivedyetanotherupdatefrommygenomicdataresultsfromtheY-FullresearchersinMoscow,whichidentifiedourancestralDNAashavinganotherorigininUtena,Lithuania.TheYiddishnameofthetownisUtynǻ.ThefollowingmapimagesconfirmourancestraloriginswithintheGrandDuchyofLithuania.

31

Insummary,weareCaucasians,Georgians,Anatolians,Israelites.WeareAshkenazim,Lithuanians,Russians,andAmericans,alldependinguponthetimelineofourancestralhistory.ShallwerecallourselvesYanks,Ruskies,PolaksorLitvaks?Isaywearemishpokhe,family,cousins!!!RobertSherins