The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy is collaborating
with Les Fleurs d'Orient (http//:www.farhi.org)
in a Sephardic Migration study seeking to use DNA to track the movements
of Sephardim from the former Ottoman Empire, Italy and Greece and
ultimately to trace their origins back to pre-Expulsion Spain. The
project is also cooperating with by Mr. Bennett Greenspan, President of Family
Tree DNA, in conjunction with Dr. Doron Behar MD, Dr. Michael Hammer
PhD and Dr. Harry Ostrer MD of the Universities of Haifa, Arizona
and New York respectively. To date, most DNA work among Jews has
been done on Ashkenazim but having discovered significant differences
in the presence of the J (Middle Eastern Jewish) haplotype between
Ashkenazim and Sephardim, the group is now engaged in developing
a meaningful DNA database of Jews of Spanish origin. They are concentrating
primarily on selected families from Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.
North African Jewry is more complicated, as it comprises significant
local elements besides Jews who departed the Iberian Peninsula in
1492. Secondary interests of the group are comparative and demographic.
Hence they are also sampling people from modern-day Spain with a
view to establishing what percentage possesses the J haplotype.
This finding may throw light on the numbers of Jews who converted
at the time of the Expulsion and were then absorbed into the general
Spanish population. Mr Alain Farhi, the founder and webmaster of
Les Fleurs d'Orient, is the Project Director on behalf of the Institute.
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