“This work shows how genetic analysis may be a helpful and powerful tool for furthering our understanding of human history,” researcher Yedael Waldman remarked.
TEL AVIV, Israel (UPI) — TEL AVIV, Israel (UPI) — Bene Israel is a historically Jewish community in India. Its beginnings are unknown, and its oral history is sketchy at best, but a new DNA study validates the group’s Jewish ancestry.
In a news release, researcher Yedael Waldman of Tel Aviv University said, “Almost nothing is known about the Bene Israel group before the 18th century when Cochin Jews and subsequently Christian missionaries first came into contact with it.”
