Talk:Jewish ethnic divisions

sub-ethnic groups of the Mizrahi Jews

there are no such a thing like "sub-ethnic groups of the Mizrahi Jews", for one reason for example East Caucasian and Georgian Jews are very close neighbours, but genetically they very diffrenet, where "Mountain" Jews much closer to Ashkenazim than to Georgian Jews. So why do you inventing "sub-ethnic groups of the Mizrahi Jews". I never heard or or read such a thing. I can use your weapon: show me at least one reference, please! http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts-jews.html Dror Rosengarten. "Y Chromosome Haplotypes Among Members of the Caucasus Jewish Communities." Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Ancient DNA and Associated Biomolecules, July 21-25, 2002. Abstract excerpt: "...buccal swab genomic DNA samples were collected from 51 unrelated males from the Mountain Jewish community and from 55 unrelated males from the Georgian Jewish community... Corresponding haplotype frequencies in other Jewish communities and among neighboring non-Jewish populations were derived from the literature. Based on a variety of genetic distance and admixture measures we found that majority of Kavkazi Jewish haplotypes were shared with other Jewish communities and were consistent with a Mediterranean origin. This result strengthens previous reports, which indicated a shared ancestral pool of genetic haplotypes for most contemporary Jewish communities. In the case of the Georgian Jewish samples, both Mediterranean and European haplotypes were found. This could indicate either a Mediterranean origin with a European genetic contribution or a European source with a Mediterranean contribution. Generally, Georgian Jews were found to be closer to European populations than to Mediterranean populations. Despite their geographic proximity, there was a significant genetic distance between the Mountain and Georgian Jewish communities, at least based on Y-haplotype analysis..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.64.16.221 (talk • contribs) (21:26, 30 June 2005)

Requested move 12 August 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Waqar💬 08:59, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

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Jewish ethnic divisions → Jewish subcultures – The current title implies that the listed divisions of Jews, such as the Ashkenazim and Sephardim, are distinct ethnic divisions or ethnicities unto themselves. This contradicts the way a majority of Jews self-identify, which is as one ethnoreligious group containing several diverse but largely aligned subcultures. Gaymarsrovers (talk) 22:28, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Alternatively, 'Jewish subdivisions' reflects the way this page is linked to on the main Jews page. Gaymarsrovers (talk) 01:51, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

That could be interpreted as referring to a Jewish subdivision or administrative division. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:20, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose 'subculture' means something else—blindlynx 21:02, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per blindlynx, these are not subcultures and Jews aren't the only ethnic group with ethnic subdivisions (look at China). --Killuminator (talk) 12:12, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per above. -- Alexf^(talk) 13:52, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sources for the Jewish ethnic/cultural divisions map

I wonder if this map needs sources. It was built by an editor, but there is no reference about where the data came from. Given how complex and even the controversial the map could be, I believe it is necessary. What do you think? --Brandizzi (talk) 14:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes that "Land of Original Israelites" claim on the map is incredible dubious! And asserts a colonial justification for modern Israel and neighbouring lands which is not based in history.Gymnophoria (talk) 10:53, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

I would like to renew this discussion and probably remove the map from this page, @Brandizzi and @Gymnophoria. Other major issues I see are the unclear distinction between "converted" and "adopted Judaism without conversion", labelling Yemenite Jews (regarded as an integral part of the diaspora AFAIK) as "converted" (along with the Jewish communities in Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia, which are apparently descended from Yemenite Jews), the lack of any mention of the Bene Israel in India, and marking Uruguay as Sephardi rather than Ashkenazi. The choice of which countries receive coloration is also quite arbitrary: Haiti, with an estimated population of 25 Jews is colored, while Japan, with at least a few thousand, is not. My opinion is that this should be removed from this page and the corresponding article on Russian Wikipedia as quickly as possible and additionally deleted from Commons as vague, unsourced, and with obvious inaccuracies. I'll further opine that I don't think a "good" version of this type of map could ever be created, as it's inherently trying to oversimplify a very complex topic. — An anonymous username, not my real name 18:00, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree, and have removed it for now. I don't think a "good" map on this general topic is quite impossible, but certainly this one has considerable error/bias, as well as a pretty extreme false precision. A more useful map would have vague blobs around some of the traditional cultural centers. Pharos (talk) 05:04, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, the map was definitely flawed in some aspects, e.g. having the entirety of modern day Jordan marked as part of the Israelite territory was an overstatement to say the least.

However, having at least some map would be highly appreciated, if we could source a reliable one for this page that would be great. Ideally world wide, but if it just had Eurasia/Africa that would be fine too for now.

As Pharos mentioned, a map with blobs/shaded regions would be better for the historical regions as syncing to modern nation states do not seem to do a great job of conveying the information accurately.

Anyone have a lead on a good map? Teflawn (talk) 21:35, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Map of Sephardi diaspora

Books like A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People do have a lot of maps of this genre, though they would of course be copyrighted.

The only thing sort-of-close I could find on Wikimedia Commons was this map of the Sephardi diaspora, which has the distinct shortcoming of not including many of the actual places of destination and cultural influence. Pharos (talk) 22:49, 22 March 2026 (UTC)