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A German town built a granary atop its Jewish cemetery. Now the bones are yielding insights about Ashkenazi DNA.
BERLIN (JTA) – The city of Erfurt in central Germany is home to an impeccably restored medieval synagogue made possible because local Jews had been expelled long before the Nazis began their campaign to destroy Jewish sites.
Now, Erfurt’s long-hidden Jewish past is again offering new insights — this time about the genetic history of Ashkenazi Jews.
Human remains from a medieval Jewish cemetery in Erfurt have allowed what researchers say is the largest ancient Jewish DNA study to date. Conducted without disinterring any remains, in keeping with Jewish law, the study published Wednesday in the scientific journal Cell found that Erfurt’s medieval Jewish community was more genetically diverse than their modern-day cousins, and carried many of the same Jewish genetic diseases — such as Tay Sachs and cystic fibrosis — that affect Ashkenazi Jews today.
“There have been many previous DNA studies, but not of Jews,” said geneticist Shai Carmi, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose search for study material led him to an archaeological dig at the Jewish cemetery in Erfurt. He and his collaborators were able to analyze DNA of 33 individuals who died between 1270 and 1400, using teeth they found there.
The study follows a similar analysis revealed in August by researchers in England, who studied the DNA from skeletons found at the bottom of a medieval well and concluded that the remains were likely of victims of an antisemitic massacre in 1190. Analysis of six individuals prior to their identification as Jewish revealed that Ashkenazi Jews developed a unique genetic variation centuries earlier than realized.
The Erfurt analysis also includes samples from before the epidemic of Black Death that was until recently understood to have created the genetic “bottleneck” that created the genetic markers common among Ashkenazi Jews today.
Erfurt’s Jewish settlement existed from the 11th to 15th century, with a brief gap following a 1349 massacre perpetrated after the Jews were falsely blamed for causing the bubonic plague. Surviving Jews returned there, but after all Jews were expelled once and for all in 1454, the city built a granary on top of the Jewish cemetery.
Karin Sczech participates in the excavation at the medieval Jewish cemetery of Erfurt. (Courtesy of TLDA Ronny Krause)
In 2013, the city approved the repurposing of the unused granary into a parking lot. Because it was an historic site, a rescue excavation was initiated, overseen for the State of Thuringia by German archaeologist Karin Sczech.
Meanwhile, Carmi had been looking for Jewish cemeteries anywhere in the world “where we could analyze remains already excavated,” he told JTA in a telephone interview from Jerusalem. “I consulted historians and eventually reached the archeologist in Erfurt.” Fortunately, he said, “they still hadn’t reburied the remains.”
He approached Sczech, who later became a co-author of the new study. In 2018, with a supportive judgment from Rabbi Ze’ev Litke — an Israeli expert on genetics and Jewish law — and permission from Erfurt’s then-rabbi, Benjamin Kochan, work began to extract and analyze DNA from detached teeth found in the graves. (About 500 Jews live in Erfurt today, most of them having migrated from the former Soviet Union since 1990.)
American geneticist David Reich picked up the teeth and brought them back to the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where drilling and DNA extraction took place.
While the skeletons were reburied, the teeth are still stored at the research institutes where they have been analyzed, in case scientists need to retest to verify the result.
The project provides an ethical basis for studies of ancient Jewish DNA, Carmi said. “Of course we couldn’t just go to a cemetery and dig and take out skeletons; this would be prohibited,” he said, referring to Jewish law prohibiting the removal of bones from where someone was buried.
But Litke opined that the study could be done, because the bones already had been disturbed for an unrelated reason. “He recommended using teeth, as the analysis does almost no damage,” Carmi said.
There are many motivations to study Jewish DNA: One can find lost relatives going back a few generations, and answer questions about Jewish origin of partners intending to marry. But the goal of Carmi’s team was “to fill the gaps in our understanding of Ashkenazi Jewish early history.”
There are several non-destructive ways to obtain DNA from human remains, said Carmi, who also works as a consultant to an Israeli firm that helps clients trace their genetic roots.
“You can take an almost microscopic slice of bone and extract DNA in a solution, or put the entire bone in a solution and extract the DNA without drilling, without disturbing the dead. This opens the way to doing studies even without teeth,” he added.
His team found that the Erfurt community appeared to fit into two genetically distinct groups, descending either from Middle Eastern or European populations. This genetic variability no longer exists, Carmi said.
At the same time, Carmi said, the analysis found remarkable continuity in the local community, as well. “One third of the Erfurt individuals descended from one woman through their maternal lines,” he said, adding that evidence suggested that she lived between 1,000 and 2,000 years ago.
In a press statement, geneticist Reich of Harvard said the work “also provides a template for how a co-analysis of modern and ancient DNA data can shed light on the past. Studies like this hold great promise not only for understanding Jewish history, but also that of any population.”
The research team, with more than 30 scientists, included Hebrew University’s Shamam Waldman, a doctoral student in Carmi’s group, who performed most of the data analysis.
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Grandson of survivors barred from UN Holocaust memorial event after photographing influencer’s encounter with security
(JTA) — The grandson of Holocaust survivors was blocked from attending the United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Day event in New York City after taking a photograph of influencer Lizzy Savetsky’s confrontation with security over an Israeli flag.
Julian Voloj was going through the security line at the U.N. General Assembly Hall when he saw security guards “harassing” Savetsky, a prominent pro-Israel social media influencer.
The security guards told Savetsky that she could not enter the event wearing her blazer, which had a bedazzled Israeli flag displayed prominently on its back. She was eventually allowed into the General Assembly Hall after checking her jacket.
“I do find it interesting that I was asked to check my Judaism at the door of an International Holocaust Remembrance Day event. Kind of ironic, no?” said Savetsky in an Instagram post about the incident.
After instinctively using his phone to take photos of the confrontation between Savetsky and security, Voloj said a security guard “stormed right to me, moved me aside, took my phone, used my face ID to access my photos and made me delete the pictures.”
From there, Voloj, who serves as the executive director of Be’chol Lashon, a nonprofit promoting Jewish diversity, said the security guard took his pass for the event and escorted him off the premises.
Voloj said he was not at the event in a professional capacity, only as the “grandchild of Holocaust survivors.” He said the experience left him “furious.”
International Holocaust Remembrance Day was created by the United Nations in 2005. Voloj said attending the annual event had become a “meaningful” tradition to honor the legacy of his grandmother, who survived a Nazi concentration camp in Transnistria as a teenager.
“Being a grandson of Holocaust survivors and then being so badly treated at the U.N. and kicked out for standing up for someone who, politically, I might not even agree to, I mean, I’m just beyond words,” said Voloj.
Savetsky, a pro-Israel influencer who left the cast of “Real Housewives of New York” in 2022 over antisemitism claims, has long posted provocative pro-Israel and politically conservative content on her Instagram page, which has 480,000 followers. She has shared her support for President Donald Trump and drew criticism last year after she posted a video saying that the late far-right rabbi Meir Kahane “was right” about how Israel should respond to terrorism.
In two separate posts about the jacket incident, Savetsky took aim at the United Nations, saying, “You know, the United Nations knows no bounds when it comes to antisemitism.”
Israel and its allies and supporters, including many Jewish groups, have long accused the United Nations of having a bias against Israel, citing the disproportionate number of resolutions condemning Israel. Most recently, those tensions intensified in September after a U.N. commission concluded that Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza and a wave of countries formally recognized Palestinian statehood at its General Assembly.
“In recent years, we have heard many warnings from this podium about the rise in antisemitism, about dangerous lies, about how hatred begins with language,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, said at the event on Tuesday. “Those warnings are right, but they ring hollow when the lies that fuel antisemitism are allowed to spread, including here in this building, in the U.N.”
According to the U.N.’s New York visitors services website, guests are prohibited from public displays, including “clothing, banners, placards or other written or visual means” that disrupt the “normal functioning of the organization’s programmatic activities.”
After attending the ceremony nearly every year since 2007, Voloj said he had never seen someone targeted for wearing clothing that featured a national flag.
“The U.N. obviously always had an anti-Israel bias,” said Voloj. “I feel like probably given the whole world climate, he felt empowered to do this because it was an Israeli flag on a jacket.”
Savetsky claimed in an Instagram post that a U.N. staffer had told her a Palestinian flag would not get the same treatment.
Savetsky did not respond to a request for further comment on Tuesday. Calls and emails to the U.N. Headquarters’ visitor services department and the office of the spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general were not immediately returned on Tuesday.
Savetsky also posed with an Israeli flag in the U.N. General Assembly hall that she said had been “smuggled in” by another attendee. Stephanie Benshimol, another pro-Israel influencer, later took credit for bringing the flag in comments on Savetsky’s post and on an Instagram post of her own.
“Hi im the someone 😘 who let you take a photo with our flag 🇮🇱 and then a few minutes later I was given a choice by security either go to security office with my flag 🇮🇱 or be escorted out of the building,” wrote Benshimol. “I chose with proud dignity to leave with my flag out of the building.”
Savetsky reported that the actual International Holocaust Remembrance Day event was a “beautiful event.”
Having missed the event, Voloj described an “underlying PTSD inherited from my grandparents that definitely came out and made me feel so shaken up after this,” though he emphasized that he couldn’t compare his experience to what his grandparents had endured under the Nazis.
“I felt like, really, the Gestapo was just kicking me out,” he said. “Standing up for something that is wrong and being then punished for this, I’m just very shaken.”
Looking ahead, Voloj said he was unsure if he would make his annual pilgrimage again to the U.N.’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day event.
“I’m not sure if I’m coming back next year,” he said. “This left such a bitter taste for me.”
The post Grandson of survivors barred from UN Holocaust memorial event after photographing influencer’s encounter with security appeared first on The Forward.
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Mamdani visits Holocaust survivor at her apartment on Holocaust Remembrance Day
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday made a private visit to the Manhattan apartment of an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor, a gesture to a Jewish community divided over his positions, and reflecting his focus on affordability and dignity for New Yorkers living on fixed incomes.
Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Mamdani spent 40 minutes talking with Olga Spiegel, who was born in France in 1943 after her family fled there, believing French children would not be separated from their parents. Her father was later deported to a concentration camp. Spiegel escaped with her mother into Italy, hiding for months in a stable before being sheltered by a priest in Rome until liberation, according to Blue Card, an organization that assists Holocaust survivors in need and organized the visit.
Mamdani allocated discretionary funds to the organization while serving as a member of the New York State Assembly, and its executive director, Masha Pearl, was a member of Mamdani’s transition team.
New York is home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel, with an estimated 14,000 to 15,000 living in the metropolitan area. More than 5,000 are at or below the poverty line, most live alone and many are homebound. Nearly 40% struggle to meet basic needs such as food, housing and medical care, according to the organization, and 84% survive on less than $24,000 a year, largely from Social Security and modest pensions.
City Hall described the private visit, which was not listed on the mayor’s public schedule, as warm and welcoming.
“It was an incredibly powerful meeting,” said Monica Klein, a spokesperson for the mayor, “and drove home that the Holocaust is not simply a thing of the past, but something that impacts countless New Yorkers every single day.”
An artist, Spiegel settled in New York in the mid-1960s and has spent the past 48 years in the same rent-stabilized apartment on the lower east side of Manhattan. Spiegel showed Mamdani her studio and artwork, and the two bonded over their shared love of art. The mayor also shared his family’s immigration story.
The visit came amid growing scrutiny of Mamdani’s approach to Jewish issues. His anti-Zionist worldview and revocation of executive orders tied to antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests on his first day in office were met with criticism from mainstream Jewish organizations.
During the mayoral primary last year, Mamdani faced backlash over his decision not to co-sponsor a resolution commemorating the Holocaust in the state legislature. Mamdani pushed back, saying he voted in favor of the Holocaust Remembrance Day resolution every year since he entered the Assembly in 2021 “to honor the more than 6 million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis.”
In a statement posted on X earlier Tuesday, Mamdani said Holocaust Remembrance Day “calls on us to do more than reflect; it calls on us to act — to confront antisemitism wherever it exists and to reject all forms of hatred and dehumanization.”
The post Mamdani visits Holocaust survivor at her apartment on Holocaust Remembrance Day appeared first on The Forward.
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ISIS Threat Surges Across Syria and Beyond, Raising Alarm Bells From Iraq to Sub-Saharan Africa
Islamic State – Central Africa Province released documentary entitled “Jihad and Dawah” covering group’s campaigns in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo and battles against Congolese and Ugandan armies. Photo: Screenshot
US and Iraqi officials are warning of a resurgent terrorist threat posed by Islamic State (ISIS), with the number of militants in Syria reportedly soaring to 10,000 and regional instability raising concern from Iraq to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Earlier this week, Iraqi intelligence services sounded the alarm over the surging ISIS threat, warning of a sharp increase in the terrorist group’s fighters in northern Syria, the country’s western neighbor, and expressing growing concerns among officials.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Iraqi intelligence chief Hamid al-Shatri revealed that ISIS fighters in Syria have skyrocketed from roughly 2,000 to 10,000 in just one year.
This number far surpasses last year’s estimate in the UN Security Council report, which placed the total of ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq at roughly 3,000 as of August.
“This represents a real danger for Iraq, because ISIS — whether in Syria, Iraq, or anywhere else in the world — is a single organization and will likely seek to establish a new foothold to launch attacks,” al-Shatri told the Washington Post.
He also noted that the terrorists who joined ISIS in Syria over the past year include men previously linked to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and al-Qaeda, many of whom have expressed dissatisfaction with the current political leadership.
As the Syrian government advances to retake territory long controlled by Kurdish forces, Iraqi officials are increasingly concerned about a resurgent ISIS threat.
In the wake of escalating violent clashes across Syria over the past few weeks, chaos erupted in regional prisons holding thousands of ISIS members, allowing many to escape into the desert.
Even though many escaped ISIS members were later recaptured, the Iraqi government rapidly deployed thousands of troops to bolster its border with Syria, warning that the threat of further attacks remained high.
Last week, the US military began relocating ISIS detainees from northeastern Syrian prisons, formerly controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to Iraqi facilities following the SDF’s withdrawal as Syrian government forces advanced into the area.
On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said the decision to temporarily transfer ISIS detainees to local prisons aims to safeguard both Iraq’s national security and the stability of the broader region.
According to the US Central Command, around 2,500 ISIS fighters remained at large in Syria and Iraq in 2024, but no updates have been released since.
These latest warnings from the Iraqi government come amid rising concerns following the departure this month of the last US troops from Ain al-Asad Airbase in western Anbar province, bringing to a close a mission that had supported local forces in combating ISIS terrorism.
The United States is now focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, where analysts have identified rising Islamist terrorist threats, making the region a central concern in the fight against global jihadist terrorism.
Last week, the deputy commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), Lt. General John Brennan, said Washington is stepping up equipment shipments and intelligence support to Nigeria as part of a wider government effort to strengthen its presence across the region and assist African forces in combating Islamic State-linked militants.
Brennan also revealed that the US military continues to engage closely with the armed forces of the junta-led Sahel nations — Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali.
Under US President Donald Trump, “we’ve gotten a lot more aggressive and are working with partners to target … [regional] threats, mainly ISIS,” Brennan told reporters.
“From Somalia to Nigeria, the problem set is connected. So, we’re trying to take it apart and then provide partners with the information they need,” he continued. “It’s been about more enabling partners and then providing them equipment and capabilities with less restrictions so that they can be more successful.”