response concerning LILLYLADY's supposed genetic proof that the Ashkenazim are descended from ancient Jews: .
Your genetic study is fine, but your conclusions are wrong.
As you stated yourself, the genetic evidence links the Ashkenazim to "the regions known today as Turkey, Armenia, Israel, and Iraq".
This is entirely consistant with the historical evidence that the Ashkenazim are descended from Khazars, a Turkish tribe that founded a great empire in eastern Europe before converting en-masse to Judaism in the 8th century. It broke up in the 10th century.
Your stated results showed that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to Yemenite Jews, Iraqi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Kurdish Jews, and Arabs than they are to European Christian populations.
That's no surprise.
The Khazars were not a European Christian population, they were a Turkish tribe.
In fact their conversion to Judaism was expressly to avoid being assimilated by the Christians in Europe.
Your claim that "the evidence shows that most Ashkenazic Jews are descended from Judeans" is groundless. In fact there is clear evidence that some are descended from the royal line of the Khazars.
If genetic evidence were all that existed, then the possibility that somehow the Ashkenazim came from Palestine would still exist.
But there is plenty of evidence to document the conversion of the vast Khazar empire,(already located in Eastern Europe), to Judaism and no record of any mass migration from the mideast.
So where did those millions of Khazar Jews disappear to if they didn't become the Ashkenazim?
And how did the millions of Askenazim suddenly appear in Eastern Europe in the same area where the Khazar empire had just disintegrated?
There are clear easily recognizable physical and cultural difference between Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews.
The former being almost physically indistinguishable from Arabs and the latter resembling Caucasians of Eastern Europe (such as the Khazars).
The Ashkenazi culture appeared in the Rhineland in the 10th century just at the same time the Khazar empire was breaking up.
So if the Khazars did not become the Ashkenazim, how did the huge Jewish population suddenly appear in Eastern Europe,
And where did all the Khazars go?
This seems to be the article from which you quoted.
I notice you left out a great deal. Especially the parts that didn't fit your claims.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/07-Jews-As-Nation/section-5.html