Musing on why my marriage isn't trendy...
I missed writing a post this week, but in its place I had the opportunity to blog for Kveller.com, a website devoted to "parenting with a Jewish twist." I have the honor of bringing an interfaith perspective to the conversation.
So I decided to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start), and blog about my relationship with my husband. I think some people might feel saddened to read this, while others may relate, and yet others will not understand why it its a difficult story for me to share. Regardless of which kind of reader you are, I hope that what I have to say creates opportunities for empathetic conversation.
Here is my post...
I'm a Chinese American Married to a Jew, But Our Marriage Isn't Trendy
A South Chinese genetic haplogroup along with a hair gene of Central Chinese origin are among the surprising evidence that East Asian women, or their part-Asian descendants, joined the Ashkenazic Jewish community centuries ago. If your husband John Rappaport has ancestors from eastern Europe, he probably descends 1% or 2% from East Asians too, so your daughter together is probably 51% East Asian and 49% white. I gathered the scientific data at http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/aj-east-asian-admixture.html
ReplyDeleteThis is personal for me in the sense that I have some Jewish ancestors who lived in several towns in lands comprising modern-day Belarus and the specifically South Chinese haplogroup was located in Jewish families springing from there. But we know nothing about who that Chinese female ancestor was or what her name was - this knowledge has been lost to history. I also have Jewish ancestors from other regions of eastern Europe where East Asian heritages tend to exist in families.
I researched the history of the Khazar kingdom in part to try to determine if I descend at all from Khazars. My colleague in Khazar studies, Peter Golden of Rutgers University, is Belarusian Jewish and married to a Chinese woman. He had his deep autosomal DNA tested and came out 2% East Asian. He was amazed!