[LittleOldLady]

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When issues of sovereignty, reparations, tax exemption, and demographic are raised, the minority in question cannot be the determining body, for obvious reasons.

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Were we talking about issues of sovereignty, reparations, tax exemption, and demographic (whatever you mean by that)? If so, I missed it. I was talking about genetics in response to Warik. Ashkenazic Jews form a distinct gene pool for reasons which I mentioned, and Sephardic Jews form a separate but related gene pool. Yes, there are 'Jewish' genes (like the dreaded Tay-Sachs gene), but there are no Christian or Muslim genes. This is a scientific fact--it is not a matter of a minority self-defining or self-identifying. I looked up the prevalence of Tay-Sachs, and the numbers I found were 1 in 25/30 Ashkenazic Jews is a carrier as opposed to 1 in 280 for Sephardic Jews and non-Jews (the incidence is considerably higher in French Canadians and Cajuns). There are a number of other nasty genetic disorders that occur primarily in Ashkenaizc Jews, and one, familial dysautonomia, that occurs ONLY in Ashkenazic Jews. This is science, not self-definition, or reparations or tax exemptions or whatever. So, there are "Jewish genes"--or at least one might put it that way. There are, of course, no Christian or Muslim genes in any sense. The reason that there are 'Jewish genes' is that the vast majority of Jews are born of Jewish mothers, and with a long history of endogamy, Jews have come to form a separate breeding population with outside genetic material introduced only relatively rarely, at least only rarely until the last couple of generations.