The Need for an Ethnical Identity of Israel
The Need for an Ethnical Identity of Israel

Ever since I was a teenager and became more aware of my heritage, I asked myself the same question: Why do Pentecostal Christians have the notion of a Jewish people - and now I mean an ethnical group -, whereas most Jews only refer to themselves as a group adhering to the same religion? I am now 35 years old, and have still not received an answer to that question. Let me tell you my story.

Born to a Swedish mother (which I love very much) and a Jewish father, and raised in a city called Uppsala (65 km north-west of Stockholm), I became aware quite early that I was different than most of my classmates. Although my father – an Israeli immigrant (born in Russia and raised in Poland) – passed away when I was four years old, I felt his life flowing in my genes. I felt his pain of not having been accepted in a music academy in Poland because of him being a Jew. I felt my grandfather’s pain of losing almost his entire family when the Nazis occupied eastern Poland / Western Ukraine in World War II. And when coming to Israel for the first time, I didn’t see sand beaches, palm trees and the ocean. Or the modern culture in Tel Aviv. What I saw, heard and felt was the ancient Israel. The Hebrews, King David and the generations under Roman occupation. My land is not a passport, and my people is not a two years conversion course. I fully respected the fact that Judaism goes through the mother, and given my unsalable conviction that my God is one and my intention to follow the commandments possible today – I converted at the age of twenty-five. And a couple of years later, I also converted "le-chumrah", just to be certain that I would be considered a fully-fledged Jew according to the standards of the Israeli Rabbinate in Jerusalem. I lived in a religious neighborhood for about a year until I felt that even though their life is fascinating, it was not for me. I can give you a very detailed description of my life, but the risk is that we depart from the subject.

What frustrates me is that most Israelis and Jews do not perceive the Jewish people today of belonging to an ethnical tribe. When a French Jew makes Aliyah, he is called "Frenchman". When a Jew from The States comes here, he is being called "American". And when people asked me about my heritage, and I said that my mother is Swedish and my father was a Jew from Russia", they told me that I was Swedish and that my father was Russian. What happened to the idea of a Hebrew nation being scattered all over the earth and then united in their ancestral homeland? Why don't we call ourselves a people, when God only denotes us as such? Open the Tanach, and you will see countless of sentences where God talks about His people. Where can you find a place where He says "my religious adherents"?

A couple of years ago, I felt that after all these discussions about the Ashkenazi Jews having their origins exclusively in the Khazars, I wanted to know if it was true. Did I have a connection to the ancient Hebrews, or did I not? Was everything a fraud? I determined to find out by sending a sample of my DNA to an organization which investigates the character of the DNA that people send in. After investigation, they can report a lot of information about your haplogroup, ethnical composition etc.

When I got my results, it showed that my DNA consisted of about 35-40% Middle Eastern segments.

Given that my mother hasn't got any Hebrew heritage, it is obvious that my father's must have possessed 70-80% Middle Eastern DNA. Also, my patrilineal haplogroup is J1, which is relatively rare in Europe, and very common in the Middle East.

What is my point? What do I want with all this?

Well, I want to tell you people, that if our ethnical roots are not what identify us, we will die as a people, and – of more present concern – the State of Israel has no solid foundation. For how can we claim our rights to be here if we don't even care about calling ourselves a people? How can we boost in front of the world about having Chinese converts joining the nation and the Golani brigade and at the same time uphold our identity? I don't have anything against Chinese people, and may they join the faith, but there must be, there must be a distinction between an adherent to the Jewish faith, and a person having Hebrew roots. If the State of Israel is only based on religion and culture, then its character is no different from the Vatican state which solely is built on the Catholic faith. And if that is our foundation, then it is nothing more than clay that will melt under the fiery criticism from the world.

Our belief is crucial, but its foundation is the Hebrew nation. If we forget this, the two thousand years of suffering were in vain, and the purpose of our people being a light unto the nations will only remain an idea that failed.