“Introduction à l’étude anthropologique des Juifs,” Revue d’anthropologie, series 3a, 8 (1885): 639–75.
Édward Goldstein (1844–1920) was a Polish Jewish anthropologist and author. The Revue d’anthropologie was the preeminent anthropological journal in France in the late nineteenth century. Its editors in chief were Paul Broca (1824–80) and Paul Topinard (1830–1911), France’s leading anthropologists in this period.
The Jews appeal to the anthropologist in a very special way: that of an experiment conducted century after century on a people who would have been submitted to the most varied climatic conditions and social surroundings. They are, in effect, a unique example of what differences in habitat, on the one hand, and isolation, on the other hand, as well as the intermingling of blood with other human groups, can do to men whose origins and filiations have been better recorded than those of any other known people.
For the linguist, the Jews also present conditions of particular interest, for their history is written in the idiom typical of the family of Semitic languages, and moreover, the variations of this idiom may be pursued through the ages, which has enabled the establishment of the chronology of Hebrew texts.
When the Jews ceased speaking this language in order to adopt others, they transcribed their documents in all of these languages: they contributed in this way to the linguistics of new sacred texts.
On the other hand, the different dialects observed among them in Palestine, and in modern times the development of their jargons in certain countries, allow for the study of the various laws that govern the phonetic transformations and the different modes of modification of the language.
The linguists themselves, through the analysis of the language and all of its variations, have supplied precious information about the history of this people’s migrations; and history in turn thus was able to become a mine of information for anthropology.
As for the statistician, he can, in studying the Jews, establish with a certain precision the influence of social surroundings on the prosperity of a human group, on marriage, birth rate, death rate—in short, on what was called demography and what can, it seems, be named more rightly biostatistics.
Given therefore that the study of Jews is equally appealing for the anthropologist, the historian, the linguist, and the statistician, it is not surprising that numerous important works in each of these fields of study have been published quite recently.
Before beginning personal research on the anthropology of the Jews, it seemed to us that beforehand, it was indispensable to spell out clearly the results already acquired.
The complexity of the subject demands that, for more clarity, we establish divisions. These present themselves quite naturally in the following manner:
(1) Successive phases through which the study of the Jewish race has passed.
(2) Formative elements of Jewish nationality before the dispersion.
(3) Dispersion of Jews on the surface of the globe and influence of local elements, social surroundings, and intersections on the remnants of this nationality.
(4) Research to begin on the study of the anthropological problems concerning the Jews.
We will approach the various aspects of our subject in this order. This manner of dividing it will permit us to classify all of the material scattered here and there. Once the terrain is cleared, we will easily see where all of the research has led us, and this, in turn, will allow us to recognize the problems that remain to be resolved.
From the very beginning of anthropology, we have been preoccupied with the Jewish type, with all the characteristics of which the Jew is composed; but with this comes the preconceived idea that the Jewish race, preserved by its isolation, was for anthropology the pure race par excellence. In this way, we began to assume as dogma the purity and integrity of the Jewish race to such an extent that this alleged racial purity, which we never even considered challenging, was invoked as an argument by partisans of diametrically opposed ideas, such as the champions of the unity of the human race, as well as those who champion the plurality of the origin of humanity—by monogenesists as well as by polygenesists.
Taking this preconceived idea as a point of departure, the monogenesists make use of it as an argument in favor of their doctrine. Their most authoritative representative, Prichard,1 presents the following thesis:
The Jews took their physical characteristics from the nations in the midst of which they resided long-term, and even so, they can still be identified by certain particular traits of their physiognomy.
In the northern lands of Europe, they have white skin; the English Jews generally have blue eyes and blond hair; in some parts of Germany, one may see many with a red beard; in Portugal, they are dark-skinned . . .
The Jews who have settled in the province of Cochin seem to have established their residence there long ago. Today, they are black and so completely similar in coloring to the natives that Dr. Claudius Buchanan says that he cannot always distinguish them from the Hindus. (In Mattancherry, a city in Cochin, there is a particular colony of Jews who arrived in this country at a later time and who are called Jerusalem Jews or white Jews.) This leads to the understanding that the black color of the Jews, found in different parts of India, could depend upon mixing with the Hindus through marriage; but there is no proof that this supposition is well-founded; and on the contrary, it is probable that the conservation of Jews in these lands as a distinct people is due, there as elsewhere, only to their constant distance from any mixing with the natives.
The Jesuits who were in China say positively that the Jews of Henan who have resided in this province for a good many centuries, still form a separate society, and marry only among themselves. There is reason to believe that the ancient Jewish inhabitants of the Cochin province were part of the same migration as those in China, and it is unlikely that they differed from their brothers as regards their relations with the natives.
We see that, for the monogenesists, all of the differences observed among the Jews of Europe concerning skin, eye, and hair color, and even the differences as characteristic as the black Jews of Cochin present compared with others, are entirely due to the influence of their surroundings.
The polygenesists make use of the same argument, the purity of the Jewish race, in order to demonstrate the opposite thesis.
Rudolphi,2 one of the most senior of the German representatives of polygenesis, says, for example, that which follows here:
Despite their diverse habitats, their faces and their skulls have maintained their specific character. Blumenbach3 represented this perfectly in his Dec. Cran., figs. 28 and 34, the skull of a five-year-old girl and that of a hundred-year-old man, both of them Jews. At first glance, their Jewishness is plain for all to see (das Juedische spingt gleich in die Augen). The Jewish character not only leaves its imprint on the exterior or soft tissue, it even marks the bone structure.
Edwards,4 treating the question seriously, summarizes the polygenesist doctrine with such clarity that we would have done a great disservice to ourselves had we not cited him word for word:
The Jewish traits are so blatant that it is difficult to be mistaken about them, and, as he [the Jew] may be found in almost all the countries of Europe, there is no national figure more generally known or more recognizable. One may regard them [the Jews] as colonies of the same race established in these lands. For centuries, they have made up part of the population of the countries in which they settled, and if they did not participate in the benefits of government, they were not deprived of the liberty of living on the same soil, of breathing the same air, of enjoying the same sun. As they conserved their religion, their customs, and their practices, making few alliances with the people among whom they lived, it would be difficult to find conditions more conducive to drawing out the effects of climate.
First of all, climate did not assimilate them to the nations among whom they reside; and what is more important is that they all resemble one another even in diverse climates. An English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese Jew is still a Jew based on features, regardless of the nuances he presents; that is to say that they all have the same characteristics of shape and proportion—in a word, that which essentially constitutes a type.
In this way, the Jews of these diverse countries resemble one another to a far greater extent than they resemble the nations among whom they live; and the climate, despite the extensive duration of its action, has lent them only diversities of complexion and of expression, and perhaps other modifications equally as slight.
In spite of the ways in which they resemble one another everywhere, perhaps it does not necessarily follow that who they were formerly is who they are today. But if you want to be contented with a three-hundred-year-old species, I can provide you with undeniable proof. In Milan, I saw Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper; the Jews of today are painted there trait for trait. No one has represented the national character like this great painter, all the while conserving the greatest diversity among individuals . . .
What was the Jewish type at the time of their dispersion? This is what would be important to know. Thus we would have a period of more than 1,700 years, during which climate would have had time to have an effect, and we would know what we should expect in a space that encompasses nearly half of historical time.
We could content ourselves with less; but if you were more exigent and if you wanted to know what the Jewish type was at a more remote time, I can tell you what it was three thousand years ago.
On the tomb of an Egyptian king there are, next to Ethiopian Negroes, two other groups of foreign nations, one of whom we recognized in a rather striking manner as the Jewish nation. The day before, I had seen Jews strolling in the streets of London: I may as well have been looking at their portraits . . .
Belzoni describes the figures on this tomb in the following passages:
One can make out Persians, Jews, and Ethiopians there: the first by virtue of their costumes, which may still be recognized in the paintings that represent their wars with the Egyptians; the Jews are recognizable by their physiognomy and their coloring, and the Ethiopians by the color of their skin and their jewelry.
Here is, therefore, a people that maintains the same type for a long series of centuries, encompassing almost all of known history; in the course of the first half of this period, experiencing unheard-of disasters; during the other half, dispersed in diverse climates, persecuted, shamed, vilified, forming a caste of pariahs, the discards of mankind. A more ideal assemblage of circumstances for profoundly modifying the physical organization of a people could not be imagined; it is therefore necessary that human nature had a great power of resistance in order to triumph over [such circumstances].
This keen example seemed like a rigorous experiment conducted with a view to observe the influence of diverse climates on human shapes and proportions over the entire span of historic centuries.
We see that, for Edwards, there is but a single Jewish type, unchanging in time and in space.
The opinions of certain erudite thinkers concerning research about the ten lost Jewish tribes, who were claimed to have been recognized every time someone found himself in the presence of some little-known people, are to be indirectly linked to this period.
[. . .]
After these discussions between monogenesists and polygenesists, discussions in which the unity of the Jewish race was but an argument invoked by turns in the two camps, the Anthropological Society of Paris inaugurated serious discussions about the origins of the Jewish race.
If we compare all of the opinions proposed by the eminent scholars who compose this society, we deduce from them the following:
(1) There are two well-defined types of Jews: the northern type of Jew or German and Polish Jews, called Ashkenazim, and the southern or Spanish and Portuguese Jews, called Sephardim.
Mr. Boudin5 says on this subject: “It seems to me that one has not distinguished the Jews of southern France, called Portuguese Jews, from the northern Jews, called German Jews.”6
Mr. Lagneau,7 on the other hand, expresses himself thusly: “The Jews are noticeable by the black color of their hair, their beard, their long eyelashes, their thick eyebrows, prominent and well-arched; by their dark, large, sharp eyes; by their smooth complexion and by their nose, strongly aquiline and straight at its base. However, in our eastern provinces, numerous inhabitants professing Judaism are blonds or redheads and present entirely different anthropological characteristics from those of the other Jews.”8
(2) The blond Jews from the northern countries come from a mixing of Jews from Judea with the Germanic peoples, the Slavs, and the Khazars. We took advantage of the historical documents to establish that these mixings are due to conversions to Judaism, which, until the tenth century, took place in southern Russia as well as the Germanic and Slavic countries.
Mr. Boudin explains his opinion, founded before anything else on anthropological considerations: “I believe that in England as in Germany, it is the result of crossbreeding; never have two individuals with black hair and eyes produced blond children, and I am persuaded that the same question can apply to skull shape.”9
[Paul] Broca supports the opinion of Boudin with historical considerations:
Mr. Boudin, I think, was right to attribute the blond hair of certain Jews from Alsace and Germany to the mixing of the Jewish race with the blond races of the North.
What guides the Jews in their alliances is not the question of race, it is the question of religion, and the argument would be valid only if all Israelites were Jews. Now, to say nothing of the individual proselytism that may have introduced some Christian renegades into Jewish families, there is a fact that I take to be well-established, regardless of how little known it is, which is that around the ninth century, a part of the Slavic peoples who occupied Poland and southern Russia embraced Judaism; Christian missionaries, in the following century, gained numerous converts, and the Christian religion did not delay in becoming predominant; but it is not probable that all of the Israelites of Slavic origin were made into Christians; in any case, there was a rather long period during which the Jews could have and must have, without breaking the prescriptions of their religion, contracted numerous alliances with their Slavic coreligionists.10
Mr. Pruner-Bey [Pruner Bey]11 insists upon the same considerations, and moreover, he clarifies a particular point: the question of the Khazars.
The conversion of the Khazars to the Jewish religion is a well-known fact. Were they converted by missionaries coming from Hungary where the Jews had already been established for a long time, or by Karaite missionaries coming from Crimea? This question is undecided for me, but it is probable that the present-day Jews of Caucasia still descend in part from these Khazars.
Judaism also gained, during a slightly less remote period, converts from among the Russians.
In Poland, after the triumph of Christianity, the Jews maintained their great influence for a long time, and it looks as though they often married Christian women, since in 1092 the Christian King Ladislaus was forced to forbid these alliances. He also prohibited Jews from taking Christian servants.12
(3) It remains uncertain whether the blond element appeared only after the dispersion of the Jews, or whether this blond element made its appearance when the Jews existed as a nation.
Mr. Boudin considers that the crossbreeding took place later: “I did not see a single blond among the southern Jews, whether in France or in Algeria, whereas I saw many of them among the Jews of Alsace. This is what drove me to put forward the hypothesis of racial crossbreeding subsequent to the dispersion of the Jews.”13
Mr. Rémusat appears to hold on to his opinion without looking favorably on the preceding thesis. He invokes the Bible: “Mr. Boudin, in speaking to us of blond Jews, put forth the thought that they became blond following their crossbreeding with the Germanic peoples; but there were already blonds among the Jews in ancient Judea. To say nothing of the characters with blond hair mentioned several times in the Bible, I will remind you that there should be true blonds among the Jews, since the most ancient traditions represented Jesus Christ as a blond man.”14
Mr. Pruner-Bey shares the same sentiment as Mr. Rémusat. He invokes the observations made about living Jews and about paintings conserved on ancient monuments:
But on the other hand, it is just as impossible to prove that those Jews of Egypt, Syria, and Italy who have blond, brown, or even red hair (the latter are rare) are all products of crossbreeding; in effect:
The Hebrews, that is to say the descendants of Abraham, ordinarily belonged to the Aramaean branch of the Semitic line. The living remnants of this nation, who still speak Syriac, have a ruddy tint, even in Kurdistan, and they have for the most part blond hair and light eyes.
The Canaanites are represented with red beards and hair on the most ancient monuments of Egypt.15
(4) There are entire populations who accepted Judaism, like the Falashas or Jews of Abyssinia; and there are, to the contrary, Jews who converted en masse to other religions.
The Jews of Abyssinia are well enough known that we did not provide citations. As for the second fact, it was presented to the Society by Mr. Topinard. He reminds us that there are some entire tribes of Israelites under negligible Kabylian influence: first, the Mehadjerids of Tuggurt, then a fraction of the tribe of the Zemoul near the Aïn-Feskia, the Wled-Zeiou, the Wled-Abdi, the Wled-Daoua, and the inhabitants of the villages of Mena and Mara. Moreover, he draws attention to the Hanenchas, parts of whom are composed exclusively of Jews who live as Arabs.
Mr. Topinard further cites the Beni-M’zab or Awbous, to the west of the Wed-R’ir and the Wargla. According to other authors, this Berber conglomeration descended from Israelites; it has retained a certain similarity in habits and characteristics.
They have the smooth brownish color, the intelligent physiognomy; blonds are rare among them; their beards are not thick; their eyes are black and almond-shaped; they are generally small in stature.
Mr. Topinard further indicates the existence of an Israelite tribe converted to Islam in the sixteenth century. They are the Mehadjerid of Tuggurt. They form a society apart, marry only among themselves, and have Jewish traits.
(5) Certain differences, with regard to birth rate, mortality, and the movement of the population in general, which characterize the Jews and distinguish them from groups belonging to other religions, are due in large part to differences in conditions of existence.
We will limit ourselves to citing Mr. Lagneau, for these considerations are somewhat beyond our subject: “With Mr. Dally, the quite remarkable and morbid demographic differences that the Jews present, compared to the inhabitants of other races and other religions, seem to me to be caused less by their Semitic race than their general customs, their particular social conditions . . . Now, although ethnologically very different, the Jews of the Semitic race and the Judaized peoples of Russia, of Poland, and of the Danube provinces present rather analogous demographic movements . . .”
We have not completed here an account of all modern works, neither from French nor foreign scientists. There remained for us not only to finish the account, proceeding by trial and error in this period where scholars were searching to orient themselves, despite the few observations that they had at their disposal, but also to give an account of the present day. We had condensed all of these results in schematic tables and graphics that we intended to group together here. But we lacked the time to coordinate them. We are therefore forced to cut this chapter short and to move on without having finished this historical piece.
Translated by Shaina Hammerman
1. J. C. Prichard, The Natural History of Man, Paris, 1843, vol. I, p. 196. [James Cowles Prichard (1786–1848) was an early-nineteenth-century English anthropologist and physician, and the author of the highly influential Researches into the Physical History of Mankind.]
2. K. A. Rudolphi, Beiträge zur Anthropologie und allgemeinen Naturgeschichte, Berlin, 1812, p. 153.
3. [Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) was a German anthropologist and one of the earliest and most important racial theorists. Goldstein’s reference to “Dec. Cran.” is to Blumenbach’s work on images of skulls, Decas prima collectionis suae craniorum diversarum gentium illustrata, published between 1795 and 1820.]
4. W. F. Edwards, The Physiological Characteristics of the Human Races, Paris, 1829, p. 15. [William Frederic Edwards (1776?–1842) was a Jamaican-born physician and anthropologist who became a member of French scientific circles in Paris. He was known as the father of French ethnology. See Claude Blankaert, “On the Origins of French Ethnology: William Edwards and the Doctrine of Race,” in Bones, Bodies, Behavior: Essays in Behavioral Anthropology, ed. George Stocking (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 18–55.]
5. [Jean-Christian M. F. J. Boudin (1806–67) was a French physician and anthropologist.]
6. Bulletin de la Societé d’Anthropologie de Paris, vol. II, p. 410.
7. [Gustave Lagneau (1827–96) was a French physician and anthropologist.]
8. Ibid., vol. II, p. 389.
9. Ibid., vol. VI, p. 515.
10. Bulletin de la Societé d’Anthropologie de Paris, vol. II, p. 416–417.
11. [Franz Ignaz Pruner (1808–82) was a German anthropologist and physician. In the 1830s he traveled to Egypt, where he began work in public health. In 1849 he was named personal physician to Abbas Pasha, and given the honorary title of bey.]
12. Ibid., vol. II, p. 418.
13. Ibid., vol. II, p. 412.
14. Bulletin de la Societé d’Anthropologie de Paris, vol. II, pp. 411–412.
15. Ibid., vol. II, p. 419.