TO non-Jews, and indeed to many Jews, the ethnic and religious variations among the world's 14 million Jews are bewildering. Scientifically speaking, there is no Jewish "race." As Scholar Raphael Patai points out in his book, Tents of Jacob, Jews of one geographical area share physiological traits with their immediate non-Jewish neighbors but much less so with Jews of a distant geographical area. Still, the Jews' long history of wandering as tightly knit communities has dispersed them into a wide range of distinct ethnic groups.
By far the most numerous today are the ASHKENAZIC...
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