Your RDA of Irony

Family Values and Trophy Wives: Why I Don’t Look Like Yasir Arafat

Let us render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. The Romans destroyed Jerusalem and killed perhaps two-thirds of the Judean population but they did have family values. They were willing to enslave Jewish women as well as men. Historians once thought that only men comprised the tens of thousands of deported prisoners who, at least among the survivors, would become the founders of Europe’s Ashkenazi Jews. (Gentile women presumably were picked up along the way; apparently, Jewish men were always considered a catch–they don’t drink and they are willing to beg for sex.)

However, a recent report by the American Journal of Human Genetics has found that the Ashkenazi community might always have had Jewish mother jokes. According to the study of the matrilineal mitrochondria, at least forty percent of Ashkenazi descendants have had 3000 years of Jewish mothers. Of course, that also indicates that perhaps half of the Ashkenazi should look a little Gentile–or at least better than an Arab.

Let me explain what actually happened. In the fourth century, when Sam was just the traveling toga tailor for the Roman garrisons along the Rhine and Danube, he had a Jewish wife: Ruth. But business was good, and in time Sam became the Toga King of Pannonia. Buying himself a Mercedes chariot wasn’t enough. He got himself a trophy wife: 5’10” Inge. Ruth got some alimony and the satisfaction that her children were brighter than Inge’s.

Leave a Reply