Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I find this rather funny. A small town in Italy put up a nativity scene with a dark-skinned baby Jesus and the locals are up in arms over it.
The Christmas scene -- featuring a dark-skinned baby Jesus dressed in a red shirt and lying in a manger -- was the idea of Mario Giulio Schinaia, the chief Public Prosecutor in Verona."History teaches us that baby Jesus and his parents were very probably dark-skinned," Schinaia told Reuters. "This nativity belongs to a universal Christmas tradition that brings together the whole of Christianity in celebration."
Here's the context:
A nativity scene featuring a dark-skinned Jesus, Mary and Joseph that has gone on display in a Verona courthouse has created heated debate in a city with strong links to Italy's anti-immigration Northern League party.The nativity's appearance coincides with the League's controversial operation "White Christmas," a two-month sweep ending on Christmas Day to ferret out foreigners without proper permits in Coccaglio, a small League-led town east of Milan...
The nativity has caused heated reactions in the rich northern town, where resentment toward foreigners has spread as the number of immigrants, particularly from north Africa and eastern Europe, continues to rise.
"It is a useless act of provocation, just like the suggestion not to have a nativity scene at all, in order not to offend Muslims," Northern League farm minister Luca Zaia told one paper, referring to proposals in recent years that town halls and stores should no longer sponsor Christmas scenes.
Jesus loves all the little xenophobes in the world...
Politics
Comments
"This nativity belongs to a universal Christmas tradition that brings together the whole of Christianity in celebration."
And like in Christianity, they're up in arms over silly little differences.
Posted by: Owen | December 16, 2009 9:36 AM
Wait wait wait, being more historically accurate (depending on the actual skin tone) is an "act of provocation"? Do they not even know where Nazareth is? It's not like it's some crazy mythical city that doesn't exist any more - you can go visit it if you want.
Posted by: Tacroy | December 16, 2009 9:50 AM
If "historical accuracy" matters, then the Nativity scene would have Semites of the Levant--not exactly blue eyed blond Europeans--furthermore depict Mary and Joseph being around 14 or 15 years old (marrying age back then). Might be an interesting picture to paint.
Posted by: Rodney | December 16, 2009 9:50 AM
"The nativity's appearance coincides with the League's controversial operation "White Christmas," a two-month sweep ending on Christmas Day to ferret out foreigners without proper permits in Coccaglio, a small League-led town east of Milan."
... White Christmas? Seriously? So much for liberal, enlightened, tolerant Europe. (I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but every continental European I've ever met was racist as hell.)
Posted by: Pat Donohue | December 16, 2009 9:54 AM
Too bad I can't find a picture. It's hard to tell what point they are trying to make from the term 'dark-skinned'. The historical Jesus (if any) was surely olive-skinned with black hair and brown eyes. He surely did not look like a northern european or a sub-saharan african. He might not have been far off the average Italian though?! Then again, if it's acceptable to make him blond and blue-eyed, why not black also?
Posted by: Pen | December 16, 2009 9:55 AM
My grandparent's generation & even some of their kids didn't consider Italians to be white what with those Mediterranean features & olive skin tones. Why if it hadn't been for the Irish, no one would have been considered lower than Italians & blacks.
Posted by: Rob Jase | December 16, 2009 10:06 AM
Of course Jesus was black. He called everyone brother, he liked Gospel, and he couldn't get a fair trial.
Posted by: Juice | December 16, 2009 10:35 AM
Surprised noone done the obligatory PC gone mad, when it's actually C gone rational
Posted by: Naughtius Maximus | December 16, 2009 10:36 AM
Do they not even know where Nazareth is?
Yeah, in the US, same as everything else that's important. Therefore, Jebus was white, because illegal immigrants didn't exist back then.
Posted by: schism | December 16, 2009 10:40 AM
Leonardo da Vinci
Galileo Galilee
Michelangelo
Giordano Bruno
Christopher Columbus
etc
Just a bunch of wops.
Posted by: Juice | December 16, 2009 10:42 AM
Italians think Nazareth is the US, I wonder where you think Verona is?
Posted by: Matty | December 16, 2009 10:46 AM
And I think it would be wonderful if this really was a deliberate protest against the racism of the Northern League. I remember a Christian friend making a similar point with a story about Jesus being thrown out of a church in apartheid South Africa.
Posted by: Matty | December 16, 2009 10:50 AM
You wouldn't believe how funny and hysterical people is getting here in Italy.
Crosses has been painted on a family's home wall because they files suit in the European Court of the Human Right that lead to a sentence that declared as a violation of the family's child the mandatory exposure of the crucifix in the classrooms' wall.
Then some suits about same-sex marriage is pending judgment and one of those suits is heading to the Corte Costituzionale (the italian supreme court).
The same court last year allow the stop of the feeding and hydrating of a woman who spent the last 17 years in vegetative state. Those who applied the sentence where accused of homicide, but all charges have been dropped.
It's a great time in Italy: we're seeing all the kooks you are so used in the U.S.
Oceans don't stop stupidity, after all...
Posted by: diegopig | December 16, 2009 10:54 AM
Juice nice list, shame you couldn't compile one of Italians [/pedant] ;) - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | December 16, 2009 10:55 AM
As I remember it he Biblical text mentions that his skin was the color of burnished bronze. Which suggests to be a medium brown hue with a slight yellow overtone. I have seen people from Egypt that commonly have this skin tone and suspect that it represent a confluence of Arabic/North African/Asian cultures.
Of course the concept of Jesus, and Christianity in general, is pretty mixed up. The Biblical mythology presents Jesus as an observant Jew and a Rabbi. But then, well after the fact, Christians split off from Jews and accuse the Jews of killing Jesus. Jesus clearly wasn't a Christian because the concept was invented the better part of a century after he was dead. So we have a group which in many way reviles Jews but worship a practicing, observant Jew because the Romans, pagans at the time, killed a Jew. Romans who will in time adopt Christianity as their state religion and morph into the catholic church.
So what we have here is the Catholic church killing a Jew, blaming the Jews, trying to take over the world while marching behind a figure of a crucified Jew on a Roman cross while implicitly denying that Jesus was Jewish.
If you can swallow all that I guess that making believe that Jesus was white is pretty easy.
Posted by: Art | December 16, 2009 11:04 AM
Jesus had blonde hair and blue eyes, and kind of looked like the lead singer of Nickelback, don't ya know.
Posted by: Joe Blough | December 16, 2009 11:09 AM
Its in Joisey.
Posted by: Dave | December 16, 2009 11:09 AM
He was at least half-white. He gets half his genes from God, who everyone knows is white with a white beard. Even if Mary was dark skinned, Jesus would be lighter than her.
Posted by: Eric R | December 16, 2009 11:11 AM
Wait now, the albino in that crappy Don Brown book is really Jesus? :)
Art - Do you have any reference for that description of Jesus, I'd be interested. Thanks - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | December 16, 2009 11:11 AM
Grr... Link fail. That was supposed to be
Its in Joisey
Posted by: Dave | December 16, 2009 11:11 AM
Really? What a great idea for saving money--have your bar mitzvah and wedding at the same time. "Today, I am a man. Tomorrow, I go on my honeymoon."
Posted by: Mandrake | December 16, 2009 11:16 AM
I find it particularly hysterical that this is in Italy, where they are gripped by the nasty grub-smeared hands of Grope Panzerfaust.
If Jeebus had lived, wouldn't he look like one of those brown people the fundies hate?
Posted by: Katharine | December 16, 2009 11:16 AM
Nazareth is in the US. It's near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Or perhaps they think Jesus was in Nazareth, best known for the hit song, "Hair of the Dog."
Posted by: Eric R | December 16, 2009 11:17 AM
Re Eric R
Even if Mary was dark skinned, Jesus would be lighter than her.
Not necessarily. Heredity is a digital process, not an analogue process (demonstrated by Mendel 144 years ago).
Posted by: SLC | December 16, 2009 11:19 AM
Here's a hint. Baby JESUS wasn't born in a stable because there was no room at the inn. He was born in a stable because Josh and Maizie clashed with the innkeeper's color scheme.
Jesus most likely looked more like Woody Allen than Charleton Heston.
Posted by: democommie | December 16, 2009 11:20 AM
Art @ 15:
Do you have a bible verse for that claim? I hadn't heard that before and I thought I knew the Bible fairly well.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 16, 2009 11:21 AM
"Operation White Christmas"
Well that is all it took for me to loose faith in humanity. Happy fucking holidays.
Posted by: deep | December 16, 2009 11:23 AM
...and then there was the Roman Auxiliary called 'Pantera'.
[ducks behind sturdy sofa] ;) - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | December 16, 2009 11:25 AM
(I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but every continental European I've ever met was racist as hell.)
I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but that quote really tells an anecdote about what kind of people Pat ended up hanging with in Europe.
PS: I thought Mary was a teenager, but Joseph was much older; and this age difference caused a bit of consternation when their marriage was arranged.
Posted by: Raging Bee | December 16, 2009 11:32 AM
"Monkey killing monkey killing monkey, over pieces of the ground'
- Tool
Posted by: Pan Covenant | December 16, 2009 11:37 AM
That's from Revelation 1:15, and concerns his feet. His head is described as white in the same context, and his hair as being like wool. Altogether rather chimeric.
Posted by: Phillip IV | December 16, 2009 11:46 AM
"skin was the color of burnished bronze"
So Doc Savage was the second coming of Jesus?
Posted by: redwine | December 16, 2009 11:53 AM
if jesus was a Jew, why'd he have Puerto Rican name?
Posted by: rob | December 16, 2009 12:03 PM
@18 - I have to second that. As the son of God, Jesus was 1/2 at least half white. And I'm damn sure God's genes aren't recessive, so Jesus definitely resembled God more than he resembled Mary.
Posted by: barry21 | December 16, 2009 12:04 PM
Try these on.
http://bible.cc/revelation/1-15.htm
Yes, they are about his feet. I hadn't remembered that. But one has to assume, Socks and shoes being something of a rarity in his day and region, that his face and feet would be roughly the same shade.
You might also look as Hebrews 2:17 which says that he was like his brothers. And typical for the region.
http://bible.cc/hebrews/2-17.htm
Which I suspect means that a light to medium brown with a yellow cast might be about right.
Posted by: Art | December 16, 2009 12:19 PM
The sheep back then probably weren't white, so the "wool" colored hair could have been black or any shade of brown.
As for the feet, is this really his feet they are talking about? Or was this the biblical euphemism "feet"?
Posted by: deep | December 16, 2009 12:24 PM
barry21 #34 - "And I'm damn sure God's genes aren't recessive" ...
Interesting seeing as the the Jewish lines are, according to some accounts, matrilineal.
Posted by: Art | December 16, 2009 12:24 PM
Leaving aside the description in Revelation (which probably wasn't supposed to be a physical description, anyway - and originated with somebody who hadn't ever seen Jesus, to boot), that seems like a reasonable assumption.
On average, skin hues in that region probably trended slightly darker than they do today, however, so it's not even out of the question that Jesus might have had a skintone that would cause him to be considered 'black' in the broad, modern American usage of the term.
Posted by: Phillip IV | December 16, 2009 12:39 PM
"Baby JESUS wasn't born in a stable because there was no room at the inn...."
Here's a question I always ask--slightly off-topic, but related to the US/Euro-centric portrayal--what did the stable look like? What is it made of? Wood? Usually. In fact, I've never seen a commercially produced creche or display that got it right.
Around Bethleham, they were generally caves--or stone shelters. There are caves around Bethleham that have been used for stabling since before the time of Jebus.
Posted by: Nancy NEW | December 16, 2009 12:46 PM
I picture little Jesus as resembling Rallo Tubbs of The Cleveland Show.
Posted by: CRM-114 | December 16, 2009 12:47 PM
"My grandparent's generation & even some of their kids didn't consider Italians to be white what with those Mediterranean features & olive skin tones. Why if it hadn't been for the Irish, no one would have been considered lower than Italians & blacks."
Not quite--don't forget there were always Jews. But that's basically true--during the great wave of immigration c. 1890-1920, southern & eastern europeans were not considered "white" by the "nordic" people already here. Race and color were not considered to be the same, only becoming conflated after WWII for basically political reasons. Even then, Jews and Italians often still changed their names in order to "pass".
Posted by: Moopheus | December 16, 2009 1:17 PM
Nancy #39
Interesting you brought that up. A French nativity scene usually portrays Mary and co in a cave, at least around my parts. I doubt it's in aid of historical accuracy, but might have something to do with caves also being used as animal shelters here (in past times).
Or else caves are easier to make? The shops sell rock print paper at Christmas. You're supposed to crush it into a rough cave shape.
Posted by: Pen | December 16, 2009 1:25 PM
Nancy #39
The bible actually says nothing about Jesus being born in a stable. The Gospel of Luke says "they laid him in a manger" which is a feeding trough for livestock, hence the stable was assumed. Of course, the nativity story in Matthew is different. According to Matthew, Mary and Joseph already lived in Bethlehem, so there was no need for the stable scene.
Posted by: wubz | December 16, 2009 2:03 PM
The three birth stories are completely differnent from each other. A short synopsis of some of the differences (from the American Humanist Association):
As I (now) recall, Issac Asimov's Guide to the Bible covers the three different stories in great depth, and why Mark doesn't have a birth-story at all.
Posted by: blf | December 16, 2009 2:34 PM
If they can have black madonnas, why can't they have a dark skinned Jesus?
Posted by: Peter Lund | December 16, 2009 2:42 PM
Posted by: FastLane | December 16, 2009 2:56 PM
10) Juice - yep, I have an uncle who would still call them that.
32) redwine - nope, Doc was way taller.
Posted by: Rob Jase | December 16, 2009 4:06 PM
"Luke 2:22-40 claims that after the birth of Jesus, his parents remained in Bethlehem for the time of Mary’s purification (which was 40 days, under the Mosaic law). Afterwards, they brought Jesus to Jerusalem "to present him to the Lord," and then returned to their home in Nazareth. Luke mentions no journey into Egypt or visit by wise men from the east."
Damn good thing he wasn't born in the last 60 years. They would have never gotten through all of the checkpoints.
Posted by: democommie | December 16, 2009 4:13 PM
Pen@5: "Average Italian" should read "stereotypical Italian". Which the Veronese aren't, often. We are talking about a small town east of Milan here, in far northern Italy. Blond hair and blue eyes are actually pretty common up in the hills near Switzerland. It's not too hard for me to comprehend the uproar.
Posted by: dcsohl | December 16, 2009 4:45 PM
blf #44,
Where does it say that Jesus was a baby when the N wise men visited? You've been watching too many reruns of Charlie Brown's Christmas. Jesus was probably at least a year old before they arrived. This is in no way inconsistent with Luke's account.
Posted by: heddle | December 16, 2009 4:59 PM
democommie:
Jesus most likely looked more like Woody Allen than Charleton Heston.
Personally, I think Jesus probably looked a lot more like Oded Fehr (doing his male gigolo thing) than either Woody Allen or Charlton Heston.
http://www.alicia-logic.com/capsimages/db_031_OdedFehr.jpg
Posted by: Adrienne | December 16, 2009 5:01 PM
Heddle:
Jesus was probably at least a year old before they arrived. This is in no way inconsistent with Luke's account.
Heddle is right on this. The timing part really isn't spelled out, so I think Christian apologists usually say the three kings visit happened when Jesus was already allegedly escaped to Egypt (is that right, Heddle?). But definitely not at the same time as the stable bit.
But then there's the problem of the star....wouldn't have Herod heard about it and gotten suspicious if there had been an unexplained and really bright star shining over Egypt suddenly?
Fun fact I learned recently: "Gypsies" (who actually call themselves the Roma) get their name from Medieval Europeans's assumption that they had originated in Egypt but had been cursed and cast out of their ancestral homeland for aiding and abetting the Baby Jesus's Biblically documented escape from Herod into that land.
Posted by: Adrienne | December 16, 2009 5:09 PM
@Raging Bee #29. If Jesus' siblings were Joseph's children by a previous marriage (especially if Mary retained virginity after giving birth to Jesus), then Joseph would have been at least somewhat older than her. Scripture has nothing to say about it, though.
Posted by: countlurkula | December 16, 2009 6:13 PM
Come one now, we all know Jesus was White . he sang lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd
Posted by: Vic Vanity | December 16, 2009 6:57 PM
Jesus was brown (and fury)
Posted by: Holytape | December 16, 2009 8:13 PM
Nancy NEW - You asked an interesting question.
Usually Jesus' birth was depicted as being in a cave in religious art of the medieval and renaissance period, particularly in the Mediterranean area (caves, as you said, have long been used to house animals*). When it was Northern Europe's turn to flourish, Jesus suddenly starts getting depicted as being born in a typical Northern European stable. No surprise I suppose.
Morpheus - Remember our grandparents' generation would have had the vision of the 'typical' Italian, Benito Mussolini, this may have coloured their opinions somewhat (Not to mention, in US particularly, Sacco & Vanzetti).
countlurkula - We are told that Jesus had several (half-)brothers & (half-)sisters, why couldn't they be the children of Mary & Joseph? It just as valid a hypothesis, given the evidence. - DJ
-----------------
* Even in, what is now, Israel right up to the present day.
Posted by: DingoJack | December 16, 2009 9:38 PM
Heddle,
Matthew says the Wise Men visited Jesus in Bethlehem;
Luke says that Joseph and Mary took Jesus to Jerusalem after 40 days ( where he was openly hailed in the Temple as the Messiah by a couple of prophets), and went straight back home to Nazareth, from whence they returned to Jerusalem to celebrate every year.
Matthew says that after the Wise Men's visit, Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt, not returning until after the death of Herod:
21So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."
So Luke says after 40 days they returned to their original home in Galilee, visiting the temple in Jerusalem in Judea every year, while Matthew says that on returning from Egypt they were so terrified of even entering Judea that they moved to the backwater of Nazareth, and that's how Jesus became a Nazarene.
The obvious conclusion is that the (unknown) authors of both Gospels, writing decades after the facts, were working from a copy of Mark, which doesn't even
mention the birth of Jesus. They had to reconcile the fact
that the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem, but Jesus was known to be from Nazareth, so they independently invented different stories to explain it- the Roman census of the newly acquired province of Judea (6AD) and persecution of by Herod the Great (died 4BC)
Posted by: MikeN | December 16, 2009 11:23 PM
MikeN @ 57:
It's been years since I stopped ardently studying the historiography of Jesus, but if I recall correctly:
1) We can't validate Nazareth existed as a population center during Jesus' claimed presence on earth.
2) The gospel writers or subsequent copyists/editors may have inserted the Nazareth stories by confusing the town with the Nazarites given the two are conflated by the Greek language. The Nazarites were a group of Jewish ascetics that traveled around the area and were known for preaching and carpentry (which may be where the 'son of a carpenter' was inspired). Nazarite ascectism incorporated and initial purification by water (baptism) and abstinence from wine. Several verses in the Bible either support or contradict Jesus' membership in this group, supportive of his membership is his vow not to drink wine until he does so in the 'kingdom of God'.
3) We can't validate Jesus' existence, so both of these stories could have been ahistorically incorporated into the gospel story when they were either originally written or subsequent to the original draft by copyists/editors.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 17, 2009 12:08 AM
you really need to keep comment moderation on your blasphemy...
http://atheiskeptihumanist.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=90
GOATS ON FIRE!
Posted by: atheismisdead | December 17, 2009 2:18 AM
The above post is another DAVID MAGUS 'masterpiece'.
Do not click the link; do not engage the troll. -DF
Posted by: DingoJack | December 17, 2009 3:37 AM
Pat Donohue "... White Christmas? Seriously? So much for liberal, enlightened, tolerant Europe."
They wanted to call it Op Wetback, but it was already taken.
deep "The sheep back then probably weren't white…"
Um, Isa 1:18, Eze 27:18 & Rev 1:14?
wubz "According to Matthew, Mary and Joseph already lived in Bethlehem, so there was no need for the stable scene."
You're forgetting that Monopoly was modeled on that era/area.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | December 17, 2009 4:16 AM
That's funny, because for at least 200 years the Spanish have had a number of black Jesuses (full grown and little picaninny Jesus - the black "El Nino") and I think perhaps the Portuguese may have a few. A quick search on google brings up a "black Nazarene" in the Philippines, purportedly imported from Mexico around 1606 - so if that information is believable, that's 400 years. However, unless one were to argue that the mythical Jesus' parents had dark skin and were converts to Judaism (think about Sammy Davis Jr) or that Jews have gotten whiter over the past two millennia (think of Michael Jackson), then the black Jesus depictions would not be correct.
Posted by: MadScientist | December 17, 2009 5:36 AM
@juice #10: Yeah, I remember all the older movies always had dark-skinned Mexicans where a character was meant to be Spanish. Anthony Quinn was Mexican, but I guess he was too fair-skinned for most people to notice. I was always amazed that my neighbors thought that Spaniards and Italians looked like Mexicans; I was much older when I realized that they must never have met Italians or Spaniards.
Posted by: MadScientist | December 17, 2009 5:46 AM
1.) It wasn't that there was "no room at the inn" it was that nobody was willing to give up their room for a young woman in labor
2.) If Joseph had no genetic contribution at all, why is Jesus' lineage traced to Joe, instead of Mary? (and different in both accounts?)
3.) Location is everything. If Jesus had been born in Wales, we might have to try and sing "Oh little town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch" and what would happen to Christianity then???
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | December 17, 2009 7:33 AM
Madscientist: "or that Jews have gotten whiter over the past two millennia (think of Michael Jackson), then the black Jesus depictions would not be correct."
You're forgetting that "Jew" encompasses a wide range of people. The Jews that most often ended up in America were European Ashkenazic jews.
Sephardic Jews and Misrahi Jews tend to have significantly darker skin and vary from Mediterranean looking to arab looking and darker.
No one would really know for sure, but I find it likely that any group of people originally coming from the Israel/Palestine area were much closer to Arabs skin tone wise than they are to northern Europeans.
Posted by: Ben P | December 17, 2009 9:19 AM
All due respect for Wales, but if Jesus was born in New Zealand (but with birth notices in the Jerusalem papers), we might have to sing "Oh come ye, come ye to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu"
And then we'd never have got the Pope or Oral Roberts.
Posted by: Amadan | December 17, 2009 10:11 AM
And if he'd been born on coast near the South Australia's Eastern Border: you'd going to Dismal Swamp, therefore no Christianity (oh well, maybe next time*) - DJ
--------
* 'First time as tragedy; second time as farce' remember.
Posted by: DingoJack | December 17, 2009 10:22 AM
Ed wrote" "I find this rather funny. A small town in Italy put up a nativity scene with a dark-skinned baby Jesus and the locals are up in arms over it."
We in the U.S. cannot feel too superior. Not after the year 2000 flap over a brown-skinned Mr. Potato Head in Rhode Island:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000929/aponline124748_000.htm
http://slate.msn.com/id/1006162/
Posted by: Chris Winter | December 17, 2009 3:27 PM
Jesus was a Garibaldian?
Posted by: Ktesibios | December 17, 2009 7:13 PM
Michael Heath,
Correct, there's doubt about Jesus's origins in Galilee; I should have said the Gospel writers believed they knew Jesus was from Nazareth.
Posted by: MikeN | December 17, 2009 11:57 PM
The "average Italian" of post #5 is probably a southern Italian/Sicilian. The Northern League started not as an anti-immigrant party but as a regionalist party, and its more extreme members have expressed ethnically tinged contempt for southern Italians (e.g. the MEP who said "we are Celts and Lombards, not Mediterranean or Middle Eastern shit"- a reference to the Greek, Arab and Etruscan ancestry of southern Italians.)
As for the physical appearance of the historical Jesus, it is unlikely that many (if any) first-century Jews resembled Northern Europeans or sub-Saharan Africans. The Ethiopian Jews seem to be descended primarily from locals who converted to Judaism in ancient times, and there seem to have been episodes of intermarriage and conversion in Roman and early medieval Europe which contributed to the ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews.
Posted by: patrick | December 24, 2009 12:31 AM