Aaron Chromosome
in COHEN Family

Follows an interesting excerpt which confirms today the hypothesis which was banished in 1984 (Lyon) by the Psychoanalytical (Lacanian Resistancy), Religious (Dany Vesse) and Legislative (E.Badinter) establishments.

Cohens are found to share markers on the Y chrornosome.

Finding Genetic Taces of Jewish Priesthood

Genetic tests could
rule out descent
from Aaron.

In an unusual marriage of science and religion, researchers have found biological evidence in support of an ancient belief: 'certain Jewish men, thought to be descendants of the first high priest, Aaron, the older brother of Moses, share distinctive genetic traits, suggesting that they indeed members of a single lineage that hasendured for thousands of years.

The men are known as Jewish priests, a designation that since the time of Aaron 3,300 years ago has been passed down through the generations, exclusively from fathers to sons. The only way to become a priest is to be born the son of one. They differ from rabbis, though a priest may choose to become a rabbi. Historically, certain blessings and rituals could be performed only by priests, and some congregations to-day still follow that tradition.

Many priests have the surname Cohen or Kohen, which in Hebrew means priest, or related names like Kahn orKahane. Those with other surnames · generally have the words "ha'kohen," for "the priest" inscribed on their gravestones, some-times with an image of hands raised in a characteristic gesture of blessing. Even in families where priests no longer perform the traditional religious duties, knowledge of the heritage is often preserved.

It was the patrilineal nature of Jewish priesthood that piqued the curiosity of a research team from Is'rael, England, Canada and the United States. Knowing that another bit of a man's identity is also passed strictly from father to son -- namely, the Y chromosome, which carries the gene for maleness -- they set out to determine whether that chromosome might carry special features that would link the priests to each other and set them apart from other men, confirming the priests' unique paternal lineage.

"I think anybody who knows the biblical story about Aaron and this tradition of the priesthood going from father to son, and is aware that the Y chromosome is inherited in the same way, would think of this question," saici Dr. Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and an author of a report about the priests in the current issue of the journal Nature.

A unique aspect of the Y chromesome that lends itself to this sort of research is that the Y does not swap stretches of DNA with other chromesomes. Changes that occur in' the Y tend to persist in a lineage over time, and, Dr. Hammer said, "We can use that to interpret historical events." In a study published in 1995, he and his colleagues used segments of the chromosome to suggest that all men living today can be traced back to a common ancestor 188,000 years ago.

The subjects of the current study were 188 Jewish men from Israel, North America and England. The researchers did not rely on surnames to identify priests, but instead asked the men if they had been told they were priests. Sixty-eight had, and the rest identified themselves as "Israelites," a term used to describe laymen. (Men who said they were Levites, members of a different priesthood, were omitted froth the study.)

The researchers obtained Y chromosomes by extracting them from cell samples scraped from the men's mouths. They studied two sites, or markers -- known variable regions of DNA -- to find out whether the priests and Israelites differed.

They did. Only 1.5 percent of the priests, as opposed to 18.4 percent of the laymen, had the first marker. The other marker, which could appear in five different forms, tended to occur most often in one version in the priests. Fifty-four percent of the priests had this version and 33 percent of the others had it.

"The simplest, most straightforward explanation is that these men have the Y chromosome of Aaron," said Dr. Karl Skorecki, a co-author of the report who conducts genetic research at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa. "The study suggests that a 3,000-year-old oral tradition was correct, or had a biological ,counterpart.'' There are at least 350,000 priests around the world today with that same chromosome, he and his colleagues estimate, about 5 percent of the Jewish male population. They are all related, Dr. Hammer said, and could be considered distant cousins on their fathers' side.

"It's a beautiful example of how father-to-son transmission of two things, one genetic and one cultural, gives you the same picture," Dr. Harnmer said.

The study also supports the idea that the priesthood was established before the world Jewish population split into two major groups 1,000 years ago, as a result of migrations, The marker findings in the priests were similar in Ashkenazic and Sepfiardic Jews, indicating that the priesthood antedated the division.

Asked to comment on the study, Dr. James Lupski, a medical geneticist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said: "I's amazing to think how you can use these technologies to investigate history and evolution. They took a very interesting approach that will certainly be use-

ful for studying the Y chromosome. And a report like this is going to stimulate interest, stimulate other groups around the world to confirm it in a different way."

Dr. Hammer said he did not know whether the chromosome testing used in the study would be of interest to anyone other than scientists. But. he said, "I do know someone named Cohen who said he'd be interested, in having the test, just to find out if he was really a priest." At this point, the test could suggest that a man was a priest, but not prove it. It could, however, rule out the possibility with a high degree of certainty.

"It could say your DNA is not consistent with patrilineal descent from a common ancestor, Aaron," Dr. Skorecki said. "Whether the regious community would accept that as grounds for exclusion is not an issue I'd want to get into. It's for trhe rabbis to debate."

Rabbi Aaron Panken, of the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan, said: "There's a lot of danger in this for religious fanatics to go off in different directions. It could become a tool for fundamentalists to try to weed out who is not a cohen, and that would be troublesome."

In addition, Rabbi Panken said, because priests were traditionally banned from marrying divorced women, he could imagine fundamentalist groups demanding DNA testing before permitting any man to marry a divorced woman, to make sure the man was not a priest.

"It would also concern me if we began to look backwards," he said, "romanticizing the hereditary model of priestly leadership. Do we want a hereditary leadership pattern in the Jewish community? We haven't had that in 2,000 years."

---Excerpt from The New York Times, Tuesday, January 7, 1997 - By DENISE GRADY---

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