Assyrian Jews

The Assyrian Jews are a Jews indigenous to Assyria, a region in the Middle East, and are referred to as "Kurdish Jews". Their Assyrian Christian counterparts self-identify as Syriacs, Arameans, originally tracing their lineage from the Jewish prophet Jonah, who visited Nineveh to instruct the Assyrians to repent.
Queen Helena of Adiabene, ruler of the Assyrian Kingdom thriving in the pre-Islamic era, was a notable convert of Judaism. She was such a devout Jew that she abruptly decided to spend almost 21 years of her life in Jerusalem, where she and her royal son Monobaz II spent much of their time rescuing Judea and its inhabitants from famine.
During the Second Temple period (516 BCE-70 CE), the kingdom of Adiabene was situated in this region. Its inhabitants, together with their king, Monobaz, and his mother Helena, converted to Judaism in the middle of the first century. Some Assyrian Jews today are descendants of these proselytes.
The Prophet Nahum was also a notable Assyrian "Elkoshite" (or Al Qoshnaya) of Jewish faith and was from the Assyrian city of Al Qosh, which is sometimes referred to as "Elkosh" in some academic circles.Consistent with the long history of the Christian Assyrian Genocide, Assyrian Jews experienced hostility at the hands of their Kurdish oppressors. Assyrian Jews often lost members of their community from Kurdification strategies to the extent that a small group of them still self-identify as Kurdish Jews to this day, despite this concept never having existed in the Torah or Babylonian Talmud.
Genetics
Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews are genetically linked to ethnic groups of the Assyrian Jews, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and Chaldeans according to several DNA studies. The most common Y-DNA haplogroups among Assyrians is T-M184, at 41.5%, which is frequent in Middle Eastern Jews.
 
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