Background of R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites

Introduction

The R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite cluster is comprised of men who, as evidenced by their Y-DNA, are descended on their direct male lines from a single Most Recent Common Ancestor (“MRCA”) who lived about 1,200 to 1,750 years ago. (Status as an R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite may be ascertained through Y-DNA testing of Short Tandem Repeat ("STR") marker values or Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms ("SNPs").)

The Levites, members of a Jewish priestly class that dates back to Biblical times (the Greek name Leviticus, the third of the five books of the Torah, refers to the Levites), bear certain rights and obligations in Jewish ritual not borne by laypeople. Because Levite status, like Y-DNA, passes via patrilineal descent, Y-DNA testing is particularly well suited for tracing the relationship among R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites.

According to the leading 2003 study by Behar et al.: (1) Levites (i.e., Jews with a family tradition of being Levites) comprise about 4% of the Ashkenazi population; (2) 52% of Levites with an Ashkenazi tradition are R1a1 and share a distinctive pattern of STRs; and (3) only 3.2% of Levites with a Sephardic tradition are R1a1. D. Behar, et al., Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European Ancestries, Am. J. Hum. Gen. 73:768-799 (2003).

A 2013 study by Rootsi & Behar et al. found R1a1a Ashkenazi Levites (i.e., Ashkenazi Jewish men with the SNP M582) to comprise 13.3% of the Ashkenazi population. S. Rootsi & D. Behar, et al., Phylogenetic Applications of Whole Y-Chromosome Sequences and the Near Eastern Origin of Ashkenazi Levites, Nature Communications 4, Article No. 2928 (2013).

Wim Penninx has found that R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites (again, Ashkenazi Jewish men with the SNP M582) comprise about 8.7% of the Ashkenazi population, based upon his review of more than 2,200 sets of 67-marker STR test results.

Men who have that distinctive pattern of STRs and the SNPs related thereto belong to the R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite Y-DNA cluster. Because membership in that cluster is strictly genetic, not genealogical, men can belong to that cluster even if they do not have a family tradition of being Levites and, indeed, even if they do not have a family tradition of being Jewish on their direct male line.

There is a considerably smaller group of R1a Ashkenazi men, some of whom have a Levite tradition, who do not share those STRs; those men are not R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites.

A 2013 paper by Rootsi & Behar et al., discussed in more detail here, found that R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites are likely descended from a man who lived in the Near East more than 2,000 years ago, and that there are some non-Ashkenazi men of Levite descent who are Y-DNA matches for men in the R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite Y-DNA cluster. A January 2014 article by Anatole Klyosov, summarized here, concludes that the ancestor of R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites entered the Jewish population in Abrahamic times, i.e., at the time of the first Jews. A 2017 paper by Behar et al., discussed in more detail here, found that R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites are descended from a single Levite man who lived in Europe about 1,743 years ago and that such man was descended from a man who lived in Iran about 3,143 years ago.

Genetic Relationship of R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites

R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites have relatively few deviations from one another in Y-DNA STR markers (and relatively few differences in Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (“SNPs”)), indicating that they share a relatively recent MRCA on their direct male lines.

Based upon analysis of STR test results to date, it appears that: (1) all R-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites are descended on their direct male lines from an MRCA who lived about 800 to 1,500 years ago; and (2) a substantial portion of those men are descended on their direct male lines from an MRCA who lived in about the late 15th century. SNP analysis indicates that the MRCA of R-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites lived about 1,500 to 1,700 years ago.

Assuming that, as found in the 2003 Behar paper, R-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites account for about 2% of the total Ashkenazi population (i.e., about 52% of the 4% of Levites in the population are R-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites), it appears that the R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite progenitor who lived in the 4th through 6th century CE is the MRCA on the direct male line for about 2% of the total Ashkenazi population (about 200,000 people).

The 2013 Rootsi & Behar paper indicates that the percentage of R1a1a Ashkenazi Levites in the Ashkenazi population is 13.3% - a six-fold increase over the percentage found in the 2003 Behar paper. Based upon these numbers, the R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite progenitor who lived in the 4th through 6th century would be the MRCA on the direct male line for about 13% of the total Ashkenazi population (about 1.3 million people).

Although such reproductive success is staggering, it is feasible, assuming that this R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite progenitor had a substantial number of sons who lived to have a substantial number of sons, and so on.

The April 4, 2014 ISOGG tree for Y-DNA Haplogroup R and its Subclades designated R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites as R1a1a1b2a2b1a. The 2014 ISOGG tree identified the SNPs Z2124+ Z2122+ F1345+ CTS6+ as the SNPs that define, in that order, what this website now designates as the R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite subclade. The 2019-20 ISOGG tree for Y-DNA Haplogroup R and its Subclades designated R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites, somewhat more precisely, as R1a1a1b2a2b1a3~, with the same upstream SNPs.

Because the ISOGG designations are lengthy and subject to repeated revisions, Family Tree DNA has moved away from this nomenclature, in favor of nomenclature referring to the most significant SNPs shared by clusters.

As of April 20, 2014, Family Tree DNA’s R1a Project page described the “‘Ashkenazi Levite’ cluster” as Z93+ Z94+ Z2124+ Z2122+ F1345+ Z2469/CTS6+ (a plus sign means that the SNP is present, while a minus sign means that the SNP is absent). As of July 2, 2021, that project page, like FTDNA projects in their entirety, had adopted a simpler nomenclature and recognized that Y2619 was the SNP that described the cluster: Z93>Z94> Z2124>Z2122>F1345>CTS6>Y2619 (the plus signs were omitted as superfluous).

Click here for a detailed analysis of additional SNPs that define R-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites (i.e., all R-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites will have those SNPs, while no other related subcluster will share those SNPs) or distinguish separate branches of the R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levite tree.

Historical Roots of R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites

Because Jewish records were not kept in many parts of Europe until the early 19th century (and even later in some regions) and because many records that were kept have not survived, many Ashkenazi Jews will have difficulty tracing any part of their family trees back before the mid-18th century, at the earliest.

This difficulty in researching direct paper trail male lineages is exacerbated because many Jewish families in some parts of Europe did not adopt surnames until the 19th century, and surnames remained in flux for some time after adoption, both in Europe and in countries of emigration thereafter.

However, some Jewish rabbinical families have been able to trace their lineage back through many centuries. One of those families is the Levite Horowitz rabbinical family, which was prominent throughout Central and Eastern Europe from the 15th century onward.