286 Heredity and the Jew 



the sinew of the leg " ; in Abyssinia where they are known as the 

 Falashas, and in Jamaica and the West Indies. The Beni-Israel of 

 India have been settled in India at any rate since 1400 of the present 

 era, but traditionally from pre-exilic times. They are essentially 

 a black people quite unlike the European Jew. They have always 

 been looked down on by their white brethren in India and they have 

 lived as the natives amongst whom they dwell, and with whom there is 

 little doubt they have freely mixed. In the description of them given 

 by Fischberg, he agrees that they are non-Jewish looking and dark 

 skinned ; he remarks, however, that every now and again a practically 

 ordinary white skinned individual with Jewish features occurs amongst 

 them. If, as is probable, the Jewish facial features are recessive to the 

 native, then it is only what one should expect to find that the great 

 majority of this isolated community are native-looking and that an 

 occasional recessive should crop out from the mating of two hybrids. 



The Chinese Jews are an even more isolated group who probably 

 reached China through India, possibly a thousand years ago, but 

 traditionally at a far earlier date. I have only seen photographs of 

 these so-called Jews, in which they are typically Chinese in appearance, 

 even as regards the eye shaped The Chinese Jews have lost practically 

 all knowledge of the tenets of Judaism and there is but little doubt 

 that the Jewish facial type has been swamped by the Chinese. 



The Falashas of Abyssinia are simply negroid. Some doubt whether 

 they had at any time any Jewish blood or whether they were not merely 

 converts by Jewish missionaries. Faitlovitch, who has spent many 

 years amongst the Falashas, whilst admitting that they are not Jewish 

 in appearance but on the other hand closely resemble the neighbouring 

 black peoples, assures me that it is his belief that originally and at a 

 very early period a considerable body of Palestinian Jews did settle in 

 Abyssinia. The Jewish settlers freely intermarried with the natives at 

 first, but during the last two hundred years they have become isolated. 

 If the origin of the Falashas is such, then the swamping of the Jewish 

 type of facial expression is only what would be expected when a 

 recessive character is introduced into a community of dominants. 



In Jamaica and the West Indies Jews, from the 17th century and 

 onward, have played a very important part as traders and settlers. 



1 Dr C. G. Seligmann informs me that in a number of crosses occurring in Australasia 

 and the east, whether between Chinese and White, Malay and Melanesian, or Malay and 

 White, the peculiar Mongolian eye with its epicanthus is always dominant. This fact is 

 amply borne out in the photographs of the hybrids which he has shown me. 



