Was Raleigh really Jewish?
Raleigh in a portrait of 1588: ‘dark with a prominent nose, high forehead and narrow face’. Revealing facial traits, according to two American authors The search for one’s forefathers (and foremothers of course) has become even more fascinating with the advent of DNA testing, explaining the never-ending popularity of shows like ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ It’s just another aspect of the inter-connections in our global village. Those who cling firmly to notions of racial purity will be a bit put out by the theories published in recent years by researchers like the American academic Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman, a professor of marketing at Rutgers University. When Scotland Was Jewish was the title of a book she published in 2007. Its thesis was that ‘DNA evidence, archeology, analysis of migrations, and public and family records show twelfth century semitic roots’ for many Scots; not surprisingly one reviewer wrote that the volume would enrage some a...