I've heard of self-loathing Jews but this is ridiculous.

[photo: Chris Flyer]

Gene test's show that many Spanish people (especially in the South) have a mix of Muslim and Jewish DNA in their heritage. That's not a shocker. But the amount of genetic mixing is pretty astounding:

Twenty percent of the population of the Iberian Peninsula has Sephardic Jewish ancestry and 11 percent have DNA reflecting Moorish ancestors, the geneticists have found. Historians have debated how many Jews converted and how many chose exile. “One wing grossly underestimates the number of conversions,” said Jane S. Gerber, an expert on Sephardic history at the City University of New York. [NYT]

Besides reaffirming the fact that Religion is stupid and deadly, it show how utterly useless/pointless racism is. Especially in a country that has a lot of it. Francesc Calafell of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona who conducted the study, could of had as many as 1 million living ancestors! That's like if you were related to everyone in Columbus, Ohio.