When I think of the physical descendents of Jacob, I think of them as Arab looking people like Egyptian, Jordanians, Lebanese, Palestinians,Iraqis, Iranians etc..etc..'Arabs' you get the drift, when the majority of toady's Jews are Europeans and not even close to Arab look alike's.
Are today's Jew actually the descendents of Jacob (Israel) and can they prove it with their own scriptures????
Answer: As to the question of whether Jews are from Bani Israel, the majority are! We don't judge things based on such a superficial thing as skin color. There are MANY Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Algerians, etc. with the whitest of skin, and some even have blond hair and blue eyes...they are still Arabs. The majority of Jews have very semitic features that are not European features. I know many Syrians that are as white as me (I being from a "European Jewish background.") and have red hair and freckles just like me. Becuase we are Semitic brothers from Shams (Palestine, Syria, etc.). The biggest evidence that they are Israelites is the tradition which is passed down from father to son of whether someone is a Kohanim (descendant of Aaron) or a Levite (tribe of Moses) which is passed down generation to generation, because they have certain religious obligations. Up until the 12th century the majority of Jews lived in Muslim lands. It was only after that they started moving to Germany, Poland, Russia, etc... If an Arab moves to Germany and intermarries with other Arabs, then 5 or so generations later, they are still Arabs. Just becuase the Jews migrated to Europe does not make them not Bani Israel, because most often they did not intermarry.
There are different communities of Jews. There are Ashkenazim, which are the ones you are referring to which are the Jews of Eastern Europe. There are Sephardim and Mizrahim which are the Jews from Arab lands. And there are Ethiopian Jews. First of all Ashkenaim tend to be ligher skin than Sephardim. THat does not mean however that the ashkenazim are not bani israel. Much the same as how not all Arabs are the same, in skin color, based on the geographical region they are from. The Arabs from Shams (syrians, lebanese, Palestine, Jordan) often tend to be of a lighter skin color that Arabs from other regions. Part of the reason for this is that first of all Bani Israel are a purely semitic race from Jacob. The Arabs are not one race, they are a mix of races. The tribe of Quraish from which our beloved Prophet comes from, that Tribe claims direct lineage from Ishmael. Abraham and Sarah, the mother of Isaac, were both semites. On the other hand, Hajar, the mother of Ishmael, was an Egyptian, meaning that she descended from the Tribe of Mizraim (Genesis 10:6 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.), which are Hamitic (black skin), not Semitic (olive skin). Meaning that Ishmael would have been half semitic and half hamitic, thusly darker skin color than Isaac who was purely Semitic. Thusly the descendants of Jacob tend to be lighter skin then the descendants of Ishmael (who often tend to have more African features). Although it should be noted that Prophet Muhammad (saws) from several hadith had white skin!Another important point is that when Islam spread out of Arabia and across the "Arab" world, it was many different Hamitic tribes that converted to Islam and intermarried with the Arabs from Arabia. So one of the reasons that the Arabs tend to be darker than Jews is often they are a mix of different hamitic tribes and the Arabs from Arabia. Whereas the majority of Jews are Semites from Jacob, some Jews converted to Judaism.
For 2000 years people never debated as to whether Jews were Bani Israel. It has only been since 1967, for political reasons that Muslims make this ridiculous claim. Becuase Muslims think that if they can prove that Jews are not Bani Israel, then they have no claim to the land of Israel, which was given to Moses and the Bani Israel.
