Who were the early ancestors of East European Ashkenazic Jews, when and from where did they arrive in Eastern Europe, and how were they related to the biblical Israelites/Judeans? This book intends to answer these questions, but first it discusses the switch from a patrilineal system (Israelites/Judeans) to a matrilineal one including converts (Jews), and the switch from ashkenazim by descent to ashkenazim by rites, important topics not mentioned in the literature pertaining to the current subject. The author uses a combination of archaeological and historical data from the period BCE to obtain information about the population in Canaan/Palestine which ideally should then be linked to genetic data of ashkenazim. He shows how Jews, mainly from Anatolia, Greece, and Italy were the main contributors to the Jews in southern Russia/Ukraine who formed the beginning of East European Jewry. Finally, it is shown why East European ashkenazim speak Yiddish without originating from a German-speaking region. weiterlesen