IS NOBLE WINNER SZOSTAK POLISH?

London-born Jack Szostak, 56, at Harvard Medical School since 1979 and professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was among this year's Nobel Prize winners in medicine. Judging by his name (Szóstak?) and London birthplace he might be the descendnat of post-WW2 DP émigrés. Anyone know for sure?

Looks more Hungarian to me. Depends if there is an accent on the 'o'.

these both can be Polish names (Szostak and Szóstak) no idea if they can be Hungarian

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_W._Szostak

name Szostak can also be Ukrainian or even Russian

there is a big community of Ukrainian descent in Canada

My mistake, sorry. Dunno why, i thought Hungarian the moment i saw the diacritic on the 'o' ;)
So, yeah, can be Polish.

Ah, I've been expecting someone to post this. I have seen him speak in person. ^_^ A few years ago that was at the UChicago. Nonetheless he tells everyone he is American and every article reporting the Nobel prize win and his wikipedia article cite him as an American. Even if he did have Polish heritage, so many generations of his family were brought up in Canada and England especially. When I typed in SZOSTAK into an ancestry website it came up with heritage for Romania, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, and Russia. So you can't be sure.

Nonetheless though, Poland does currently have about a dozen Nobel laureates, be porud of that ^_^.

His grandfather was Polish, the guy doesnt have an ounce of Poland in him though.

Sorry to inform you that 25% of all scientific nobel prices are pure semitic Jews , and probably more would have been rewarded unless Poles help the Germans to exterminate them ...

Be proud of it !

Most Jews are Ashkenazi Jews who are only slightly related to Semites.The Jews of the bible
are more closely related to Sephardic Jews who are darker and hence more Jewish. In short, most Jews today have central and east European blood running through their veins.

Too bad so many Jewish Kapos helped the Nazis exterminate their own kind. "Be proud of it".

A 2005 study by Nebel et al., based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, showed that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to their host populations in Europe. However, 11.5% of male Ashkenazim were found to belong to R-M17, the dominant Y chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europeans, suggesting possible gene flow.

11.5% is a few number, but probably more Jews became true poles , the same that might be able to become a Kapo .

In some circles, it is suggested that there are good Jews and bad Jews. The bad Jews are the ones who always create some kind of unnecessary evil; pitting one group against another, while attempting to show their own Jewish superiority. You seem to be one of those.

As to Jewish chromosomes, Steve Jones. "In the Blood: God, Genes, and Destiny. Flamingo", Excerpts:

"Ashkenazim are quite distinct from their Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern co-religionists in the incidence of the disease and in the mutations responsible... The genetic family tree of Jews from different parts of Europe shows that they are not a unique group, biologically distinct from other peoples around them. There is, though, evidence of common ancestry that gives Jews at least a partial identity of their own. In most places, there is overlap between the genes of the Jewish population and those of local non-Jews. There has been interchange; sometimes through recent marriage, but more often as a result of mating long ago...".

"The Y chromosomes of Jews are - unsurprisingly - not all the same; the idea of the sons of Abraham is a symbolic one. They do show that many males, some only distantly related to each other, have contributed to the genes of European Jewry. On the average, most Jewish populations contain more diversity for male lineages than for female (whose history is recorded in mitochondrial DNA). This means that there has been more invasion of the Jewish gene pool by the genes of non-Jewish men than of women. The Y chromosomes of Jewish men from the Balkans are rather unlike those of other European Jews, perhaps because there was more admixture in this unstable part of the world."

Shmuel A. Cygielman. in "Medieval Jewish History: An Encyclopedia, ed. Norman Roth. Routledge", states;

"...the Jew in Poland employed local Slavic slaves who aided them in developing their enterprises. ... As by Jewish law, after seven years they were required to free their slaves, often, the owner, when his female slave continued working with him after her release, proposed that she remain with him as his wife, and undertake the management of the household as an equal partner, all on condition that she convert to Judaism. This could also explain the Slavic cast which often manifests itself on the faces of Jews from this region."

Good Jew or Bad Jew?

how did you manage to turn this topic into a discussion on Jewish genetics?

Stern is a biased person who is fighting his inner demons but attempting to blame others. Ignore him, for he demeans these forums.

Stern did it-and hes a doc in Israel so my guess is he aint a Mormon.

Whenever I take up Israel's right(s) and support Israel in the middle east someone like this
Stern guy comes up with his Polish hangups and upsets the apple cart. As Prickiewicz puts it; "good Jew or bad Jew"?

Maybe the Palestinians are right after all?

Ok, now that it's landed on the Jewish topic I must intervene.

1. Ashkenazim is widespread and yes many jews is not most are Ashkenazi. They tend to have similar features as those of the Mediteranean (olive skin, dark hair/eyes). And yes, we have many of them here in Greece. I beleive close to 250,000 (with the pre-holocaust population being well over half a million)

2. No Ashkenazi does not give you special intelligence, 21% of ALL American Nobel laureates are Jewish, not internationally as you said. This isn't a surprise seeing as how there are currently over 20-25 million Jews in the US whome claim jewish ethnicity/religious stance. I have many friends whom are Ashkenazi, some are smart, others are averages, and some aren't so bright- just like people in your average ethnical group.

3. Saying that Ashkenazi's are smart because of continual persecution, insisting on eugenics killing all the dumb ones and all the smart ones being able to hide, wealthy enough to emigrate or pay off persecutions is extremely disrespectful and has absolutley no proof. Some idiots insist that this was the case of the holocaust, all the dumb Jews died and only the smart ones lived. That's such dumbfounded logic upon those fools.

Being at that, no I am not Jewish, but have many Ashkenazi Jewish friends (very nice people). I have also read a bit about Jewish history.

ps. Szostak is an agnostic/atheist as were his parents, and if you want to make a correlation, the vast majority of Nobel laureates worldwide are agnostic/atheist. They're smart enough to know that it's not religion or ethnicity that gets you intelligentsia.

If you are so proud of your 12 nobel prices , which is highly justified, let me be proud of my 117 Jewish Nobel Prices which , by the way also overlap yours ..

These Jews you contempt and hait so much !
There are good Jews , there are bad Jews....But a lot of good Jews would be still in life and contribute to the human progress , if most of the Poles had having help them a little bit more , and did not enjoy so much the smell of the smoke !

The Palestinians where also very happy of that genocide , and supported Hitler as strongly as they can ..Genetically we are very close to them and to the other Arabs of the Middle East, but without the genes of cold mass murder.

I am a doc in Israel , and I am proud to announce you that Ada Yonat who's parents came from poland has been rewarded this year , by te Nobel Price for chemistry .

I agree with stern here. Jewish people have undoubtedly contributed towards the development in humanity if you look at research&innovation.

Yes, there is genetic similarity, you are right. However, please acknowledge that it is a 2-way thing? The IDF is no better than Hamas. Operation Cast Lead wasn't cold mass murder? From the time of the Oslo Accords, I did a calculation that it would take the Palestinian militant factions 50 years to kill as many Jews as the IDF did in just 3 weeks during OCL. Staggering!

I think he was born in London though am unaware of his parentage.

"yours"? the last thing a Nobel Prize is awarded to is ethnicity and the intellectual who actually worked his/her ass of to get it. I am also French, you don't see me bragging about the 89+ Nobel prizes they have.

Seanus

IDF makes war as cleanly as possible , but no miracle to expect .
Hamas uses human shields , as always , in the Palestinian strategy .
Civilian casualtiesare very appreciated by CNN
I just remind you that war in a urban surrounding is one of the hardest task to manage , and collateral damage is strictly unavoidable .

The Polish pilots of the RAF , these I admire and thank, didn't hesitate to bomb Hamburg , Dresden, Munchen and Frankfurt and who can blame them for millions of dead huns ?

If Hamas didn't has been bombing daily Sderot during 8 long years , no operation in Gaza would have occured .

Since that operation life is normal in Sderot .

Stern, I never thought much of me being a Jew, but since I am on this forum I'm getting more and more proud to be one! However, I'm Dutch in the first place. But with every idiot who shouts something anti-semitic I get more and more proud of my mom and the fact that it's thanks to her that I am Jewish. And I don't think there's any shame in that.


Hm, I descent from Sephardic (Sefardic, actually), Portugese Jews and I'm as pale as the next guy. My dad, who's a Dutch protestant, looks more Jewish than I or my mom do.


Yes - nearly as much as there were Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Latvian Kapos. "Be proud of it!"


I don't see a description of a "Good Jew" in your post. Where is it? And with this it seems like you're talking about animals. Stop that, pls. I'm a good boy, but I will turn into a bad Jew and kick anybody's racist's or anti-semitic's *ss should need arise.


And why would that be? Are you an expert on Jewish issues? :)

Why don't ppl simply stop seeing Jews (and other minorities for that matter) as different? I for one maybe a Jew because my mom happens to be of the Jewish faith, but I have been born and raised in the Netherlands, therefore I am Dutch. Religion, once again, should not determine nationality. And I've never been treated any different in the Netherlands than any Catholic or Protestant. I'm a Dutch citizen that, would I be religious, would have been part of the Jewish religion. But that's all that differs me from the rest of the Dutch, the same way as Catholics are different from Protestant. Nothing more, nothing less. But I feel (and sometimes know as I see the evidence) that some ppl, especially in the East of Europe haven't learned from the past and are still anti-semitic. And they think it's correct to be that way. If they want to be part of the West (and they all do), they will have to start learning that it's NOT correct to think like that. Not only with the Jews, but also with the Muslims, Africans and God knows all other minorities. Maybe then, if they get tolerant and racism-free, the West will start taking them seriously when they complain about the mistreatment of Slavic minorities scattered around.


Einstein, Oppenheimer, Bernstein, Rathenau, Goldblum, to name but a few.

>^..^<

M-G (no, I won't mention Amy Winehouse, although her first and only album was great)

This is my point exactly, I would never deem them a minority and have many proud friends whom are Jewish. My Dad has Askhenazi Greek-Jewish origin (I beleive he is 25%) but that probably isn't enough to count it upon me.

Dear George

If ethnicity doesn't matter , what's all that mess about Szostak's ethnic background ?

Because the original topic of the forum asks whether Szostak is Polish or not(in simple terms), and being that I cannot find any proof I suppose we'll leave it at that. He (the laureate) hasn't really commented on it, rather to say that he is American.

I know that but I cannot see the relevance unless I misread his post. I have nothing against Jews, just the opposite.

As for Szostak, maybe he just does not want to be associated with any ethnicity at this point, he is an American citizen and he got the prize because he is a scientist.

Many heroic Poles who helped Jews or attempted to help Jews will go unknown because they were killed for doing so as were the Jews who were being helped. No other country had this criteria. Thankfully, some Jews who survived were able to tell about Poles who helped them (Yad Vashem). Many Jews who were helped by Poles died before they were able to name their saviors.

As one Jewish survivor said, "I demanded guns from my Polish neighbor who was with the underground. He wouldn't give me any and I accused him of hating Jews. Only later did I find out that he only had 3 guns ...."

Jan Nowak "Courier from Warsaw" alerted the West of the plight of Jews, as did others. Unfortunately Jewish organizations in the west, especially the U.S. did nothing to help even when such news reached them. But then, people are afraid to admit to their own dirty laundry, especially if they are "chosen".


Same here, I never thought much about people being Jewish or not, until I kept hearing all the anti-Polish assaults, especially the myths. I am looking forward to seeing a movie about Jewish-Soviet alliance against Poles when the Red army came in from the east. The one where Jews pointed out Poles who were summarily shot. Funny how Hollywood hasn't made one yet.


Percentage wise more Jews helped the Nazis than Poles; as to Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Latvian Kapos, those countries, at least initially, allied themselves with Germans.


The reference was to George Orwell's "Animal Farm" where all animals were created equal but some animals were more equal than others. Does that ring a bell? Speaking of animals, a friend's father said that when he was growing up in Russia, the Jews there referred to gentiles as "cattle". Not very nice.

As to kicking butt; you can have a piece of my 6'5" 270 lbs anytime. It's easy to threaten behind a computer - knock it off.


Is that twelve and a half percent where you got your brains? :)


You got me thinking.

lol, if the Greek Jewish side of me is the intelligensia, then is the Polish side the dull one?

He can be Polish. There are high chances.

We' ll never know how many Poles were heroic by theIR help given to Jews , I guess there were a lot , but not an army .

What I know about the revolt in the Warsaw ghettho is that the A.K sold 50 guns and 55 grenades to the Jews , payed cash and no more .. The polish resistance owned 30.000 guns at least.

What is also known to me , is that understanding and indifference were the general polish attitude , if not clear satisfaction ... as a result of centuries of catholic brain washing and the broad use of wodka .