Skin colour ranges come from all ethnically
related peoples in the world. Why do some British people have pale skin, blue
eyes and blonde hair? Why do other British people have dark eyes and hair? Why
do some Mid East people have light skin, blue eyes and blonde hair?
Ashkenazi
Jews are typically seen as European Jews that speak Yiddish which is a language
with a lot of German and Hebrew roots vs. Sephardic Jews and other types. More
from Central Europe, not Spain. There is in many families quite a bit of mixing
with other non-Jewish groups. In central Europe, the people are known to be more
light-skinned and blonde. So you have the Hebrew people coming up from the
Mediterranean – these tend to be darker. In the case of the Ashkenazi mixing
with the lighter Europeans – so you get a mix of tones.
Probably due
to the fact Ashkenazi Jews were the ones who migrated and ended up in Slavic
and Germanic Europe. This made them a small minority amongst a group of people
that had fairly different features from them, one being lighter skin. As
always, ethnic mixing happens and dominant genes prevail resulting in Ashkenazi
Jews, in general, being lighter than their Sephardic (Mediterranean) and Mizrahi
(Middle Eastern) brothers as those other groups of Jews were surrounded by people
who looked more similar to the common Judean/Hebrew ancestry of all ethnic
Jews. Not all Ashkenazis have European blood in them and sometimes the
Judean/Hebrew genes prevail resulting in some Ashkenazi Jews being lighter than
others.
Also, Levantines have always run the gamut
from light-skinned to honey/caramel-colored to Arabian dark. Ashkenazi Jews
(southern Levantines who spent exile in Central/Eastern Europe) are no
different.
Hence there are Ashkenazi Jews who look like
this:
To this
To this
And this
