Just a slight correction; something like 60 percent of modern Israelis are Mizrahi, meaning they are from the Middle East and have no European ancestry or connection to Europe. Ethnically they are very similar to the Palestinians and if you put them together in a mixed group, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell them apart based on appearance alone.
There’s also no reason to think that Mizrahi Jews aren’t largely descended from the ancient Jewish population since wherever they’ve lived in the Middle East, they’ve never been fully integrated and have always been pretty insular. Most scholars think that the same is true to a lesser extent of Ashkenazi Jews as well, though obviously they have a lot more European ancestry.
Just a slight correction; something like 60 percent of modern Israelis are Mizrahi, meaning they are from the Middle East and have no European ancestry or connection to Europe. Ethnically they are very similar to the Palestinians and if you put them together in a mixed group, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell them apart based on appearance alone.
There’s also no reason to think that Mizrahi Jews aren’t largely descended from the ancient Jewish population since wherever they’ve lived in the Middle East, they’ve never been fully integrated and have always been pretty insular. Most scholars think that the same is true to a lesser extent of Ashkenazi Jews as well, though obviously they have a lot more European ancestry.
That’s all Israelis including non-Jews afaik, when we specify Israeli Jews the number is allegedly at least 50-60% being of mainly European descent.