A chromosome test has confirmed the strict father-to-son inheritance of the priestly status in Jewish tradition, scientists said Wednesday.
After the Exodus from Egypt, males of the tribe of Levi were given special religious responsibilities and descendants of Moses’s brother Aaron formed a priestly caste, the Cohanim.
David Goldstein and others at Oxford University tested descendants of both tribes to see if their Y chromosomes, inherited from their fathers, were distinguishable from those of the general Jewish population.
They found many types of Y chromosomes among the descendants of the tribe of Levi and among most Jews, but there was much less diversity among the men who considered themselves to be Cohanim. “That is the signal of fairly strict adherence to a father-son inheritance of priestly status,” Goldstein said.
