The karaite community of Iraq in Israel: a genetic study

Ninety-eight of 136 (72%) individuals at least 6 years of age from a small isolate of the Karaite community, known to have lived in Iraq since the tenth century, were examined. In Iraq this group maintained a highly inbred existence but married Karaites from Egypt after their immigration to Israel in 1951. Observations of several unique gene frequencies for blood group and isoenzyme markers, not described among other Jewish groups, are explicable by isolation and genetic drift in a very small community.