Please JOS, don't take my post wrong, but I note you said, "Actually, Ashkenazi Jews are mostly semitic in origin and their (or our) heritage is from pretty much exactly where Israel is today.
Sephardic Jews have a basis of the same origin, the difference is where our two groups of the same semitic origin started to procreate with others...
Does that clear anything up? Yeah, i do get my own heritage but then again you can trace my relatives in a straight line from both my fathers and mothers side."
Well JOS we all know you are British, and of all the gin joint countries Jews wound up in after the second diaspora, why should not GB have their share of Jews? And truth be told, and despite the fact that my country, the USA won our independence from you Brits 200+ years ago, much of that democratic intellectual underpinning of the American Revolution originated in England and France.
But still, JOS, as a possibly British Jew, I would really be incredibly impressed if you could trace your ancestry all the way back to the second diaspora.
But that begs another question JOS, are you the person you now are because you are a Jew, or because of the fact you are just another member of politically divided GB?
And is it a dime better than me being a member of politically divided America?
Or to maybe put it another way, should we be proud of who our ancestors were, ashamed of them, or just be content that they are part of who we were and not any part of who we should be?