system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If Israel is where Jewish people originated, why do the majority of them appear European in genetic origin?

I know there have been many questions asked about the Israel/Palestine situation. However most of them are about the politics.

Back to my question. I have a vague understanding of the biblical history and of the formation of Israel. However I don't understand why they now appear European. Are they genetic descendants of the original Jewish people? Were they originally more genetically similar to people who live in the wider middle east? If so was it these people who moved to Europe and bred to become what we now recognise as a Jewish/Israeli person?

Disclaimer: I've tried to make this question as straight forward as possible and not loaded. However I'm aware that there are a lot of sensitivities around this issue that I probably don't know or understand. If I have offended anyone, I apologise, please let me know and if necessary I will edit accordingly.
gpt
The Israelite tribes originated thousands of years ago in the region that today encompasses Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Sinai, and Egypt. The original Kingdom of David was founded in the area that is today Israel, but this was actually many centuries after the Israelite tribes emerged as a coherent cultural group with their own Jewish religion. 

The Kingdom of David didn't last for very long though. It was conquered many times over, by the Akkadians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonians, and finally the Romans. Jewish people from ancient Israel began scattering all over the world in a diaspora. Two major groups of Jews in diaspora can still be identified today.

The **Sephardi** are Jews that remained in the middle east and re-settled in other parts of the middle east, such as Iraq, Jordan, and in particular the countries of North Africa along the Mediterranean coast. They made it as far West as Morocco and many passed in to Spain during the Moorish conquest of Spain. 

The **Ashkenazi** went North. These are the Jews that settled in Russia, and in Eastern Europe, and eventually Western Europe. Most of the Jewish people in the United States are Ashkenazim that emigrated from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

As you might expect, Jewish people living in diaspora don't completely isolate themselves and there is inevitably intermarriage and mixing. Sephardi people look middle eastern. Ashkenazi people look European.