What scientific evidence demonstrates that European Jews are descended from the Ancient Israelites?

Answer 1

There is a veritable deluge of DNA evidence that supports the assertion that modern Jews are descended from the Ancient Israelites as referenced in the answer concerning the anti-semtic proposition in opposition to this, stating that modern Jews are descended from the Khazars, by Dan Galilee.

Aside from this there are few points other than this on which historians agree so strongly, from that early in the development of society as we know it. There are records attesting to this fact or providing supporting evidence for it from not only Israel, but also the Persians and Medes, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Greeks, and a host of other nations that were witness to the travails and travels of the Jewish people through the world and through time.

In short all the way from the biochemists, through to the linguists and historians, there is a consensus that things happened exactly as the Jewish people have maintained in the traditions passed down over the generations. The modern Jewish people are the descendants of the Ancient Israelite people.

Answer 2

1) Jewish tradition. We have an unbroken tradition of 3800 years with thousands of names and dates, which among other things identifies us (the Jews) as the descendants of the ancient Israelites.

American and Russian Jews have the names and bloodlines of our families' Ashkenaz Jewish ancestors for over eleven centuries. The early Ashkenazi families were brought to the Frankish empire 1200 years ago by Charlemagne from Italy (Bari and Otrento); whereas the Khazars, only a few tens or hundreds of whom converted, were in the Crimea.
2) Non-Jewish tradition and scholarship: here too, the great majority (ancient historians and recent scholarship) verify that the Jewish people are who they say they are.

3) Science: recently, worldwide DNA analyses have confirmed that today's Jews are related to each other and originated in the Middle East. Among other things, the "from the Khazars" canard has been debunked. A 2013 study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA found no significant evidence of Khazar contribution to the Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, as would be predicted by the Khazar hypothesis.

Although there is no historical or DNA evidence to support the Khazar idea, it is still popular among anti-Semites.
In 2000, the analysis of a report by Nicholas Wade "provided genetic witness that Jewish communities have, to a remarkable extent, retained their biological identity separate from their host populations, showing relatively little intermarriage or conversion into Judaism over the centuries. The results accord with Jewish history and tradition and refute theories which would allege that Jewish communities consist mostly of converts."

Note also that converted groups do not contain any Kohens or Levites, whereas the Ashkenazim and Sephardim all have good percentages of them.

See also:

Are Hebrews, Israelites and Jews the same people?

Jewish history timeline