The Khazar fairy tale as evidence for non-Semitic Jews?
Das Chasaren-Märchen für Israelhasser - …
In the debate surrounding Israel's actions against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the extinct Khazar people repeatedly surface, supposedly having fully converted to Judaism and now comprising 90% of Israel's population. Since they are not Semites, it is argued, they have no inherent right to a state in Palestine. Peter Haisenko goes so far as to suggest that Ukraine could indeed be a new state of Israel, given that their ancestors, the Khazars, originated there. This Khazar myth, presented as evidence for non-Semitic Jews in Israel, naturally has significant implications for the assessment of whether Israel has a right to exist in Palestine.
The Khazars and the Ukrainian War
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Khazar myth has gained renewed relevance. Anti-Semites exploit this pseudoscientific explanation to blame the Jews, portrayed as a "Khazar mafia," for the war in Ukraine . This "Khazar mafia" allegedly controls both sides of the war, as they are the direct descendants of the Khazars who converted to Judaism.
Image: [Antisemitic caricature, "Behind the Russian/Ukrainian mask, the Jew seeks conflict"]
In April 2022, this image circulated on the Russian social media platform VK. It depicts antisemitic caricatures of Jews wearing Russian and Ukrainian masks, as well as the Russian and Ukrainian flags with a Star of David in the center, modeled after the Israeli flag. According to the image, both Russia and Ukraine are secretly Jewish states. The current conflict is portrayed as just another Jewish conspiracy. Russian-language Telegram channels then state: "Ukraine is the homeland and last bastion of the Khazar mafia, which controls the world's deep state" and "The Rothschild-Khazar mafia [...] controls banking, [...], parliament, and the mass media." (Source: The Strange Conspiracy Theory of the Khazar Jews)
The Jew-haters are banking on a supposedly scientifically sound insight found in the Khazar myth. Indeed, both scholars and Israel-haters speculate about whether today's Jews, known as Ashkenazim, are descendants of the Khazars. Did the pagan Khazar people, then, become a Jewish people? We will examine this miracle of transformation as closely as possible.
Where did the Hebrews come from?
In his book, from which we were permitted to take a chapter for the article "Criticism of Israel and Anti-Semitism," Peter Haisenko unfortunately made a serious blunder right at the beginning, on page 28. He refers to an article from the esoteric, right-wing magazine "ZeitenSchrift" (No. 10). The article is entitled "Tracing the Past in the Desert Sand: On the Origin of the Hebrews and Why the Pagan Khazars, a Hunnic People, Became the True Ancestors of Today's Jews."
It states:
"Around 5,000 years ago, a motley crew of Arab origin, led by Habr, set out from an area roughly corresponding to present-day Yemen. They crossed the Red Sea into Ethiopia and were soon called 'Hebrews' after their leader. They moved on and settled in the area of present-day Uganda. Circumstances led to a conflict between the Hebrews and the Egyptians. War broke out, and the victorious Egyptians enslaved the Hebrews, as was common practice at the time. Then came the well-known story of Moses. This is the origin of the Arab, or Semitic, Jews. They are also referred to as 'Sephardic' Jews."
One must either have no knowledge of Jewish history to believe this nonsense, or be maliciously portraying the origins of the Jews in the way the magazine does in order to spread its right-wing esoteric garbage to its readers. The Jewish encyclopedia of 1906 is cited as proof for the Khazar myth. It supposedly contains the claim that the entire Khazar people converted to Judaism.
With an esoteric, right-wing magazine that also spreads absurd concepts like a flat Earth or humanoid lizards, suspicion is more than justified. The article about the alleged origin of the Ashkenazim from the Khazar people therefore necessitates research to get to the bottom of this claim.
The ideological orientation of the magazine 'ZeitenSchrift'
Wikipedia states: "The 'ZeitenSchrift' is a right-wing esoteric magazine published quarterly since 1993, primarily distributed in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Its main topics are spirituality, consciousness, nature, health, nutrition, and ecology. The publishers and editors are the Swiss journalists Ursula and Benjamin Seiler-Spielmann. According to the publisher, the circulation is 13,000 copies."
Tobias Jaecker, author of the book "Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories after 9/11," classifies the ideological orientation of "ZeitenSchrift" as esoteric and right-wing extremist. In a 2002 lecture at a symposium of the Thuringian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, historian Stefan Meining described the publication as "probably the most important publishing mouthpiece of German-language right-wing esotericism for years." A publication by the Hamburg State Youth Welfare Office places the publication in close proximity to the theosophical "Universal Church" and reports that the editors of "ZeitenSchrift" were given a suspended sentence for incitement to hatred because of the publication of an interview with Peter Leach-Lewis, the "patriarch and archbishop" of this organization, in issue 13/97.
Where the name Hebrew comes from
Let's look at where the name Hebrew comes from. In Dr. Michael Buchberger's 'Lexicon for Theology and Church' we find a correct explanation:
“Hebrews, in the Old Testament a term for the Israelites before and alongside the term bene jiśrāʾēl = descendants of the patriarch Jacob = Israel. The word goes back through the Latin Hebraeus via the Greek to the Aramaic ʿebrājā.”
In Genesis 14:13, Abraham is called "the Hebrew." Abraham, or rather his biological descendant Jacob, is considered the patriarch of the Jewish people.
To prove that the pagan Khazars were the true ancestors of today's Jews, Israel-haters rely on an entry about the Khazars from the 1906 edition of "The Jewish Encyclopedia." With its statements, the Jewish encyclopedia has provided the Jew-haters with a perfect opening, something it certainly did not intend.
What the Jewish Encyclopedia writes about the Khazars
What can we learn about the Khazars from the 1906 online edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia ? There we read:
"It was probably around this time (note: around 670 BC) that the Khagan of the Khazars and his nobles, along with a large number of his pagan people, adopted the Jewish religion. According to A. Harkavy ("Meassef Niddahim", i.e.) the conversion took place in 620, according to others in 740."
In his letter to Hasdai ibn Shaprut (around 960), King Joseph gives the following account of the conversion:
(see Harkavy, “Soobshchenija o Khazarakh,” in “Yevreiskaya Biblioteka,” vii. 153)
“Several centuries ago, King Bulan ruled over the Khazars. God appeared to him in a dream and promised him power and glory. Encouraged by this dream, Bulan traveled along the road from Darlan to the land of Ardebil, where he won great victories [over the Arabs]. The Byzantine emperor and the Ishmaelite caliph sent him emissaries with gifts and sages to convert him to their respective religions. Bulan also invited wise men from Israel and examined them all.”
Since each of the proponents considered their own religion to be the best, Bulan questioned the Muslims and the Christians separately as to which of the other two religions they considered superior. When both gave preference to the Jewish religion, the king realized that this must be the true religion. He therefore adopted it.
What a Christian author wrote about the conversion of the Khazars
A similar version can be found in the book 'Historical Treatises Vol. 8 On the Khazars' from 1799:
"Soon afterward, another strange event is said to have occurred. Bula, king of the Khazars, moved by a dream, began to doubt the truth of the pagan religion, to which he had previously been very devoted and whose customs he had carefully observed."
This dream moved him to first discuss matters of faith with a pagan philosopher, then with a Christian, and finally with a Muslim, none of whom satisfied him. At last, he summoned a Jewish rabbi, although he had otherwise despised Jews, and was so pleased with his answers that he and his general went to Mount Harsan, where the Jews resided, and he had himself circumcised in a cave. Afterward, he summoned rabbis and Jewish books, had a tabernacle built according to the Mosaic model, and gradually persuaded all his subjects to adopt the Jewish religion. He engaged in a particularly extensive study of the faith with Rabbi Isaac Sangari.
All of this is contained in the Rabbinic Book of Cosri, which Rabbi Judas Hallevy first made known in Arabic in the 12th century, whereupon Rabbi Judas Ben Tybon translated the same into Hebrew a few years later.
The Khazar fairy tale is very similar to the ring parable 'Nathan the Wise'.
Both versions closely resemble the Ring Parable from Lessing's 'Nathan the Wise'. Both stories, the one about the conversion of the Khazars and the Ring Parable, also share the same origin. The legend of a wise ruler who must decide between the three Abrahamic religions has been known in the Near East since at least the 8th century CE and became a common literary motif at that time.
Peter Friedrich von Suhm, who wrote the treatise 'On the Khazars' in 1799, then states the following regarding the legendary account:
"However, there is no doubt that much in this story has been fabricated and embellished; in particular, all the legends, which, incidentally, are not badly written, are evidently fabricated to prove the excellence of the Jewish religion. But the only question here is whether a Khazar king in the eighth century adopted the Jewish religion, or at least permitted the Jews to freely practice their religion, even if the entire population did not adopt this doctrine, which is clearly false, or whether the successors of this king were also Jews during the first 200 years. In the Book of Cosri, the land is called Cozar. (pp. 55-56)"
The Jewish Encyclopedia also initially states that this version has the character of a legend.
The reason for the creation of the legend
The Lémann brothers, who converted from Judaism to Catholicism, noted the following in their book 'The Messiah Question and the Vatican Council' (see the article: A Mystery Surrounds the Jewish People ):
The book Cosri by the Spanish rabbi Judas Halley had become a handbook for Jewish families. In it, a rabbi appears alongside a philosopher, a Christian, and a Muslim, and the rabbi explains the misfortune of his nation as follows:
“My nation is to the universe what the heart is to the human body. Just as the heart suffers from the weakness of temperament and passions, so the Jew suffers because of all the crimes that are committed. All parts are discharged onto the heart; and thus the Jews, who stand in the midst of nations, burden themselves with their sins. But just as the heart, though often deeply wounded, is the principle of movement and of life spread throughout the body, so too is the Jewish people the often misunderstood principle of the profound peace that the world enjoys.”
The Lémann brothers commented: “This graceful image contained nothing more than humanism in redemption: in the work of redemption, the creature took the place of God.”
An important note can then be found in a footnote :
“Cosri II. § 45. p. 112. – The author of this book is a twelfth-century Spanish rabbi named Judas Hallevy; he wrote it to establish the superiority of the Jewish religion. He posits that a king of Cozar, a city in Tartary, allowed a philosopher, a Christian, a Muslim, and a rabbi to debate in his presence. Since the latter emerged victorious, he and his entire people supposedly embraced Judaism. This tale, which is usually retold at length and in detail to astonished children in Jewish schools, suffers only from the inconvenient fact that there never was a king of Cozar or a country of that name. All efforts by geographers to discover it have failed.”
These two Jews knew nothing of a mass conversion of the Khazars to Judaism.
The question of the authenticity of the Khazar king's letter
The treatise on the Khazars also deals with authenticity:
"The young Baratian, on the other hand, does not deny the existence of the Khazars, but claims that not only the investigation and conversation of the Khazar king with the various co-religionists, but also his conversion, and everything that is told about this incident, is fabricated."
In contrast, he proves against Burxtorf that the letter which Rabbi Chasdai from Spain wrote to the Khazar King Joseph in the tenth century, and which appears in Burxtorf's preface to the Book of Cosri, is genuine, but that Joseph's reply was fabricated and that Chasdai himself was deceived by it. He also proves that these letters gave rise to the Book of Cosri, which was forged based on them… (pp. 56/57)
The Jewish population in the Khazar Empire
The Jewish population throughout the Khazar realm must have been considerable between the 7th and 10th centuries, even without the alleged mass conversion. There is no doubt that Caucasian and other Oriental Jews had already been living and trading with the Khazars long before the arrival of Jewish refugees from Greece. Furthermore, the Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian, in his conversion mania, had forced the Jews to flee.
The Jewish encyclopedia then mentions a source for the alleged mass conversion of the Khazars to Judaism: the Russian-Jewish historian and Orientalist Abraham Harkavy (1835–1919). His evidence is based on Arabic and Slavonian sources. This makes it clear that the religious conflict at the Khazar court is a historical fact.
The encyclopedia goes on to say:
"Overall, King Joseph's account agrees with the statements of tenth-century Arab authors, but contains some discrepancies in detail. According to Ibn Fadlan, Ibn Dastah, and others, only the king and the nobles were adherents of Judaism. The rest of the Khazars were Christians, Muslims, and pagans, and the Jews were a large minority (Frähn, 'De Chazaris', pp. 13-18, 584-590). According to Mas'udi ('Les Prairies d'Or', ii. 8), the king and the Khazars themselves were Jews; however, the army consisted of Muslims, while the other inhabitants, especially the Slavs and Russians, were pagans."
Incorrect translations
In the article ‘The strange conspiracy theory of the Khazar Jews’ (source: welt.de/…m-Insekten-nicht-unser-neues-Fleisch- … the author addresses the issue of mistranslations that occur in the Khazar fairy tale. It states:
Besides the letter by Ibn Shaprut, al-Masʿūdī is usually cited when it comes to the “conversion” of the Khazars to Judaism:
“kāna tahawwuda maliki l-ḫazari fī ḫilāfati r-Rašīd”13, literally: “During the reign of Khalif Harun ar-Rashid [approximately 786-809 CE] the king of the Khazars became Jewish”
The term 'tahawwud' used here probably does not necessarily mean that there was a religious conversion to Judaism, but rather that a native Jew took over the kingship: The king 'became Jewish' because a Jew became king.
And al-Masʿūdī provides the explanation for this immediately afterwards:
“wa-huwwa sannatu ʾiṯnān wa-ṯalaṯīna […] fa-tahāraba ḫalqun min al-yahūdi min arḍi r-rūm ʾilā ʾardi l-ḫazari”14, that is: “In the year 943 CE […] a group of Jews fled [because of persecution and forced conversions] from the Byzantine Empire to the land of the Khazars”.
From this source, one can conclude that there was no conversion; rather, a group of Jews who had fled the Byzantine Empire assumed the kingship in the land of the Khazars. This is the origin of the Jewish Khazars—obvious to anyone who reads the original source.
The article in the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 itself contains errors and inconsistencies. Therefore, it cannot be considered an authentic source.
For below the tribal aristocracy there were still numerous followers of the old Turkic tribal faith, Christianity and especially Islam.
Approximate extent of the Khazar Khaganate (light blue) and its sphere of influence (dark blue) at the height of its power, around 820. Place names in white indicate dependent territories or Khazar tribes.
Relations with Byzantium
This much is certain: the Khazars and Greeks were more friends than enemies. The Khagan enjoyed high esteem at the Byzantine court. Diplomatic correspondence with him used a seal of three solidi, which identified him as a potentate of the first rank, even above the Carolingian monarchs.
Perhaps the hatred that both men harbored for the Bulgarians (note: because they were Muslims) also contributed to Emperor Leo Isaurus sending envoys to the Khagan of the Khazars, requesting his daughter as a wife for his son Constantine, who was fifteen years old. She was first instructed in the Christian religion, baptized, and given the name Irene. In 750, she gave birth to Leo, who later became emperor and was known as Leo the Khazar. Emperor Leo IV, 'the Khazar' (775-780), the son of Constantine, was thus a grandson of the Khazar king. From his mother, he inherited his mild and amiable nature.
Incidentally, Irene was such a great devotee of saints and images that her husband, son, and father-in-law hated them. It was on this occasion that a Khazar costume, called the Tzihakia, arrived in Constantinople and was subsequently worn by the emperors on festive occasions.
Khazar troops were part of the Byzantine imperial court's bodyguard and fought for Leo VI against Simeon of Bulgaria in 888. (Source: On the Khazars, p. 54)
After fleeing from Kherson to Doros during his exile, Emperor Justinian II sought refuge with the Chaghan and married his daughter, who took the name Theodora after her baptism. Incidentally, the Jewish Encyclopedia errs here, confusing Emperor Justinian II's wife with Constantine's wife, who received the name Irene after her baptism.
The friendship between the Greeks and Khazars continued into the tenth century.
The Christianization of the Khazars
In the ninth century, the Khazars were powerful in Russia. It was also in this century that the Khazars converted to Christianity. "The Khazars," writes von Suhm, "received a far greater and inestimable benefit from the Greek emperor; namely, they were converted to the Christian faith through his mediation, which occurred as follows."
The Khazars sent envoys to Emperor Michael, asking him to send them a man who could instruct them in Christian doctrine, since both Jews and Muslims were trying to persuade them to adopt their faith; however, they trusted the friendship of the Greeks, believing they would be best advised. Accordingly, after consulting with Patriarch Ignatius, the emperor sent them the philosopher Constantine of Thessalonica, who shortly before his death took the name Cyril. (pp. 62/63)
In the church lexicon by Wetzer and Welte, we find the following information under the keyword Khazars :
"The credit for sowing the seeds of Christianity among the Khazars belongs to St. Cyril. According to ancient accounts, during the reign of the Greek Emperor Michael the Drunkard, Khazar delegates came to Constantinople requesting a capable Christian missionary, as not all of them were willing to accept the faith of the Jews and Saracens who were seeking to convert among them. The long-standing friendship with the Byzantine court and the fact that Christianity had already taken firm root in the Khazar region, in the Taurian Chersonesus itself, among the Iberians, Lacians, and other Asiatic tribes, also support the truth of that ancient account regarding the aforementioned request."
It appears that the Khazars, who lived in Crimea and directly opposite, were particularly likely to have been converted.
The Archbishop of Cherson retained oversight of the Christians among the Khazars.
Further efforts by the popes to Christianize the Khazars
Incidentally, in the thirteenth century, the popes made considerable efforts to bring the Khazars and other schismatic and pagan peoples to the Catholic faith. Both Innocent IV in 1253 and Nicholas IV in 1288 sent Dominican friars to the Khazars. Pope Urban V, like his predecessors, continued to work toward uniting the Khazars and other peoples with the Catholic Church. He sent Franciscan friars to them. But, it seems, all these efforts were in vain.
Many Khazars intermarried with the local Jews in Crimea; the Krymchaki are probably their descendants – perhaps also some of the Subbotniks (“Voskhod”, 1891, iv.-vi.). Some went to Hungary, but the vast majority remained in their homeland. Many members of the Khazar royal family, however, emigrated to Spain.
Despite all this information, historians remain unclear as to whether only the Chagan, the princes, and the upper class were Jewish, or whether more or less large segments of the population were as well. Numerous sources confirm that the elite spoke Hebrew, observed Shabbat, and followed Jewish dietary laws.
The Khazar fairytale remains a fairytale precisely because of all its contradictions.
When the Khazar Empire collapsed and was quickly forgotten, the Khazars left behind no written records. They were illiterate. How could an entire people convert to Judaism if they couldn't read? After all, reading and writing are essential and necessary in Judaism. And how is it possible that among so many Khazars, not a single proselyte wrote a document about the supposed mass conversion to Judaism? One would certainly expect to find such a record.
However, the only source is the so-called Khazar Letters, the correspondence between Hasdai and the Khazar King Joseph. Hasdai ibn Shaprut (915–970) was a Jewish diplomat in Spain. The authenticity of the two letters is disputed.
Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769 to 1860), German writer, historian and nationalist, once wrote:
"A people has no element more spiritual and intimate than its language. If a people does not want to lose what makes it a people, if it wants to preserve its nature with all its peculiarities, then it has nothing more to care about than ensuring that its language is not corrupted and destroyed."
If the Khazar people had indeed transformed into the Jewish people, one would assume they had a strong interest in adopting Hebrew, at least as a written language. The Khazars had no script of their own. While those members of the royal family who converted to Judaism did use Hebrew letters in their writings, the common people did not. Therefore, if there had been a mass conversion of the Khazars to Judaism, there should still be regional descendant groups in the East who at least used the Hebrew script. However, this is not the case. They use the Cyrillic script, which the Christians gave them.
Therefore, no written sources from the Khazars themselves have survived or been handed down. All existing information about the Khazar legend comes either from Jews in Spain or from Muslims in Arabic. This is another peculiarity that raises eyebrows.
The witnesses of the Jewish Encyclopedia for the mass conversion to Judaism
The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 considers a mass conversion of the Khazars to Judaism possible. It cites the Russian Orientalist Khvolson (1819–1911) , who came from a Jewish family and converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity in 1855, to support this claim.
This is what one reads in the Jewish Encyclopedia:
“From the work ‘Kitab al-Buldan’, which was written around the ninth century (p. 121; quoted by Chwolson in ‘Izvyestiya o Chazarakh’, etc., p. 57), it is evident that all Khazars were Jews and had only recently converted to Judaism before the writing of this book. But this work was probably inspired by Jaihani; and it is reasonable to assume that in the ninth century many Khazar pagans became Jews thanks to the religious zeal of King Obadiah.”
Jaihani was Persian vizier of the Samanid Empire from 914 to 922.
“Such a conversion on a large scale,” Chwolson writes (ibid., p. 58), “may have been the reason for the message from Christians from the land of the Khazars to the Byzantine Emperor Michael. The account of this message reads as follows: ‘Quomodo nune Judæi, nune Saraceni ad suam fidem eos molirentur convertere’” (*) (Schlözer, “Nestor”, iii. 154).
(*) How could the Jews and Muslims try to convert them to their faith?
The poet Jehuda Hallevy of Toledo (1075 to 1141) used the legend in his philosophical work Cosri as a framework to defend Judaism against attacks from Muslims, Karaites and other “heretics”.
Eastern European Jewry has nothing to do with the Khazars.
In modern times, the story of the converted Khazars received new impetus with the popular science book "The Thirteenth Tribe" by Arthur Koestler, published in 1976.
He claimed that the Ashkenazi Jews, and especially the Jews of Eastern Europe, were actually descended from the Khazars.
Researchers immediately pointed out his errors and inaccuracies, but anti-Zionists and anti-Semites invoked Koestler's work to deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel. The committed Zionist Koestler was aware of this misuse and wrote: "Whether the chromosomes of his people contain the genes of the Khazars or those of Semitic, Roman, or Spanish origin is irrelevant and cannot call into question Israel's right to exist." (Source: Jewish Khazars: A False Legend )
The Ashkenazi and Sephardic Q lineages diverged more than 2,000 years before the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel.
In 1939, 94% of all Jews were of Ashkenazi descent, and in the 21st century, they make up about 70%. The name derives from the biblical personal and geographical name Ashkenaz. Jewish immigrants applied it to the German-speaking world and the Jews living there in the 9th century. With their increasing spread, the name was adopted by all European Jews, with the exception of the Sephardim in Portugal and Spain.
Doubt about the legend of the mass conversion of the Khazar people is more than justified.
The Israeli historian Shlomo Sand readily embraced the legends claiming that the Khazars converted to Judaism and disseminated them in his bestseller "The Invention of the Jewish People." Anti-Zionists like the Bethlehem pastor Mitri Raheb seized upon this narrative to assert that modern Jews are not ethnically related to the biblical people of Israel, but rather descended from the Khazars. According to them, this meant they had never lived in Israel and therefore had no right to a homeland in "Palestine."
There are now conspiracy theories claiming that the survivors dispersed across Eastern Europe and thus became the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews. The intention behind this theory is to delegitimize Israel. Because if the "Ashkenazim" were not descended from the original Israelites, they would have no right to settle in Israel today.
However, there are important, undeniable facts to mention.
Archaeologists have found no graves with typically Jewish symbols or other archaeological evidence in Khazar Khaganate. While Khazar coins with the Arabic inscription "Moses is the Messenger of God" and seals bearing the Star of David have been discovered during excavations, these do not provide proof of the Khazar myth. Thus, only textual documents remain, such as the correspondence from 960 between the Spanish-Jewish diplomat Hasdai ibn Shaprut and Joseph, the king of the Khazars, as well as descriptions by Arab authors.
Professor Schaul Stampfer, a historian of Soviet and Eastern European Jewry at the Faculty of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, spent years scouring all written and archaeological sources for this legend and concluded: it is all false. There is no reliable historical source to support the claim that the Khazars were Jews. Neither the people nor the elite converted to Judaism.
Stampfer therefore concludes that all these documents contain a "cacophony of distortions, contradictions, self-interest, and other anomalies." Some texts have been attributed to false authors. Historical accounts, such as that of "Sallam the Translator," sent by the Caliph of Al-Wathiq in 842, did mention the Khazars, but made no mention of their conversion to Judaism. (Source: Jewish Khazars: A False Legend)
But since the Jew- and Israel-haters continue to tirelessly accept and spread the Khazar myth as true, one final piece of evidence remains to prove that Eastern European Jewry, the Ashkenazim, is not descended from the Khazars. This is DNA evidence.
Confirmation of the common Middle Eastern origin of all Jews through DNA analysis
The investigation
The research team led by Harry Ostrer (wikibrief.org/wiki/Harry_Ostrer) of New York University collected DNA from 237 individuals in New York, Seattle, Athens, Rome, and Israel. Both sets of grandparents belonged to one of the three Jewish communities: the Eastern European Ashkenazim, the Italian-Greek-Turkish Sephardim, or the Syrian Mizrahim. The results were compared with the genetic material of 418 non-Jews. The researchers did not examine the entire genome, but rather focused on particularly characteristic pieces of DNA, known as SNPs (small nuclear polymorphisms, pronounced "snips"). Each SNP represents a variation in DNA that occurs more frequently in some ethnic groups than in others. By comparing a sufficiently large number of SNPs—in this case, over 200,000—it is possible to estimate which ethnic groups a person is related to.
"The study supports the idea of a Jewish people with a shared genetic history," says Ostrer, head of the study, which was published in the "American Journal of Human Genetics." (Source: Children of Abraham )
"The researchers used DNA chip or 'microarray' technology. This method makes it possible to compare the genetic material of different individuals in great detail, from individual 'letters' of the DNA to longer sections. Studies based on DNA chips thus allow for more comprehensive conclusions than previous investigations. Previously, the male Y chromosome and the genetic material of the mitochondria, which are inherited only from mothers, had been used to trace the genealogy of Jews."
What surprised scientists was the close relationship between modern-day Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews – unexpected because the two branches separated long ago. Both groups inherited between 30 and 60 percent of their genome from Europeans. They may be descended from Jews who were native to northern Italy before 800 AD and intermarried with Italians there. This is supported by the fact that the genome of Sephardim and Ashkenazi Jews is significantly similar to that of Italian Jews. (Source: Abraham's Children – tagesspiegel.de/wissen/abrahams- …
There is no evidence of a Khazar origin for the Ashkenazi Jews.
The transgenome study, conducted in 2013 by 30 geneticists from 13 universities and academies in 9 countries, which compiled the largest available dataset to date for assessing the genetic ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews, found no evidence of Khazar ancestry among Ashkenazi Jews. "The analysis of Ashkenazi Jews, together with a large sample from the Khazar Khaganate region, thus confirms previous findings that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestors primarily from populations in the Middle East and Europe and share considerable common ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no evidence of a significant genetic contribution either within or outside the Caucasus," the authors concluded.
The authors found no affinity among Ashkenazi Jews with populations in the North Caucasus, nor a greater affinity among Ashkenazi Jews with populations in the South Caucasus or Anatolia than among non-Ashkenazi Jews and non-Jewish people in the Middle East (such as Kurds, Iranians, Druze, and Lebanese). The greatest affinity and common ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews (after those with other Jewish groups from Southern Europe, Syria, and North Africa) existed with both Southern Europeans and Levantine groups such as Druze, Cypriot, Lebanese, and Samaritan groups.
(Source: Genetic Studies and the Khazar Hypothesis – …
The result of the genetic analysis
The researchers concluded their analysis as follows:
"We confirm the assumption that Ashkenazi, North African and Sephardic Jews have a significant genetic ancestry and that they originate from the populations of the Middle East and Europe, without any demonstrable contribution from the Khazar to their genetic origins."
The genetic analysis revealed that Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews do indeed share so many genetic traits that they can be distinguished as a separate group from the rest of the world's population. At the same time, the researchers were able to trace Middle Eastern origins to all three diaspora groups, as well as intermingling with the local populations. "This explains why so many European and Syrian Jews have blue eyes and blond hair," says Ostrer.
All Jews share a specific gene.
Geneticist Gil Atzmon, together with Harry Ostrer, conducted genetic studies on the origins of Jews. In an interview with Welt Online (source: welt.de/…ilen-alle-Juden-wirklich-ein- … he explains the results of the study.
Atzmon: … Let me first draw your attention to the following: Jews share more genetic material with each other than with their non-Jewish surroundings.
WELT ONLINE: So the Jews really are one family?
Atzmon: Well, yes, in a certain sense. Jews share a common ancestor whose traces can be traced back to the Middle East. We can use information from genetic material to define historical events. For example, the split between Iranian and Iraqi Jews on the one hand—the so-called "Mizrahim," the Jews in the Middle East—and the Ashkenazim, which occurred about 2,500 years ago. We also see various intermingling. The Ashkenazim accumulated a particularly large amount of this in the first millennium: After all, ten percent of the population of the Byzantine Empire was Jewish, roughly six million, many of them converts. Furthermore, we clearly see the "Ashkenazi bottleneck."
The mass conversion of non-Jews ceased around the year 800. After that, Jews only married within their own community and no longer allowed genes from outside to be added to the gene pool. If we calculate the amount of gene flow, we arrive at 0.5 percent: extremely little.
WELT ONLINE: What is one to make of the theory that the Eastern European Jews are descended from the Khazars, as Arthur Koestler put it in his book "The Thirteenth Tribe"?
Atzmon: We have refuted them with our research. One of the population groups we studied comes from the area where the Khazars lived, and it shows no genetic similarity whatsoever to these people.
Conclusion for all those who believe the Khazar fairy tale
You can find several posts on the topic of 'conspiracy' here on this blog. In these posts, we demonstrate that conspiracies exist and that they are a common occurrence throughout history. However, not every conspiracy theory circulating on the internet today is a credible one. Too many people are peddling their conspiracy nonsense, especially on social media.
This rubbish also includes the Khazar fairy tale.
The information about the mass conversion to Judaism is so contradictory that the Khazar myth must be considered unreliable. In any case, the claim that the Khazars became a non-Semitic Jewish people through proselytism cannot be taken as fact. The Khazar Empire has ceased to exist; only the legend of mass conversion has survived.
It is time to judge the theory of the Jewish conversion of the Khazars not as controversial, but as implausible. The Khazar question, so crucial for Israel-haters, should be considered a fairy tale based on independent scholarly evaluation of the sources. The question has been definitively answered. The Khazar fairy tale has been unequivocally refuted. Scholarly investigation clearly shows that a migration of a group of Jewish traders from the Byzantine Empire is far more likely than a complete conversion of the Khazar people to Judaism.
Anyone who justifies their aversion to Israel by claiming that 90% of Israelis are descendants of the Khazars, i.e., proselytes living in Israel, should ask themselves whether they would lose their aversion to Israel if 100% of the population were Jewish Semites. I doubt it. They will continue to desire the liquidation of Israel in Palestine.
Image sources
antisemitic-cartoon-ukraine: remid
Khazar Empire Expansion 2: Wikimedia | CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported
Ashkenazi worms: Wikimedia
Jews_montage-1: wikimedia | CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported
Khazar Empire Extent 1: Wikimedia
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