European Jews are Descended Almost Entirely from the Khazars

Opening Argument: The land of Khazaria was located in the region of Eastern Europe from 650-1048CE, in specifically what is now known as Southern Russia. The kingdom itself was considerably vast and was in fact the largest country at the time. The inhabitants of Khazaria were known to be a mixture of people from various Turkic and Persian tribes, who started out as Pagans. The Khazar Kingdom was one of the most advanced and successful of its time, and many of the Khazars become well-known for being merchants and traders. The primary basis for my argument is that during the 8th century C. E, the Jewish population of Khazaria had increased by massive amounts. Now significant Jewish communities were known Eastern Europe or Central Asia prior the large community of Jews that appeared directly after the Khazars had converted to Judaism, and rather more precisely, a form of Judaism that was based on the Babylonian Talmud. The theory of Eastern European and Ashkenazi Jews being largely descended from the Khazars who converted was first popularized in Abraham Eliyahu Harkavi in 1869, since then a number of European Jews have come forward to substantiate the theory; most notably Arthur Koestler and Shlomo Sand who have each published books on the subject matter, which has subsequently led to further inquiry into the possibility of European Ashkenazim being directly related to and descended from the Khazars. Scientists and researchers have additionally published evidence regarding Khazar and Ashkenazi relation, in particular Israeli geneticist Eran Elhaik who has spoken extensively on the topic and has stated on his findings: "Strong evidence for the Khazarian hypothesis is the clustering of European Jews with the populations that reside on opposite ends of ancient Khazaria: Armenians, Georgians, and Azerbaijani Jews. Because Caucasus populations remained relatively isolated in the Caucasus region and because there are no records of Caucasus populations mass-migrating to Eastern and Central Europe prior to the fall of Khazaria (Balanovsky et al. 2011), these findings imply a shared origin for European Jews and Caucasus populations. "Elhaik also noted that the language of the Ashkenazim, Yiddish, actually has its origins in ancient Slavic languages that would have been a part of the Khazar Kingdom: “Yiddish, the language of Central and Eastern European Jews, began as a Slavic language. "It was only after the language came into practice that Hebrew began to spoken and combined with it. Though the theory did not become widespread until the 20th century, other notable people who existed in and around the time of the Khazars observed that there most certainly was a large conversion--of practically all of the Khazars had assigned to the religion of Judaism and the Khazaria Kingdom became an official Jewish State. King Bulan was in fact the first Khazar to convert. The French historian and writer Ernest Renan [who was considered an expert on the Middle East] stated 1883 that: "This conversion of the kingdom of the Khazars has a considerable importance regarding the origin of those Jews who dwell in the countries of the Danube and southern Russia. These regions enclose great masses of Jewish populations which have in all probability nothing or almost nothing that is anthropologically Jewish in them. "The Americana Encyclopaedia published in 1985, states on the Khazars: "Khazar, an ancient Turkic speaking people who ruled a large and powerful state in the steppes North of the Caucasus Mountains from the 7th century to their demise in the mid 11th century A. D. .. In the 8th Century it's political and religious head. .. as well as the greater part of the Khazar nobility, abandoned paganism and converted to Judaism. .. (The Khazars are believed to be the ancestors of most Russian and Eastern European Jews). "So viable is the notion that Ashkenazi Jews are almost entirely descended from the Khazars is that even Jewish Encyclopaedia have accepted it as a valid explanation for the origins of Eastern European Ashkenazim: "Khazars, a non-Semitic, Asiatic, Mongolian tribal nation who emigrated into Eastern Europe about the first century, who were converted as an entire nation to Judaism in the seventh century by the expanding Russian nation which absorbed the entire Khazar population, and who account for the presence in Eastern Europe of the great numbers of Yiddish-speaking Jews in Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Galatia, Besserabia and Rumania. " With the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia [published in 1972] also mentioning: "The primary meaning of Ashkenaz and Ashkenazim in Hebrew is Germany and Germans. This may be due to the fact that the home of the ancient ancestors of the Germans is Media, which is the Biblical Ashkenaz. .. Krauss is of the opinion that in the early medieval ages the Khazars were sometimes referred to as Ashkenazim. .. About 92 percent of all Jews or approximately 14,500,000 are Ashkenazim. " Even more explicitly, the New Grolier Encyclopedia writes: "Khazars {kah'z-ars} The Khazars, a Turkic people, created a commercial and political empire that dominated substantial parts of South Russia during much of the 7th through 10th centuries. During the 8th century the Khazar aristocracy and the kagan (king) were converted to Judaism. The Khazars established their capital at Itil (or Atil), in the Volga delta, and for four centuries thereafter this Jewish empire held the balance of power between the Christian Byzantine Empire and the Muslim Caliphate. The fortified Khazar city of Sarkil on the lower Don River was built with Byzantine help and served as a crossroads to central Asia. The Khazars controlled many of the trade routes to the Orient; some of the Radhanites (Jewish merchants from Gaul), for example, were accustomed to crossing the Khazar empire while traveling to and from China and India. During the late 10th and early 11th centuries an alliance of Byzantines and Russians broke the power of the Khazars in the Crimea. In 965, Svyatoslav I, duke of Kiev, decisively defeated the Khazar army. Further to the east new waves of Turkic invaders overran the remains of the Khazar state. " So once again, there is substantial indication that Ashkenazim and even more specifically, Eastern European Ashkenazim, do in fact trace their origins to their Khazars. On the contrary to there being an en masse migration to Eastern Europe from Hebrew or Israelite Jews, the only plausible answer for the high presence of Jews within Eastern Europe is that it was genuinely their homeland and the place derive from. After the Khazars had been defeated and had lost their kingdom, they expanded further throughout Eastern Europe and built prominent Jewish communities in countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and Romania, and of course, many later migrated throughout Russia. Alluding further to the language of Yiddish, significant similarities have been found with it and the ancient Turkic dialects the Khazars would have spoke. Considerably older historical indication can be found in the works of Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who documented that by the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in A. D. 70, as many as 6 million Jews were living in the Roman Empire, but mainly in Italy and Southern Europe. This would account for the majority Jewish population at the time, and to assume that these existing Jews suddenly migrated to Eastern Europe in significantly high numbers and essentially double their number--and create their own new language and dialect, as well as differing cultural and religious practices, would defy basic logic. [1. ] . http://rechtman.com... [2. ] . http://www.historytoday.com...[3.] . http://www.gnosticliberationfront.com...