European Jews are Descended Almost Entirely from the Khazars

Final Rebuttal: In fact, if we consider Emilrose's opinion that religious tolerance is connected to advance, Khazaria could surely be called an advanced Kingdom. This however does not make any impact as to the question of descend that we are debating here and as such I will not go into Emilrose's first point. As for her second point as to me not providing sources as to the Jewish population in the general Khazar Region I would like to refer to my opening statement in which I provided the following: "The Term "Ashkenazi" though, from the Biblical "Ashkenaz" was used to describe a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates (Russell E. Gmirkin, Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch, T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 2006 pp.148, 149 n.57. ). " Note that this regional reference is correspondent with the area of Khazaria. To further elaborate, the historical name 'Ashkenaz' was likely a derivation of the Assyrian name A"k$3;za, notably the Assyrians being Semitic descendants of the Akkadian, an ancient Semitic kingdom in the Mesopotamian are at about 2000 BCE. At the height of the Assyrian empire, it had the area from Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea to Persia and from what is now Armenia to the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. Most notably here being Armenia, the area already described in my opening statement. As to Russell E. Gmirkin, (Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch, T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 2006 pp.148, 149 n.57. ) , in the book 'History of Armenia', written in the 10th Century CE by Hovhannes Draskhanakerttsi, a historian of the time, the term 'Ashkenaz' was associated with Armenia as well as being in Jewish use and associated with Armenia until the definition of the term changed, as I have also described. To note as well in my Opening Statement, "Theologian Samuel Krauss identified the Biblical location of Ashkenaz as Khazaria. ". This however binds only the location of Ashkenaz to Armenia and Khazaria, however if you remember that the Assyrian empire, existing from about 2500 BCE to the 7th century CE, an astonishing 3000 years, being Semitic, undoubtedly binds Jewish people to the region of Ashkenaz to the Khazar region well before the latter was founded. The term of the 'Ashkenazi Jew', and I agree with this, did not establish until the fall of the Khazar Kingdom, but as to be taken logically with what I have stated above, Jews from the Ashkenaz (region) did exist. Furthermore the term Ashkenazi Jew does not have any connection with the descend of the Ashkenazi, otherwise they'd be originating from Germany. I would not support that Sephardi Jews traveled to the Khazar Kingdom, as they experienced relative religious freedom in Spain up until the 15th century CE, a time way after the fall of the Khazar Kingdom and as such making Sephardic Jews irrelevant to the Kingdom of Khazar. I do however dispute Emilrose's claim as to Middle Eastern Jews majorly migrating to Europe and no migration to Khazaria being supported I would like to state this: Bat Ye'or (1985), p. 45, stating that "Jews under Islamic rule were given the status of dhimmi, along with certain other pre-Islamic religious groups. ", meaning that they had rights, as 'people of the book'. I will not dispute that under Christian persecution many Jews found refuge in Islamic countries, most notably the Ottoman empire, as I have stated in my first Rebuttal above, but that in the year 641CE prophet Muhammad's successor, Caliph 'Umar, established that all Jews and Christians should be removed from Arabia stating the decree of Prophet Muhammad as for 'No two Religions in Arabia', as well as Jewish tribes being expelled or exterminated after allegedly breaking Muslim treaties. Even though there was partly a tolerance in many Muslim countries, there was still a lot of persecution. Looking at this, as well as what I have stated above it would be only logical for followers of Judaism to migrate to both the lands of Khazaria as well as Constantinople under the prospect of religious freedom. Considering travel in the 7th Century it would have been vastly impossible for people to travel to Europe from the modern middle east, as this was not a travel of hours as today, but an affair of months. It thus would be logical, as well as evident that Jewish population migrated to the kingdom of Khazar, being rather close. As such the majority of migrants to Khazar and Constantinople was not, as Pro has tried to suggest, Sephardic, as I have stated above they had no reason to migrate at that time, but majorly middle eastern. Just to scratch on Pro's opinion as to the difference of Ashkenazi Jews coming from Khazaria to the middle eastern ones, this is not established as the term 'Ashkenazi Jew' was first used to describe Jews from the German area, not the Khazar area and as such obviously creating differences in language, culture as well as possible appearance. Also to the alleged change over short time, the time frame was about 300 years, about 9 generations in the Khazar Kingdom. Also she seems to argue the difference as to the modern definition of Ashkenazi, for this debate though we need to look at the old one thus rendering her paragraph on this unrelated to the original debate topic. As to conversion, as I have stated there is no archaeological evidence, nor literal of 'full scale conversion'. An important aspect that should also be noted is that the here quoted 'Kuzari' is a poetic philosophical work on the Jewish thought in the medieval age, based on a fictional dialogue between a Rabbi and a pagan and does not hold any factional evidence, though surely being a famous piece of work due to its ideas, linguistically and philosophically, not factually. I will acknowledge that in fact, modern Eastern Yiddish is based on Slavic languages. However, the original term Yiddish was used to describe the language of the Ashkenazi Jews, being defined as the Jews of Germany, and being based on an extensive amount of German vocabulary, as such rendering the statement of Yiddish being based on Slavic language as incorrect. As for the repeated assumption as to eastern European Jews who speak Yiddish having no connection to Germany, I will establish the same, this time extended explanation as before. For centuries Germany was the Holy Roman Empire, in fact being larger, especially to the east where modern eastern Europe is established. This meant that there were plenty of German speaking people in those places, as I had stated from my own family history, Czechoslovakia for example, and as such would also contain Yiddish, being the original kind, speaking Jews. Now, if we take into consideration Germany's, as well as Christianities history with Jewish persecution we suddenly get a good image. Note that, although the third Reich, Germany in WW2, controlled parts of modern eastern Europe, they did not control the majority. Now also note that many Jews in Germany fled prior to the Holocaust. A great part of them fled towards the east, simply staying there after the war had ended and forming communities, thus being Yiddish speaking Jews in eastern Europe. . http://www.ushmm.org... (note that this map shows German advance towards the east, this territory was not held though effectively longer than a few months with the Soviets winter counter offensive in 1941 being the point as of which Germany lost grounds and effectively lost the war due to this. ) As for Emilrose's last point, in fact there is no literal nor archaeological evidence as to the general population of Khazars being converted to Judaism. In fact, the quoting of Ernest Renan in a debate with a Semitic background seems extremely controversial, as Renan was criticized as to claims of Aryan superiority over Semites, as well as believing that Semites were an incomplete race, as well as stating claims as to a 'race of workers, the Chinese race'. In my opinion an anti-Semite can not be trusted on the subject, even though Renan was known for claiming Ashkenazi were not Semites and starting this hypothesis of descend most likely due to Zionism, as this issue emerged during the same time as his claim. I do not consider him an historian, as his book 'History of Israel' was based on his study of the Old Testament, which is by no means historically accurate, nor a book in any kind of way concerned with the Khazar issue. In fact, the Old Testament was written well before the Kingdom of Khazaria existed, together with Renan's antisemitic views and non conclusive nor logic make him by no means a historian for me, nor credible. In fact even when he brought forward his claim he was ridiculed, Leroy-Beaulieu, a critic of anti-Semitism, queried whether or not thousands of Polish and Russian Jews might have their origins traced back to the "old nomads of the steppes. " Lastly, as to the discredit of Eran Elhaik, I accept him as a figure of Gene research, but his assumptions are incorrect. As far as recent gene research goes, as stated in my opening statement it stands: Behar, Doron M. ; Metspalu, Mait; Baran, Yael; Kopelman, Naama M. ; Yunusbayev, Bayazit; Gladstein, Ariella; Tzur, Shay; Sahakyan, Havhannes; Bahmanimehr, Ardeshir; Yepiskoposyan, Levon; Tambets, Kristiina; Khusnutdinova, Elza K. ; Kusniarevich, Aljona; Balanovsky, Oleg; Balanovsky, Elena; Kovacevic, Lejla; Marjanovic, Damir; Mihailov, Evelin; Kouvatsi, Anastasia; Traintaphyllidis, Costas; King, Roy J. ; Semino, Ornella; Torroni, Antonio; Hammer, Michael F. ; Metspalu, Ene; Skorecki, Karl; Rosset, Saharon; Halperin, Eran; Villems, Richard; and Rosenberg, Noah A, being all genetic researchers VS Eran Elhaik 30 vs 1. This concludes my 3rd and final rebuttal.