Khazar myth

Khazar myth, also known as the Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi origin, is a disproven claim that European Jews mostly or only descended from the Khazars without also descending from the Israelites. There is little or no scientific evidence for this myth, according to decades of peer-reviewed genetic studies.[1][2][3][4][5]

Background

Khazars

Main article: Khazars

The Khazars were a confederation of Turkic peoples who set up multiple kingdoms – known as khanates – across Central Asia and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. Some Khazars had a conversion to Judaism.[6][7][8][9] Some people say that it is possible that some of them fled to other parts of Eastern Europe and Central Europe after the fall of the Khazar empire and that they married other kinds of Jews.

Origin

French scholar Ernest Renan may have created the Khazar myth on January 27, 1883 with his lecture "Judaism as Race and as Religion".[10][11][12] In April 1883, the Russian Jewish periodical Voskhod printed a translation of Renan's lecture into the Russian language.[13] But earlier, in 1842, the German Jewish writer Eliakim Carmoly presented the belief that some Jews, some of them being Israelites, had moved from Khazaria to Poland.[14]

Some Jewish writers and teachers wrote suggestions that there may be some amount of Khazar descent in Ashkenazi Jews. In 1884, Sámuel Kohn, a rabbi in Hungary, had the opinion that Hungarian Jews descend from Khazars.[15] In 1885, Isidore Loeb, a historian and rabbi in France, wrote that he agreed with the part of Renan's lecture that claimed that many Jews in Russia and Germany descend from Khazars.[16] Since then, the Jewish scholars Salo Baron,[17] Cecil Roth,[18] Abba Eban,[19] and Zvi Ankori[20] also made suggestions that Ashkenazi Jews may have descent from Khazars.

But it has also been promoted in antisemitic ways[21][22][23][24] by fascists,[25] Christian Identity,[26] Neo-Nazis,[21] Arab nationalists,[27] Russian nationalists,[28][29] and the Black Hebrew Israelite (BHI) movement.[30]

In the 1940s, British people who supported the Arab side promoted the Khazar myth among Arabs to try to stop Zionism.[31] At a 1947 UN conference on the Partition Plan for Palestine, Arab nationalist speakers Faris al-Khoury and Jamal Al-Husseini cited the Khazar myth to deny that Jews have a historical connection to Israel and oppose the creation of the modern State of Israel.[27]

Research

History teacher Israel Bartal wrote that no medieval writings exist that say that Khazar Jews moved to Poland or Lithuania.[32]

The Khazar myth is an unscientific[5] theory. In several papers, Israeli-American scholar Eran Elhaik claimed he had evidence that Ashkenazi Jews have much Khazar ancestry. Several other biologists criticized Elhaik and conducted genetic studies that disproved his claims.[1][33][34] In response, Elhaik called the biologists "liars" and "frauds".[34] His papers have given support to anti-Zionists and antisemites who promote the Khazar myth.[35]

Most scientific studies state that Ashkenazi Jews do have a large genetic relationship to Jewish and non-Jewish peoples living in the Middle East.[3][36] They have only a small degree of relation to peoples living in Central Asia, North Asia, and the North Caucasus — lands where Khazars came from and lived.[2] One such connection is between the Ashkenazi Jewish haplogroup N9a3a1b1 and the Turkic Bashkirs in N9a3a1b.[37][38]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Behar, Doron M.; et al. (December 2013). "No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews". Human Biology. 85 (6): 859–900. doi:10.3378/027.085.0604. PMID 25079123.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Kopelman NM, Stone L, Wang C, Gefel D, Feldman MW, Hillel J, Rosenberg NA (December 2009). "Genomic microsatellites identify shared Jewish ancestry intermediate between Middle Eastern and European populations". BMC Genetics. 10: 80. doi:10.1186/1471-2156-10-80. PMC 2797531. PMID 19995433.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Behar, Doron M.; et al. (July 2010). "The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people". Letters. Nature. 466 (7303): 238–242. Bibcode:2010Natur.466..238B. doi:10.1038/nature09103. PMID 20531471. S2CID 4307824.
  4. ↑ Bray, Steven M.; et al. (September 14, 2010). "Signatures of founder effects, admixture, and selection in the Ashkenazi Jewish population". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 107 (37): 16222–16227. doi:10.1073/pnas.1004381107. PMID 20798349.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Beider, Alexander (2017). "Ashkenazi Jews Are Not Khazars. Here's The Proof". Forward. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  6. ↑ Pritsak, Omeljan (September 1978). "The Khazar Kingdom's Conversion to Judaism". Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 3 (2): 261–281.
  7. ↑ Golden, Peter B. (1983). "Khazaria and Judaism". Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi. 3: 127–156.
  8. ↑ Shapira, Dan (2008). "Jews in Khazaria". Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture. Vol. 3. ABC-CLIO. pp. 1097–1104. ISBN 978-1851098736.
  9. ↑ Brook, Kevin A. (2018). "Chapter 6: The Khazars' Conversion to Judaism". The Jews of Khazaria (3rd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-1-5381-0342-5.
  10. ↑ Renan, Ernest (1883). Le judaïsme comme race et comme religion ; conférence faite au cercle Saint-Simon, le 27 janvier 1883. Calmann Lévy. p. 23. Retrieved 2025-08-29. Cette conversion du royaume des Khozars a une importance considérable dans la question de l'origine des juifs qui habitent les pays danubiens et le midi de la Russie. Ces régions renferment de grandes masses de populations juives qui n'ont probablement rien ou presque rien d'ethnographiquement juif." It translates into English as "This conversion of the Khazar kingdom is of considerable importance in the question of the origin of the Jews who inhabit the Danubian countries and southern Russia. These regions contain large masses of Jewish populations who probably have little or nothing ethnographically Jewish about them.
  11. ↑ Curta, Florin (2019). Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500-1300). Vol. 1. Brill. p. 128. ISBN 978-90-04-39519-0. But in a world obsessed with inventing traditions, the Khazars are now viewed as ancestors of the East European Jewry... The idea, first put forward by Ernest Renan in the late 19th century...
  12. ↑ Rossman, Vadim Joseph (2002). "Lev Gumilev, Eurasianism and Khazaria". East European Jewish Affairs. 32 (1): 30–51. doi:10.1080/13501670208577962. The French historian Ernst Renan suggested in 'Judaism as a Race and as a Religion' (1883) that East European Jews were of Khazar origin
  13. ↑ Mogilner, Marina (2022). A Race for the Future: Scientific Visions of Modern Russian Jewishness. Harvard University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-674-27072-5.
  14. ↑ Simon, Louis (1844). Die Juden in Russland. Hoffmann und Campe Verlag. pp. 11–12. Die Fortschritte, welche die jüdische Religion im Norden des Caucasus gemacht hatte, die Befehrung des Königs der Khazaren zur jüdiſchen Religion, im achten Jahrhundert, führten viele Juden in diesses Land, von wo sie sich bald nach Russland und Polen ausbreiteten." This was translated into German from Carmoly's 1842 Hebrew text "'Aqtan de-Mar Ya'aqob: Aggadah asher hayata sefunah ve-temunah." It translates into English as "The progress made by the Jewish religion in the north of the Caucasus, and the conversion of the king of the Khazars to the Jewish religion in the eighth century, brought many Jews to this country, from where they soon spread to Russia and Poland.
  15. ↑ Réthelyi, Mari (2021). "Hungarian Jewish Stories of Origin: Samuel Kohn, the Khazar Connection and the Conquest of Hungary". Hungarian Cultural Studies: e-Journal of the American Hungarian Educators Association. 14: 54–55, 57–61. doi:10.5195/ahea.2021.427. ISSN 2471-965X.
  16. ↑ Loeb, Isidore (2011). "Reflections on the Jews". In Hart, Mitchell B. (ed.). Jews and Race: Writings on Identity and Difference, 1880-1940. Translated by Hammerman, Shaina. Brandeis University Press. pp. 16–17. doi:10.2307/j.ctv102bhs1.7. ISBN 9781584657170. ...nothing proves that the present-day Jews who reside in most of the European states are the descendants of the ancient Jews of Palestine and strictly of the Semitic race. ... Very particularly, in Russia and Germany, one may assume that many present-day Jews descend from the famous Khazars, of the Tartar race...
  17. ↑ Baron, Salo Wittmayer (1957). A Social and Religious History of the Jews. Vol. 3. Columbia University Press. p. 206. But before and after the Mongol upheaval, the Khazars sent many offshoots into the unsubdued Slavonic lands, helping ultimately to build up the great Jewish centers of eastern Europe.
  18. ↑ Roth, Cecil (1959). A Short History of the Jewish People. Horovitz. p. 288. And, to the present day, the Mongoloid features common amongst the Jews of eastern Europe are, in all probability, a heritage from these 'proselytes of righteousness' of ten centuries ago.
  19. ↑ Eban, Abba (1968). My People: The Story of the Jews. Behrman House. p. 150. It is likely too that some Khazar progeny reached the various Slavic lands where they helped to build the great Jewish centers of Eastern Europe.
  20. ↑ Ankori, Zvi (1979). "Origins and History of Ashkenazi Jewry (8th to 18th Century". Genetic Diseases among Ashkenazi Jews. Raven Press. p. 37. ISBN 9780890042625. Also, some immigrants of Jewish faith but of Khazar extraction must have trickled in from the East upon the fall of the Khazar Empire. The Khazar element in the Russo-Polish branch of Ashkenazi Jewry cannot and must not totally be discounted. Still, there is very little that the 'Khazar theory' can offer to replace the overwhelming evidence of the primarily Western European origins of Ashkenazi migration into Poland.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Singerman, Robert (2004). "Contemporary Racist and Judeophobic Ideology Discovers the Khazars, or, Who Really Are the Jews?". Rosaline and Myer Feinstein Lecture Series. Archived from the original on 23 November 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  22. ↑ "Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories Abound Around Russian Assault on Ukraine | ADL". Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Retrieved 2022-12-07.
  23. ↑ "Khazars | #TranslateHate | AJC". American Jewish Committee (AJC). 2021-03-30. Retrieved 2022-12-07.
  24. ↑ "Khazars | Center on Extremism". Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Retrieved 2022-12-07.
  25. ↑ Pound & Zukofsky 1987, p. xxi, citing letters of 10 July 1938 and 24/25 September 1955. Ahearn speculates that [Ezra] Pound may have thought:'If there were no such people as Jews, then the problem of indiscriminate anti-Semitism would disappear. On could focus one’s attention on usurers of whatever description.'
  26. ↑ Gardell 2002, p. 165.'The formative period of Christian Identity could roughly be said to be the three decades between 1940 and 1970. Through missionaries like Wesley Swift, Bertrand Comparet and William Potter Gale, it took on a white racialist, anti-Semitic, anti-Communist and far-right conservative political outlook. Combined with the teachings of early disciples Richard G. Butler, Colonel Jack Mohr and James K. Warner, a distinctly racist theology was gradually formed. Whites were said to be the Adamic people, created in His likeness. ... Blacks ... were not the chief target of fear and hatred. This position was reserved for Jews. The latent anti-Semitism found in British-Israelism rose to prominence. Jews were, at best, reduced to mongrelized imposters, not infrequently identified with Eurasian Khazars without any legitimate claim to a closeness with God, and at worst denounced as the offspring of Satan.'
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Harkabi, Yehoshafat (1987) [1968]. "Contemporary Arab Anti-Semitism: its Causes and Roots". In Fein, Helen (ed.). The Persisting Question: Sociological Perspectives and Social Contexts of Modern Antisemitism. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 412–427. ISBN 978-3-11-010170-6. Arab anti-Semitism might have been expected to be free from the idea of racial odium, since Jews and Arabs are both regarded by race theory as Semites, but the odium is directed, not against the Semitic race, but against the Jews as a historical group. The main idea is that the Jews, racially, are a mongrel community, most of them being not Semites, but of Khazar and European origin." This essay was translated from Harkabi Hebrew text 'Arab Antisemitism' in Shmuel Ettinger, Continuity and Discontinuity in Antisemitism (Hebrew), 1968, p.50.
  28. ↑ Schnirelman, Victor A. (2007a). "The story of a euphemism: The Khazars in Russian Nationalist Literature 353-372". In Golden, Peter B.; Ben-Shammai, Haggai; Róna-Tas, András (eds.). The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Vol. 17. Brill. pp. 353–372. ISBN 978-90-04-16042-2.
  29. ↑ Rossman, Vadim Joseph (2007). "Anti-Semitism in Eurasian Historiography: The Case of Lev Gumilev". In Shlapentokh, Dmitry (ed.). Russia Between East and West: Scholarly Debates on Eurasianism. Brill. ISBN 978-9-004-15415-5.
  30. ↑
  31. ↑ Miller, Rory (2020). "The anti-Zionist 'Jewish Khazar' syndrome in the official British mind". The British Mandate in Palestine. Routledge. ISBN 9780429026034.
  32. ↑ Bartal, Israel (2017). "The Establishment of East European Jewry". The Cambridge History of Judaism. Vol. 7: The Early Modern Jewish History, 1500–1815. Cambridge University Press. p. 228. ISBN 9780521889049.
  33. ↑ Flegontov P, Kassian A, Thomas MG, Fedchenko V, Changmai P, Starostin G (August 2016). "Pitfalls of the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) Approach Applied to Human Genetic History: A Case Study of Ashkenazi Jews". Genome Biology and Evolution. 8 (7): 2259–65. doi:10.1093/gbe/evw162. PMC 4987117. PMID 27389685.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 Rubin, Rita (May 7, 2013). "'Jews a Race' Genetic Theory Comes Under Fierce Attack by DNA Expert". Forward. Retrieved 13 August 2025.
  35. ↑ Wald, James (2019). "The New Replacement Theory: Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, and the Denial of History". In Rosenfeld, Alvin H. (ed.). Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: The Dynamics of Delegitimization. Indiana University Press. p. 18. Anti-Zionists as well as antisemites eagerly seized on both Sand's and Elhaik's findings.
  36. ↑ Waldman, Shamam; et al. (November 30, 2022). "Genome-wide data from medieval German Jews show that the Ashkenazi founder event pre-dated the 14th century". Cell. 185 (25): 4703–4716.e16. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2022.11.002. PMID 36455558.
  37. ↑ Waldman, Shamam; et al. (November 30, 2022). "Genome-wide data from medieval German Jews show that the Ashkenazi founder event pre-dated the 14th century". Cell. 185 (25): Supplemental Data S1, p. 26. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2022.11.002. PMID 36455558.
  38. ↑ Brook, Kevin A. (2022). The Maternal Genetic Lineages of Ashkenazic Jews. Academic Studies Press. pp. 85–86. doi:10.2307/j.ctv33mgbcn. ISBN 978-1644699843.
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