The theory that Ashkenazi Jews descend primarily from converts in the medieval Khazar Khaganate, a Turkic polity in the Caucasus region, has been around for over a century.
Good piece. It's ironic how the Khazarian hypothesis is now used as a "politically correct" way to be an anti-Zionist because it does the opposite of challenging the idea of Jews as "the chosen people." I suppose Candace Owens would not have a choice but to support the Israeli project if she were convinced that its modern population is indeed descended from the ancient Israelites.
Love your work but the title already shows that you don't understand this particular topic (or don't want people to understand it): "Are Modern Jews Khazars?" Of course not all modern Jews are Khazars, but Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews are mostly descendants of Khazars, this has been proven beyond any doubt. No link to ancient Judeans whatsoever.
It hasn't been debunked at all, to the contrary, it has been confirmed repeatedly by other groups since his studies came out. Even Israeli researchers now acknowledge it.
Also very typical of a weak analysis how you start out by trying to discredit it through superficial associations:
"enduring appeal among anti-Zionists", "driven by the rise in anti-Zionist sentiment since October 7. "appears to be the primary motivation of Candace Owens," " sidestep accusations of “anti-Semitism.”"" kept alive by conspiratorial audiences online,"
None of this is relevant, it's just a sign that your own analysis is extremely weak.
First section continues with mistake after mistake: " Though it was largely seen as put to bed by modern genetic science" Nope, modern genetic science has totally confirmed it. Eran Elhaik even managed to identify the original places called Ashkenaz in Eastern Turkey based purely on genetic analysis.
Keith, you have to understand that the title and first section make it immediately clear that you don't understand this topic at all and your entire article is just motivated reasoning.
you don't understand: Elhaik did the first serious geographic-genetic analysis and it pointed precisely to these places in Eastern Turkey that previously were called Ashkenaz. he rediscovered them! The case is closed, Ashekenazi Jews are/were local converts, like most Jews.
Of course, that's exactly why Ashkenazi Jews have Turkish origins! Elhaik discovered these ancient places purely by genetic analysis. It's just activists like Keith who for ideological motives don't want to face the facts.
I understand why Keith would like this not to be true, but it's true nonetheless. It's actually quite similar to wokies: they all have the same deficiencies, no matter their ethnicity.
Yes but you didn't understand his work and misrepresented it. You got this topic wrong, from beginning to end, likely for ideological reasons and motives. Eastern European Jews are/were local converts, just like most other Jews. No link to ancient Judeans. The case is closed. Ironically, you have been fooled by Jewish Zionist :)
Genetics show Ashkenazi still have around 50% bronze age Levantine. They originate from the Judean area and after 70AD expulsion traveled through Europe and blended with those people but they absolutely are still Jews genetically.
No, these are fake association studies that have been debunked. With this type of study you can show anything you like. Read up on the actual literature. Ashkenazi Jews have as much of a link to Judeans as the daughter of Donald Trump, who now is also Jewish.
Thanks for your well researched article. Satan's Tribe, as Christ made clear, are murderers, deceivers, and are NOTHING other than this. Their deceptions NEVER end! Scammell makes this "Khazar" deception and Koestler's intention in writing the 13th Tribe very clear: Arthur Koestler in his best-selling book, The Thirteenth Tribe, via careful research and historic documentation, emphasizes what he claims is a hidden truth and seeks to expose a cruel hoax imposed upon the world by global, organized Jewry as they claim “anti-semitism” whenever their hideous crimes against humanity, against Life itself, are exposed. They are not, according to Koestler, Jews nor are they Semites. They are more accurately a psychopathic, criminal, indeed satanic consortium intent on complete control of the planet.
According to Koestler few understand that easily 95% of those now claiming to be Jews are not in the least Semites, are not in any way descended from Abraham, of those who followed Moses out of oppression in Egypt 3,600 years ago as “God's Chosen People”. Rather, he claims, they are descended of Khazars, of the Ashkenazim, of brutal, warring tribes who ruled a tribal kingdom bordering what are now the Black and Caspian Seas. Fifteen centuries ago they followed their King Bulan for reasons of political and economic expediency and converted to Judaism to hide their satanic practices which included then, as now, preying upon the rest of humanity.
Yet I must add to the above, additional information which indicates Koestler's book was intended to initiate yet another Jewish hoax. Koestler’s official biography, written by Michael Scammell, specifically quotes him on why he wrote The Thirteenth Tribe:
“His argument was that if he could persuade people that a non-Jewish 'Khazar' heritage formed the basis of modern Jews, then this would be a weapon against European racially-based anti-Semitism. 'Should this theory be confirmed, the term ‘anti-Semitism’ would become void of meaning,' he said. According to Scammell, Koestler told French biologist Pierre Debray-Ritzen he 'was convinced that if he could prove that the bulk of Eastern European Jews were descended from the Khazars, the racial basis for anti-Semitism would be removed and anti-Semitism itself could disappear.'” - Scammell, Michael. Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic, Random House, 2009. My research of this Ashkenazi/Sephardi red herring confirms the Edomite Jewish lineage of both the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim as you'll see later in this consideration.
What of the other 5% of those who claim to be God's Chosen? These are the Sephardic Jews, descended of the Middle Eastern Jew, and from this segment of Judaism, Zionism emerged. Theodor Herzl published The Jewish State in 1896, and in August 1897 convened and chaired the first international Zionist conference in Basel, Switzerland. “Herzl came from an assimilated Sephardic/Ashkenazic family that had lived in Hungary for several generations. At least several decades before Herzl’s ideas appeared, another Sephardic Jew, Rabbi Judah Alkalai, of Serbian descent, advocated that a Zionist organization be established in order to negotiate with western powers.”
- Arthur Topham, Radical Press. “Zionism, simply described, is the political expression of Judaism.”
most people also do not know that there is no conversion to judaism, judaism is a religion for the same racial group of people. And the descendants of jews in their religion comes from their mother side. That is why you would not see many inter racial marriage in jews. zionism is invented as a deception for those that cannot become jew to feel they become something.
There isn't any such thing as "Turkic", genetically speaking, anyway, it's a language cluster with wildly varying mixed genetics.
That the middle-eastern/Levantine component of Jewish ancestry is mostly Phonecian (coastal Palestine/Carthagenian) is pretty well supported. After the fall of Carthage but before the 1st century Jewish diaspora, the Jewish religion made many converts, there were already "Jewish" communities in most or all the former Phoenician/ Carthagenian cities before 70 AD. Much of the current southern Italian genetics comes from immigration from all around the Mediterranean during the Roman period. The most mobile, seafaring people who had settled all around the Mediterranean coast were of Phoenecian / coastal Levantine ancestry. The Bible is chock full of explicit and implicit references to the Phoenecian culture and religion being Istael/Judea's cultural context, with the latter being objectively far less powerful and influential than the former. Looking at the historical record and archaelogical evidence, the Bible greatly exaggerates the Jews influence, to say the least. (Hebrews, really, I'd say the post-diaspora Jewish religion is a totally different thing.)
The Phoenicians have been systematically wiped from history as much as the Romans, Jews, and their descendants could manage. For good or ill, though, today's Jews are largely who they are because of Phoencian genetics. (Not nearly so much as the Lebanese or the Palestinians, of course.) The Jews would like to take credit for the Phoenecians' accomplishments without the horror of their crimes, thus the mythological history they invented for themselves.
So to summarize, Keith's analysis is incorrect from top to bottom, from title to introduction to conclusion. Even Israeli researchers now agree that Ashkenazi Jews were just local converts with no link to ancient Judeans. There was never any other reasonable explanation. The irony is that Keith starts out be claiming everybody else is motivated by ideology, when it is he himself who obviously is motivated by ideology :)
I am a population geneticist and Keith correctly addressed the data and known serious flaws with Elhaik's work which even Elhaik himself admitted and corrected his position on since then.
You really not only have no idea what you're talking about, but aren't even acknowledging what Keith correctly addressed in his article.
Genetics has utterly destroyed the Khazarian hypothesis. Dead as a doornail. If any admixture whatsoever came in from some scant few individuals, it's basically undetectable, and pales in comparison to the amount of southern Levantine ancestry. Especially since the 2017 and 2020 work by Agranat-Tamir and Lazaridis on ancient DNA from that region giving us a much better understanding of the ancient genetics across the southern arc and Jewish genetics.
Again, the Khazarian hypothesis is utterly destroyed racist conspiracy theory and anyone still pushing it is at best very ignorant, if not just stupid and/or a liar.
The Israelites and Jews themselves do come from Canaanites, but they're not Edomites or separate from some "real Israelite" population. There is no other Israelite or Jewish population. They emerged from the earlier Canaanite people of the region over 3,000 years ago and numerous ancient DNA samples from across millennia back then show their genetics and continuity with today.
Edomite conversion was short lived, would have little impact on their gene pool, and would have been largely irrelevant as they're an almost genetically identical neighbor. Like a Dutch person marrying a German person.
It's an ignorant Christian Identity, or British Israelism claim from before modern genetics etc. Disproven White Supremacist or "Whites are the real Jews" laughably false conspiracy theory stuff.
What about that point that most of the genetic inheritance from the Levantine is on the patrilineal side, whereas (according to Judaism) Jewishness is passed matrilineally? Are we supposed to imagine that exiled/wandering Jews in Italy managed to convert Christian girls to Talmudic Judaism in the 8th or 9th century before having children with them so that the lineage remained intact? That seems extremely implausible.
I think one reason some maintain an interest in the idea of "genetic interruption" among Ashkenazi is to get out in front of claims that a son of David may still arise and be a Jewish messiah from among them.
It’s more likely that the Khazars migrated east as opposed to west after the Rus’ caused their collapse and the Kipchak Cumans took over the Pontic Steppe, causing the Khazars to mix with the local Oghuz Turkic populations by the Caspian Sea (the two of which have strong ties). In fact, such a migration could’ve been one of catalysts for the future Seljuk invasion of Persia (which began less than a century after the Khazar collapse [just like how the Huns pushed the Germanic Tribes into invading Western Rome and the Slavic Tribes into invading Eastern Rome centuries earlier]). If anything then, the closest living ancestors of the Khazars are probably the Turkmen, Azeri, and Turkish (and perhaps Chuvash people as another comment put it [the area inhabited lines up quite well with the Oghuz Yabgu Confederation that preceded the Seljuk Empire]) populations and definitely not Ashkenazi Jews.
Also, Khazaric was Oghuric, a branch of the Turkish language family that today survives only as Chuvash. If there were Khazar loanwords in Ashkenazi languages they would be immediately recognisable as such.
It is generally agreed that the letter ša (Ш) is derived from Hebrew shin (ש), but this was present in the original Glagolitic script of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Also their mission was to the ancestors and land of the people that we today call Bulgarians, not to Russia. They were probably familiar with the Hebrew alphabet from their study of the Old Testament and, neither Greek nor Latin possessing a [ʃ] sound or a letter to write it, borrowed the Hebrew one into their Slavic alphabet.
A nicely done takedown of a pernicious falsehood that has plagued the JQ space for years.
Thank you for this, Keith. This was an article I'd been meaning to write but you did a fantastic job covering everything I'd have said and more.
Thank you
Good piece. It's ironic how the Khazarian hypothesis is now used as a "politically correct" way to be an anti-Zionist because it does the opposite of challenging the idea of Jews as "the chosen people." I suppose Candace Owens would not have a choice but to support the Israeli project if she were convinced that its modern population is indeed descended from the ancient Israelites.
nice work
Thank you!
I can add a little via Gonzalo Lira, check out my comment below or watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzR---YDDIQ&t=1234s
Love your work but the title already shows that you don't understand this particular topic (or don't want people to understand it): "Are Modern Jews Khazars?" Of course not all modern Jews are Khazars, but Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews are mostly descendants of Khazars, this has been proven beyond any doubt. No link to ancient Judeans whatsoever.
It's literally been debunked time and time again lol
Ashkenazi Jews are a mix of middle eastern and European people
https://x.com/i/status/1912316104287854940
It hasn't been debunked at all, to the contrary, it has been confirmed repeatedly by other groups since his studies came out. Even Israeli researchers now acknowledge it.
Also very typical of a weak analysis how you start out by trying to discredit it through superficial associations:
"enduring appeal among anti-Zionists", "driven by the rise in anti-Zionist sentiment since October 7. "appears to be the primary motivation of Candace Owens," " sidestep accusations of “anti-Semitism.”"" kept alive by conspiratorial audiences online,"
None of this is relevant, it's just a sign that your own analysis is extremely weak.
First section continues with mistake after mistake: " Though it was largely seen as put to bed by modern genetic science" Nope, modern genetic science has totally confirmed it. Eran Elhaik even managed to identify the original places called Ashkenaz in Eastern Turkey based purely on genetic analysis.
Keith, you have to understand that the title and first section make it immediately clear that you don't understand this topic at all and your entire article is just motivated reasoning.
you don't understand: Elhaik did the first serious geographic-genetic analysis and it pointed precisely to these places in Eastern Turkey that previously were called Ashkenaz. he rediscovered them! The case is closed, Ashekenazi Jews are/were local converts, like most Jews.
Elhaik is wrong, the case is closed
Of course, that's exactly why Ashkenazi Jews have Turkish origins! Elhaik discovered these ancient places purely by genetic analysis. It's just activists like Keith who for ideological motives don't want to face the facts.
I understand why Keith would like this not to be true, but it's true nonetheless. It's actually quite similar to wokies: they all have the same deficiencies, no matter their ethnicity.
You really should have finished the article before commenting, I dealt with the Elhaik claims
Yes but you didn't understand his work and misrepresented it. You got this topic wrong, from beginning to end, likely for ideological reasons and motives. Eastern European Jews are/were local converts, just like most other Jews. No link to ancient Judeans. The case is closed. Ironically, you have been fooled by Jewish Zionist :)
"you didn't understand his work and misrepresented it"
Yeah sure, conspiratard
Genetics show Ashkenazi still have around 50% bronze age Levantine. They originate from the Judean area and after 70AD expulsion traveled through Europe and blended with those people but they absolutely are still Jews genetically.
https://thuletide.wordpress.com/2021/01/03/are-ashkenazi-jews-white-european/
No, these are fake association studies that have been debunked. With this type of study you can show anything you like. Read up on the actual literature. Ashkenazi Jews have as much of a link to Judeans as the daughter of Donald Trump, who now is also Jewish.
Show the debunk then
Sounds like a bunch of cope, you said a whole nothingburger
nice try.
They are Satan's Chosen Creatures spewed forth from Hell to wreck havoc on Mankind. Which they, it have been doing for over 2000 years.
There must be a world wide Proclamation expelling all jews from the human race.
Hitler warned us.
Don't Get Jewed Again!
Thanks for your well researched article. Satan's Tribe, as Christ made clear, are murderers, deceivers, and are NOTHING other than this. Their deceptions NEVER end! Scammell makes this "Khazar" deception and Koestler's intention in writing the 13th Tribe very clear: Arthur Koestler in his best-selling book, The Thirteenth Tribe, via careful research and historic documentation, emphasizes what he claims is a hidden truth and seeks to expose a cruel hoax imposed upon the world by global, organized Jewry as they claim “anti-semitism” whenever their hideous crimes against humanity, against Life itself, are exposed. They are not, according to Koestler, Jews nor are they Semites. They are more accurately a psychopathic, criminal, indeed satanic consortium intent on complete control of the planet.
According to Koestler few understand that easily 95% of those now claiming to be Jews are not in the least Semites, are not in any way descended from Abraham, of those who followed Moses out of oppression in Egypt 3,600 years ago as “God's Chosen People”. Rather, he claims, they are descended of Khazars, of the Ashkenazim, of brutal, warring tribes who ruled a tribal kingdom bordering what are now the Black and Caspian Seas. Fifteen centuries ago they followed their King Bulan for reasons of political and economic expediency and converted to Judaism to hide their satanic practices which included then, as now, preying upon the rest of humanity.
Yet I must add to the above, additional information which indicates Koestler's book was intended to initiate yet another Jewish hoax. Koestler’s official biography, written by Michael Scammell, specifically quotes him on why he wrote The Thirteenth Tribe:
“His argument was that if he could persuade people that a non-Jewish 'Khazar' heritage formed the basis of modern Jews, then this would be a weapon against European racially-based anti-Semitism. 'Should this theory be confirmed, the term ‘anti-Semitism’ would become void of meaning,' he said. According to Scammell, Koestler told French biologist Pierre Debray-Ritzen he 'was convinced that if he could prove that the bulk of Eastern European Jews were descended from the Khazars, the racial basis for anti-Semitism would be removed and anti-Semitism itself could disappear.'” - Scammell, Michael. Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic, Random House, 2009. My research of this Ashkenazi/Sephardi red herring confirms the Edomite Jewish lineage of both the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim as you'll see later in this consideration.
What of the other 5% of those who claim to be God's Chosen? These are the Sephardic Jews, descended of the Middle Eastern Jew, and from this segment of Judaism, Zionism emerged. Theodor Herzl published The Jewish State in 1896, and in August 1897 convened and chaired the first international Zionist conference in Basel, Switzerland. “Herzl came from an assimilated Sephardic/Ashkenazic family that had lived in Hungary for several generations. At least several decades before Herzl’s ideas appeared, another Sephardic Jew, Rabbi Judah Alkalai, of Serbian descent, advocated that a Zionist organization be established in order to negotiate with western powers.”
- Arthur Topham, Radical Press. “Zionism, simply described, is the political expression of Judaism.”
https://archive.org/details/trh-77_202111 pg. 28. and https://shadowbannedlibrary.com/products/the-real-history-of-earth-illuminati-wwii-mass-hypnosis-moon-landing-more-ebook-by-cosmic-fellow Additionally I recommend https://shadowbannedlibrary.com/products/ebook-by-cosmic-fellow to understand who the REAL puppet masters creating Hell on earth actually are.
Really?Nothing other than horrible murderers?Not a single a good jew?Ahahahah
most people also do not know that there is no conversion to judaism, judaism is a religion for the same racial group of people. And the descendants of jews in their religion comes from their mother side. That is why you would not see many inter racial marriage in jews. zionism is invented as a deception for those that cannot become jew to feel they become something.
There isn't any such thing as "Turkic", genetically speaking, anyway, it's a language cluster with wildly varying mixed genetics.
That the middle-eastern/Levantine component of Jewish ancestry is mostly Phonecian (coastal Palestine/Carthagenian) is pretty well supported. After the fall of Carthage but before the 1st century Jewish diaspora, the Jewish religion made many converts, there were already "Jewish" communities in most or all the former Phoenician/ Carthagenian cities before 70 AD. Much of the current southern Italian genetics comes from immigration from all around the Mediterranean during the Roman period. The most mobile, seafaring people who had settled all around the Mediterranean coast were of Phoenecian / coastal Levantine ancestry. The Bible is chock full of explicit and implicit references to the Phoenecian culture and religion being Istael/Judea's cultural context, with the latter being objectively far less powerful and influential than the former. Looking at the historical record and archaelogical evidence, the Bible greatly exaggerates the Jews influence, to say the least. (Hebrews, really, I'd say the post-diaspora Jewish religion is a totally different thing.)
The Phoenicians have been systematically wiped from history as much as the Romans, Jews, and their descendants could manage. For good or ill, though, today's Jews are largely who they are because of Phoencian genetics. (Not nearly so much as the Lebanese or the Palestinians, of course.) The Jews would like to take credit for the Phoenecians' accomplishments without the horror of their crimes, thus the mythological history they invented for themselves.
So to summarize, Keith's analysis is incorrect from top to bottom, from title to introduction to conclusion. Even Israeli researchers now agree that Ashkenazi Jews were just local converts with no link to ancient Judeans. There was never any other reasonable explanation. The irony is that Keith starts out be claiming everybody else is motivated by ideology, when it is he himself who obviously is motivated by ideology :)
You didn't make an argument
Tldr; sounds like just more Jewish tricks
It's Keith himself who fell for a Jewish trick :) political activists shouldn't try to answer genetic questions...
I am a population geneticist and Keith correctly addressed the data and known serious flaws with Elhaik's work which even Elhaik himself admitted and corrected his position on since then.
You really not only have no idea what you're talking about, but aren't even acknowledging what Keith correctly addressed in his article.
Genetics has utterly destroyed the Khazarian hypothesis. Dead as a doornail. If any admixture whatsoever came in from some scant few individuals, it's basically undetectable, and pales in comparison to the amount of southern Levantine ancestry. Especially since the 2017 and 2020 work by Agranat-Tamir and Lazaridis on ancient DNA from that region giving us a much better understanding of the ancient genetics across the southern arc and Jewish genetics.
Again, the Khazarian hypothesis is utterly destroyed racist conspiracy theory and anyone still pushing it is at best very ignorant, if not just stupid and/or a liar.
Yes, before that, they were Edomite-Canaanites…..
The Israelites and Jews themselves do come from Canaanites, but they're not Edomites or separate from some "real Israelite" population. There is no other Israelite or Jewish population. They emerged from the earlier Canaanite people of the region over 3,000 years ago and numerous ancient DNA samples from across millennia back then show their genetics and continuity with today.
Edomite conversion was short lived, would have little impact on their gene pool, and would have been largely irrelevant as they're an almost genetically identical neighbor. Like a Dutch person marrying a German person.
It's an ignorant Christian Identity, or British Israelism claim from before modern genetics etc. Disproven White Supremacist or "Whites are the real Jews" laughably false conspiracy theory stuff.
What about that point that most of the genetic inheritance from the Levantine is on the patrilineal side, whereas (according to Judaism) Jewishness is passed matrilineally? Are we supposed to imagine that exiled/wandering Jews in Italy managed to convert Christian girls to Talmudic Judaism in the 8th or 9th century before having children with them so that the lineage remained intact? That seems extremely implausible.
I think one reason some maintain an interest in the idea of "genetic interruption" among Ashkenazi is to get out in front of claims that a son of David may still arise and be a Jewish messiah from among them.
What I do find convincing, however, is that the Levantine genetics come from Punic converts rather than original populations of Israel and Judea.
It’s more likely that the Khazars migrated east as opposed to west after the Rus’ caused their collapse and the Kipchak Cumans took over the Pontic Steppe, causing the Khazars to mix with the local Oghuz Turkic populations by the Caspian Sea (the two of which have strong ties). In fact, such a migration could’ve been one of catalysts for the future Seljuk invasion of Persia (which began less than a century after the Khazar collapse [just like how the Huns pushed the Germanic Tribes into invading Western Rome and the Slavic Tribes into invading Eastern Rome centuries earlier]). If anything then, the closest living ancestors of the Khazars are probably the Turkmen, Azeri, and Turkish (and perhaps Chuvash people as another comment put it [the area inhabited lines up quite well with the Oghuz Yabgu Confederation that preceded the Seljuk Empire]) populations and definitely not Ashkenazi Jews.
Also, Khazaric was Oghuric, a branch of the Turkish language family that today survives only as Chuvash. If there were Khazar loanwords in Ashkenazi languages they would be immediately recognisable as such.
Hey Keith, we met on a podcast once.
It is generally agreed that the letter ša (Ш) is derived from Hebrew shin (ש), but this was present in the original Glagolitic script of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Also their mission was to the ancestors and land of the people that we today call Bulgarians, not to Russia. They were probably familiar with the Hebrew alphabet from their study of the Old Testament and, neither Greek nor Latin possessing a [ʃ] sound or a letter to write it, borrowed the Hebrew one into their Slavic alphabet.