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How many of today's Jews are actually descended from the Khazars? -- SJK

I am not sure if anyone knows. I do know that there were some interesting biological tests done which showed that there has been much less intermarriage and conversion than anyone had previously imagined. Some scientists compared some biological traits that were markers for certain genes, specifically the fingerprint whorls, and found that most of today's modern day Jews matched the patterns for biological descendents of middle-eastern semites. There is an article on this (explaining the test, and logic of the arguement) entitled "Who are the Jews" by Jared Diamon, in "Natural History", volume 102, No. 11, Nov. 1993. RK

If Khazars really converted to Judaism and took the apellation, "Son of Abraham," then they really were Jews -- and their descendents really are Jews. I am sure that in the long history of the Children of Israel, many many people have been adopted into the family -- and it would be wrong, both morally and legally, to consider them any less members of the family.

There may be some scientific merit to asking hat percentage of Jewish ancesors today came from where. But as far as "Jewish" concerns, it doesn't matter whether a small or high percentage come from the land of the Khazars or elsewhere. As long as the mothers were Jewish, or they converted, they are all Jews.

The notion of some pure bloodline smacks of racialist thinking, and may even be racist. But even were it benign, I just do not think it makes sense in the context of Jewish beliefs about being Jewish.

An admitedly very hypothetical example will illustrate my point. My family could have a practice of marrying only non-Jewish men. My father, three of my grandparents, seven of my greatgrandparents, and so on could all be non-Jews. I would have a very low percentage of "Jewish blood." But by the law of my people I would be 100% Jewish. SR

Genetically, it is now known that between 70 and 80 percent of paternal Ashkenazi lineages are from the Middle East, and that these lineages are related to Palestinian Arabs, Kurds, Anatolian Turks, Armenians, Syrians, and Lebanese. This leaves only about 25 percent of lineages which come from other sources (like Slavic and Khazar). The Eu 19 chromosomes are among the markers for a East-European as opposed to Israelite paternal lineage, and it is found among about 13 percent of Ashkenazi Jewish men. See the study by the Israeli scientist Ariella Oppenheim and her colleagues, "The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East", The American Journal of Human Genetics 69:5 (November 2001): 1095-1112. In maternal lineages the Slavic and/or Khazar components may be more significant than in the paternal lineages. Alexander Beider's book "A Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given Names" (2001) goes into a lot of detail about the Slavic-speaking Jews who lived in the Lithuanian Grand Duchy before the Yiddish-speaking Jews merged with them. They had East Slavic names like Kasper, Bogdan, Bogdana, Golosh, Ryzhko, Samodelka, Il'ya, and Domanya. Beider concluded that while we can't tell for sure, some of these East Slavic Jews could have been part-Khazar. But he also presents evidence that the Slavic Jews were numerically inferior to the Yiddish Jews. So historical and genetic evidence coincide. -- KAB

The above interesting quote does not make it clear that the same genetic fact may be said for almost anyone with European ancestry since it has been proven Europeans have a near-eastern genetic origin. This is besides the only really interesting relevant results ironically being for male lines which are not recognised by predominant "Jewish" law as valid lines of descent. Maybe Khazars are in part perhaps a bit of red-herring but the Avar case seems -much to the disappointment of a few Hungarian nationalists- to hold some answers User:Zestauferov

in 10th century there were no Russians. Rusins. Not Russians.

Were Ruthenes subject to the Varangian Russ?

Khazars'descent

You quote two books: 1) The thirteenth tribe by Arthur Koestler 2) The Jews of Khazaria by Kevin Alan Brook Both are quite interesting but to make it short: A. Koestler tries to demonstrate that in the present day askhenaz communities, the Khazar influence is predominant with no interferences from western european Jewish communities who were nearly extinct at the time and just could not initiate any mass migration to eastern europe. K.A. Brook, on the other hand, does not try any demonstration but only states in just a few lines that the present days Askhenaz Jews may, to some extent, have some Khazars ancestors but that this ascendancy was greatly influenced by migrants coming from western europ. Why not? I know that the subject is so sensitive that it is nearly a taboo, but, nevertheless when you try to find out hard facts about populations history (with no interests in the present days political implications)this is far from satisfactory. After all you being an encyclopedia should you not try to sort the problem out and help your visitors?

I am reverting Mikkalai's last deletion. It is always better to rephrase something which doesn't seem right rather than to completely censor the opinon just because it doesn't fit with our own. No hard feelings Mikkalai, but how can NPOV be achieved if people keep ommitting the POVs they don't like? Skillful editing involves taking two conflicting POVs and making them fit well together in the same article. Simply deleting them is the quick & easy way out.Zestauferov 05:25, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Encyclopedia is about facts, not POVs. One cannot put into 'pedia every opinion on every subject. Go ahead, write an article in a magazine, with proofs and references, not just wild guesses. You may go ahead with obscure habiru, eberites, ets., but leave cossacks out of your wordplays, about which you seem to know much less. Mikkalai 05:51, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Nice to meet you too Mikkalai. Check the history, I had nothing to do with the cossack thing. In fact I consider it personally to be erroneous, however, just because I have never come accross that argument and it seems totally wrong according to what I know, it does not make me a master of the Khazar question and I am not in a position to correct it. I suspect neither are you. The best thing to do is make a request next to the suspect info for references. If you do not replace it in such a way I am sure someone else will. All the best Zestauferov 05:48, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

You are right. My fault.

The following section is removed from the body.

--Linguistics--

The word 'Khazar' is theorised to be the root of several other words, including cossack, hussar and 'ketzer' (an derogatory German term for a heretic), although the latter is more probably derived from the medieval Cathari gnostics. Some theories also consider Khazars to be ancestors of Terek cossacks.

First, it doesn't correspond to its title, second, it is not good to put each and every marginal theory in 'pedia, especially without refernces. It could be of encyclopedic value to know that such and such luminary thought this and that, but, I can think of quite a few "some theories" myself, basing on supereficial similarity of words only, without any historical traces of usage. Mikkalai 15:28, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

By the way, right here on by bookshelf sits a pretty serious article that endeavors to prove that Ilya Muromets was in fact a Jew (i.e., of Khazar descent). Very interesting, isn't it? But I have no desire to put it into wikipedia.Mikkalai 15:31, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

online version of Arthur Koestler - The Thirteenth Tribe

Dear friends, maybe you know already that there is an online version of Arthur Koestler - The Thirteenth Tribe available. Regards Gangleri 11:38, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)

It appears that that site may contravene copyright laws; perhaps it's best to avoid it. Jayjg 05:03, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

However, we don't want to remove the book from the references section, as someone has just done. Whether or not one agrees with its conclusions, Koestler's book is one of only a handful of books on the Khazars available in English. Hence it should be listed here. Isomorphic 20:33, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The issue I raised was aiding and abetting copyright violation, not the books contents or conclusions. Jayjg 20:51, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Right. I wasn't really responding to you, but to an edit made to the article by someone else. He made a bunch of edits at once, including removing Koestler's book from the References section. Sorry I wasn't clear. Isomorphic 21:03, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Koestler's book was totally unscientific, and is not a valid source to cite. Its "theories", such as they are, have long since been disproven by genetic testing. His historical sections were plaigarized wholesale from Dunlop, whose work is cited here. --Briangotts 03:51, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Merge/redistribute

Incidentally, while some people are paying attention to this article I'd like to point out the Khazaria article. I'm not sure how material should be distributed between Khazars and Khazaria, but the two should be a bit better integrated, or maybe even merged. Isomorphic 21:05, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good point. Jayjg 21:06, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking that maybe the information on rulers should go into the Khazaria article. There's a lot there, and it's a ibt overwhelming where it is, but Khazaria is a shorter article and it might help flesh it out. Isomorphic 21:12, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not a bad idea at all. Jayjg 21:22, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually, on second thought, now I'm thinking we should wait until Briangott finishes completely re-writing this article, and then re-visit the question. Jayjg 19:57, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)