The Khazar Myth

Example 45: The Khazar myth:

The Khazar myth is another way of distorting what is known about Jewish ethnicity and so erasing Jews as a people.

According to a theory popularised by Arthur Koestler in his book The Thirteenth Tribe, the Khazars were a historical (6th to 9th centuries CE) kingdom near modern-day Mongolia whose rulers and a large part of the population converted to Judaism; it was theorised that this was the origin of Ashkenazi Jews, who were therefore of non-middle-Eastern heritage. However, the consensus is that this theory is borne out neither by genetic studies which have found no substantive evidence of a Khazar origin among Ashkenazi Jews, nor by linguists, who have found no significant link between Turkic languages and Yiddish. It can thus now be said that the Khazar theory is a myth (albeit there may have been some Khazari Jews). However, it is still used to argue that some or all Jews are lying about who they say they are, that they are ‘fake Jews’, not descended from members of the tribes of Israel (of course some Jews are in any case converts, or descended from converts) and have attained their religious status by deception. It often features in conspiracy theories, especially more religious-based and esoteric ones such as the gobbledegook example given below. In Russia the Khazar theory has been adapted to suggest that Jews dominated the Khazars, and to justify antisemitism.

In the examples below the myth is used by anti-Zionists to suggest that Israel was founded by Ashkenazi Jews who were 'really' Khazar, hence not of middle-eastern 'Semitic' origin; and stolen from true 'Semitic' people (Palestinians). See Example 6 below - modern academia no longer groups peoples as 'Semitic' in any case. Moreover, this claim erases the presence of Sephardi, Mizrahi, Maghrebi and black Jews in Israel.