New
study sheds light on the origin of the European Jewish
population.
January 16,
2013 ( The original article )
Despite
being one of the most genetically analysed groups, the origin of European Jews
has remained obscure. However, a new study published online today in the
journal Genome Biology and Evolution by Dr Eran Elhaik,
a geneticist at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health,
argues that the European Jewish genome is a mosaic of Caucasus, European, and Semitic ancestries,
setting to rest previous contradictory reports of Jewish ancestry. Elhaik's findings strongly support the Khazarian Hypothesis, as opposed to the Rhineland Hypothesis, of European Jewish origins. This could have a major impact on the ways in which scientists study genetic disorders within the population.
a geneticist at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health,
argues that the European Jewish genome is a mosaic of Caucasus, European, and Semitic ancestries,
setting to rest previous contradictory reports of Jewish ancestry. Elhaik's findings strongly support the Khazarian Hypothesis, as opposed to the Rhineland Hypothesis, of European Jewish origins. This could have a major impact on the ways in which scientists study genetic disorders within the population.
The
Rhineland Hypothesis has been the favoured explanation for the origins of
present-day European Jews, until now. In this scenario Jews descended from
Israelite-Canaanite tribes left the Holy Land for Europe in the 7th century,
following the Muslim conquest of Palestine. Then, in the beginning of the 15th
century, a group of approximately 50,000 left Germany, the Rhineland, for the
east. There they maintained high endogamy, and despite wars, persecution,
disease, plagues, and economic hardships, their population expanded rapidly to
around 8 million in the 20th century. Due to the implausibility of such an
event, this rapid expansion was explained by Prof Harry Ostrer, Dr Gil Atzmon,
and colleagues as a miracle.
Under the Rhineland Hypothesis, European Jews would be very similar to each other and would have a predominant Middle Eastern ancestry.
The rival explanation, the Khazarian Hypothesis, states that the Jewish-convert Khazars – a confederation of Turkic, Iranian, and Mongol tribes who lived in what is now Southern Russia, north of Georgia and east of Ukraine, and
who converted to Judaism between the 7th and 9th centuries –
along with groups of Mesopotamian and Greco-Roman Jews, formed the basis of eastern Europe's Jewish population when they fled eastward (*) , following the collapse of their empire in the 13th century.
(*) Jan Verheul: I understand that these people went from Sout-Russia to Central Europe, which is not eastward. But maybe I don't understand exactly what the author means. See also below: (**), where the author describes the wandering of the judeo-Khazars again.
European Jews are thus expected to exhibit heterogeneity between different communities. While there is no doubt that the Judeo-Khazars fled into Eastern Europe and contributed to the establishment of Eastern European Jewry, argument has revolved around the magnitude of that contribution. Dr Elhaik's paper, 'The missing link of Jewish European ancestry: contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses', examined a comprehensive dataset of 1,287 unrelated individuals of 8 Jewish and 74 non-Jewish populations genotyped over 531,315 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). This was data published by Doron Behar and colleagues in 2010, which Elhaik used to calculate seven measures of ancestry, relatedness, admixture, allele sharing distances, geographical origins, and migration patterns.
These identified the Caucasus-Near Eastern and European ancestral signatures in the European Jews' genome along with a smaller, but substantial Middle Eastern genome.
The results were consistent in depicting a Caucasus ancestry for all European Jews. The analysis showed a tight genetic relationship between European Jews and Caucasus populations and pinpointed the biogeographic origin of the European Jews to the south of Khazaria, 560 kilometers from Samandar –Khazaria's capital city.
Further analyses yielded a complex multi-ethnical ancestry with a slightly dominant Caucasus -Near Eastern, large South European and Middle Eastern ancestries, and a minor Eastern European contribution.
Dr Elhaik writes, "The most parsimonious explanation for our findings is that Eastern European Jews are of Judeo-Khazarian ancestry forged over many centuries in the Caucasus. Jewish presence in the Caucasus and later Khazaria was recorded as early as the late centuries BCE and reinforced due to the increase in trade along the Silk Road, the decline of Judah (1st-7th centuries), and the rise of Christianity and Islam.
Greco-Roman and Mesopotamian Jews gravitating toward Khazaria were also common in the early centuries and their migrations were intensified following the Khazars' conversion to Judaism…
The religious conversion of the Khazars encompassed most of the Empire's citizens and subordinate tribes and lasted for the next 400 years until the invasion of the Mongols.
(**) At the final collapse of their empire in the 13th century, many of the Judeo-Khazars fled to Eastern Europe and later migrated to Central Europe and admixed with the neighbouring populations.
Dr Elhaik's findings consolidate, otherwise conflicting results describing high heterogeneity among Jewish communities and relatedness to Middle Eastern, Southern European, and Caucasus populations that are not explained under the Rhineland Hypothesis.
Although Dr Elhaik's study linked European Jews to the Khazars, there are still questions to be answered.
-How substantial is the Iranian ancestry in modern day Jews? Since Eastern European
- Jews arrived from the Caucasus, where did Central and Western European Jews come from?
- If there was no mass migration out of Palestine at the 7th century, what happened to the ancient Judeans?
- And crucially for Dr Elhaik, how would these new findings affect disease studies on Jews and Eurasian populations? "Epidemiologists studying genetic disorders are constantly struggling with questions regarding ancestry, heterogeneity, and how to account for them," he says. "I hope this work will open up a new era in genetic studies where population stratification will be used more correctly."
Under the Rhineland Hypothesis, European Jews would be very similar to each other and would have a predominant Middle Eastern ancestry.
The rival explanation, the Khazarian Hypothesis, states that the Jewish-convert Khazars – a confederation of Turkic, Iranian, and Mongol tribes who lived in what is now Southern Russia, north of Georgia and east of Ukraine, and
who converted to Judaism between the 7th and 9th centuries –
along with groups of Mesopotamian and Greco-Roman Jews, formed the basis of eastern Europe's Jewish population when they fled eastward (*) , following the collapse of their empire in the 13th century.
(*) Jan Verheul: I understand that these people went from Sout-Russia to Central Europe, which is not eastward. But maybe I don't understand exactly what the author means. See also below: (**), where the author describes the wandering of the judeo-Khazars again.
European Jews are thus expected to exhibit heterogeneity between different communities. While there is no doubt that the Judeo-Khazars fled into Eastern Europe and contributed to the establishment of Eastern European Jewry, argument has revolved around the magnitude of that contribution. Dr Elhaik's paper, 'The missing link of Jewish European ancestry: contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses', examined a comprehensive dataset of 1,287 unrelated individuals of 8 Jewish and 74 non-Jewish populations genotyped over 531,315 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). This was data published by Doron Behar and colleagues in 2010, which Elhaik used to calculate seven measures of ancestry, relatedness, admixture, allele sharing distances, geographical origins, and migration patterns.
These identified the Caucasus-Near Eastern and European ancestral signatures in the European Jews' genome along with a smaller, but substantial Middle Eastern genome.
The results were consistent in depicting a Caucasus ancestry for all European Jews. The analysis showed a tight genetic relationship between European Jews and Caucasus populations and pinpointed the biogeographic origin of the European Jews to the south of Khazaria, 560 kilometers from Samandar –Khazaria's capital city.
Further analyses yielded a complex multi-ethnical ancestry with a slightly dominant Caucasus -Near Eastern, large South European and Middle Eastern ancestries, and a minor Eastern European contribution.
Dr Elhaik writes, "The most parsimonious explanation for our findings is that Eastern European Jews are of Judeo-Khazarian ancestry forged over many centuries in the Caucasus. Jewish presence in the Caucasus and later Khazaria was recorded as early as the late centuries BCE and reinforced due to the increase in trade along the Silk Road, the decline of Judah (1st-7th centuries), and the rise of Christianity and Islam.
Greco-Roman and Mesopotamian Jews gravitating toward Khazaria were also common in the early centuries and their migrations were intensified following the Khazars' conversion to Judaism…
The religious conversion of the Khazars encompassed most of the Empire's citizens and subordinate tribes and lasted for the next 400 years until the invasion of the Mongols.
(**) At the final collapse of their empire in the 13th century, many of the Judeo-Khazars fled to Eastern Europe and later migrated to Central Europe and admixed with the neighbouring populations.
Dr Elhaik's findings consolidate, otherwise conflicting results describing high heterogeneity among Jewish communities and relatedness to Middle Eastern, Southern European, and Caucasus populations that are not explained under the Rhineland Hypothesis.
Although Dr Elhaik's study linked European Jews to the Khazars, there are still questions to be answered.
-How substantial is the Iranian ancestry in modern day Jews? Since Eastern European
- Jews arrived from the Caucasus, where did Central and Western European Jews come from?
- If there was no mass migration out of Palestine at the 7th century, what happened to the ancient Judeans?
- And crucially for Dr Elhaik, how would these new findings affect disease studies on Jews and Eurasian populations? "Epidemiologists studying genetic disorders are constantly struggling with questions regarding ancestry, heterogeneity, and how to account for them," he says. "I hope this work will open up a new era in genetic studies where population stratification will be used more correctly."
More information: 'The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses' by Eran Elhaik, Genome Biology and Evolution, DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evs119 Provided by Oxford University Press
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-european-jewish-population.html#jCp
============================
Here is a jewish source about the Jewish rule in the Khazar state:
A Resource for Turkic and Jewish History in Russia and Ukraine
Last Updated: December 10, 2012
Order the improved 2nd edition in
paperback format:
The Jews of Khazaria from Amazon.com
from Amazon.ca in Canada
from Amazon.co.uk in the UK
from Probook in Israel
KINDLE EDITION
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The Jews of Khazaria from Amazon.com
from Amazon.ca in Canada
from Amazon.co.uk in the UK
from Probook in Israel
KINDLE EDITION
ADOBE READER EDITION
More ordering options + More formats (hardcover, eBook) + More information about the book
"The Bones of the
Old Ones: A Novel" by Howard Andrew Jones, published in December
2012, has Khazar characters aplenty, introduced as people who wear fur hats and
high boots and carry curved swords. Some of the Khazars are presented as
individual characters. The novel mixes fact and fiction and on page 304 admits
"As to pure fantasy, the Khazars did not have a doomsday
cult that welcomed the world's end in ice."
Medieval
Kingdom of Khazaria, 652-1016
Over a thousand
years ago, the far east of Europe was ruled by Jewish kings who presided over
numerous tribes, including their own tribe: the Turkic Khazars. After their
conversion, the Khazar people used Jewish personal names, spoke and wrote in
Hebrew, were circumcised, had synagogues and rabbis, studied the Torah and
Talmud, and observed Hanukkah, Pesach, and the Sabbath. The Khazars were
an advanced civilization with one of the most tolerant societies of the
medieval period. It hosted merchants from all over Asia and Europe. On these
pages it is hoped that you may learn more about this fascinating culture.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY
OF KHAZARIA
Essays summarizing the history
of the Khazars, their principal cities, their culture, and their conversion to
Judaism in the 9th century.
- An Introduction to
the History of Khazaria
- Current Issues in Khazar Studies
- Los Khazares: un experimento europeo de construcción de
un estado Judío - in Spanish
- Histoire des Khazars: la nation juive de Russie et
d'Ukraine - in French
- Znakomstvo s Istoriey Xazarii - in Russian
- Hazar Türkleri
tarihine giriş - in Turkish
ILLUSTRATIONS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
OF KHAZAR ARTIFACTS
The first gallery includes
images of Turkic runes, Turkic tribe symbols, a Khazar metal disc with an
engraving of the Star of David, Khazar-Saltovo amulets,
depictions of an epic motif, Khazarian battle and hunting scenes, Khazar silver
belts, and a map of Khazaria. The second link presents the display on 8th-9th
century Khazar objects (including arms and armor) from the northwestern Caucasus
from the March-September 2003 exhibit "Horse and Rider" at the State
Historical Museum in Moscow.
THE
KHAZAR CAPITAL CITY OF ATIL
Atil was the third capital
city of Khazaria until it was conquered in 969. Archaeologists have located the remains of Atil.
THE
KHAZAR FORTRESS OF SARKEL
Sarkel's fortress was one of
Khazaria's most important, serving both as a defensive structure and a trading
caravan stopover. Includes images of the layout of the fortress, a bronze
warrior figurine, pottery, jewelry, bricks, and other objects.
AN EXPLORATION OF KHAZARIAN SHAMANISM
The original religion of the
Khazars was Tengri Shamanism.
MEDIEVAL QUOTES ABOUT KHAZAR JUDAISM
Judaism was practiced widely
among Khazars, as these authentic quotes from medieval chroniclers demonstrate.
DESCENDANTS
OF THE KHAZARS IN EUROPE
What happened to the Khazars
after the fall of their kingdom? This remains one of the most controversial
questions in Khazar studies. Some new answers are beginning to emerge from new
discoveries. The first essay summarizes the latest findings and uses these
findings to re-evaluate the question. The second essay explains how we know
that Eastern European Jews also descend from non-Khazar Jews. The third page
gathers available evidence on genetics and shows that Ashkenazic Jews have
substantial roots in the Middle East. The fourth page queries whether Jews who
live in the Caucasus today descend from Khazar converts.
KHAZARIAN
NAMES
A list of personal names that
the Khazars used in their own country, including Turkic, Hebrew, and Slavic
names.
EXCAVATION
REPORTS FROM CHASTIYE KURGANY AND GOLDEN HILLS
Excavation reports with
photographs of Khazarian graves and objects.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF KHAZAR STUDIES
The largest database of
references of books and articles about Khazarian history, including works in
English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Russian, Swedish, and other
languages.
KHAZAR FICTION
A guide to
conventionally-published novels, short stories, and poems about Khazaria.
THE KUZARI AND ITS AUTHOR
Yehudah ha-Levi was one of the
greatest Spanish Jewish poets. He was born circa 1080 in Toledo, Spain, while
it was under Islamic rule. He was a prolific writer of both Arabic and Hebrew
poetry. From 1120 to 1140, ha-Levi wrote the famous 5-chapter book known as The
Kuzari, which bases its storyline upon the Khazars' conversion to Judaism.
RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE
HISTORIES OF KHAZARIA
This is a wonderfully
illustrated guide to the history of the Khazars, compiled by staff at Rostov
State University. The only unfortunate thing in the site is that Khazar Judaism
is wrongly accused of causing strife and a civil war.
THE KHAZAR CORRESPONDENCE
The Jews of Spain were
introduced to facts about the Khazar kingdom largely through the efforts of
Hasdai ibn Shaprut, vizier and physician to the Spanish caliphs, who wrote a
letter to King Joseph of the Khazars.
HISTORY
OF THE PROTO-BULGARIANS
This book, translated from
Bulgarian into English, chronicles the history and archaeology of the Khazars,
Bulgars, North Caucasian Huns, and Alans. There are sections discussing the
Khazar cities Sarkel and Balanjar. Includes maps,
photographs, footnotes, quotes from historical sources.
OTHER
ESSAYS ABOUT THE KHAZARS
Selected essays about Khazar
history in English and Russian.
· Xazarskiy kostyum VII-X
vv., by Aleksey (Kutluk) Tselikovskiy - about Khazarian and
North Caucasian costumes
·
"Xazary. Xazarskii kaganat. Prinyatie iudaizma. Rastsvet i gibel'
Xazarii." (Chapter 2) and"Xazary i slavyane. Evrey i
Kievskaya Rus'. Nashestvie mongolov."
(Chapter 3) in Ocherki vremen i sobytii, by Feliks S. Kandel'
· Novye materialy k probleme
izucheniya slavyano-xazarskix otnosheniy (po pamyatnikam Severskogo Dontsa), by
V. V. Koloda - about apparent coexistence and synchretism between certain groups
of Khazars and Slavs
· Issledovaniya v Verxnem Saltove v
1996 godu, by V. V. Koloda - discusses
Khazarian/Saltovo burials, one of which contained a well-conserved felt boot
· Krupneyshey punkt (gorod) Khazarii,
by A. V. Kryganov - discusses the more than 30 Khazarian cities, some of which
(particularly Atil) have not yet been located
· Xazary, Xazarskiy kaganat - includes Mikhael
Gorelik's illustration of Khazar kagan's palace in Atil
· V Storonu Khazarii, by
Denis Sobolev, in Zhurnal "22" No. 103, pp. 114 ff. - brief
history of Khazars
· Vozvrashchenie v
Khazariyu, by Denis Sobolev, in Zhurnal
"22" No. 108, pp. 162 ff. - about controversy of descendants
of Khazars and origins of Russian Jews
========================================================
Here is a non-jewish source, Matt Johnson, who does not agree with the positive view on Khazaria: Podcast about Khazaria.
The Orthodox Nationalist: Khazaria
July 28, 2011
Matt Johnson discusses:
- The Khazar empire;
- Khazaria and the Talmud;
- Khazar economy based on slavery;
- The reason the Khazars converted to Talmudism;
- The reasons for the fall of Khazaria;
- Khazaria and Anti-Christ.
13 MB / 32 kbps mono / 0 hour 56 min.
This author describes the Khazars ( with their jewish Kings) as slave traders and parasitic peoples who are superior warriors and have no mercy with the peoples around them.
=============================================
More well known is Arthur Koestlers book on the Khazars, published in 1976.
It seems that Dr. Erhan Elhaik 's study confirms and details Koestlers thesis.
Amazon: The thirteenth tribe. the Khazar Empire and its heritage.
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