Vikingsfan8 (talk | contribs) →Criticism: Section contains old statements, not even taking Dr. Eran Elhaik's work into account, much less that of other geneticist like Dr. Martin Richards |
Vikingsfan8 (talk | contribs) Ridiculous, sourceless claims removed. This article still needs major revamping or should simply be deleted as other articles on Khazars already existed |
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⚫ | The [[Khazars]] ({{lang-gr|Χάζαροι}}, {{lang-he-n |כוזרים}} (''Kuzarim'')<ref>{{harvnb|Luttwak|2009|p=152}}.'Khazars (Hebrew:''Kuzarim'').'</ref> were a congeries of [[Turkic peoples]] who formed a semi-nomadic empire extending from Southern Russia to the Caucasus, and from Eastern Europe to the Western edge of Central Asia. At some point in the 8th-9th centuries, the ruling elite is said to have converted to Judaism. The scope of the conversion of the entire kingdom itself is debated<ref>http://www.khazaria.com/</ref> |
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In the late 19th century, some scholars, foremost among them Ernest Renan, speculated that the [[Ashkenazi Jews]] of Europe had their roots in a [[diaspora]] that fled from [[Khazaria]] after its collapse. This theory has had a complex history, within and beyond Judaism. Major scholars have either defended it or dismissed it as a pure fantasy. It has been seized on at times by [[antisemitism|antisemites]] for various purposes: to suggest that European Jews stem from a barbaric Asiatic race, to disprove a connection between European Jews and Israel, or in order to buttress anti-Semitism. |
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⚫ | The [[Khazars]] ({{lang-gr|Χάζαροι}}, {{lang-he-n |כוזרים}} (''Kuzarim'')<ref>{{harvnb|Luttwak|2009|p=152}}.'Khazars (Hebrew:''Kuzarim'').'</ref> were a congeries of [[Turkic peoples]] who formed a semi-nomadic empire extending from Southern Russia to the Caucasus, and from Eastern Europe to the Western edge of Central Asia. At some point in the 8th-9th centuries, the ruling elite is said to have converted to Judaism. |
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The empire fell as the Rus’ under Sviatislav 1 expanded southwards and destroyed their capital Atil. By the 13th century, whatever remnant survived disappears from the annals. In Jewish literature, the existence of this state assumed a legendary status. |
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==History== |
==History== |
Revision as of 07:24, 11 November 2013
The Khazars (Greek: Χάζαροι, Template:Lang-he-n (Kuzarim)[1] were a congeries of Turkic peoples who formed a semi-nomadic empire extending from Southern Russia to the Caucasus, and from Eastern Europe to the Western edge of Central Asia. At some point in the 8th-9th centuries, the ruling elite is said to have converted to Judaism. The scope of the conversion of the entire kingdom itself is debated[2]
History
To Ernest Renan is credited the first public exposition of the Khazar-Ashkenazi theory. In a lecture delivered in Paris before the Cercle du Saint-Simon on the 27 January, 1883. He argued that conversion played a significant role in the formation of the Jewish people, stating that:
'This conversion of the kingdom of the Khazars has a considerable importance regarding the origin of those Jews who dwell in the countries of the Danube and southern Russia. These regions enclose great masses of Jewish populations which have in all probability nothing or almost nothing that is anthropologically Jewish in them.'[3]
Salo Wittmayer Baron, called by his biographer an 'architect of Jewish History,'[4] devoted a large part of a chapter in his Social and Religious Hisory of the Jews to the Khararian Jewish state, and the impact he believed that community exercised on the formation of East European Jewries in his Social and Religious Hisory of the Jews(1957).[5] The scarcity of direct Jewish testimonies did not disconcert Baron: this was to be expected since medieval Jews were 'generally inarticulate outside their main centers of learning'.[6] The Khazarian turn to Judaism was, he judged, the 'largest and last mass conversion', involving both the royal house and large sectors of the population. Jews migrated there to flee the recurrent intolerance against Jews and the geopolitical upheavals of the region's chronic wars, which often proved devastating to northern Asia Minor, between Byzantium Sassanid Persia, and the Abbasid and Ummayad Caliphates.[7] For Baron, the fact of Jewish Khazaria played a lively role in stirring up among Western Jews an image of 'red Jews', and among Jews in Islamic countries a beacon of hope. After the dissolution of Khazaria, Baron sees a diaspora drifting both north into Russia, Poland and the Ukraine, and westwards into Pannonia and the Balkan lands.[8] where their cultivated presence both established Jewish communities and paved the way, ironically, for the Slavonic conversion to Christianity.[9] By the 11th and 12th centuries, these Eastern Jews make their first appearance in the Jewish literature of France and Germany. Maimonides, bemoaning the neglect of learning in the East, laid his hopes for the perpetuation of Jewish learning in the young struggling communities of Europe but would, Baron concludes, have been surprised to find that within centuries precisely in Eastern Europe would arise thriving communities that were to assume leadership of the Jewish people itself.[10]
Genetics
In 2001 found that Jews were closer to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to their Arab neighbors.[11] In 2003 Behar, Skorecki, Hammer et al. commenting on the modal hapoltype in Ashkenazi Levites which registers a high frequency throughout Eastern Europe, wrote:
"One attractive source would be the Khazarian Kingdom, whose ruling class is thought to have converted to Judaism in the 8th or 9th century (Dunlop 1967). . . Although neither the NRY haplogroup composition of the majority of Ashkenazi Jews nor the microsatellite haplotype composition of the R1a1 haplogroup within Ashkenazi Levites is consistent with a major Khazar or other European origin, as has been speculated by some authors (Baron 1957; Dunlop 1967; Ben-Sasson 1976; Keys 1999), one cannot rule out the important contribution of a single or a few founders among contemporary Ashkenazi Levites."[12]
In 2010, Atzmon et al. argued that their work refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry. Ashkenazi Jews, part of European/Syrian Jewish populations shared a proximity to each other and to French, Northern Italian, and Sardinian populations was found to be incompatible with any theory maintaining that the Askhenazi were direct lineal descendants of Khazars or Slavs. They did allow that some Slavic or Khazarian admixture might have taken place during the second millennium, and noted that the 7.5% prevalence of the R1a1 haplogroup., common among Ukrainians, Russians and Sorbs, as well as among Central Asian populations, among Ashkenazi Jews has led to interpretations for a possible Slavic or Khazar admixture, though this admixture may have resulted only from mixing with Ukrainians, Poles, or Russians, rather than with the Khazars.[13]
In 2012 Harry Ostrer argued that:
"not all of Ashkenazi Jewish male origins can be related to the migration of Jewish men from the Middle East. After E3b, JI and J2, the most common Ashkenazi Jewish Y-chromosomal types as R1a1 and R1a1. R1a1 is very common among Ukrainians (where it is thought to have originated), Russians and Sorbs (Slavic speakers in Germany), as well as among Central Asian populations. This may, in fact, be the signal of the admixture of Khazars with Ashkenazi Jews, although the admixture may have occurred with Ukrainians, Poles, or Russians"[14]
Johns Hopkins University geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik[1] has presented genetic work that the Khazar hypothesis is accurate. Dr. Elhaik writes: "Strong evidence for the Khazarian hypothesis is the clustering of European Jews with the populations that reside on opposite ends of ancient Khazaria: Armenians, Georgians, and Azerbaijani Jews (fig. 1). Because Caucasus populations remained relatively isolated in the Caucasus region and because there are no records of Caucasus populations mass-migrating to Eastern and Central Europe prior to the fall of Khazaria (Balanovsky et al. 2011), these findings imply a shared origin for European Jews and Caucasus populations."[15]
Further articles have discussed Dr. Elhaik's work and study[2][3][4]. Some of these specific works have also challenged Ostrer himself directly [5]
See also
- Conversion to Judaism
- History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union
- History of Kiev
- History of Turkish-Jewish Relations
- Jewish Polish history origins to 1600s
- Rus' Khaganate
- Rus'–Byzantine War (860)
- Rus'–Byzantine War (907)
- Rus'–Byzantine War (941)
- Rus'–Byzantine War (968-971)
- Turkic peoples
Notes
- ^ Luttwak 2009, p. 152.'Khazars (Hebrew:Kuzarim).'
- ^ http://www.khazaria.com/
- ^ Renan 1883: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.'
- ^ Liberles 1995.
- ^ Baron 1957, pp. 196–222.
- ^ Baron 1957, p. 196.
- ^ Baron 1957, p. 197.
- ^ Baron 1957, pp. 206–207
- ^ Baron 1957, pp. 208–210, 221.
- ^ Bacon 1957, pp. 173, 222
- ^ Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Bernd Brinkmann, Partha P. Majumder, Marina Faerman, Ariella Oppenheim. "The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East", (The American Journal of Human Genetics (2001), Volume 69, number 5. pp. 1095–112).
- ^ Behar Doron M., Thomas MG, Skorecki K, Hammer MF, Bulygina E, Rosengarten D, Jones AL, Held K et al. (2003). "Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European Ancestries" (PDF). Am. J. Hum. Genet 73 (4): 768–779. doi:10.1086/378506. PMC 1180600. PMID 13680527. http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/400971.pdf
- ^ G.Atzmon, L.Hao, I.Pe'er, C.Velez, A.Pearlman, P.F.Palamara, B.Morrow, E.Friedman, C.Oddoux, E.Burns and H.Ostrer. Abraham's Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Midde Eastern Ancestry. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 03 June 2010.
- ^ Harry Ostrer, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, Oxford University Press, 2012 p.94.
- ^ http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/61.full
References
- Abu El-Haj, Nadia (2012). The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-20142-9. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
- Atzmon, Gil; Ostrer, Harry (2010). "Abraham's Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry". American Journal of Human Genetics. 86 (6): 850–859. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
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(help) - Baron, Salo Wittmayer (1957). A Social and Religious History of the Jews. Vol. 3 (2 ed.). Columbia University Press.
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(help) - Behar, Doron; Skorecki, Karl; Hammer, Michael F (October 2003). "Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European Ancestries". European Journal of Human Genetics. 73 (4): 768–779. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
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(help) - Costa, M. D.; Pereira, Joana B.; Richards, Martin B. (October 8, 2013). "A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages" (PDF). Nature Communications. 4: 1–10. doi:10.1038/ncomms3543. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
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(help) - Elhaik, Eran (December 2012). "The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses" (PDF). Genome Biology and Human Evolution. 5 (1): 61–74. Retrieved 16 December 2010.
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(help) - Goldstein, David B. (2008). Jacob's Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12583-2. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
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(help) - Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2003) [2001]. Black Sun: Aryan cults, esoteric nazism, and the politics of identity. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-814-73155-0. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
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(help) - Liberles, Robert (1995). Salo Wittmayer Baron:Architect of Jewish History Robert Liberles. New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-814-75088-9. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
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at position 49 (help) - Luttwak, Edward N. (2009). The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03519-5. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
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(help) - Nebel, Almut; Filon, Dvora; Brinkmann, B (2001). "The Y chromosome pool of Jews as part of the genetic landscape of the Middle East". American Journal of Human Genetics. 69: 1095–1112. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
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(help) - Nebel, Almut; Filon, Dvora; Faerman, Marina (March 2005). "Y chromosome evidence for a founder effect in Ashkenazi Jews". European Journal of Human Genetics. 13 (3): 388–391. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
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(help) - Ostrer, Harry (2012). Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-199-97638-6. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
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(help) - Renan, Ernest (1883). Le Judaïsme comme race et comme religion. Œuvres complètes d'Ernest Renan. Calmann-Lévy. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
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(help) - Wade, Nicholas (May 9, 2000). "YChromosome Bears Witness to Story of the Jewish Diaspora". New York Times. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
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(help) - Wade, Nicholas (May 14, 2002). "In DNA, New Clues to Jewish Roots". New York Times. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
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(help) - Wade, Nicholas (September 27, 2003). "Geneticists Report Finding Central Asian Link to Levites". New York Times. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
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(help) - Wade, Nicholas (October 8, 2013). "Genes Suggest European Women at Root of Ashkenazi Family Tree". New York Times. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
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External links
- The Kievan Letter scan in the Cambridge University Library collection.
- Khazaria.com
- Resources - Medieval Jewish History - The Khazars The Jewish History Resource Center, Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Khazar Historic Maps
- The Kitab al-Khazari of Judah Hallevi, full English translation at sacred-texts.com
- Ancient lost capital of the Khazar kingdom found