Joel Bainerman

One of their big claims is that modern-day Jews are not descended from the Jews of the Bible because in the seventh century, a tribe of Turko-Asiatic people converted on mass to Judaism and thus “Jews have no claim to modern Palestine as there is no direct linkage between modern Jews and the Jews who inhabited the Holy Land two millennia ago." This means, these people claim, the Jews have no right to claim any rights to the "Biblical Land of Israel".

The theory was given respectability by the Arthur Kossler when the well-known author wrote The Thirteenth Tribe in the late 1970s which set out to prove that the modern Jews of the western world descended from the people of the kingdom of Khazars- an empire which ruled from the seventh to the tenth centuries and dominated eastern Europe between the Volga river and the Caucasus.

It is accepted by all that the person who is credited with converting the Khazarian nobles to Judaism is Judah ha-Levi (1075-1141 CE), a Sephardic Jewish religious thinker from Spain. But that would mean that all modern European Jews- who supposedly descended from the Khazars then European Jewry- would be primarily Sephardic in character and culture. Rather, modern European Jewry is primarily Ashkenazi and not Sephardic.

Says David Whitaker, author of Are Modern Jews Really Jews?

"The Khazarian nobles obviously accepted the Ashkenazi form of Judaism upon entering Eastern Europe after the Russian invasion and conquest of the Khazarian Empire."

Thus if the Jews of today really did descend only from converted Khazarians, there would have been no Ashkenazi Jews in the world.

One of the mysteries surrounding the conversion of the Khazars is why they would they chose Judaism and not Christianity or Islam? Judaism had no political support but was universally persecuted. And while at the time Christianity and Islam were actively seeking converts- Judaism was not.

David Dankenbring, author of the book, The Incredible Identity of the Khazars, believes that the story here may not be that the Khazars "chose" Judaism rather than the other two monotheistic religions- but rather, the Khazars' leadership believed themselves to be Jews which were cut off from the rest of the mainline Jewish community centuries before.

In his book he points out how important the number 40 was to the Khazars which he believes could be a clue to the real story behind the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism

According to the Arab historian Ibn Fadlan, the king of the Khazars was allowed to rule for 40 years. The number "40" important to Israel. It rained for 40 days and night during the flood. Noah opened the window of the ark after 40 days. Ancient Israelites wandered for 40 years. The land of Israel had rest of 40 years the high priest Elijah judged Israel for 40 years. The first two kings of the dynasty of David, and Solomon reigned for forty years. Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the torah from god for 40 days.

Dankenbring believes that in the time of the Roman Empire when Jews were persecuted by the Romans, it would have been natural that they should migrate to a kingdom where tolerance and fairness and freedom of religion was character of the culture. To the Arab geographer Istakhri, one of the mains Arab sources of information on the Khazars, the kingdom of the Khazars were known as practicing religions tolerance as Muslims were allowed to have their own mosques and Christians their own churches, as well as each religion having their own courts and clergy. Dankenbring claims that in Europe at the time the prevailing mentality was fanaticism, ignorance and anarchy, this "level of religious tolerance stands out.

Says Dankenbring: "The Khazar kingdom was located in the region where the northern ten tribes of Israel migrated and eventually settled after taken into captivity by the Assyrian Empire in 718-721 BCE. During the time following their release from Assyrian captivity, with the conquest of Persia and Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, the Israelis blossomed and grew strong. But they had lost their knowledge of their religious and ethnic identification during the 1400 years spent in the steppes of Asia prior to the kingdom of the Khazars. They had lost the Torah, gone into Baal-pagan worship, and appeared just like the Gentile cultures around them. They had departed from the laws and commandments of God and had lost the religious and spiritual identification marking their heritage."

Dankenbring claims that the reason the Khazars converted to Judaism instead of Christianity or Islam: it was in fact, the religion of their ancestors, centuries before. He contends that the Khazar tribe is not Turkish in origin, but Israelite comprised of the remnants of the tribes of Simeon, Manasseh, and Ephraim.

Dankenbring writes that the very name Khazar is also proof of this conclusion. In Hebrew, "sar" or "tsar" which we get Caesar, Kaiser and Tasar, mean "lord", "chief" ruler" the Prifix "ka"is an advert of quality as "so, as much as possible" therefore "to be so in a very high degree" Thus using "ka" as a prefix of the sar "sar" it has the inference of the "very great or high king" "powerful ruler" "very high lord" mighty chief.

Sar or Shar also means "to be left, to remain, "remnant" The Khazars were a "remnant" of the lost tribes of Israel. Thus "ka-Shar" could mean "special remnant" the unique remnant.

Kevin Alan Brook is one of the most respectable historians on the subject of the Khazars. In 2000 he published his book The Jews of Khazaria, in which he writes: "No Polish place-names were directly named after the Khazars" nor "did Polish shtetl life derive from the Khazars. The majority of Polish Jews came from the West, not the East, and most Ashkenazi Jews have Germanic, not Turkish surnames and customs."

Brook claims Eastern Europeans Jews have ancestors who came from Central Europe rather than the Khazar kingdom. He reports that genetic tests carried out by Dr. Michael Hammer showed that based exclusively on the Y-chromosome (paternal) shows that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to Yemenite Jews, Iraqi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Kurdish Jews, and Arabs than they are to European Christian populations.

Another researcher on this subject is the Australian writer, David Maddison

He claims there were Jews on the Rhine who came with the Romans long before there was a Khazaria and even before many Germanic tribes settled there. As well, there were very large Jewish communities in Northern and Eastern Europe before the Khazar-Jews arrived there, and thus just a tiny percentage of Khazar-=Jews are the ancestors of the Ashkenazim. Thus, he concludes, these Jews are clearly descended from the Jews of the Bible.

"There were Jews in Russia from the first centuries and from there the Jews immigrated to the Caucasus and beyond," writes Maddison. "Jews were in Yugoslavia and Romania in the third century and not long after in Hungary and France. Evidence of Jewish communities is abundant from 465 onwards. Jews were living in all Mediterranean countries for many centuries and were also living in most other European lands from a very early period. However it can be assumed that a tiny portion of present-day Jews may very well be descendants from converted Khazar Jews".