#Khazar Myth Debunked

The Khazar myth has been around for ages. Used as a weapon by the enemies of Israel and by Jew haters (generally one in the same), it is meant to delegitimize the State of Israel and the Jewish ancestral claim. The myth is that the Ashkenazim, (European Jews), are not descended from Abraham but from converts from Khazaria. Therefore, European Jews are supposedly Khazars, not Hebrews, and they have no ties to the land. The evidence to the contrary is irrefutable.

Ancestry and DNA testing prove that Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews are more closely related to one another than to non-Jews. Historical evidence shows the migration of Jews in Diaspora coming originally from Israel and spreading out across Europe and the Middle East. We started in the same place but fanned out. And even if there were Jews who converted from Khazaria, it is inconsequential. The genetic link between Jews is clear, and why is that? Because we descended from the Hebrews, from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

There has been a great deal of debate going on in the comment section of one of my videos, which all started from one person with a definite anti-Israel agenda, prompting me to set the record straight.

I cover the Khazar myth in my book, Half-Jew: Searching for Identity.

Many others have addressed this issue.

In his book, Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project, Spencer Wells writes, “Around half of all Ashkenazi Jews trace their mitochondrial lineage back to one of four women.” (p. 188)

Dr. Doron Behar of the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, found that those four women inherited “their genetic signatures from female ancestors who lived in the Near East.”

Furthermore, Jews and Arabs are indeed cousins and are more closely related to one another than to other non-Jews, confirming of course what we already know that we both descended from Abraham. Results of a study, from NYU: “The study, published in the May 9 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that Jewish men shared a common set of genetic signatures with non-Jews from the Middle East, including Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese, and these signatures diverged significantly from non-Jewish men outside of this region. Consequently, Jews and Arabs share a common ancestor and are more closely related to one another than to non-Jews from other areas of the world.

Why is this important? Because if Jews and Arabs are cousins, it substantiates the claim that Jews descended from Abraham (through Isaac), just as we know from the Torah. It also validates the story of Arabs descending from Abraham through Ishmael.

“The study also revealed that despite the complex history of Jewish migration in the Diaspora (the time since 556 B.C. when Jews migrated out of Palestine), Jewish communities have generally not intermixed with non-Jewish populations. If they had, then Jewish men from different regions of the world would not share the same genetic signatures in their Y chromosome.”

More info:

Khazar myth debunked: “Study Finds No Evidence of Khazar Origin for Ashkenazi Jews”: Dr. Eran Elhaik’s study was faulty and lacks evidence. This baseless study is the basis for Shlomo Sand’s book.

“Jews Are Not Descended From Khazars”: “Prof. Shaul Stampfer, an expert in Jewish history, analyzed material from various fields, but found no reliable source for the claim that the Khazars – a multiethnic kingdom that included Iranians, Turks, Slavs and Circassians– converted to Judaism. ‘There never was a conversion by the Khazar king or the Khazar elite,’ he said. ‘The conversion of the Khazars is a myth with no factual basis.’“

I’m posting the information in this article, not for anti-Semites who are motivated by hate, but for those who are searching for truth. I summarize everything in my book in a clear and easy-to-follow manner. For anyone interested, it is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Half-Jew-Searching-Identity-D-M-Miller/dp/1542348900/

Please see the companion video for this article: DNA Results for a Russian Jew.

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D.M. Miller is the author of the interfaith “Heart” series as well as the poetry collection, Dandelion Fuzz and the memoir, Half-Jew: Searching for Identity. The product of an interfaith marriage herself, Miller’s work explores the difficult themes of religion, politics, ethnicity, culture, family, ancestry and love. See her books on Amazon.

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