THE
KHAZARS AND THE MODERN JEWS
By
Steven M. Collins
Let us consider an aspect of Jewish
history which is sometimes controversial. This is the history of the Khazar kingdom, whose later monarchs adopted Judaism.
Some maintain that the Khazars were non-Israelites who, en masse, accepted Judaism
and became the forebears of the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe. This viewpoint tends
to disenfranchise Ashkenazi Jews as “legitimate” Jews from the tribe of Judah, and it
is historically inaccurate. This viewpoint assumes: (A) all Khazars
were gentile, (B) all Khazars accepted Judaism and ©
no members of the house of Judah
were already living among the Khazars.
All three assumptions are incorrect.
It is well-documented that numerous
Jews lived in the Parthian Empire and many of them accompanied the migrating Parthians toward Europe through the Caucasus Mountains and
into territory north of the Black Sea. Other
Jewish migrations to the region of Khazaria occurred
in the centuries prior to the fall of Parthia, as we shall soon document.
This region (the Transcaucasus and north of the Black
Sea), through which hordes of Israelites and Jews passed on their way to Europe, was the homeland of the Khazars.
How could the Khazars all be gentiles when their
homeland had been the main expressway for the tribes of Israel as they left Parthia
and Scythia? The Khazar
region also included the former kingdom
of Iberia, which had borne a Hebrew
name since its founding soon after the fall of the Israelite capital of Samaria. Iberia had also been ruled by kings with the
root-word “Phares” in their names, confirming their
descent from King David of Israel.
Surely, there were still Israelites left in this region when the Khazars came to power there in later centuries.
There is considerable evidence that the
Khazars were a mixture of races and ethnic groups.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica records that some “Khazars” were first noticed in Armenia
in 198 A.D.1 This was 28 years before Parthia fell.
When Parthia collapsed,
millions of Semitic people from Parthia
poured through the region later to be called “Khazaria”
like a tidal wave on their way to Europe.
During the centuries of the great migrations of Parthian and Scythian refugees
through the Transcaucasian region, the descendants of
the ten tribes of Israel
were dominant in the region which later became Khazaria.
The Khazar rulers did not adopt Judaism until the
year 740 A.D. or even later. Let us consider how many waves of Jewish refugees
entered Khazaria before that event occurred.
Large numbers of Jewish refugees had settled
in what became Khazaria long before the Khazars were even a recognizable people. It is recorded in
The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia that:
“Vakhushti’s
History of Georgia informs us that permission was granted to a Jewish legation
which had appealed to the prince of Mtskhet, after
the destruction of the First Temple at Jerusalem
(586 B.C.E.), to settle on the outskirts of Mtskhet.”2 Jews from the tribe of Judah began settling in the Transcaucasus
from the time Jerusalem
fell to the Babylonians! The same source records many more waves of Jewish
migration to this region:
“Another influx of Jewish refugees into various
Trans-Caucasian regions took place after the destruction of the Second Temple
at Jerusalem
(70 C.E.). The height of the influx during the first centuries of Christianity
is confirmed by the chronicler Faustus of Byzantium (4th cent.
C.E.), who reports that the Persians, under King Sapor
II (360 C.E.), invaded Armenia,
and took with them to South Persia more than 75,000 Jewish captives, the
progeny of those who had previously come to the Transcaucasus
from Palestine.”
3 (Emphasis added.)
The Jews had seen the Caucasus
region as a hospitable refuge for centuries, and they went there in large
numbers. Why shouldn’t they? From 700 B.C, until at least the 5th
century A.D., it was inhabited by many descendants of the ten tribes of Israel (called
Scythians, Iberians, Sacae, Goths, etc.), and many of
the Israelite kings were Jewish, descendants of King David’s dynasty. The
Persian King, Sapor II, was from the Persian Sassanian kingdom that had driven the Parthians
out of Asia. There had to be an immense number
of Jews in the Transcaucasus region for him to take
over 75,000 Jews captive in a single raid in that area! That they were
descended from Jews who had originally migrated there from Palestine
confirms they were racial members of the tribe of Judah! The Universal Jewish
Encyclopedia continues:
“Subsequently they [Transcaucasian
Jews] were joined by other Jews from more westerly regions; from Asia Minor,
the Crimean Peninsula,
and especially from Byzantium
(to escape from the severe persecutions which they had been suffering at the
hand of Emperor Justinian in the 6th cent. C.E.). It
is evident...that Jewish immigration into the Caucasus
took Place not only at different times but also from different directions.”
(Emphasis added.)4
We’re not done yet. Many Jews, whose
forefathers had lived peacefully under the Parthians,
finally migrated out of Persia
centuries after the Parthians had done so. Consider
this account:
“From Arabic and other sources, primarily the
Old Persian chronicle Derbend-Nameh...we may conclude
that many Jews migrated from North Persia and Mesopotamia to the Northeast Caucasus during the 5th and 6th
centuries (under the Sassanids). Other groups of
immigrants followed...When, in the 8th century, the Arabs conquered
part of Daghestan, they found a large Jewish
population there.” 5 (Emphasis added.)
Many people from the tribe of Judah migrated to the Caucasus from the former
region of Parthia
because of Sassanian persecution. By the time
the final waves of “Parthian” Jews entered the Transcaucasus,
the descendants of the Parthians and Scythians were
already occupying new homelands in Europe. For
many centuries before Khazar rulers adopted Judaism,
there had been numerous migrations of the tribe of Judah (Jews) into the region
later called Khazaria. There would have been some
remnants of the ten tribes of Israel
in that region as well. Indeed, Jewish sources claim that there were
identifiable remnants from the tribes of Issachar, Manasseh, and Simeon living
in Khazar regions, and that their archaic Hebrew
names and the lack of any Levites among them supported the conclusion that they
were not Jews, but Israelites from the ten tribes of Israel.6 Since huge
numbers of people from the ten tribes of Israel had lived in or passed through
this region from the 8th century B.C. until at least the 5th
century A.D., some remnants of Israel’s ten tribes should be expected there.
However, this region had many non-Israelites as well. The Encyclopaedia
Britannica states that:
“...the Khazars had
reappeared in Armenia,
though it was not till 625 that they appear as Khazars
in the Byzantine annals...described as “Turks from the East.”7
The Transcaucasus
were getting crowded. Not only had numerous Jews lived in this region for
centuries (coming from Palestine and Parthia), but there were Turks, other races and
even residual Israelites from the ten tribes whose main body had migrated
through this region on the way to Europe. Khazaria came to include not only portions of the Transcaucasus, but also part of the steppes north of the Black Sea.
There is evidence that most Khazars were of the Caucasian race. The Encyclopaedia
Britannica states that the Khazars were part of the
“white race of the steppe,”8 and adds that the Khazars,
in response to being threatened by other Turkic tribes (such as the Petchenegs), built a stone fortress with the help of the
Byzantines. The Britannica adds:
“Famous as the one stone structure in that stoneless region, [the fortress] became known far and wide
amongst the hordes of the steppe as Sar-kel or the
White Abode.
Merchants from every nation found protection
and good faith in the Khazar cities...The dynasty
accepted Judaism, but there was equal tolerance for all, and each man was held
amenable...to the official judges of his own faith.” 9
The Khazars
were known by their contemporaries as a white Caucasian race, and they built a
great fortress to protect themselves from marauding Turkic tribes. Yet some of
the Khazars were, themselves, called Turks. They were
capitalists known for “good faith,” and practiced religious tolerance. In doing
so, they perpetuated Parthian traditions, for the Parthians
were famous for honest dealings and religious tolerance. It is also evident
that the entire nation of the Khazars did not adopt
Judaism. The “dynasty” (the ruling class) adopted Judaism while the commoners
still practiced their own faiths of Judaism, Christianity or Islam. The
Universal Jewish Encyclopedia adds this comment on the Khazar
conversion:
“...it was chiefly due to the cultural
superiority of the Daghestan Jews that the ‘Kahan’ (king) of the mighty state of the Khazars was converted to Judaism together with his court
and part of the Khazar population between the 8th
and 9th centuries.”10 This account indicates that, besides the
ruling class, only a “part” of the Khazar population
adopted Judaism over the next century. Notice the title of the Khazar King: Kahan. The Hebrew
word for “priest” is “kohen.”11 The consonants of the Khazar
king’s title with the Hebrew word for “priest” are identical (K-H-N). This
argues that the king of the Khazars, who already had
a Hebrew title at the time of his conversion to Judaism, may have already been
a racial member of the house of Judah.
Why else would he already be known by the Hebrew word for “priest?”
The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia also states
that the conversion of the Khazar “Kahan” and his court may not have occurred until between
786 and 809 A.D.12 It further records how few people actually converted to
Judaism as a result of their monarch’s conversion. It states regarding the Khazar King’s conversion:
- “...he and about 4,000 Khazars
were circumcised; it was only by degrees that
- the Jewish teachings gained a foothold among the
population...the Jews were
- greatly outnumbered by the pagan masses, by Moslem and
Christian inhabitants
- of the cities.” 13
·
The
Khazars were not a majority Jewish state. They had
leaders of the Jewish faith, but only a sizeable minority of Jews among their
numbers. A total of only 4,000 new conversions to Judaism in a large nation was
actually a small number of converts. The requirement of circumcision was
likely a disincentive for most Khazar
men to convert to Judaism. Most Khazars remained in
pagan or Christian religions. In the later centuries of the Khazar
kingdom, many adopted Islam. The Encyclopaedia
Britannica records that one of the major Khazar
cities, Itil, had 30 mosques around
924 A.D.14
The Khazars
also included Turks (descended from Esau, also called Edom). The
Edomites were fellow-Semites as their forefather,
Esau, was a son of Isaac. The Israelites had been commanded by God in Deuteronomy 23:7:
“Thou shalt not
abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother ...the children
that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the Lord in
their third generation.” (KJV)
God called the Edomites
“brothers” of the Israelites because Esau, the father of the Edomites, was the brother of Jacob, the patriarch of the
Israelites. The above commandment required full admittance of Edomites into the congregation of Israel “in the
third generation.” The Edomites (Turks) living in Khazaria who became Jews were regarded by divine law to be
fully assimilated into the tribe of Judah by the time the third
generation was born. This assimilation would have been accomplished prior to
the fall of the Khazar Empire.
There isn’t space to fully discuss the Edomites, but Esau gave birth to
many tribes of his own, each headed by a “Duke” (see Genesis
36). Genesis 36:15
lists the first (and likely foremost) “duke” of Edom as “Duke Teman.”
The consonants of Teman are T-M-N, which were the
same consonants of the Ottoman Empire, which eventually came to be called “Turkey.” The
second Edomite Duke was named “Omar,” and another
name for the famous “Dome of the Rock” in Jerusalem
is “the mosque of Omar,” named after a powerful Islamic Caliph.
When word spread on the trade routes that Khazaria had adopted Judaism, Jews from the Diaspora would
surely have migrated to Khazaria to seek refuge
there. According to The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia: “the
report of the marvelous conversion [of the Khazar
rulers] spread throughout the Jewish world.”15
This would have steadily increased the number
of people from the tribe of Judah
among the Khazars as more Jews migrated there for
sanctuary and freedom of religion. When Khazaria
fell, its people, including the Jews, would have been pushed toward eastern Europe to seek refuge and new homelands. The
Universal Jewish Encyclopedia records that the Jews of Khazaria
migrated to Kiev and parts of Russia, while the remaining Khazars
joined the Magyars and migrated to modern Hungary, becoming Christians.16
Khazaria’s Jews eventually became known as “Ashkenazi”
Jews. Some mistakenly link this name to a son of Gomer
(Genesis 10:3). The name actually has Parthian origins. The
Encyclopedia Britannica (1943 Ed., Vol. 17, pp. 576-577) records that the
name “Ashkanians” was a Persian/Arabic name for the Parthians. The derivation of “Ashken-azi”
from “Ashkan-ian” is easy to see. Therefore, the
term “Ashkenazi Jews” actually proclaims and ancestry among the “Parthian
Jews.” This is very consistent with the historical record which confirms
many Jews lived in Parthia
and that they migrated out of Parthia
into the Transcaucasus and the Black
Sea regions.
In conclusion, the historical record
indicates that the Khazarian Jews were, for the most
part, refugees from the tribe of Judah who had settled in that region. There
were converts to Judaism from other races as well, but God’s assimilation laws
defined their offspring to be “fully Jewish” within a few generations. The
Ashkenazi Jews are part of the modern Tribe of Judah. God himself has made
that clear in our modern time as he directed many Ashkenazi Jews to help found
and settle the modern Israeli state, fulfilling the prophecy in Zephaniah 2 that “Judah”
would again inhabit its old homeland in the Mideast.
Submitted by: Steve Collins
ENDNOTES
- 1. Encyclopaedia Britannica,
1943 Ed., Vol. 13, see Khazars, p. 362
- 2. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 8, see “Mountain
Jews,” p.26
- 3. Ibid, p. 26
- 4. Ibid, p. 26
- 5. Ibid, p.26
- 6. Ibid, pp. 26-27
- 7. Encyclopaedia Britannica,
1943 Ed., Vol. 13, see “Khazars,” p. 362
- 8. Ibid, p. 362
- 9. Ibid, p. 363
- 10. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 8, see
“Mountain Jews,” p. 27
- 11. Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible, see
word “Priest,” p. 772
- 12. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 6, see “Khazars,” p. 376
- 13. Ibid, p. 376
- 14. Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 13, see “Khazars,” p. 363
- 15. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 6, see “Khazars,” p. 377
- 16. Ibid, pp. 377-378