Did the Khazars Convert to Judaism?

Stampfer,

doi:10.2979/jewisocistud.19.3.1

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Having been popular in the mid-20th century, the idea that the Khazars directly contributed to Ashkenazi ancestry is currently abandoned by practically all historians and linguists. To say more, according to a recent analysis of historical sources ( Stampfer 2013 ), the conversion of Khazars to Judaism might have never happened, being a medieval legend. The Khazar hypothesis has previously been advocated in a genetic study ( Elhaik 2013 ) reanalyzing autosomal SNP data from Behar et al (2010) .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pitfalls of the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) Approach Applied to Human Genetic History: A Case Study of Ashkenazi Jews

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In a recent interdisciplinary study, Das et al. have attempted to trace the homeland of Ashkenazi Jews and of their historical language, Yiddish (Das et al. 2016. Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to Primeval Villages in the Ancient Iranian Lands of Ashkenaz. Genome Biol Evol. 8:1132–1149). Das et al. applied the geographic population structure (GPS) method to autosomal genotyping data and inferred geographic coordinates of populations supposedly ancestral to Ashkenazi Jews, placing them in Eastern Turkey. They argued that this unexpected genetic result goes against the widely accepted notion of Ashkenazi origin in the Levant, and speculated that Yiddish was originally a Slavic language strongly influenced by Iranian and Turkic languages, and later remodeled completely under Germanic influence. In our view, there are major conceptual problems with both the genetic and linguistic parts of the work. We argue that GPS is a provenancing tool suited to inferring the geographic region where a modern and recently unadmixed genome is most likely to arise, but is hardly suitable for admixed populations and for tracing ancestry up to 1,000 years before present, as its authors have previously claimed. Moreover, all methods of historical linguistics concur that Yiddish is a Germanic language, with no reliable evidence for Slavic, Iranian, or Turkic substrata.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pitfalls of the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) Approach Applied to Human Genetic History: A Case Study of Ashkenazi Jews

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…La correspondencia entre Hasday y el rey jázaro ya fue citada por otros judíos no mucho después de la época en la que vivió Hasday (Stampfer, 2013). Siendo su existencia ampliamente conocida en centurias posteriores.…”

Section: Hasday Ibn Shaprutunclassified

“…3 El incipiente romance se trataría de un romance andalusí, término que usa Yulia Radoslavova Miteva en su tesis doctoral (2017). 4 Véase la nota nº 62 en Stampfer (2013). 5 En la misma obra, aparece la traducción de las cartas al ruso.…”

Section: Notasunclassified

Fuentes hispano-hebreas sobre los jázaros: aproximación a las fuentes existentes. Siglos X-XV

Labajos

2021

Trab. comun.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

En la historia de los jázaros, su conversión al judaísmo es un hecho determinante que ha suscitado el interés de los investigadores desde hace décadas. Para estudiar tal suceso, cómo se produjo o si realmente tuvo lugar, la información proporcionada por judíos de la Península Ibérica es de gran importancia. Con este trabajo queremos presentar dichas fuentes y quiénes fueron sus autores con el objeto de ponerlas en valor y darlas a conocer haciéndolas accesibles para investigadores presentes y futuros con interés en el tema.

show abstract

“…This hypothesis has been hotly debated for two centuries, initially using historical material, but also increasingly, using genetic studies. The existence of conflicting reports has led to debates about their veracity and authenticity; even the very practice of Judaism by the Khazars has been questioned [7]. Yet, recent work on geographical genetics and linguistics of present-day Ashkenazi populations lent support to the hypothesis of the Khazarian origin [8][9][10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverse genetic origins of medieval steppe nomad conquerors

Qiu

Zarubin

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over millennia, steppe nomadic tribes raided and sometimes overran settled Eurasian civilizations. Most polities formed by steppe nomads were ephemeral, making it difficult to ascertain their genetic roots or what present-day populations, if any, have descended from them. Exceptionally, the Khazar Khaganate controlled the trade artery between the Black and Caspian Seas in VIII-IX centuries, acting as one of the major conduits between East and West. However, the genetic identity of the ruling elite within the polyglot and polyethnic Khaganate has been a much-debated mystery; a controversial hypothesis posits that post-conversion to Judaism the Khazars gave rise to modern Ashkenazim. We analyzed whole-genome sequences of eight men and one woman buried within the distinctive kurgans of the Khazar upper (warrior) class. After comparing them with reference panels of present-day Eurasian and Iron Age populations, we found that the Khazar political organization relied on a polyethnic elite. It was predominantly descended from Central Asian tribes but incorporated genetic admixture from populations conquered by Khazars. Thus, the Khazar ruling class was likely relatively small and able to maintain a genetic identity distinct from their subjugated populations over the course of centuries. Yet, men of mixed ancestry could also rise into the warrior class, possibly providing troop numbers necessary to maintain control of their large territory. However, when the Khaganate collapsed it left few persistent genetic traces in Europe. Our data confirm the Turkic roots of the Khazars, but also highlight their ethnic diversity and some integration of conquered populations.

show abstract

Did the Khazars Convert to Judaism?

Cited by 14 publications

References 42 publications

Pitfalls of the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) Approach Applied to Human Genetic History: A Case Study of Ashkenazi Jews

Pitfalls of the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) Approach Applied to Human Genetic History: A Case Study of Ashkenazi Jews

Fuentes hispano-hebreas sobre los jázaros: aproximación a las fuentes existentes. Siglos X-XV

Diverse genetic origins of medieval steppe nomad conquerors

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About