The Khazarian Myth
SUMMARY
A recycled antisemitic legend dressed in genetics it gets wrong. Historians and geneticists reject it; it circulates anyway, wearing the Protocols' old coat.
FULL DOSSIER
The Khazarian myth: the claim that Ashkenazi Jews descend not from ancient Israel but from converted Khazars — used to recast antisemitic conspiracy as geopolitics ('Khazarian mafia'). Documented: Khazaria existed and its elite's conversion is attested, but population genetics (multiple large studies, 2010s) finds Ashkenazi ancestry predominantly Middle Eastern and southern European, with no detectable Khazar signature; the myth's modern career runs through one 1976 book (Koestler) and downstream propaganda. Filed here as documented misinformation with a genetics-shaped hole.
SOURCES ON RECORD
01Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe (1976) — lore source
02Behar et al., 'No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin,' Human Biology (2013)
03Stampfer, 'Did the Khazars Convert to Judaism?' Jewish Social Studies (2013)
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