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It has been my understanding that the Khazars, Ashkenazi, converted to Judaism during the Middle Ages and that there is little genetic commonality, other than what resulted from extended geography of the area with possible interbreeding with the Sephardim, the original Jews of the Old Testament. Khazaria was at the northwestern shore of the Caspian Sea, distant but not insurmountably so, from Judea or what was left of it.

Further, those Ashkenazi migrated into Central & Eastern Europe & became the dominant people we call Jews today, the Sephardim having been scattered across southern Europe & northern Africa. Remnants remain from Iran & Iraq, across the Near East and northern Africa, with some descendants in southern Europe, Iberia, Italy, Greece and the Balkans and Turkey.

I never read that the Ashkenazis had been forced to convert to Russian Orthodoxy; I thought that they remained Jewish. I am sure that by this point there has been interbreeding between those two major Jewish groups. A genetic study would be very interesting.

I find this & all similar things fascinating.

crazy, Why would the forced conversion of Jews in Eastern Europe be a surprise to you? Russia has a long, long history of forced conversion of Jews and other religions. The Khazars were different from the Ashkenazi Jews in culture. It is an open question if any of the Khazar people converted to Judaism. It may very well be that only the aristocracy of Kashers converted.The history is not clear. They were assimilated into Russian culture, not that of Ashkenazi Jews. Some " anti-Zionists" claim that Ashkenazi Jews don't belong in what is now Israel because it wasn't their point of origin. This is not true and the genetic, linguistic and historical facts all points to the fact that Ashkenazi Jews just as every other Jewish group is decendent of those Jews that were forced into exile by Imperial Rome. Further, Jewish law is very specific on who is a Jew. If a person has been converted by a Rabbi, is Jewish. There is a lot of difference of opinion concerning what Rabbis may convert. If a person's birth mother was Jewish, so is the child. The father gives the child a name and the mother, the child's religion. quote=crazylibertarian].


It has been my understanding that the Khazars, Ashkenazi, converted to Judaism during the Middle Ages and that there is little genetic commonality, other than what resulted from extended geography of the area with possible interbreeding with the Sephardim, the original Jews of the Old Testament. Khazaria was at the northwestern shore of the Caspian Sea, distant but not insurmountably so, from Judea or what was left of it.

Further, those Ashkenazi migrated into Central & Eastern Europe & became the dominant people we call Jews today, the Sephardim having been scattered across southern Europe & northern Africa. Remnants remain from Iran & Iraq, across the Near East and northern Africa, with some descendants in southern Europe, Iberia, Italy, Greece and the Balkans and Turkey.

I never read that the Ashkenazis had been forced to convert to Russian Orthodoxy; I thought that they remained Jewish. I am sure that by this point there has been interbreeding between those two major Jewish groups. A genetic study would be very interesting.

I find this & all similar things fascinating.