December 9: The Khazars

A major battle of the 8th century’s Arab-Khazar wars was won in modern-day Iran by the Khazars on this date in 730. The Khazars were a Turkic people who dominated a land mass that included much of today’s western Russia and Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, the northern Caucasus, Georgia, and northeastern Turkey. Khazaria was one of the major commercial arteries linking northern Europe with lands along the Silk Road, and helped to block the expansion of Islam into Europe. According to several medieval Jewish sources, during the 8th century, the Khazar royalty and much of the aristocracy converted to Judaism under the leadership of Rabbi Yitzhak ha-Sangari. The 10th century Persian historian Ibn al-Faqih reported that “all the Khazars are Jews,” but most scholars believe that only the upper classes converted, possibly in a quest for a state religion that would elevate their status among their Abrahamic (Christian and Moslem) neighbors. Some scholars, as well as groups disputing the authenticity of modern Jews (e.g., Black Hebrews), have theorized that the majority of Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of the Khazars, but these theories have not been supported by most genetic evidence. In the 10th century, the Khazar empire declined under military pressure from Vikings and Russian and Turkic tribes.
“[T]he paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora.” --Hammer et al., Proceedings of the United States National Academy of Sciences, 1999

JEWDAYO ROCKS!

Kenny Vance (Rosenberg), a member of Jay and the Americans, music producer and songwriter, born in Brooklyn on this date in 1943.