Where do Jews Come From? (Part II - Maybe I am Not a Judeo-Khazar)

Intrigued by the thought that I was a Judeo-Khazar, I did some additional research and learned that the Khazarian Hypothesis -- the theory that Eastern European Jews are descendants of the Khazars, a confederation of tribes in the central-northern Caucasus who converted to Judaism in the 8th century -- is highly controversial because of its political implications.

As I observed in my last post, the Jewish claim to the land of Israel -- including settlements in the "historic heartland" of Judea and Samaria (in what is now known as the West Bank) -- is premised at least in part on the argument that Jews settled and developed Israel and have maintained ties to Israel for more than 3,700 years. But if Jews of Eastern European descent (who comprise the vast majority of Jews today) can only claim a tenuous connection to the early Judeans, this argument would seem to lose much of its force.

This is precisely why, according to a Wikipedia article on the Khazars, anti-Semites and anti-Zionists have been propagating the Khazarian Hypothesis since the late 19th century.  The article also notes that "Jewish Zionist novelist Arthur Koestler devoted his popular book The Thirteenth Tribe (1976) to the topic."  Apparently, Koestler was unaware that anti-Semites had used the Khazarian Hypothesis for their own purposes decades earlier. Koestler did  not disavow the hypothesis, but he did assert that it was irrelevant to the Jewish claim to Israel, which he believed was based on the United Nations mandate rather than any religious or historical claim.

The fact that anti-Semites and anti-Zionists have embraced the Khazarian Hypothesis does not mean it is wrong, of course.  But several scholars have disputed the hypothesis.  Just this year, in August 2012, Professor Harry Ostrer, a Jewish medical geneticist at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, published a book entitled Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, in which Ostrer reportedly asserts that all major Jewish groups have a common Middle Eastern origin stemming from the early Judeans, and refutes the notion that the Khazars contributed significantly to the Jewish gene pool.  

So maybe the Khazarian Hypothesis is incorrect. Maybe what I learned in Hebrew School, i.e. the competing Rhineland Hypothesis, is correct -- that modern European Jews are descendants of the Judeans, whose descendants migrated to Europe and, subsequently, from Germany to Eastern Europe.  But go back and read Eran Elhaik's paper, and I am confident you will be left with some doubt.

In my estimation, the jury on this fascinating issue is still out. But as the comments to an article in Haaretz that discusses  Elhaik's paper make clear, this is a highly charged political issue, regardless of the scientific merits of the competing hypotheses.