EUROPEAN JEWS COME FROM TRIBES IN CAUCASUS WHO CONVERT TO JUDAISM
“Rhineland Hypothesis” versus “Khazarian Hypothesis”
by Syarif Hidayat*
“Though it is certain that there is no ethnic or racial continuum between the Biblical Israelites and the Khazarians who lead the Jewish state and its army, the similarities between the murderous enthusiasm described in Deuteronomy and the current string of Israeli lethal actions cannot be denied. Israel is a murderous society not because of any biological or racial lineage with its imaginary ‘forefathers’. Israel is deadly because it is driven by a fanatical tribal Jewish ideology and fueled by a psychotic merciless Biblical poisonous enthusiasm,” says Gilad Atzmon, an Anti-Zionist Israeli activist.
Dear Zionists: There is no “Jewish race.” Youadhere to a religion, that adherence doesn’t make it an ethnic or”racial” group. There is no “Zionist race”, adherence tothat ideology doesn’t make it an ethnic or “racial” group. There isno “Israeli race”, just because it’s a nationality doesn’t make it anethnic or “racial” group. You can’t be “racist” againstthings that don’t even meet the basic qualifications for being a”race.” Therefore, You have 100 percent, positively NOTHING to accuseme of being “racist” or “anti-Semitic.”
Who is Israel?
Genesis 14:14 tells us that Abraham had318 men of war in his household. That number does not include their wives and children and perhaps even their parents. It is highly probable, then, thatAbraham had close to 2,000 men in his “tribe.”
This would have perhaps doubled by the time of Isaac . And these could easily have doubled again by the time of Jacob who aged 98 changed his name to Israel , The tribe of Abraham had about 8000 men by this time , but the jews only recognize the descendants of israel as ” gods chosen ” in their version of events , the others 7999 of ”abraham’s childen ” get nothing of gods promise to the ” children of Abraham” as even jews admit israel stole the blessing from his blind dying father bydeception fraud and lying pretending to be his brother Esau , see Gen .
Disguised as Esau,Jacob entered Isaac’s room. Surprised that Esau was supposedly back so soon,Isaac asked how it could be that the hunt went so quickly. Jacob responded,”Because the LORD your God brought it to me.” Rashi, on Genesis 27:21says Isaac’s suspicions were aroused even more, because Esau never used thepersonal name of God. Isaac demanded that Jacob come close so he could feelhim, but the goatskins felt just like Esau’s hairy skin.
Confused, Isaac exclaimed, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau!” Genesis 27:22. Still trying to get at the truth, Isaac asked him directly, “Art thou my very son Esau?” and Jacob answered simply,”I am.” . IMHO God/ ALLAH , does not need to lie to an old blind dying man , achieve his desired outcomes , and any benefit obtained by lyingfraud and deception is no foundation for any religion except Judaism.
Racial Nonsense
A Jewish writer, G. Neuburger inhis article or book: “The Difference Between Judaism and Zionism”,said: “Apart from the Zionists, the only ones who consistently consideredthe Jews a race were the Nazis. And they only served to prove the stupidity andirrationality of racism. There was no way to prove racially whether a Mrs.Muller or a Mr. Meyer were Jews or Aryans (the Nazi term for non-JewishGermans). The only way to decide whether a person was Jewish was to trace thereligious affiliation of the parents or grandparents. So much for this is aracial nonsense.”
“Racial pride has been thedownfall of those Jews in the past who were blinded by their own narrow-mindedchauvinism,” says Neuburger.
Gene study settles debate over origin of European Jews
(Paris, AFP) – French newsagency AFP in an article published by Google News says Jews of Europeanorigin are a mix of ancestries, with many hailing from tribes in the Caucasuswho converted to Judaism and created an empire that lasted half a millennium,according to a gene study. Theinvestigation, its author says, should settle a debate that has been roilingfor more than two centuries. Jewsof European descent, often called Ashkenazis, account for some 90 percent ofthe more than 13 million Jews in the world today.
According to theso-called Rhineland Hypothesis, Ashkenazis descended from Jews who progressively fled Palestine after the Muslim conquest of 638 AD. They settled in southern Europe andthen, in the late Middle Ages, about 50,000 of them moved from the Rhineland inGermany into eastern Europe, according to the hypothesis. But detractors say this idea isimplausible.
Barring a miracle–which some supporters of the Rhineland Hypothesis have in fact suggested — thescenario would have been demographically impossible. It would mean that the population of Eastern European Jews leaptfrom 50,000 in the 15th century to around eight million at the start of the20th century.
That birth ratewould have been 10 times greater than that of the local non-Jewish population.And it would have occurred despite economic hardship, disease, wars and pogromsthat ravaged Jewish communities.
Seeking new lightin the argument, a study published in the British journal Genome Biology andEvolution, compares the genomes of 1,287 unrelated individuals who hail fromeight Jewish and 74 non-Jewish populations.
Geneticist EranElhaik of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland,trawled through this small mountain of data in search of single changes in theDNA code that are linked to a group’s geographical origins.
Such telltales havebeen used in past research to delve into the origins of the Basque people andthe pygmy people of central Africa. AmongEuropean Jews, Elhaik found ancestral signatures that pointed clearly to theCaucasus and also, but to a smaller degree, the Middle East.
“Khazarian Hypothesis”
The results, saidElhaik, give sound backing for the rival theory — the “Khazarian Hypothesis.” Under this concept, eastern EuropeanJews descended from the Khazars, a hotchpotch of Turkic clans that settled theCaucasus in the early centuries AD and, influenced by Jews from Palestine,converted to Judaism in the 8th century.
The Judeo-Khazarsbuilt a flourishing empire, drawing in Jews from Mesopotamia and imperialByzantium. They became sosuccessful that they sent offshoots into Hungary and Romania, planting theseeds of a great diaspora. ButKhazaria collapsed in the 13th century when it was attacked by the Mongols andbecame weakened by outbreaks of the Black Death.
The Judeo-Khazarsfled westwards, settling in the rising Polish Kingdom and in Hungary, wheretheir skills in finance, economics and politics were in demand, and eventuallyspread to central and western Europe, according to the “Khazarian Hypothesis.”
“We conclude thatthe genome of European Jews is a tapestry of ancient populations includingJudaised Khazars, Greco-Roman Jews, Mesopotamian Jews and Judeans,” saysElhaik.
“Their populationstructure was formed in the Caucasus and the banks of the Volga, with rootsstretching to Canaan and the banks of the Jordan.” Many things are unknown about the Khazars, whose tribalconfederation gathered Slavs, Scythians, Hunnic-Bulgars, Iranians, Alans andTurks.
But, argues Elhaik,the tale sketched in the genes is backed by archaeological findings, by Jewishliterature that describes the Khazars’ conversion to Judaism, and by language,too.
“Yiddish, the language of Centraland Eastern European Jews, began as a Slavic language” before beingreclassified as High German, he notes.
Another pointer isthat European Jews and their ancestral groups in the Caucasus and Middle Eastshare a relatively high risk of diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
The investigation should helpfine-tune a fast-expanding branch of genomics, which looks at single-change DNAmutations that are linked with inherited disease, adds Elhaik.
A full copy of Dr Eran Elhaik’s study can be read here:
The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry:Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses
RELATED:
TheJewish people’s ultimate treasure hunt
(By Ofer Aderet Soource: Haaretz Dec 28 2012)
In his search for Jewishancestry, researcher Eran Elhaik says he has discovered that Jews originated inthe Khazar empire, not the kingdom of Judah.
(TEL AVIV Ha’aretz) – “Just imagine a group of blind peoplewho encounter an elephant for the first time in their lives. They place theirhands on it and touch it in order to understand what kind of animal it is. Buteach of them feels a different part of the elephant’s body so that, in the end,each of them gains a different impression as to what sort of animal it is.”Using this ancient Indian parable, geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik tries toillustrate one of the most controversial issues in the study of history: theorigin of the Jewish people.
“For years, scholarshave suggested various explanations as to where the Jews come from,” saysIsraeli-born Elhaik, and lists the different theories proposed over the pastcentury to solve the puzzle. However, each explanation has provided only apartial clue and, to make matters worse, all the explanations contradict oneanother.
“My study is thefirst to propose a comprehensive theory that explains all the seeminglycontradictory findings,” asserts the young scholar in a telephone conversationfrom his home in Maryland. The 32-year-old Elhaik conducted his research at theSchool of Public Health of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.Earlier this month, he published his findings in an article, “The Missing Linkof Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the KhazarianHypotheses,” in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution, published by OxfordUniversity Press. One of the scholars who reviewed the article before itspublication described it as more profound than all the previous studies on theancestry of the Jewish people.
In our telephoneinterview, Elhaik, who does not hide his light under a bushel, describes hisstudy as a “breakthrough” and says he has provided the scholarly foundations foran ancient and controversial theory claiming that European or Ashkenazi Jewsare descendants of the Khazars. The Khazar Empire consisted of various peoples(Iranians, Turks, Slavs, Caucasians and others ), and ruled over a vastterritory stretching from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea during the medievalperiod. According to this theory, the Khazars converted to Judaism in theeighth century and their descendants are the “European” or Ashkenazi Jews wholive today in Israel and the Diaspora.
The commonlyaccepted narrative considers the Jews to be descended from residents of theKingdom of Judah who were exiled and returned to their native land – themodern-day State of Israel – only after thousands of years of exile. Incontrast, this new study supports the theory that the Jews are descended fromdifferent peoples who lived in various regions in the Mediterranean Sea Basin,and who converted to Judaism in different eras.
According to thattheory, the story of the exile from Judah, the exilic life led by Jews in thecountries of the Diaspora and their continual longing for their native homelandcan be considered a myth. “Myresearch refutes 40 years of genetic studies, all of which have assumed thatthe Jews constitute a group that is genetically isolated from other nations,”notes Elhaik. His study is based on comprehensive genetic data published inother studies.
In the absence ofsuch data on the Khazars themselves, Elhaik – following a procedure commonlyused by researchers in his field – relied on figures relating to populationsthat are genetically similar to the Khazars, such as Georgians, Armenians andCaucasians. Elhaik says “they have all emerged from the same genetic ‘soup.’”
After conductingnumerous analyses utilizing various techniques, some of which have never beenemployed before, the researcher discovered what he describes as the Khazarcomponent of European Jewry. According to his findings, the dominant element inthe genetic makeup of European Jews is Khazar. Among Central European and EastEuropean Jews, this component is the most dominant in their genome, accountingfor 38 and 30 percent, respectively.
What other componentsconstitute the genome of European Jews?
Elhaik: “[They are]primarily of Western European origin, which is rooted in the Roman Empire, andMiddle Eastern origin, whose source is probably Mesopotamia, although it ispossible that part of that component can be attributed to Israeli Jews.”
The latter datum isof considerable importance because it “reconnects” European Jews to Israel.However, that connection amounts to only a small part of the makeup of thegenome, and that figure is not statistically significant enough to establishthat the origin of the Jews is the Kingdom of Judah.
According toElhaik’s study, there is a genetic continuum linking the Jews of Iran, theCaucasus, Azerbaijan and Georgia with the European Jews. In other words, it ispossible that these groups share common ancestors – namely, the Khazars.
The geneticist goeson to explain that, among the various groups of European and non-European Jews,there are no blood or family connections: “The various groups of Jews in theworld today do not share a common genetic origin. We are talking here aboutgroups that are very heterogeneous and which are connected solely by religion.”
The bottom line, heclaims, is that the “genome of European Jews is a mosaic of ancient peoples andits origin is largely Khazar.”
Other studies
Similar researchconducted by other scholars, some of whom are celebrated professors in Israeland other countries, presents very different results. Last summer, for example,Oxford University Press published “Legacy: A Genetic History of the JewishPeople,” which attempted to sum up the various studies that have related tothis subject over the past two decades. The author, the Yeshiva Universityprofessor Dr. Harry Ostrer, who teaches in the departments of pathology,genetics and pediatrics in the university’s Albert Einstein College ofMedicine, argues that all Jews have a common genetic origin and similar geneticcharacteristics.
According to Ostrer,this common origin is not Khazar but rather Middle Eastern. Thus, in line withhis theory, the Jews are descendants of residents of that region who residedthere thousands of years ago, were exiled and recently returned to their nativeland – that is, modern-day Israel.
Unlike Elhaik, Ostrerfound no significant evidence attesting to any connection between the Jews andthe Khazar kingdom. Moreover, from the genetic standpoint, the Jews, he argues,are closer to the Palestinians, Bedouin and Druze than to the Khazars. Hisfindings lend a solid basis to the argument that the Jews originated in theMiddle East.
Elhaik, who disputesOstrer’s study, claims that previous research on the subject “has no empiricalbasis, sometimes even contradicts itself and offers conclusions that are simplynot convincing.”
“It is myimpression,” he adds, “that their results were written before they began theresearch. First they shot their arrow – and then they painted the bull’s-eyearound it.”
Unlike other researchers, Elhaikdoes not believe in the existence of a uniquely Jewish gene: “Each human beingis a genetic amalgam. No population group has ever lived in total seclusionfrom other groups.” He also refutes the claim that the genome of many Jewscontains a Middle Eastern component, proving that the Jews originated in thatregion: “The majority of Jews do not have the Middle Eastern genetic componentin the quantity we would expect to find if they were descendants of the Jews ofantiquity.
“Ironically,”observes Elhaik, “some of the Khazars were of Iranian origin. I think it issafe to assume that the Iranians have made a not-inconsiderable contribution tothe Jewish mosaic.”
Haaretz has inrecent weeks turned to a number of scholars from Israel and abroad, includinghistorians and geneticists, and asked them what they thought of the newarticle. The historians refused to respond, arguing that they had no expertisein the field of genetics. For their part, the geneticists were unwilling tocooperate for other reasons. While some of them simply ignored the request fromHaaretz, others claimed they were unfamiliar with the specific discipline ofpopulation research or too pressed for time to respond.
The only scholarwho agreed to give his opinion (and did so with great enthusiasm ) was Tel AvivUniversity professor of history Shlomo Sand, author of the best-seller, “TheInvention of the Jewish People,” published in Hebrew in 2008 by Resling Press(an English translation by Yael Lotan was published by Verso in 2009 ). On thebookshelves in his small office at TAU are translations of his book, nowavailable in 22 languages.
Sand has some toughwords of criticism for geneticists looking for Jewish genes: “For an ignoramuslike me, genetics had always appeared to be crowned with a halo – as a precisescience that deals with quantitative findings and whose conclusions are irrefutable.”When he began reading articles on the subject of the Jews’ origin, he found hehad been mistaken: “I discovered geneticists – Jewish geneticists – whoseknowledge of history ended at what was necessary for their high-schoolmatriculation exams.
Which is how I would describe myknowledge of biology. In high school they had learned that there is one Jewishnation, and, on the basis of this historical narrative, they reconstruct theirscholarly findings.”
“Their search forthe origin of a common gene in order to characterize a people or a nation isvery dangerous,” says Sand. With several reservations, he cites the example ofthe Germans, “who also searched for a common component of blood ties.” Thehistorical irony, he emphasizes, is expressed in the fact that “whereas, in thepast, anyone who defined the Jews as a race was vilified as an anti-Semite,today anyone who is unprepared to define them as a race is labeled ananti-Semite.
“I used to think,”Sand adds, “that only in such disciplines as history and literature can factsbe given various interpretations, but I then discovered that the same thing isdone in genetics. It is very easy to showcase certain findings whilemarginalizing others and to present your study as scholarly research. Ingeneral, specialization in genetics can create an incredibly high level ofignorance in history.”
Highlight: Out of Khazaria—Evidence for“Jewish Genome” Lacking
(By: Danielle Venton Source:GenomeBiology and Evolution Dec20 2012)
Hebrewlanguage and Jewish culture have been around for thousands of years. For muchof that history, the Jews man- aged to maintain their heritage and culturalidentity in the absence of a geographical state. Wanderings, settlements, anddispersal were thus a big part of their history. Is evidence for that historypreserved in genome data?
Eran Elhaik, ageneticist at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, thinks so. In arecently published study in Genome Biology Evolution (Elhaik 2012), he iscalling for a rewrite of commonly held assumptions about Jewish ancestry.Instead of being primarily the descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel,present-day Jewish populations are, finds Elhaik, pri- marily the children of aTurkish people who lived in what is now Russia, north of Georgia, east ofUkraine. This civilization, the Khazars, converted from tribal religions toJudaism between the 7th and 9th centuries.
The controversy cutinto by Elhaik’s work runs deep, far past the lab bench. Among some circles,his conclusions are bound to be unpopular. “This is the first scientific paperto prove the Khazarian Hypothesis and reject the Rhineland Hypothesis,” hesays, “and with it about 40 years of research.” Although his findings will notbe welcome in all circles, Elhaik’s interest is more medical than political.
“All I want is tohelp my colleagues who are studying gen- etic disorders,” he says. “I hope thiswork will open up a new era in genetic studies where population stratificationwill be used more correctly.
Jewish populationsare used in many disease studies because of their presumed genetic homogeny.Some condi- tions, such as Tay–Sachs disease, are more common among selectJewish populations than other populations. However, Elhaik says, the acceptanceof a flawed origin narrative is hampering the best science.
For several decades,two hypothetical backgrounds of present-day European Jews have seemed plausibleto histor- ians and geneticists. In the favored “Rhineland Hypothesis,” Jewsdescended from Israelite–Canaanite tribes who left the Holy Land for Europe inthe seventh century, following the Muslim conquest of Palestine. Then, in thebeginning of the 15th century, a group of approximately 50,000 leftGermany, the Rhineland, for the east.
There they reproduced rapidly, in a kind of“hyper–baby boom.” Their breeding outpaced their non-Jewish neighbors by anorder of magnitude—despite dis- ease, persecutions, wars, and economichardship—ballooning to approximately 8 million strong by the 20th century.Under this history, European Jews would be very similar to each other and wouldhave Middle Eastern ancestry.
Several scholarsprefer the “Khazarian Hypothesis,” Elhaik included. This suggests theJewish-convert Khazars, with reinforcements from Mesopotamian and Greco-RomanJews, formed the basis of Eastern Europe’s Jewish population when they flednortheast, following the collapse of their empire at the 13th century.
Elhaik first becamefascinated by this idea 10 years ago when reading Arthur Koestler best-sellingbook The Thirteenth Tribe, published in 1976. Koestler calculated that Jewscould not have numbered 8 million in Eastern Europe without the Khazarcontribution. Upon reading his ideas, “I couldn’t wait for genetic data thatwould allow someone to publish an evaluation of this hypothesis,” says Elhaik.
When Behar et al.published “The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people” in 2010, Elhaikdecided to investigate the question that had intrigued him for so long. Usingdata published by Behar, he calculated seven measures of ancestry, relatedness,and geographical origin. Though he used some of the same statistical tests asprior studies, he chose different comparisons.
“Results in thecurrent literature are tangled,” Elhaik says. “Everyone is basically followingthe same assumption: Ashkenazi Jews are a population isolate, so they are allsimilar to one another, and this is completely incorrect.”
Previous studieshad, for example, combined the question of similarity among and between Jewishpopulations and the question of ancestry and relatedness to non-Jewish popula-tions. Elhaik viewed these questions separately. Jewish com- munities are lesshomogeneous than is popularly thought, he says, with Jewish communities alongthe former Khazarian border showing the most heterogeneity.
His second questioncentered on ancestry: When comparing Jewish communities to their non-Jewishneighbors, Caucasus or Levant (Middle Eastern) populations—which is the closestto Jews? “All Eurasian Jewish communities are closer to Caucasus populations,”he writes, with Central European Jews closer to Italian non-Jews as theexception. Not one of the eight evaluated Jewish populations were closer toLevant populations.
“I had the hardesttime clearing myself from the mindset (of previous work),” Elhaik says. “I wason the train, thinking hard, when it came to me how to separate the questions.It was a great moment.” However, it would be a mistake, Elhaik says, toconclude present-day Jews have nothing to do with the ancient Judeans. “I founda signature of the Middle East. I’m not certain whether it suggests Judean orIranian ancestry, but it’s there.” Iranian, as well as Judean, Jews beganjoining the Khazarian empire as early as the 5th century B.C.E.
“It might be strangegiven today’s political situation, but it makes a lot of historical sense.” For Shlomo Sand, history professor atTel Aviv University and author of the controversial book The Invention of theJewish People, Elhaik’s paper was a vindication of his long- held ideas.
“It’s so obvious forme,” says Sand. “Some people, historians and even scientists, turn a blind eyeto the truth. Once to say Jews were a race was anti-Semitic, now to say they’renot a race is anti-Semitic. It’s crazy how history plays with us.“
“There is no Jewishgenome and certainly no Jewish gene,” says the Israeli-born Elhaik. Instead,all humans are a mix of the same building blocks, built with slightly differentarchitectures. “The confusion about European Jews results from their tragichistory of persecutions and deportations, creating multiple links betweenancestry and geography. By dismantling our notions of genetically distinctpopulations and understanding our kinship, we can better appreciate our commonhistory, and more importantly, our shared future.“
Literature Cited
Elhaik E. 2012. The missinglink of Jewish European Ancestry: contrasting the Rhineland and Khazarianhypotheses. Genome Biol Evol., doi:10.1093/gbe/evs119, Advance Accesspublication December 14, 2012.Behar DM, et al. 2010. The genome-wide structure of the Jewishpeople. Nature 466:238–242.
MuslimVillage.com Editor’s note:
This study is of enormous significance as it uses scientific evidence torefute the commonly accepted narrative that Jews are descended from residentsof the Kingdom of Judah who were exiled and returned to their native land – themodern day State of Israel.
We are sure that this article will prove controversial and create plentyof discussion.
We ask that this article not be used as a justification to start anyanti Jewish debates or comments from those that hold such sentiments. This isunacceptable and is to be condemned.
For those that want to argue that this article is “anti-semetic”, we askyou to debate using scientific evidence to refute the findings of the study.
This study, which was conducted by Dr Eran Elhaik a geneticist from theprestigious John Hopkins School of Public Health and was also peer reviewedbefore being published in the Genome Biology and Evolution by Oxford UniversityPress.
In fact one of the scholars who reviewed the article described it asmore profound than all the previous studies on the ancestry of the Jewishpeople.(T/MuslimVillage/E1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
*The Editor of Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
Sources:
1.AFP article published in Google News
