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The Khazars were a semi-nomadic people from Central Asia who adopted Judaism. They founded the independent Khazar kingdom in the 7th century C.E. in the southeastern part of today's Europe, near the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus. In addition to western Kazakhstan, the Khazar kingdom also included territory in what is now eastern Ukraine, southern Russia, and Crimea. The name 'Khazar' itself seems to be tied to a Turkic verb meaning "wandering."

Khazar history is intimately tied with that of the Gokturk empire, founded when the Asena clan overthrew the Juan Juan in AD 552. With the collapse of the Gokturk empire/tribal confederation due to internal conflict in the seventh century, the western half of the Turk empire itself split into two confederations, the Bulgars, led by the Dulo clan, and the Khazars, led by the Asena clan, the traditional rulers of the Gok Turk empire. By 670, the Khazars had broken the Bulgar confederation, leaving the three Bulgar remnants on the Volga, the Black Sea and the Danube.

Their first significant appearance in history is their aid to the campaign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius against the Persians. During the 7th and 8th centuries they fought a series of wars against the Islamic Arab Empire. Although they stopped the Arab expansion into Eastern Europe for some time after these wars, they were forced to withdraw behind the Caucasus, as well. Afterwards they extended their territories from the Caspian Sea in the east to the north of Black Sea in the west. Early Russian sources called Khazaran, their city, Khvalisy and the Khazar sea (Caspian) Khvaliskoye after the Khwarezmians.

Originally, the Khazars practiced traditional Turkic shamanism, focused on the sky god Tengri, but were heavily influenced by Confucian ideas imported from China, notably that of the Mandate of Heaven. The Asena clan were considered to be the chosen of Tengri and the qaghan was the incarnation of the favor the sky-god bestowed on the Turks. A qaghan who failed had clearly lost the god's favor and was typically ritually executed.

Historians have sometimes wondered, only half in jest, if the Khazar tendency to occasionally execute their rulers on religious grounds led those rulers to seek out other religions.

At some point in the last decades of the 8th century or the early 9th century, the Khazar royalty and nobility converted to Judaism, and part of the general population followed. Some researchers have suggested part of the reason for the conversion was political expidiency to maintain a degree of neutrality: The Khazar empire was between growing populations; Muslims to the east and Christians to the west. Both religions recognized Judaism as a forbearer and worthy of some respect.

The first Jewish Khazar king was named Bulan. A later king, Obadiah, strengthened Judaism, inviting rabbis into the kingdom and building synagogues. The supreme court consisted of two Jews, two Christians, two Muslims, and a heathen. Religious toleration was maintained for the kingdom's three hundred plus years. By the year 950 Judaism had become a widespread faith.

In the 10th century the empire began to decline due to the attacks of both Vikings from Kievan Rus and other Turkic tribes, and their political significance greatly diminished toward the end of the 12th century.

To what extent, if any, East European Jews (Ashkenazi) of today are descendants of the Khazars, as proposed by Arthur Koestler, is the subject of much debate. In recent years geneticists' work has shed new light on the question. It seems to have established that Middle Eastern elements dominate on the male line, but the female line appears to have a substantially different history whose details are as yet unclear. This idea is politically convenient for some, insofar as it can be seen as excluding Ashkenazis from the promises of Canaan that the Bible claims God made to the Jews, and is thus sometimes pushed for ulterior motives; that, of course, has no bearing on its truth or falsity.

Serbian author Milorad Pavich's first novel, 'Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel' is centered on the "Khazar question."

External links and references

• Khazaria.com
• Essay: Are Russian Jews Descended from the Khazars?
• Kevin Alan Brook, The Jews of Khazaria, 1st ed., Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1999
• Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954
• Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage, New York: Random House, 1976