The Khazar Myth

In an era defined by the rapid spread of digital misinformation, it is not surprising to see ancient, long-debunked conspiracy theories find new life. One of the most persistent and damaging of these is the “Khazar Myth.” The Khazar Myth is the false claim that modern Jews are not descendants of the ancient Hebrew tribes but are actually descendants of a Turkic people called the Khazars who converted to Judaism a millennium ago. The leadership of a Turkic empire indeed converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages. The myth is the baseless leap that, centuries later, these converts migrated en masse to Eastern Europe and are the primary ancestors of modern Ashkenazi Jews. 

During a 2023 speech, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared that modern Israelis are not connected to the biblical Jews. According to Abbas, a Turkish kingdom converted to Judaism in the tenth century. In later centuries, those converts spread across Europe. That is the origin story of the Ashkenazi Jews. By that logic, they have no claim to the land of Israel. 

Since October 7, the Khazar myth has moved from the antisemitic fringes of Palestinian politics to American mainstream political discourse. In 2024, Candace Owens referred to modern Israelis on X as “Khazarian Turks.” She added that Israeli leadership possesses zero ancestral connection to the region. During an interview with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Tucker Carlson questioned the legitimate ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews. Carlson asked, “Why don’t we do genetic testing on everybody in the land and find out who Abram’s descendants are?”

By attempting to strip the Jewish people of their historical and indigenous lineage, proponents of the Khazar Myth are trying desperately to invalidate biblical promises and historical claims that connect the Jewish people to the land of Israel. Historians, linguists, and geneticists have thoroughly debunked the Khazar myth. Major genetic studies published around 2010 analyzed the genomes of Jewish people worldwide. Researchers found that Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews share a common genetic lineage. This lineage traces back to the ancient Levant. Ashkenazi Jews have Middle Eastern ancestry combined with Southern European DNA. They do not share genetic markers with Turkic groups from the Caucasus region. 

If genetic studies easily disprove the Khazar Myth, why does it persist, and why has it recently been resurrected? In my co-written book, The Spiritual War Against Israel, my colleague Dr. Phil Stringer and I offer a sobering observation. People do not accept the Khazar Myth because of any serious historical investigation. They accept it because it fits their anti-Israel worldview. When a narrative provides a convenient scapegoat by way of the Jews, there is a psychological, even demonic, pull to embrace it, regardless of the evidence.

As we note in our book, the spread of such theories is not an intellectual debate; it is an “ideological invasion.” When political commentators and public figures give voice to these debunked theories, they are trying to provide intellectual cover for antisemitism.

It is time to consign the Khazar Myth to the dustbin of history. We cannot let fiction shape our understanding of modern geopolitics or the long story of Jewish history. Modern Israelis and Ashkenazi Jews living in the Diaspora have every right to live in the land of Israel. They are the descendants of Abraham and, therefore, beneficiaries of the promise given many years ago. As recorded in Genesis 17:7-8:

I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding, and I will be their God.