Fast-breaking Developments
Followers of Middle Eastern affairs know two
things: always expect the unexpected, and never write off Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu, who has more political lives than the proverbial
cat.
Only yesterday came news that Syrian rebels plan to give Israel the Golan Heights
in exchange for creation of a no-fly zone against the Assad regime. In
an even bolder move, it is now revealed, Israel will withdraw its
settlers from communities beyond the settlement blocs—and relocate them
at least temporarily to Ukraine. Ukraine made this arrangement on the
basis of historic ties and in exchange for desperately needed military
assistance against Russia. This surprising turn of events had an even
more surprising origin: genetics, a field in which Israeli scholars have long excelled.
A Warlike Turkic People—and a Mystery
It is well known that, sometime in the eighth
to ninth centuries, the Khazars, a warlike Turkic people, converted to
Judaism and ruled over a vast domain in what became southern Russia and
Ukraine. What happened to them after the Russians destroyed that empire
around the eleventh century has been a mystery. Many have speculated
that the Khazars became the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews.
The Khazar Empire, from M. J-H. Schnitzler’s map of The Empire of Charlemagne and that of the Arabs, (Strasbourg, 1857)
Arabs have long cited the Khazar hypothesis in
attempts to deny a Jewish historical claim to the land of Israel.
During the UN debate over Palestine Partition, Chaim Weizmann responded,
sarcastically: “lt is very strange. All my life I have been a Jew, felt
like a Jew, and I now learn that I am a Khazar.” In a more folksy vein,
Prime Minister Golda Meir famously said: “Khazar, Schmazar. There is
no Khazar people. I knew no Khazars In Kiev. Or Milwaukee. Show me these
Khazars of whom you speak.”
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