Did the Khazars Convert to Judaism?

2013/01/01 by Stampfer · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Linguistics and Cultural Studies #Eurasian Exchange Networks #Linguistics and language evolution

paper · doi:10.2979/jewisocistud.19.3.1

openalex publication_date 2013/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02

Abstract

The view that some or all of the Khazars, a central Asian people, converted to Judaism at some point during the ninth or tenth century is widely accepted. A careful examination of the sources, however, shows that some of them are pseudepigraphic, and the rest are of questionable reliability. Many of the most reliable contemporary texts that mention Khazars say nothing about their conversion, nor is there any archaeological evidence for it. This leads to the conclusion that such a conversion never took place.

Citations

• On the Date of the Khazars' Conversion to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings of the Rus Oleg and Igor. A Study of the Anonymous Khazar Letter from the Genizah of Cairo
• The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses
• Memory and Mystery: The Cultural Selection of Minimally Counterintuitive Narratives

Cited by

• Khazars [wikipedia]
• List of converts to Judaism [wikipedia]

Related

• Coup d'état, Coronation and Conversion: Some Reflections on the Adoption of Judaism by the Khazar Khaganate
• The Decline and Fall of Khazaria – Might or Money?
• Testing Boundaries: Jewish Conversion and Cultural Fluidity in Medieval Europe, c. 1200–1391
• The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses
• Where Is the Archeological Evidence of the Existence of a Khazar State?