David Duke — daviduke.com April 23, 2014
When I was first began to understand the ultra-racist, supremacist ideology of Judaism and Zionism, I came into contact with the theory that present-day Jews are genetically unrelated to the historical Jewish community.
The allegation, known as the “”Khazar theory”, claims that the Ashkenazim Jews of today are actually the descendants of the Khazar people, a Central Asiatic tribe who allegedly converted to Judaism in the 9th Century AD. It is claimed that these newly-minted Jews then migrated into what is now Russia, Eastern Europe and later Western and Northern Europe.
For years I accepted the Khazar theory as true. After it, all it was repeated by some writers who also recognized the leading Jewish role in Communism and their leadership in many other subversive movements.
It was only later, when I considered the question logically and scientifically, were my doubts about the Khazar theory aroused.
There are three fundamental issues which need to addressed: the scientific evidence; the historical-logical evidence; and the reasons why the Khazar theory came about.
Part I: The Scientific Evidence—Twelve DNA Studies Which Disprove the “Khazar Theory”
1. A 1999 study titled “Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes” (M.F. Hammer et.al, Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences 6769–6774, doi: 10.1073/pnas.100115997) found that:
“[D]espite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level.
“Admixture estimates suggested low levels of European Y-chromosome gene flow into Ashkenazi and Roman Jewish communities . . . Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations were not statistically different. The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora.”
2. A November 2001 study titled “The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East” (Almut Nebel et. al., American Journal of Human Genetics, Nov 2001; 69(5): 1095–1112) found that in most Jewish populations, male line ancestors appear to have been mainly Middle Eastern.
The study found that Ashkenazi Jews in particular “share more common paternal lineages with other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than with non-Jewish populations in areas where Jews lived in Eastern Europe, Germany and the French Rhine Valley. This is consistent with Jewish traditions in placing most Jewish paternal origins in the region of the Middle East.”
3. A September 2006 study titled “European Population Substructure: Clustering of Northern and Southern Populations” (Michael F Seldin et.al., PLOS Genetics, DOI: 0.1371/journal.pgen.0020143) found that both Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardic Jews showed more than 85% membership in the ‘southern’ European group which made their results “consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups.”
4. An April 2008 study titled “Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora” (Doron M. Behar et.al., PLoS ONE. 2008; 3(4): e2062. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002062) found that about 40% of Ashkenazi Jews originate maternally from just four female founders, who were of Middle Eastern origin.
5. A January 2009 study titled “A genome-wide genetic signature of Jewish ancestry perfectly separates individuals with and without full Jewish ancestry in a large random sample of European Americans” (Anna C Need et.al., Genome Biology, 2009; 10(1): R7. doi: 10.1186/gb-2009-10-1-r7) found that “individuals with full Jewish ancestry formed a clearly distinct cluster from those individuals with no Jewish ancestry.”
This study showed that in DNA terms, Jews, both Sephardic and Ashkenazim, cluster as a distinct group—something that, if the Khazar theory was true, would be impossible.
6. A December 2009 study titled “Genomic microsatellites identify shared Jewish ancestry intermediate between Middle Eastern and European populations” (Naama M Kopelman et.al., BMC Genetics. 2009; 10: 80. doi: 10.1186/1471-2156-10-80) found that :
“Jewish populations show a high level of genetic similarity to each other, clustering together in several types of analysis of population structure. These results support the view that the Jewish populations largely share a common Middle Eastern ancestry and that over their history they have undergone varying degrees of admixture with non-Jewish populations of European descent.”
7. A December 2009 study titled “The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people” (Doron M. Behar, et. al., Nature 466, 238–242 (08 July 2010) doi:10.1038/nature09103) analyzed individuals from 14 Jewish Diaspora communities and compare these patterns of genome-wide diversity with those from 69 Old World non-Jewish populations in order to “provide comprehensive comparisons between Jewish and non-Jewish populations in the Diaspora, as well as with non-Jewish populations from the Middle East and north Africa.”
The results identified a “previously unrecognized genetic substructure within the Middle East” and that “Most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster,” and that “trace[s] the origins of most Jewish Diaspora communities to the Levant.”
8. A June 2010 study titled “Abraham’s children in the genome era: major Jewish diaspora populations comprise distinct genetic clusters with shared Middle Eastern ancestry” (Atzmon et al., American Journal of Human Genetics, 2010;86:850-859) refuted the idea of large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry.
This study found used genome-wide analysis of seven Jewish groups (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek, and Ashkenazi) and “demonstrated distinctive Jewish population clusters, each with shared Middle Eastern ancestry, proximity to contemporary Middle Eastern populations, and variable degrees of European and North African admixture.”
This paper specifically excluded the “Khazar theory” as an origin for present-day Jews, saying “the genetic proximity . . . is incompatible with theories that Ashkenazi Jews are for the most part the direct lineal descendants of converted Khazars or Slavs.”
9. A March 2012 study by Steven M. Bray et. al., titled “Signatures of founder effects, admixture, and selection in the Ashkenazi Jewish population” (Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences, 16222–16227, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1004381107) found that the “Ashkenazi Jewish (AJ) population . . . has a common Middle Eastern origin with other Jewish Diaspora populations” while concluding that the Ashkenazi Jewish population has had the most European admixture.
10. A March 2012 study by Christopher L. Campbell et. al., titled “North African Jewish and non-Jewish populations form distinctive, orthogonal clusters” (Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1204840109) found that genome-wide analysis of five North African Jewish groups (Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Djerban, and Libyan) “demonstrated distinctive North African Jewish population clusters with proximity to other Jewish populations.”
Furthermore, the study showed, the Sephardic Jewish genome is “compatible with the history of North African Jews—founding during Classical Antiquity with proselytism of local populations, followed by genetic isolation with the rise of Christianity and then Islam, and admixture following the emigration of Sephardic Jews during the Inquisition.”
Finally, this study added “These populations showed a high degree of endogamy and were part of a larger Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish group.”
(*Endogamy: the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, rejecting others on such a basis as being unsuitable for marriage or for other close personal relationships.)
11. In his book, “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People” (Oxford University Press, USA; May 2012), Harry Ostrer, a professor of Pathology and Genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Director of Genetic and Genomic Testing at Montefiore Medical Center, Medicine, concluded that “Jews exhibit a distinctive genetic signature.” (Jews Are a ‘Race,’ Genes Reveal–Author Uncovers DNA Links Between Members of Tribe, The Jewish Daily Forward, May 04, 2012).
Ostrer, who is also director of genetic and genomic testing at Montefiore Medical Center, said in his conclusion that “Jews are a homogeneous group with all the scientific trappings of what we used to call a race.”
Ostrer also deals specifically with the Khazar theory. He pointed out that the findings from the Jewish HapMap Project (see below) completely refute “the theories that Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of converted Khazars or Slavs.” (Jews: A religious group, people or race?, Jerusalem Post, 8/26/2012)
12. The Jewish HapMap Project, a joint project of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and New York University School of Medicine, was created to “understand the structure of the genomes in Jewish populations” and is an outgrowth of the Human HapMap Project.
According to this project, “Jewish populations are remarkable for maintaining continuous genetic, cultural, and religious traditions over 4000 years, despite residence all over the world.”
Its findings, based on first hand DNA studies amongst Jewish populations around the globe, found no evidence to support a Central Asian DNA origin for Jewry.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the “Jewish HapMap Project in New York City has so far shown “in exquisite detail what had been conjectured for a century. Jewish populations from the major Jewish Diaspora groups – Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi – form a distinctive population cluster that is closely related to Semitic and European populations. Within this larger Jewish cluster, each of the Jewish populations formed its own subcluster.
“A high degree of mixing of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Italian and Syrian Jews caused them to become more closely related to each other than they were to Middle Eastern, Iraqi and Iranian Jews. This genetic split seemed to have occurred about 2,500 years ago.” (Jews: A religious group, people or race?, Jerusalem Post, 8/26/2012)
DNA Studies Find that Ashkenazim Jews have 30% European Admixture
Both the Behar study (section 7 above) and the Atzmon study (section 8 above) were commented upon by the British former deputy editor of the journal Nature, and currently the scientific correspondent for the New York Times, Nicholas Wade, in an article in that newspaper as follows:
“Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East share many genes inherited from the ancestral Jewish population that lived in the Middle East some 3,000 years ago, even though each community also carries genes from other sources — usually the country in which it lives,” adding that a “major surprise from both surveys is the genetic closeness of the two Jewish communities of Europe, the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim.”
Wade pointed out that the two studies “refute the suggestion made by the historian Shlomo Sand in his book ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ that Jews have no common origin but are a miscellany of people in Europe and Central Asia who converted to Judaism at various times.
“Jewish communities from Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus all have substantial genetic ancestry that traces back to the Levant; Ethiopian Jews and two Judaic communities in India are genetically much closer to their host populations,” Wade wrote.
“The shared genetic elements suggest that members of any Jewish community are related to one another as closely as are fourth or fifth cousins in a large population, which is about 10 times higher than the relationship between two people chosen at random off the streets of New York City.
“Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews have roughly 30 percent European ancestry, with most of the rest from the Middle East, the two surveys find. The two communities seem very similar to each other genetically, which is unexpected because they have been separated for so long.” (Studies Show Jews’ Genetic Similarity, Nicholas Wade, New York Times, June 9, 2010).
Eran Elhaik’s Single Study Attempts to Refute the Mass of Earlier DNA Evidence
The mass of DNA and genetic evidence is, therefore, overwhelmingly indicative that, despite a certain amount of European admixture among Ashkenazim Jewry, there is still a clearly definable Middle Eastern genetic component to both Ashkenazim and Sephardic Jewry.
Despite all of these studies—and many more, too numerous to list individually here—in December 2012, a single individual by the name of Eran Elhaik, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, attempted to refute all of the above mentioned evidence.
His paper, titled “The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses” was published in the journal Genome Biological Evolution ((2013) 5 (1):61-74.doi: 10.1093/gbe/evs119).
In a nutshell, Elhaik—whose rather obviously Jewish physical appearance should by itself indicate that there is indeed a common Jewish “type” (how else can many Jews be physically “recognized” as Jews?)—argues that his method of doing comparative studies between present-day Central Asian populations, Ashkenazim Jews and non-Jewish test groups, “proves” that Ashkenazim Jews are a hotchpotch of genetic origins, with a strong link to what he identifies as the “Khazar” tribe.
Even though Elhaik’s work is the only single paper (as opposed to literally dozens of opposing DNA studies), written by a single Jewish individual (as opposed to the other papers which were written by dozens and dozens of scientists from around the globe, Jewish and non-Jewish alike), it has quickly become the most-quoted “proof” of the “Khazar Theory.”
Critical Errors in Elhaik’s Paper
Elhaik’s paper has a number of errors, some small and a number of major ones. But they are all serious, because even the “small” errors cast doubt on his academic ability and motivation.
For example, his paper discusses in detail what he sees as the geographic origin of the Khazars—yet he completely misidentifies the geographic location of one of his test sample groups, the Mbuti and Biaka Pygmies.
These two groups, Elhaik asserts at least twice, are to be found in “South Africa.”
Actually, the Mbuti and Biaka Pygmies are nowhere near South Africa, and are only to be found literally half a continent away, in the Congo.
While this may seem a “small” error, it does indicate sloppiness in research which certainly does not bode well for the rest of the paper.
This sloppiness is again repeated when Elhaik asserts that “Eastern and Central European Jews account for approximately 90% of over 13 million worldwide Jews.”
In reality, the figure is far less. Of the estimated 13 million Jews worldwide, 8 million are Ashkenazim and 5 million are Sephardic, a division of 61% “European Jews” to 39% “non-European Jews.” And it should be pointed out that the Zionist State of Israel actually has a Sephardic and Mizrahi (non-Ashkenazi) Jewish majority among Jews.
These actual facts on Jewish ethnicity are readily available, and Elhaik’s motivation for making this clearly false claim could only be ascribed to a desire to underscore his general assertion, namely that most Jews are not Middle Eastern in origin and that Jews are not race, or a genetically similar people.
The most important error in Elhaik’s paper, however, is actually openly admitted: namely that there is actually no “Khazar DNA” in existence, against which any sort of measurement can be taken.
Elhaik himself admits this in his paper: the “Khazars have been vanquished and their remains have yet to be sequenced. . .”—in other words there is no record of what exactly Khazar DNA might have been.
As there is no record of what Khazar DNA is—it is, ipso facto, physically impossible to determine who is descended from it and who is not.
Elhaik attempts to circumvent this major problem by selecting what he calls “surrogate populations”—in this case, “contemporary Middle Eastern and Caucasus populations.”
Anyone with a basic understanding of historical events in the Caucasus in particular will immediately see that Elhaik’s assertion that current populations in that region can be taken to reflect those of 1,500 years ago, is highly problematic and quite simply, unsustainable.
The Caucasus, a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas, has been crisscrossed by numerous peoples and races over the last 2000 years, ranging from Indo-Europeans, Semites, Mongols and others—and is today highly genetically diverse. A claim that DNA samples from this region can be taken as any sort of DNA yardstick, is dubious to say the very least.
Finally, Elhaik’s methodology in comparing the DNA samples is, to make an understatement, unique to him. As Marcus Feldman, director of Stanford University’s Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies, said, “He [Elhaik] appears to be applying the statistics in a way that gives him different results from what everybody else has obtained from essentially similar data.” (‘Jews a Race’ Genetic Theory Comes Under Fierce Attack by DNA Expert. The Jewish Daily Forward, May 07, 2013)
Interestingly, the study which was cited in the New York Times of the “Jews as a race” is exactly the same conclusion that was reached by German National Socialist anthropologists and other experts who studied race science in the United States and elsewhere. Also, many of the present-day extensive studies have been carried out by both Gentile and Jewish geneticists alike, obviating any claims of racial bias.
Elhaik’s theory is completely refuted by the new, most massive and most complete study ever done of the Jewish Genome
One of Elhaik’s arguments was that the previous studies (referenced above) “were done in the pregenome-wide era using uniparental markers and including different reference populations”—implying that their results are not in line with the most modern DNA sequencing methodology.
In fact, at least one study—which appeared after Elhaik’s work was first published—has confirmed the accuracy of the original studies, and also completely refuted Elhaik’s hypothesis.
Titled “No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews,” this study was published by the journal Human Biology in August 2013 (Behar, Doron M. et.al.; Human Biology, Access Pre-Prints. Paper 41), this paper emphasized the serious error with Elhaik’s work:
“Because the Khazar population has left no obvious modern descendants that could enable a clear test for a contribution to Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, the Khazar hypothesis has been difficult to examine using genetics.
“Furthermore, because only limited genetic data have been available from the Caucasus region, and because these data have been concentrated in populations that are genetically close to populations from the Middle East, the attribution of any signal of Ashkenazi-Caucasus genetic similarity to Khazar ancestry rather than shared ancestral Middle Eastern ancestry has been problematic.”
This latest, most massive study of the Jewish genome was a worldwide effort of geneticists, both Gentile and Jewish, to analyze Jewish genetics. Researchers from laboratories around the globe, including Estonia, Russia, Italy, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Armenia, the US, and Israel, gathered together the largest Jewish DNA data set ever yet assembled. The paper explained as follows:
“Here, through integration of genotypes on newly collected samples with data from several of our past studies, we have assembled the largest data set available to date for assessment of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic origins.”
“Employing a variety of standard techniques for the analysis of population genetic structure, we find that Ashkenazi Jews share the greatest genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations, and among non-Jewish populations, with groups from Europe and the Middle East.
“No particular similarity of Ashkenazi Jews with populations from the Caucasus is evident, particularly with the populations that most closely represent the Khazar region. Thus, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate corroborates the earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region.”
The latest, most up-to-date and modern DNA analysis has, therefore, completely refuted the “Khazar Theory.”
It is important to understand that this refutation has come from non-Jewish and Jewish scientists from dozens of different universities and geneticists all over the world, and cannot be ascribed to a “conspiracy.”
Part II: The Historical-Logical Evidence
The Historical Record Shows Jewish Physical Consistency
One of the most obvious indicators of genetic commonality is physical appearance. European people broadly resemble each other; African people broadly resemble each other; Chinese people broadly resemble each other; Australian Aborigines broadly resemble each other and so on.
It is a characteristic of genetically similar people to physically resemble each other.
Jews are no different in this regard to any other people. They too show a resemblance to each other—this is why it is possible to often “recognize” a Jewish person by his physical appearance.
A good example in point is the already mentioned Jewish geneticist Eran Elhaik, who, despite physically embodying a Jewish sterrotype recognized around the world, tries to claim that there is no genetic commonality amongst Jews.
The “Khazar theory” holds that most Ashkenazim Jews are not Semitic, but are “Central Asian” converts to Judaism.
Proponents of the “Khazar theory” fail to understand the logical consequence of their belief—namely that a supposed Central Asian origin of “most” Ashkenazim Jews means that they will not physically resemble other Jews.
As anyone can see, this is not the case. Sephardic Jews are, on average, slightly darker than Ashkenazim Jews, but there is no doubt that there is a physical similarity which allows them still to be recognized as such
Streisand’s paternal grandparents came from Galicia (Poland–Ukraine) and her maternal grandparents came from Russia—if anyone would be “Khazar,” according to that theory, it would be her. Nonetheless, she closely resembles the only designated Jew as portrayed on an Egyptian tomb from 3.400 years ago, the leader of a Jewish trade delegation to Egypt.
The genetic continuity is clear—and if the Khazar theory was true, there would be no physical similarity, because there would have been a racial sea change in Jewish appearance.