[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Sorta junks the old “Khazar” theory, eh?

[Clemenza]

The Khazars form only a small part of the folks who were absorbed into the semitic gene pool over the centuries. What do you think happened to the Canaanites?

[achilles2000]

I’m not sure. If the divergence between Middle Eastern and European Jews occurred about 2,500 years ago, then it would seem arguable that the European Jews are descended from the 10 tribes that were carried off by the Assyrians and allegedly scattered into the Caucasus and parts of Central Asia. In any event, it is all interesting.

[SunkenCiv]

The idea that the Khazars converted is a recent invention, and there's absolutely no basis in fact for it. It has been used as an excuse (by its inventors, among many others) to claim that the Hebrews of the Bible are actually ancestors to this or that European nation, rather than to modern Jews. It's yet another (and somewhat cryptic) form of anti-Semitism. This isn't to say that there hasn't been intermarriage during the 27 centuries since the Assyrians dispersed ten of the tribes. But they wound up in unexpected places, at the fringes of the Assyrian-ruled areas, including Central Asia and the Crimea.

• The Edicts of King Ashoka
• Are the Taliban Descended From One of Ten Lost Tribes of Israel?

[rmlew]

Yes and no. Some Khazars did convert and many Ashkenazi Jews are descended from them. Some families, like mine, celebrate this and have for generations. Yet because Jews tend to be endogamous, converts or their children marry non-converts.

That said, I can think of a few 2 small population of Turkic Jews with little Israelite heritage: the Karaylar (Tatar Karaites) and the all but extinct Krimchaks (Rabbinic-Jewish Tatars). Although they speak a Kipchak dialect instead of a Oghur dialect like Khazar or Bulghar, the Karaylar claim to be descended from Karaites and they used to live in areas of major Khazar settlement. I don't have reason to dispute their claims.