“It’s yet another (and somewhat cryptic) form of anti-Semitism.”
While the theory may or may not be wrong, the prime exponent in recent memory was Arthur Koestler. I don’t think that there is any anti-semitism involved even if it is wrong (and I hold no position about the theory, but did think Koestler’s book was interesting). Do the Anglo-Israel people use this as part of their claim that the original inhabitants of Britain(or some group of inhabitants of early Britain) were Hebrew? BTW, regarding your point about the lost tribes ending up on the fringes of the Assyrian Empire, the 10th or 11th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (about 1910), I believe, had some interesting material chronicling Jewish traditions in at least one Afgan tribe.
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Koestler, wasn’t the book called “The Thirteenth Tribe”? But yeah, it’s mysterious to me that there are people out there who want to lift the heritage of (for example) the Jews or ancient Hebrews. Here in Michigan there was a wacky cult which called itself the Black Hebrew Israelite Jews. :’)
The Jacobovici documentary also had an Assyriologist who talked about a then-recent discovery of some cuneiform records in a post-exilic context, an Assyrian trading post in n Syria or SE Turkey I think, and among the names were transliterated names including a version of “Hezekiah”. Of course, that doesn’t mitigate in favor of an exile closer to the homeland, because even then people got around; there is a school of thought that Abraham came from that very area.
The evidence for Crimean exile is circumstantial (Assyrian artifacts found, correct era) and literary.
There’s a tantalizing reference in Herodotus about how in the city of Colchis circumcision was practiced, and to his knowledge (as he says) that practice was only known (to Herodotus) from Egypt.