I was talking with someone yesterday who was saying that most Isrealis are something called Ashkanazi (sp?) jews, or something like that, and he said they are not real Hebrews because they are from Europe. I’d never heard of what he was talking about and didn’t really take him seriously. Anyone know what he was talking about or was it just a hater making stuff up?
You friend is peddling the Khazar theory of origin for Ashkenazi Jews. this theory holds that most Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from Rhineland Jews expelled during the Crusades, but from the Khazars, a Oghur Turkic people, some of whose leadership did convert. Although linguistics and simple history precludes this, this was a theory peddled by some Hugarian Jews (they wanted to be seen as inheritors of the Khabars, as Khazar group that joined the Magyars, thus making them authentic Hungarians) as well as communists, the Judeophobic right, and Islamist and Arab Nationalists. However, genetic testing has shown the opposite. Not only are Ashkenazi Jews related primarily to other Jews, but we are exceeding endogomous. Most Eastern European Jews are descended from just 4 women and are genetically very similar to Sephardic Jews. This is not to say that there was no intermarriage. In fact, there was quite a bit, especially with Sorbs and Ruthenians.
Personally, I am descended from Khazars, in part, if family lore can be believed. My anscestors fought the Caliphate from 640 until 737, keeping Islam out of Europe in 3 bloody wars that mad Tours look like a little raid.
That's pure unadulterated hooey. 'Ashkenaz is the old Hebrew name of Germany and 'Ashkenazim simply means "German Jews." It refers to Jews of northern, central, and eastern Europe (those with German or slavic surnames and who speak Yiddish). Furthermore, 'Ashkenazi Hebrew and the 'Ashkenazi ritual come from 'Eretz Yisra'el while those of the allegedly "purer" Sefaradim (which simply means "Spanish Jews") comes from 'Eretz Bavel (Babylon). Sefardi Hebrew is also more influenced by the Mishnah and by Aramaic than 'Ashkenazi Hebrew.
Sefaradim (and Temanim, the Yemenite Jews) have a reputation as more "authentic" because they have lived so long in the Middle East, yet they are the historical liberals of Judaism (prior to the European "enlightenment"). Moreover whatever "Khazars" or "Sabbatians" there are are more likely to be found among Levantine Sefaradim than among European 'Ashkenazim.
Unfortunately, it is among 'Ashkenazim of the past two hundred plus years that all the leftist "reform" movements have taken hold and this has distorted their image and made Sefaradim seem more conservative.
This is the truth. But most people who spout the "'Ashkenazim aren't real Jews" line simply want to believe this and cannot be persuaded otherwise. Most ironic since the Babylonian Talmud, the bete noire of so many anti-Semites, was written by the ancestors of the Sefaradim (the ancestors of the 'Ashkenazim wrote the Jerusalem Talmud!).