ONe of the things that always gets to me about the entire Khazar thing, is that people who want to bring it up, are trying to make some sort of argument that Jews are not “pure Jews” that our “race has been diluted” then these same people go on to call us racist.

The reality of the Khazars is that they were a tribe from the steppes of Russia that lived near the Black Sea. Their leadership - and army did indeed convert to Judaism.

Shortly after they converted, they got to learn that one of the most fun things about being Jewish is rarely being able to live in a nice neighborhood. They actually successfully repelled incursions from Byzantium, the Duchy of Moscow, the Muslims and the Mongols. However, successive invasion after invasion left them weakened and they were finally crushed by the Russians.

The descendants of the Khazars lived in Russia and stayed there until they met up with other Jewish communities who migrated to Russia from the West and the South. The Askenazim were in existence long before the Khazars and the communities merged in Russia when the far more numerous Askenazim took in the remnants of the Khazars.