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This article was nominated for deletion on 11 January 2014 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

Article rename

This article needs to be renamed. We definitely should lose the "The".

Possible new names:

• Khazarian hypothesis
• Khazarian origin theory
• Khazarian origin theory of Askenazi Jews

Anyone have any input? Editor2020 (talk) 01:54, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I renamed the article: Khazar theory. I'm not sure if it's ok do be so bold but I didn't like the title. Considering that there is no official term for the theory, I chose the simplest title. Khazar (talk) 00:14, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

'Khazar theory' is semantically obscure: no one will know what it refers to. (b)Nearly everything about the Khazars is 'theoretical' or 'speculative'. Perhaps the provisory title was unsatisfactory, but for clarity I think one must link the theory to the Ashkenazi. Otherwise, all the other tribes/peoples e.g. Russians,Karaites, etc.etc (nuymerous) who have at times claimed descent from Khazars would be understood to be covered by the 'theory', which is something the page does not (as yet at least) do. Something like 'The Ashkenazi-Khazar hypothesis', is straightforward and understandable at a glance.Nishidani (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the title should start with the word Khazar. Anyone looking for the theory in likely to type that word first, rather than "Ashkenazi". We could go with Khazar origin of Askenazi Jews, though without "theory" or "hypothesis" I suspect this would be be criticised. Other possibilities: Khazar-Ashkenaski origin theory, Khazars as ancestors of Ashkenaski Jews, Khazar theory of Ashkenazi ancestry.... Paul B (talk) 12:40, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

As long as the Ashkenazi connection is in the title, any of those are fine (I'd prefer the last). I might add that like the orthodox, implicitly 'pure (Israelitic) origin' theory, this theory suffers from the error of excluding conversion among early Ashkenazi populationss. In other words the theory mirrors its antithesis, with the one difference that the Khazar hypothesis is minoritarian, whereas the Israelitic-descent hypothesis is almost, if irrationally, mainstream. Straight monolinear descent theories of either kind are intrinsically dubious. Nishidani (talk) 13:59, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikilinking inside quotes

I'm generally reluctant to wikilink words inside quotes (and this is discouraged by some guideline I can't be bothered to look up right now) because it's a form of attributing meaning to the author being quoted without any authority for doing so. What I've done in the past is what the guideline recommends, i.e. "blah blah blah haplotype blah blah blah." On the other hand, I noticed a few words wikilinked inside quotes here already, so maybe it's not a priority? It seems less important for scientific topics than otherwise, but maybe it's something to consider. For instance, in the Haplotype R1a1a thing, I wikified "Haplotype" and then R-M17 rather than Haplotype R1a1a itself, which redirects to R-M420 rather than R-M17. I don't know enough to sort out what's right here, but it certainly seems to need wikifying, since how many people know what any of it means? Anyway, just soliciting opinions here.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:28, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Criticisms of Elhaik sourced to a Jewish Daily Forward article

Various criticisms of Elhaik, sourced to an article in the Jewish Daily Forward (JDF), have been added. Now, the JDF article also contains statements of support for Elhaik's work as well as Elhaik's opinion of other researchers who his results contradict; it would be nice if the editors who have added detail about the criticisms could add detail about the favourable stuff as well (it would also be nice if we can come to an agreement about whether the word hypothesis when used in the phrases Rhineland Hypothesis and Khazarian Hypothesis should be capitalised, as it is in the Jewish Daily Forward article, or not). I have to say that I think that a couple of statements made near the start of the JDF article are incorrect: the work of the Rhineland Hypothesis researchers was not unchallenged, particularly by linguists, and that work did not support the Rhineland Hypothesis, rather it was the other way round, it was assumed that the Rhineland Hypothesis was correct and the interpretation of results was based on that.     ←   ZScarpia   09:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC) -- (This article contains an explanation of Elhaik's motivations)

I created this page so enthusiasts for the argument could, as the original introduction of material re genetics asked, expand it. As soon as it was off the Khazar mainpage, none of the original editors who wanted to expand it appear to be interested. So I'll have to do it myself, eventually, unless assorted editors start chipping in.

• The theory's history page will give details where possible, of all the people who helped create and elaborate the hypothesis
• The genetics article should list, in chronological order, all genetic papers either (a) dealing directly with the issue b) or under them, genetic articles interpreted in the press as confuting the Khazar theory, even if those papers make no mention of it, properly formatted for aesthetic purposes and to fit a unified template.
• The last three papers I am aware of are (1) Elhaik's (1912), (2)Behar et al., announced paper (Sept 2013) which has yet to be published, and may be late because (3)in the meantime de Costa and Richards' team's paper (October 2013) upset their general applecart, while also disowning the Elhaik-type Khazar hypothesis.

The most important thing is chronological order. The mess we have at that section at the moment just patches in 'criticisms' holus bolus without any attention either to chronology, the papers each critique replies to, and a neglect to add material responding in turn to the criticisms.

This will be slow work because it requires meticulous attention to complex matters. But it will be done over the following months.Nishidani (talk) 13:46, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

2016 article on the work of Dr Eran Elhaik of the University of Sheffield: The Independent, David Keys, Scientists reveal Jewish history's forgotten Turkish roots, 20 April 2016.     ←   ZScarpia   11:34, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

There are other sources confirming Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from Khazars.

Here is a comprehensize site that sources pretty much most genetic studies on Jews.

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

Some of the results are as followed:

"About half of Ashkenazic Levites possess haplotypes belonging to the R1a1 haplogroup. This is almost never found among Sephardic Levites, and is rare in non-Ashkenazic populations as a whole, but the phylogeny of the branching out of R1a1 shows the Ashkenazic variety of R1a1 to be distinct from both the Eastern European and Central Asian forms of R1a1, contradicting the theory that Slavs or Khazars who converted to Judaism introduced this lineage into Ashkenazim. The actual source of Ashkenazic R1a1 was a population in Iran."

"The presence of the Y-DNA haplogroup Q1b1a (Q-L245) in Ashkenazi and Karaite samples is not indicative of Khazar ancestry but rather of Southwest Asian ancestry."

Also, a new archaeological study was recently done and found no evidence of this theory either.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/1.601287

"The Khazar thesis gained global prominence when Prof. Shlomo Sand of Tel Aviv University published “The Invention of the Jewish People” in 2008. In that book, which became a best seller and was translated into several languages, Sand argued that the “Jewish people” is an invention, forged out of myths and fictitious “history” to justify Jewish ownership of the Land of Israel.

Now, another Israeli historian has challenged one of the foundations of Sand’s argument: his claim that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the people of the Khazar kingdom, who in the eighth century converted en masse on the instruction of their king. In an article published this month in the journal “Jewish Social Studies,” Prof. Shaul Stampfer concluded that there is no evidence to support this assertion.

“Such a conversion, even though it’s a wonderful story, never happened,” Stampfer said.

Stampfer, an expert in Jewish history, analyzed material from various fields, but found no reliable source for the claim that the Khazars – a multiethnic kingdom that included Iranians, Turks, Slavs and Circassians – converted to Judaism. “There never was a conversion by the Khazar king or the Khazar elite,” he said. “The conversion of the Khazars is a myth with no factual basis.”" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Knightmare72589 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

You evidently haven't read Stampfer, whose opening pages overline a short history of many Jewish scholars (there are many) who have underwritten the theory, which did not stand on 'the foundations of Sand's argument', a book you apparently have not read, because Sand also documents this as a frequently encountered theory in Israeli/Jewish historiography before his time. That paper has many problems - it's not an area where Stampfer has any professional competence being a specialist on the history of Lithuanian yeshivas) and, ignoring the odd premises he adopts, he misquotes a lot of things out of context (Mark Whittow's remark on p.6 is used against the thesis whereas Whittow (pp228-9) makes that remark to underline the possible that 'Judaism would be a natural choice for a Near Eastern great power' (esp. since Islam at that time was far closer to its Judaic roots,etc., to name but one of dozens of problematical things- but, still, has its interest. It is best to wait for review imput from Khazar specialists like Constantine Zuckerman, Dan Shapira, and David J. Wasserstein, who disagree with him.Nishidani (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

As the comments under the Haaretz article say, it's odd that Stamfer would claim an absence of documentary evidence. The article misrepresents Sand's book.     ←   ZScarpia   21:51, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

IP/Galassi

Please don't revert like that. These are the objections to the inane passage that reads:

The Khazar theory is often associated with antisemites and/or anti-Zionists, who espouse it to emphasize the foreign (i.e. non-European) ancestry of European Jewry, and to disprove the genetic studies on Jews|ancestral connection between Ashkenazi Jews and Israel. It is considered a pseudohistorical fringe theory by mainstream scholars of Jewish history, but has not been entirely dismissed.

• The history of the Khazars page show that it is not often associated with antisemites and/or anti-Zionists, but to the contrary has had a notable place in Jewish histories.
• often was used yonks ago to replace sometimes and editorial consensus indicated sometimes was more appropriate.
• The sentence is WP:OR. What source says those two categories of people 'espouse' the theory 'to emphasize' the foreign ancestry of Ashkenazim?
• That sentence is inept stylistically. 'Espouse' a theory means adopting an idea. You don't 'adopt' an idea to 'emphasize' another idea. Use 'emphasize' in this context means laying stress on a fact, 'the foreign ancestry of European Jews'. That is not a fact, it is a theory. It's clunky prose and hardly encyclopedic.
• They 'espouse' it to 'disprove the ancestral connection bertween Ashkenazi Jews and Israel'. Again the second thing is assumed to be a fact. The theory is used to disprove a fact. Dreadful prose because only an idiot would use a theory to disprove a fact.
• the link for 'the ancestral connection bertween Ashkenazi Jews and Israel' is Genetic studies on Jews, which is supposed to show that the 'ancestral connection' is a fact. That article says no such thing. We are in the realm of hypotheses, the most recent being the obverse of that fact.
• Mainstream scholars of Jewish history like Peter Golden do not consider it a 'pseudohistorical fringe theory'. It would be fringe but for the fact many notable Jewish scholars in the past have 'epoused it'. It is not 'pseudohistorical' because some serious scholars still think the idea cannot be excluded from scholarly consideration.

Therefore the whole sentence was written by someone with a drum to beat, without careful examination of the relevant sections of the Khazars page. To repeat, when writing wiki articles and making a lead generalization, you must have (a) a relevant book or books and articles at your elbow to back your statement, which should be a paraphrase or (b) sum up what the lower content of the article states. In the IP edit, neither of those two conditions was satisfied. There, you've made me waste 20 minutes stating the obvious. Thanks Nishidani (talk) 20:18, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

"Dispute settled"

"The TAGC team's findings also shed light on the long-debated origin of Ashkenazi Jews and Europeans. The genetic data indicates that the Ashkenazi Jewish population was founded in the late medieval times by a small number, effectively only hundreds of individuals, whose descendants expanded rapidly while remaining mostly isolated genetically. 'Our analysis shows that Ashkenazi Jewish medieval founders were ethnically admixed, with origins in Europe and in the Middle East, roughly in equal parts,' says Shai Carmi, a post-doctoral scientist who works with Pe'er and who conducted the analysis. 'TAGC data are more comprehensive than what was previously available, and we believe the data settle the dispute regarding European and Middle Eastern ancestry in Ashkenazi Jews.'"

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-09-dna-sequence-ashkenazi-jews.html

Keith McClary (talk) 03:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Not at all, the paper is riddled with enigmas, not least of which 'Middle East' is undefined (as 'Khazars' 28 distinct ethnic/tribal groups on the edge of Anatolia, is undefined), as usual, and the usual bottleneck theory, which uses a minimum of 15,000 Jews for the start of the late medieval 'demographic miracle' that produced 7 million Jews by the 19th century, is reduced even further to 350, in the face of medieval demographic indications (after Crusader pogroms and the Black Death, which latter however affected all groups). Benjamin of Tudela counted around 3,500 Jews in Italy alone around 1150, and they are telling us that the core population of Ashkenazi Jews was 150 people two centuries later, based on a sample of 128 self-defined Ashkenazi in New York compared to (why there) a couple of dozen people in Ghent, when other research says the major component of Ashkenazi Jews has a close 'Italian profile' in its genetic admixture? At a first reading the whole paper looks designed to produce the results required, and the restrictions on the authors involved doesn't bode well. In short, just one more paper in an endless line of mutually challenging 'scientific' results. We need a secondary source by a molecular biologist+historian which sums up the conflict, not individual papers.Nishidani (talk) 10:43, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I do not think you understand how this works. Basically, if none of your male successors survive you are no longer counted among the core population as you do not produce any progeny alive today. It may well be possible that the ashkenazim among us (like myself) represent only the progeny of those 150 Jewish men centuries ago. The same would apply to mitochodrial studies of female descent. 74.120.45.97 (talk) 22:01, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

"The theory is met with scepticism or caution by most scholars"

The second reference given for this statement (Golden 2007a, p. 56) does absolutely nothing to support it. Ought the reference be removed? Surely the Wexler quotation is sufficient? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.103.210 (talk) 10:11, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

No. Golden doesn't say, of course, 'most scholars' (which Wexler does), but the comment Golden makes of Wexler's development of the theory, on which he comments:'I think that his conclusions have gone well beyond the evidence.

Nonetheless, these are themes that should be pursued further,' is preceded by a survey of several prominent thinkers who advocated a Khazar-Ashkenazi connection' reflect back through Wexler, to Salo Baron, and others, whom he names. Golden is one of the doyens of the field, he is balanced and fair-minded, and his two studies, in their general overview, show him as open-minded but cautious. I was thinking of his 'caution' in drafting that statement.Nishidani (talk) 10:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Removal of my improvement to the lede

I was wondering exactly what characterizes my additions as a "rant" worthy of removal? I was merely summarizing the article and adding helpful categories and templates. Hebrew Warrior (talk) 07:58, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

• ).This is sheer nonsense. You don't know the subject, haven't read the scholarship of this page, are blithely unaware that many major Jewish scholars, also in Israel, have endorsed the theory, right or wrong, and therefore it cannot be described as an 'antisemitic' theory. And writing that it is a 'conspiracy theory espoused by certain racists who seek to deny the Jewish people's divine right to the land of Israel', is wrong on all counts, POV-pushing of cant theological notions. I'm sure you know this, and made the edit to provoke some controversy, since my reply states what is obvious to any wikipedian editor. This is not a sandpit for playing games or killing other people's time. So, drop it.Nishidani (talk) 09:29, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Please calm down. You seem to be ranting a bit yourself there. There's no need to go slinging such accusations. We're all on the same team here and you have to learn to work with others, even if they have perspectives which differ from yours. Jews are perfectly capable of being antisemitic themselves, so your point does not stand. My edit was merely intended to summarize the contents of the article and provide an opportunity to incorporate the title into the text and bold it, which seems to be the style. If you have any issues with the wording which you think could better summarize the contents then please propose an alternative and I'd be perfectly happy to discuss this like rational human beings. Hebrew Warrior (talk) 09:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I.e. you are trying to elicit an emotional reaction, by saying I edit in an agitated fashion. I've seen this game scores of times over 8 years, and its purport is to poke and fish for some phrase in the exchange to be later used in an AE complaint against me. Yawn. Several such attempts, successively by different editors, have been made these last months. I've replied, neutral editors will agree your edit was POV pushing. Talk away. I've said my piece.Nishidani (talk) 10:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm just trying to get you to calm down. There's no reason to be so hostile and dismissive. I'm not out to get you. You're coming across as paranoid. And now you're refusing to even engage in dialogue about how to improve the lede. I'm bewildered. Hebrew Warrior (talk) 10:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

No. You are attributing to me a state of agitation I don't have (as opposed to the boredom of reverting bad edits), which is personalizing a difference in editorial views and is a form of personal attack (WP:NPA). This dialogue is closed.Nishidani (talk) 11:56, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

This dialogue is open. Okay, I'll take your word for it that the seething hostility and dismissiveness in your tone, the personal attacks you've uttered against me, and your assumption of bad faith aren't attributable to agitation but to boredom. That still doesn't commend your behavior here. Hebrew Warrior (talk) 12:20, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

(a)'You're coming across as paranoid' (b)'the seething hostility and dismissiveness in your tone, (c)the personal attacks you've uttered against me'. . .

You are very close to the red line in persisting with such language in trying to provoke another editor.Nishidani (talk) 14:54, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Please stop threatening me. Hebrew Warrior (talk) 15:00, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I was going to revert you anyway. See WP:NPOV - your edit broke that policy in a variety of ways. For instance, our articles can't say things such as "The Khazar theory of Ashkenazi ancestry is an antisemitic conspiracy theory espoused by certain racists who seek to deny the Jewish people's divine right to the land of Israel". This is an encyclopedia, we don't say that anyone or any group has any divine rights. Nor do we label anyone who agrees with this hypothesis a racist or an anti-Semite. Etc. Dougweller (talk) 10:20, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

What would be a better way to summarize the article? Hebrew Warrior (talk) 10:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The current version of the introduction is the best. It has the least amount of bias and your rude entourage into this page's edit history is unpleasant to say the least. PS: don't ask someone else to not "threaten" you when you yourself already threatened the NPOV policy of this article and Misplaced Pages. You've been warned by two editors now. Khazar (talk) 17:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Your message is hostile and entirely unnecessary. Hebrew Warrior (talk) 17:40, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

"The Khazar theory of Ashkenazi ancestry is an antisemitic conspiracy theory espoused by certain racists who seek to deny the Jewish people's divine right to the land of Israel" is a good summary of what the article implies by innuendo. Keith McClary (talk) 02:52, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

New source

Mitchell Bryan Hart (ed.) Jews and Race: Writings on Identity and Difference,1880-1940 UPNE 2011 pp.xxiv, 16-17,49-50, 69, 163, 176-177,199 Nishidani (talk) 13:32, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I am working on a new book and I would love to talk to the author of this post. Here's my email. la@lamarzulli.net There is a new movement that is ganging traction that espouses the Khazarian mythos. I would like to be able to copy verbatim, your wiki article and include it in my book. Are you available for an interview? Best. L.A. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lamarzulli (talk • contribs) 18:35, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't espouse the Khazarian mythos. I simply fought to obtain a neutral survey of the whole subject that included what scholarship says. I am attracted to this for several reasons: an academic interest in tribal histories; a lifelong interest in historical byways, an attraction to theories that 'worry' people for their possible political implications. The last-named is useful for understanding the sociology of knowledge, the various ways people react to cultural tabus, defending them, or breaking them, which is part of the politics of thinking one thing or another.

My views are quite simple:(a) the Khazarian-Jewish connection is grounded in medieval traditions of good standing (b) this has given rise to intensive studies, sympathetic and otherwise, by scholars of the subject.(c) anti-Semites have used it to claim the majority of modern Jews don't descend from the Jews of ancient Palestine, which has (d) created a defensive response by people who can only think of Israel politically and who challenge the theory as nothing but anti-Semitic in order to buttress the theoretical claim underpinning Zionism, that Jews are lineal descendants of the Israelites, or Jews expelled from Judea after 70 C.E (e) Many theories discuss these claims, but mostly, we are dealing with hypotheses (f) the further back you go in history, the more the intrinsically theoretical interpretation of facts becomes sheer, often unverifiable hypothesis (g) in lieu of new evidence, no one can state with certainty anything.(h) Only people who can entertain, with equanimity, several hypotheses contemporaneously, while examining evidence, should get interested in this, or any other topic. That's all I would have had to say, so an interview is pointless.

I don't think wiki holds copyright on its articles, but any admin can clarify that. I didn't write the article either. I redrafted it to wikify it so that it had all the required qualities of a good article, and potentially might qualify for Featured Article status (I don't care to push those things: but I like to think one should edit with those severe criteria in mind). My redrafting was tweaked, added to, overseen, and corrected by several other editors. No one can claim to have written an article here because it is a collaborative endeavor, and what stays stable, does so by consensus, which implies equal rights as co-authors. That's all.Nishidani (talk) 19:17, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Article does not reflect the scientific consensus

This article as it stands does a very poor job indicating that the general scientific consensus is rather firmly against the Khazar hypothesis, especially when considered in light of a whole series of genetic studies demonstrating again and again the Mideast origin of Ashkenazi Jews. Gerontodon (talk) 12:56, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

@Gerontodon: i think an issue is that the proposal is presented as theory, but it is in fact a hypothesis (if not a conspiracy theory, but i would leave it for now). It might indeed be better to name this "Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry".GreyShark (dibra) 16:56, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Eastern Eurasian DNA?

Ashkenazi Jews are probably not descended from the Khazars: "The Khazars were Turkic, and as such they would have had substantial proportions of East Asian ancestry. This is evident in the modern Chuvash, who have had a thousand years to admix with surrounding Slavic populations (and have). There are reasonable explanations for the “Caucasian” ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews which do not make recourse to the Khazar hypothesis. But a Mongoloid element is almost certainly feasible only through Turks of some sort, and the coincidence of a Judaized Turkic populations on the fringes of Europe is far too coincidental. There are some suggestive results which indicate small components of Mongoloid ancestry in Ashkenazi Jews, but the proportions are low enough that they may be some artifacts. This is one area where more investigation is warranted. For example, whole-genome analyses which look at “East Asian” segments in Ashkenazi Jews, and match them to various East Asian populations. That would almost certainly answer the Khazar question, as there are relatively undiluted Turkic populations, such as the Kirghiz, that one could use as a reference". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.129.141.246 (talk) 12:07, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

ДАННЫЕ АНТРОПОЛОГИИ К ЭТНОГЕНЕЗУ ТЮРКСКИХ НАРОДОВ В.П. Алексеев, 1971, (Russian) - V.Alekseev, Antropological materials that related to Turkic ethnogenesis" : "Те черепа, которые происходят из хазарских кладбищ, или, лучше сказать, из вероятных хазарских, ибо точной, стопроцентной уверенности нет при расстоянии в тысячу лет и немом в прямом смысле (при почти полном отсутствии письменности - найдены лишь отдельные знаки) археологическом материале, - это черепа людей-европеоидов с небольшой, но четко заметной определенной монголоидной примесью. У караимов этой примеси нет". "The Khazars were mixed Caucasoid-Mongoloid people. There is no Mongoloid component among Crimean Karaites". Also read В.П. Алексеев. «Очерк происхождения тюркских народов в свете данных краниологии. The Jewish people are Caucasoid people and Mongoloid component is not major haplogroup for them. Medieval Georgian sources say Khazar soldiers who attacked Georgian cities, were rare bearded people. Also, Jewish language is not influenced by Turkic language. Khazar theory of Ashkenazi ancestry is fake theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.160.4.130 (talk) 05:30, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Recents edits

• Renan . .racially antisemite.
  • (a) This is stupid. Renan renounced his Catholicism, which was the crucible for the vicious antisemitism that exploded a decade later, because it was incompatible with reason (Souvenirs d’Enfance, pp.219, 275) His reasoning on Jews 'as a race' is of course prejudiced and defective, esp. at the outset of his career. But if the Protocols thought of an antisemitic elite destroying the world through finance, Renan thought a cultured elite of Jews active in all spheres of modern life a positive thing for the modern world. His editor Michel Lévy (of the Calmann publishing house) was Jewish, and even changed his contract with Renan to give the latter better terms, a gesture acknowledged by Renan. The issue is finely analysed in Laudyce Rétat’s L'Israël de Renan, Peter Lang, 2005
  • (b) Renan is singled out, whereas his notions of race were standard for the time, shared even by Jewish scholars who studied the question.
  • (c) Had he been an antisemite in the modern acceptance he would not have expended his name, prestige and efforts in rallying funds to assist the plight of Ostjuden hit by pogroms.
  • (d) There is no doubt that Renan’s views were derogatory of Jews generally, but many sources (Robert Wistrich, Pierre Birnbaum et al. do not think this can be configured as classic racial antisemitism). They argue, for example, that:

(i)It must be emphasized that Renan was never an antisemite in the full sense of the word; he never drew the logical conclusions from his criticism of the Jews nor did he advocate any measures against them.( S. Almog, ‘ The Racial Motif in Renan's Attitude to Jews and Judaism", in S. Almog, ‎Merkaz Zalman Shazar (eds.) Antisemitism through the ages, Pergamon Books/Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Jerusalem 1988 pp. 255–278, p. 275)

• • (e)Worse still, this paper by Almog is cited for the view Renan was a racial antisemite, when the paper itself (pp.257ff.) is far more nuanced, despite the note in our article. Almog argued that he was unaware of being ‘antisemite’, which was totally different to what Edouard Drumont did with the ideas Renan had pronounced 2 decades earlier and which he modified and at times retracted later.

(ii) 'Renan lived to witness the crude, populist anti-Semitism of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and was repelled by it.'(Albert S. Lindemann, Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews, Cambridge University Press, 1997 p.92).

Since scholars dispute this (Renan =racial anti-Semite) we cannot state it as an established fact, and in any case, it is giving Renan prominence among several scholars at the time, some preceding him, Jews included, who advanced the same theory.

• • 'scientific hypothesis'. It was and remains an historical hypothesis, and historical hypotheses are not scientific because in these cases, the basis for verifiability (the discovery of substantial archaeological/material evidence and DNA evidence for it 1in a Khazar graveyard ) doesn’t exist (as yet).
  • I’ve removed the 3 weasal word tags. Leads summarize and there is nothing controversial saying the theory has a long and intricate history, within and beyond Jewish scholarship. That is obvious from the history of the subject.Nishidani (talk) 11:40, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

• but the paper also states that 78% of the K lineages of Ashkenazi Jews (the lineages studied in Costa's work and found to be European, that is K1a1b1a and K2a2) cannot be derived from the near-Eastern Neolithic samples (PPNB) they studied. The paper says that 20% of Ashkenazi K lineages (K1a9) may be derived from PPNB K lineage, but this cannot be shown by the present study. Thus, rather than proving that Ashkenazi mDNA derives from Near East, the paper only shows that the argument in Costa is not fully demonstrated concerning K1a9 lineage. The paper does present support to the claim of Eran Elhaik that Ashkenazi Jews are related to Georgians and Armenians: the paper groups Ashkenazi Jews to Cluster 2 that contains Caucasian peoples ARM, CHE, BAL, and also Cypriots

As this is written, it is WP:OR.Nishidani (talk) 12:14, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

• The views of Elhaik and Wexler are refined in a joint paper issued last month:Eran Elhaik, RanajitDas, Paul Wexler and Mehdi Pirooznia,'Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to primeval villages in the ancient Iranian lands of Ashkenaz,' Genome Biology and Evolution 3 March 2016, which should be worked into this page.Nishidani (talk) 12:17, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Both Elhaik and Wexler are WP:UNDUE.--Galassi (talk) 23:39, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Wexler

Don't revert with uninformed assertions as if you knew the state of the art. Wexler's work is still sufficiently recognized for it to be mentioned in the up-to-date literature on Yiddish, and not, as you say, discredited, as opposed to being a notable but minority view, something normal in scholarship, and, in regard to the Khazars, it is less 'minor' because scholars of that field take it as worth study and attention, even if they are not convinced (Peter Benjamin Golden). See here, here (Beider is certainly dismissive), but Neil Jacobs is not see acknowledgements, and pp.6ff, 14ff.. He's been around for 3 decades with these ideas, and the literature regularly credits him with a mention. It is a radical theory, certainly, but not as is usual with discredited fringe theories, killed with silence. Most theorists discuss it. And his most recent paper, 2016, gives the linguistic rethinking to fit Elhaik's northern Turkey Ashkenazi hypothesis. Nishidani (talk) 21:25, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT and WP:UNDUE. Wexler has been exposed as a fraud.--Galassi (talk) 21:51, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence Wexler "has been exposed as a fraud." Ijon Tichy (talk) 22:21, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Galassi. Branding the Professor Emeritus of linguistics at Tel Aviv University a person who has been exposed as a fraud is a classic example of a WP:BLP violation, and a rather serious one at that. I suggest you just retract that. Academic fraud borders on criminal behavior. Throwing around policy flags like WP:WEIGHT and WP:UNDUE is both lazy and pointless, when it is just, apparently, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and does not answer the points raised here. Thirdly, you didn't examine MM's edit, which was blatant POV pushing.Nishidani (talk) 07:46, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

It is inappropriate to have him in the lede.--Galassi (talk) 23:11, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Nish, you are consistently committing the fallacy of appealing to authority. It doesn't matter what position he has, he is looked at as a crank within the field. As is Elhaik, who's rather deceptive interpretation of data in his own genetic study was disproved thoroughly. Both are ideologically committed to providing some shred of credibility to a myth, and each piggyback's on the other. He is not radical, he is definitely fringe. Saying "Jews don't exist" is fringe. I'm not pov pushing, I'm npov pushing. It's WEASEL to say "some support the theory, others don't". 99% don't support it, only two or three do and their work is thoroughly disproven by their peers in the field --Monochrome_Monitor 23:19, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

And I'm pretty sure what galassi means by "a fraud" is him writing a psuedonymous letter trashing other's work and praising his own and then continuing to lie about it, saying he met the guy 25 years ago but doesn't know what happened to him. (The guy doesn't exist) --Monochrome_Monitor 23:42, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Authority is one thing I don't appeal to. What I am doing is ensuring that all sides of a debate among competent scholars be represented. Cranks are everywhere, in the highest places, but it's far harder to be a crank in a peer-reviewed world than in one dominated by the polling booth. If you are talking about ideological commitments then the whole discursive field on this is contaminated by a strong impetus to obtain a desired result (all Jews descend by a lineal DNA chain from one unified population that existed in Judea/Samaria - that's utter nonsense, and it's blathered everywhere by the dilettanti who inform public 'awareness'): All you are doing is adopting the standard narrative and joining in lockstep with the 'official' consensus, which, note (1997-2016), keeps tweaking its actual results but harping on the invariable conclusion (for all this see Nadia Abu El Haj, and how much idiotically venomous invective and attempts to destroy her career possibilities arose simply because she has Palestinian origins). My personal skepticism regarding all of this comes from historical training.Harry Ostrer's 'historical' knowledge in his books and papers regarding the 'facts' of Israelitic-Jewish history are chock-a-block with dumb fundamentalist clichés, as I have occasionally noted. Not for that do I consider him a crank. I note things like Behar 40% of Ashkenazi Jews originate maternally from just four Levantine female founders in 2008 and 5 years later Richards come up with an estimation that80% Ashkenazi maternal ancestry hails from indigenous European women. That astounding dissonance in a scientific discipline means only one thing: the interpretative parameters and methods are so mixed and in flux you have to exercise extreme caution in talking of a consensus.

When I read Wexler and Elhaik, I note that they too tend to use older historical sources selectively. You cannot cite Salo Baron on the Khazars, and form a thesis on the latter being the germinal element in the formation of Ashkenazim, while ignoring his documentation that Jews were in Metz around 888, i.e., almost a century before the collapse of the Khazar empire, and they had had indubitably communities throughout Italy and before then, as for example, I have consistently added to articles by citing Michael Toch's The Economic History of European Jews. The technical problem there, as not only Wexler points out, is that the expected Loter-romance element in Yiddish is very weak compared more eastern sources (hence the Bavarian hypothesis, or his own) I.e. in my editing practice I am regularly adding data that give a variety of facts each of which conflicts with interpretations in the mainstream and minority narratives. People identify my editing as 'biased' because I basically wrote the Khazar article from top to bottom, and have regularly added to several articles, the work by Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin, Wexler and Elhaik et al., which points up problems in the standard model. 99% of editors in these articles underwrite and have a faith commitment to the standard Zionist model, which is far more restrictive of what one may say or conclude than what you get in an earlier tradition of (Jewish) scholarship which worked essentially independently of the kinds of pressure that arose after the establishment of Israel. Neither side in this dispute looks comfortable with the conflicting but densely documented details of the historical records regarding Jews in Europe. I have an historian's bias: deep suspicion whenever I scent 'nationalism' in the air, or a complaisant 'consensus', and that indeed does feed into a decided openness in looking at respectable scholarship which is attuned to some of the anomalies in the field. But my dictum, taught to me at an early age is: whenever those you sympathize with get into power, politically or discursively, put up your guard - they're going to spin things, rather than stare at the contradictions they often recognized before they had a personal investment in survival or a career at any cost.

Neither Elhaik nor Wexler would have their careers if they had consistently been found out tampering with the evidence. If you had any inkling of the inside politics of genetics, and who is allowed and who not allowed to look at certain data bases, you'd be more skeptical. Personally I have absolutely no decided opinion as to who is right. I don't believe in the 'truth' in these things: there are only competing hypotheses for these things, with a short or long life. If you prefer to situate yourself in a comfort zone intellectually in controversies like this, grasping cognitively at Peanut's blanket, then you're going to miss a lot of the stimulation of dissonance in your life. Nishidani (talk) 08:00, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "standard zionist model". If sources show some khazars converted, so be it. Much stronger evidence shows the Himyarites converted, yet no one pushes the theory that Mizrahi Jews are not real Jews and are actually Arabs. It's totally political. Genetics conclusively disproves the theory. It's really settled, it's a myth. Now there are things that are up for debate with differing results in research, like the mtDNA of Askhenazi Jews and whether the founding mothers were south italian converts or israelites, which you mention. Personally I think most were Italians or other medeterrainian europeans. But, that's not specific to Ashkenazi Jewry at all. The maternal ancestry in pretty much every Jewish group is significantly non-Israelitic. --Monochrome_Monitor 15:08, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

You're not thinking before you write, and you are not thinking through what you write if you ever reread it. No scholar favouring the Khazar hypothesis 'pushes the theory that Ashkenazi Jews are not real Jews and are actually Khazars'. You've created, to adopt the jargon, a strawman antagonist on this. It's a disturbing lack of attention, almost as worrying as my increasing tendency to misspell. I plead age for these. What's your excuse?. Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Looked like a clear case of WP:ILIKEIT, IMO.--Lute88 (talk) 16:06, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Is anyone editing here to try and 'prove' the majority hypothesis is 'true' (against wiki policy) reading the sources, all of them: all of the genetic section reads like a sheet of internally contradictory adventitious crap, The source citing the many scientists Elhaik challenges, asserts on the one hand that most scientists disagree with him (true perhaps) but then goes on to state the remarkable idea that:'Ashkenazi Jews descended from Jews who fled Palestine after the Muslim conquest in the seventh century '. Gee whiz. First the myth had it they fled the Roman destruction post70 AD and were transported as slaves by Romans to Italy and then went over the following millennium north. Now, discussing Ostrer and Feldman's dismissals of Elhaik, we have that contextualized in a wonderful fantasy of huge boatloads of Jews crossing the vast Mediterranean before the Carolingan era to repeat the same wave migration of expelled indigenes. The bullshit's left out, the choice banter kept in. Secondly, no genetic paper that fails to mention specifically the Khazar hypothesis can be introduced on this page, as has been done repeatedly. It's late here, but the only interesting and intelligible sections here are the history of the theory section under development. The rest is just POV pushing.Nishidani (talk) 22:49, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Both Elhaik and Wexler are WP:UNDUE. You are pushing the POV envelope way too far. Cease and desist.--Galassi (talk) 23:41, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

What are you doing, Galassi?

• You’re on the edge of edit-warring because your most recent revert was done without examining what you were reverting out
• You have no talk page presence but one liner obiter dicta.
• Wexler and Elhaik have to be in the lead because they are the major contemporary proponents of the argument and per WP:LEDE summary, since they are given large attention in the article, are to be mentioned in the opening paras.
• You restored: ’Notable scholars of Turkology and Jewish studies have refuted the Khazar theory’. Well there is no evidence given for this in the lead or the subsections. It is (a) pure WP:OR and is (b) contradicted by the doyen of turkology Peter Benjamin Golden, who has reservations over the theory as propounded by Wexler but considers it worth further exploration
• The counter-evidence for that gross assertion about ‘refutation’, namely a quote from Golden, was removed, cancelling evidence that contradicted the assertion this was a disproven theory.
• The word ‘refute’, devoid of sources, in either Turkology or genetics as the consensual view is impossible because it violates WP:NPOV, by siding with one of several opinions
• I formatted links to give author, publishing venue, etc. Your revert cancelled these uncontroversial improvements. My finessed ‘DNA research sheds light on Ashkenazi origins,’ Science Daily October 2013 was turned back to . Why did you degrade this improvement, and erase Rita Rubin, 'Jews a Race' Genetic Theory Comes Under Fierce Attack by DNA Expert,' The Forward 7 May 2013 which I added to replace a simple untitled link to the same source?
• The iron rule forbids WP:OR. I removed three sources that are introduced but which are either by scholars who are not RS for this or who don’t mention the Khazars. The Jared Diamond paper is a University school handout photocopy link. It preceded the DNA research we cite extensively and makes high school blunders like identifying the Merneptah stele with the earliest mention of the Jews, and underwriting as an historical fact the theory that the Bible got things literally correct about David and Solomon’s kingdom. It has errors like confusing ‘setting’ for ‘settling’, and imagining that Jewish merchants settled in France under Charlemagne when modern research shows they were long settled in France before that period. He even argues that no one questions that the Khazar rulers converted: wrong, that is indeed challenged. He even writes: ’Ashkenazi Jews might conceivably be converted Khazars.’ Aside from the link to a teaching handout photocopy (not RS) it does not support what it is being used for
• (ii) hammer et al. idem Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes:’ 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. I can’t see any mention of the Khazar hypothesis, hence WP:OR
• (iii)Idem Shriver, Tony N. Frudakis ; No mention of Khazars on that page or in the book.
• Fernandez has to be taken out as well. No mention of Khazar hypothesis

• The worst thing about your and MM's edit warring is that you are both looking at the text and expressing likes or dislikes, without looking at the source content supposedly supporting the article. Nishidani (talk) 13:55, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

• "I don't believe in the 'truth' in these things: there are only competing hypotheses for these things, with a short or long life. If you prefer to situate yourself in a comfort zone intellectually in controversies like this, grasping cognitively at Peanut's blanket, then you're going to miss a lot of the stimulation of dissonance in your life." -- Nishidani

• "Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them." -- Laurence J. Peter. (I also recommend reading L. J. Peter's quotations on Wikiquote)

Ijon Tichy (talk) 23:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Homework assignment for revert eager beavers

Problem detected.

• In 2000, the analysis of a report by Nicholas Wade named Y Chromosome Bears Witness to Story of the Jewish Diaspora

Can anyone fix this to avoid implying that Wade's paper is being analysed, and (b) can anyone provide a direct link to Wade's article, rather than citing it from an omnium-gatherum blog whose link to Wade doesn't work.

Well, I shouldn't be mean. I'll do half of the homework, but I do expect those who edit this page so vigorously when they see contention to do some of the housekeeping mainteaace

(a)=?

(b) Nicholas Wade. "Y Chromosome Bears Witness to Story of the Jewish Diaspora." The New York Times 9 May 9 2000.Nishidani (talk) 20:39, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Lead section

@Nishidani: You are removing sources and details from the lead section. You claimed that it is not true. However, its summary from the article sections. Could you please explain which part of those statements are not true?Ferakp (talk) 16:27, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

A very clear case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT.--Galassi (talk) 16:28, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Please take some time to read the discussion above. Above all, it is simply an outright violation of WP:NPOV to espouse one of several views as a truth, or say something whose status is disputed, has been definitely buried, or 'refuted'. This is a lie, and it cannot stay in the text. As to Galassi, he reverts instinctively - it suffices for him to see me have a disagreement with another editor, to back the other person. He never engages on the talk page, as should be obligatory for a person with his automatic revert practice.Nishidani (talk) 16:34, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Using refuted is not against WP:NPOV. As article mentions, all notable experts refute and also see it as baseless, some of them see it as a myth as article mention. You are removing the most important part of the article with its sources. Ferakp (talk) 16:38, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

The user is not explaining changes and removing sources. The user has been previously blocked several times. If user continues like this, I will have to report him/her.Ferakp (talk) 16:30, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Nope. You clearly have not read the preceding sections, where this was explained in great detail. You're completely at liberty to report me, if you like to test WP:BOOMERANG.Nishidani (talk) 16:36, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

@Nishidani: I removed "refute" and added their personal views even though they have refuted it with scientific studies. Also, I added linguistic part. Do you like it now? Ferakp (talk) 16:43, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Who are 'they' in 'Notable scholars of Turkology . . see the Khazar theory as a myth and baseless.'

Do you realize that this paragraph repeats (in leads you must not repeat) wshat was stated in the preceding paragraph?

Do you realize that you cannot have a lead paragraph which stacks an ensemble for the negative position without balancing it for NPOV, as the preceding paragraph did?Nishidani (talk) 16:49, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I realize. The last paragraphs are not against NPOV. About Turkology, I don't know who added it, it should had be only Jewish scholar even though there is one source which shows that a one Turkology is againt the theory, I can't show him as a notable since we don't know much about him. Ferakp (talk) 16:56, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Turkology part has been removed. Ferakp (talk) 16:58, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Wouldn't it have been simpler, rather than ignoring the talk page and reverting, simply to have outlined where you disagree and where you agree. Now you have admitted, by trimming, that many of those objections I made were reasonable. All you needed to do was to address the talk page. You've caused needless fuss, while undoubtedly making one and perhaps two editors content, while it remains a silly paragraph, even if trimmed.

eg.(a)Major scholars have either defended its plausibility or dismissed it as a pure fantasy. The theory had been received with skepticism or caution. by most modern scholars.

(b) Notable scholars of Jewish studies see the Khazar theory as a myth and baseless.

This last statement (b) is already in (a) and therefore is repetitive. Worse, it singles out 'Jewish scholars' as notable for seeing it as baseless, while ignoring that 'Jewish' academics (Elhaik and Wexler most recently) who are notable do not regard it as a myth. Therefore this too is clunky if not downright stupid in a lead.Nishidani (talk) 18:54, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Jonney. You removed a genetics paper documenting that this is a controversy. Your edit retained a secondary source, written by someone without any credentials in scientific reportage, Yori Yanover (thus failing RS), which paraphrases a genetics paper to support this crazy assertion.

The theory has been used by antisemite and anti-Zionists to claim that Ashkenazi Jews in Israel have no genetic connection to ancient Israel and thus are not a people Indigenous to Palestine

The assertion is stupid because, as I documented for months as numerous editors just kept playing revert games, anti-Semites and anti-Zionists used the Khazar thesis against Ashkenazi Jews decades before Israel's establishment. Secondly, no genetic papers establish a basis for linking Ashkenazi to the Israelites: they all, anti-Zionist or pro-Zionist, establish what is obvious, that there is a link between Jewish populations like the Ashkenazim with the Middle East (Behar's paper reported by Yanover states:'We and others have argued on the basis of genome-wide data that the Ashkenazi Jewish population derives its ancestry from a combination of sources tracing to both Europe and the Middle East.'). It openly implies that, unlike Ashkenim in Israel, Ashkenazim outside of Israel may have a genetic connection to Israel. In other words, using a speculative genetic mix is not science but politics.

However Yanover tries to spin Behar et al, his text does not support that extraordinarily specific and silly statement and the editor who wrote it was indulging in WP:OR.

So, before meddling in articles, ll, read closely the argument, its history, and the page sources. This edit whoring is absurd. There is not a deep level of contention here: there is just fiddling superciliously with the ostensible POV spin of a complex argument, and editors should try to be more curious, and less quick on the revert trigger, i.e., try placing a query on the talk page for once.Nishidani (talk) 19:44, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

@Nishidani: you obviously have no consensus to push that POV. Cease and desist.--19:56, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Galassi. You have not read Yanover's article, which nowhere, as I showed above, supports the WP:OR spin on it placed in the text you restored. You are becoming an intolerable presence on this page. I'vfe spend my fucking time trying to reason, and you persist in reverting with almost zero comment on the talk page regarding the merits. Worse still, by jumping the gun just after I made one of several needed corrections, uncontroversial, you have no stopped the patent confusion of that lead from being fixed for at least a day. If you persist in no talk page exchanges while indulging in reverts, I'll report you. So tell me, and others, where in the fuck on Yanover's incompetent article is there the basis for the statement I elided?Nishidani (talk) 20:06, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

And drop the 'cease and desist'. It is a moronic pleonasm.Nishidani (talk) 20:07, 1 May 2016 (UTC)