The Greatest Jewish Kingdom in History -- And It Wasn't in the Middle East

Khazaria

I recently provided a brief history of the ancient Jewish Kingdom of Israel ("The Ultimate Family Tree: Back to Adam"). Today, I will revisit some of that history, but the focus is really on another Jewish kingdom that has very little geo-political connection to ancient Israel at all. The Bible tells us about the classic Jewish kingdoms, beginning with the Kingdom of Israel (King Saul, King David, King Solomon) around 1050 BCE, and ending with the destruction of Solomon's Temple by the Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE:

• (United) Kingdom of Israel (1050-931 BCE) 119 years

• (Northern) Kingdom of Israel ( 931-722 BCE) 209 years

• (Southern) Kingdom of Judah ( 931-586 BCE) 345 years

The Babylonians brought to an end 464 years of Jewish self-rule under the leadership of a king. After a similar amount of time, 422 years, a new Jewish kingdom came into existence after the Maccabees defeated forces of the Seleucid Empire in 164 BCE (commemorated by the Chanukkah celebration):

• (Hasmonean) Kingdom of Israel (164-63 BCE) 101 years

When the Roman Empire ended the Hasmonean regime in 63 BCE, it marked the last time that Jews would rule over their own land in the Middle East for over 2,000 years -- until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. However, long after Rome itself was sacked by barbarians, and long before the modern Israeli state existed, there was another Jewish kingdom -- and this one covered a wider area, encompassed a larger population, and was more powerful than any other Jewish kingdom before it. It lasted for centuries. Interestingly, it was not located in the Middle East. So why haven't you ever heard about it? I don't know; but now you will.

The Jewish Khaganate of Khazaria

Khazaria's roots as a separate nation began around the year 600. The Khazars' origins are obscure; it is believed they began as Turkic or Hun tribes, but they might have been a mixture of all peoples in the Caucasus region. At its height, around the year 850, Khazaria stretched from Kiev in the west to the Aral Sea in the east; from Tatarstan in the north, to Georgia in the south. Technically, it was not a kingdom; it was a "khaganate," ruled by a khagan, which is the Turkic/Mongolian equivalent of a king or emperor.

In the middle of the 8th century, Khazaria was under pressure from the expanding Muslim armies and from the Christian empires. There are a number of stories about what happened next:

One version states that the Khazar leaders invited Christian, Muslim, and Jewish representatives to debate why their views of the world are the most valid. The leaders decided that the Jewish representative made the best case, and the entire ruling class converted to Judaism. A second version claims that the Israelite tribes of Manasseh and Simeon emigrated to the area hundreds of years earlier. A varied version explains the presence of Jewish communities in the area as a result of vast immigration of Jews fleeing from the Muslim and Christian areas because of persecution. Yet another version explains that the conversions resulted from a decision to become a neutral, yet acceptable, entity between the two major contending powers in the region. In any case, much of the general population followed suit, and within a couple of generations, Khazaria was a full-fledged Jewish kingdom. Most of the rulers adopted Jewish names from the Bible, synagogues thrived, and Jewish communities that had already been there prospered.

By the 10th century, Khazaria began to decline. Finally, in 969, Khazaria was conquered by the Kiev Rus, under the leadership of Sviatoslav I, ironically a pagan. Over the next two centuries, the Khazar culture disappeared; the population was destroyed or assimilated; and all Khazar writing (a Hebrew-Aramaic mixture) ceased. Some claim that the Jewish populations in Eastern Europe in modern times derived from Khazaria, but recent DNA studies confirm a strong Middle Eastern ancestry, with little or no Turkic traces.

Khazar Amulet