Khazars

The Khazars were a Turkic ethnic group that built a civilization in the Caucasus region, southern Russia, and Ukraine. It existed from about the 6th century until the 10th century. The leadership and some of the group adopted Judaism, which was unusual in an area that mostly converted to Christianity or Islam.

The history of the Khazars led to some widely discredited theories that the Ashkenazi Jews descend from them. Recent DNA studies have shown the majority of ancestry comes from Israel. The Khazar theory is often cited by antisemites, looking to undermine Jewish national identity and the state of Israel.