According to ancient letters supposedly received by the 10th-century Spanish Jewish scholar and statesman Ḥasdai ibn Shaprut, the Khazar empire—located in Transcaucasia and what is now southern Ukraine and Russia—had been led by their king to convert to Judaism. While the theory, championed by Arthur Koestler and currently beloved by anti-Semites, that today’s Ashkenazi Jews are descended primarily from the Khazars has been debunked many times over, some scholars have recently gone even further to argue that the entire story of the Khazar conversion was a myth. Henry Abramson reviews the evidence and the current debate. (Video, 15 minutes.)
Read more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBW7rw3zSaI&feature=youtu.be