1. Do not confuse a) the Khazars, a Turkic tribe of far Eastern Europe that was ruled by Jewish kings about 1000 years ago, and b) the Kazakhs, residents of Kazakhstan, formerly a Soviet Republic and now an independent country in Central Asia.
2. Antisemites claim that the Khazars are the ancestors of most, or all, Russian Jews or even the Ashkenazi Jews. This claim has the purpose of breaking the link between modern Jews and the Jews of Biblical history. In particular, since the Zionists who came to Israel in the 19th and 20th centuries were largely Ashkenazi, and included large numbers of Russian Jews before and after Israel's founding, it becomes very convenient for Palestinian Arabs and others to say modern Jews have no historic claim on Eretz Yisrael.
What is the truth of these claims? False! They have been completely refuted by both scholarly investigation of the history of the Khazars and, recently, by genetic evidence showing that Jews from all parts of the world are genetically closely related to Middle Eastern Jews and not so closely related to non-Jewish Russians, Eastern Europeans, or others.
According to Dr. Bryan Griffith Dobbs, the best site on the web regarding all aspects of the Khazars is Kevin Brook's "The Khazaria Info Center."
Dr. Dobbs also points to his group "European Jewish History, Religion and Culture" on Yahoo. EEJH deals with Jewish History and Culture from ancient times to the present. Many distinguished authors are members of EEJH and provide Internet exclusives of their work there. You can search their message history by clicking on Messages, then put Khazars (or any other topic) in the "Search Archives" box.
Another fine Internet resource is "JewishGen: The Home of Jewish Genealogy."
As Dorothy Kohanski points out, you can go to their Discussion Group Archives and search the archives using the box provided toward the bottom of the page.
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