Khazar Conversion

The Khazars were a Turkic people whose empire stretched across the steppe between the Black Sea, the Caspian and the Volga, with its capital at Atil on the lower Volga. In the 700s or 800s their king and nobility adopted Judaism. The main sources are the Khazar Correspondence, an exchange between Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Córdoba and King Joseph of Khazaria in the 950s; the Schechter Letter, found in the Cairo Geniza; and Arab writers such as al-Mas'udi and Ibn Fadlan. King Joseph's letter names the first convert as King Bulan, with a later king, Obadiah, building synagogues and bringing in sages.

How deep the conversion went is still debated. Around 965–969 Prince Sviatoslav of Kiev destroyed the Khazar state, and its Jewish community vanishes from the record. Mainstream historical and genetic research does not support the popular theory that Ashkenazi Jews descend from the Khazars. Their lasting legacy is literary: around 1140 Yehuda HaLevi framed his Kuzari as a dialogue between a Khazar king and a rabbi.