Israel is full of Khazars!

Another great example of the rampant stupidity that is often on display in Skypeland was observed today. One gentleman very confidently asserted that Israel was populated with "92% Khazars". The implication, which this person repeats over and over mindlessly, is that Israel is supposedly an illegal state filled mainly with Northern European Jews. These Northern European Jews have arrogantly set up housekeeping in the center of the Middle East. These Northern European Jews have stolen the land of the natives who have inhabited the Levant for millenia, and do not belong there, according to this narrative.

How accurate is this? Well I did a bit of research, and found that the population of Ashkenazi Jews in Israel has recently exceeded the number of Sephardic Jews in Israel. However, this is only because of recent immigration from the Former Soviet Union. As of 1996, about 50% of the Jews in Israel were Ashkenazi Jews [1]. Of course, many Ashkenazi Jews are not Khazars, and since there are about 1.5 million nonJews in Israel, only about 40% of all Israelis are Ashkenazis and obviously there are even fewer with Khazar ancestry. However, this never stops the anti-semitic ranting; why let the facts get in the way of the spewing of hatred?

Addendum

Today this gentleman, who had clearly read this blog, claimed that I was a liar since he had a friend who had told him that 92% of all Jews in Europe are Khazars. Ah yes, it must be true since a "friend" told him this. And of course, the statistics for Europe can be applied directly to Israeli demographics.