A long-debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory is back—turbocharged by social media—and it’s helping to fuel a sharp rise in anti-Jewish sentiment. A crackpot theory that once lived on the fringes of the Internet now widely circulates on major platforms, repackaged to delegitimize Israel, erase Jewish history, and dress ancient prejudices in the language of “science.”
Last week offered a vivid example. In his interview with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Tucker Carlson demanded that Israeli Jews take genetic tests to prove their descent from the ancient Jews who governed Israel thousands of years ago. Carlson was invoking the Khazar myth—the claim that the “real” Jews died out after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, and that modern European (Ashkenazi) Jews instead descend from a Turkic people who converted to Judaism in 805 CE. Once propagated by David Duke, the former head of the KKK, the theory has found new life online. But here’s the thing: The DNA testing Carlson calls for has already been done—and it conclusively refutes the Khazar conspiracy.
In a 2010 peer-reviewed study, Dr. Gil Atzmon and his colleagues found that the genetic proximity betweenEuropean (Ashkenazi) and Syrian Jewish populations is “incompatible” with the theory that Ashkenazi Jews descend from converted Khazars or Slavs. And Atzmon’s findings have been repeatedly confirmed by different sets of scientists across many decades. These genetic studies uniformly show that all the major Jewish populations in the world—the Ashkenazim of Europe, the Sephardim of Spain and North Africa, the Mizrahim of the Middle East—share a common ancestry that spread from the Middle East approximately two-thousand years ago.
This genetic record aligns with well-known history too. In 586 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem and exiled many Jews to Babylon. When Cyrus II, the Persian king, conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539BCE, he allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their Second Temple—which stood for six-hundred years. These “returned” Jews then dispersed all over the world—forming the Jewish communities of Europe (the Ashkenazim), Spain and North Africa (Sephardim), Syria (Mizrahim), and later the Americas.
DNA evidence has now corroborated this history. Dr. Atzmon’s study found that Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Syrian Jews are genetically closer to one another than to Iranian and Iraqi Jews—with the “split” in their DNA dating back roughly 2,500 years, “compatible” with the period when part of the Jewish population remained in Persia while the rest returned to Israel.
That alone should put the conspiracy theory to rest. Still, there are two additional problems with the Khazar myth. First, the archeological record reveals a continuous Jewish presence in Israel—Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, and artifacts, even a full-blown Jewish war against the Romans—from the fall ofthe Second Temple in 70 CE to the foundation of the modern state. These native Israeli communities obviously don’tdescend from the Khazars of the Central Asian steppe. And the vast majority of Israeli Jews don’t come from Europe anyway: They’re from the Middle East and North Africa—where even the conspiracy theorists concede the Khazarsnever lived.
THERE IS NO ROCK BOTTOM FOR TUCKER CARLSON
Second, Jews have lived in Europe since classical antiquity—long before the Khazars converted. Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome in 49 CE, and Cicero defended Valerius Flaccus in 62 BCE against charges of seizing Jewish gold—events that make little sense if indeed no Jews had lived in Europe before the Khazar conversion of 805 CE. In 613 CE—three centuries before that conversion—King Sisebut of Spain decreed that Spain’s Jews must convert to Christianity or leave. There are countless other examples of ancient Jewish communities all over Europe long before the Khazars converted—all undermining the claim that the Ashkenazic Jews of Europe (a minority of Israeli Jews in any case) descend from the Khazars, rather than from the ancient Israelites.
When it comes to Israel—as with everything else—facts should still matter. Unfortunately, in a cultural environment that rewards algorithmic amplification over evidence, even settled science can be drowned out by noise. Pushing back on myths like this one is the responsibility of every citizen who cherishes the truth. The effort may well determine whether democracies can still distinguish fact from fiction before digitally driven falsehoods deepen a rising tide of antisemitism—the moral rot in the wooden framework of our house which, if we’re not careful, will bring the whole house tumbling down.
Roy K. Altman is a United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida and the author of Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law.
