Jews first settled in Russia in the Crimea area as far back as the first century. The Khazars who ruled in that area were so taken with Judaism that they adopted it as their own religion. The Khazars’ kingdom was, in fact, a Jewish state. By the tenth century the Russians in the north had ascended to power and they swept down on the Khazars, dispersed them to oblivion, and began a sordid record against the Jews.
And so was born the antisemitic Khazar theory.
