Scarlett Johansson's traits (oh, and some stuff about Ashkenazis)

[Cato]

People, please! The Khazar theory is ABSURD. Arthur Koestler's romantic fantasy, that's all! Do I REALLY have to explain why?

No, not really. It's just what I've seen bandied about by the Jews and others, the great medieval steppe empire of Khazaria and such, one of the kings of which converts to Judaism after choosing between the three Abrahamic religions. It's really no more romantic a yarn than some of the stories about Hengest, Horsa and the Anglo-Saxon lads- the ancestors of whom fought in Alexander the Great's army (as one of the tall-tales tells) or who were the Saka people in the area of ancient Iran.

[Osweo]

No, not really. It's just what I've seen bandied about by the Jews and others, the great medieval steppe empire of Khazaria and such, one of the kings of which converts to Judaism after choosing between the three Abrahamic religions.

The khan converted. Some of his men did. Many didn't. A large amount of Jews moved in. The state began to act nastily to its neighbours. It was smashed. Any survivors ended up holed up as tiny relics in the Crimea and Caucasus. The modern Ashkenazim have NO connection with this story.

It's really no more romantic a yarn than some of the stories about Hengest, Horsa and the Anglo-Saxon lads- the ancestors of whom fought in Alexander the Great's army (as one of the tall-tales tells) or who were the Saka people in the area of ancient Iran.

With the exception of the Hengest story (which has at least something of a historical kernel), these things are clearly fictitious.
The 'romance' I was talking about isn't the historical existence of Khazaria, just its image in the mind of the Jew Koestler, who wanted to provide his people with a rather more glorious pedigree than Rhineland tradesmen and slavers, expelled eastward to become Polish cobblers and pawnbrokers.
Yiddish itself is proof enough.

[Rhobot]

Ashkenazim probably derive from a mixture of Near Eastern (Semitic) people and northern Europeans. They can be distinguished from both northern Europeans and southeastern Europeans (themselves an ancient stabilized mixture of Near Eastern and European ancestry).
There seems to be evidence of bottlenecks and founder effects in the early period of their history, and then they practiced endogamy for religious reasons until recent times.
Other populations that were subject to founder effect (e.g. Sardinians and northern Finns) have also remained genetically distinct (they don't cluster tightly with other Mediterranean or Nordic populations, respectively) but in that case the distinct characteristics were preserved by geography rather than religion.

(1) MtDNA evidence for a genetic bottleneck in the early
history of the Ashkenazi Jewish population
(2) Contrasting patters of Y chromosome variation in Ashkenazi Jewish and non-Jewish European populations

[Lulletje Rozewater]

No, since most of them, white or not, European or Middle Eastern are against the ideas promoted by myself and Apricity as a whole.
Jewish is religion, way of life, ideology, ideas, not a racial trait.

At last we get somewhere.
See also Loki's answer.
Now replace jews with Christian and we get an answer.

[Treffie]

Nor is their primary loyalty to Israel nor their well-known reputation for being agitators.

Not all Jews are Zionist.

[Wildland]

The khan converted. Some of his men did. Many didn't. A large amount of Jews moved in. The state began to act nastily to its neighbours. It was smashed. Any survivors ended up holed up as tiny relics in the Crimea and Caucasus. The modern Ashkenazim have NO connection with this story.

With the exception of the Hengest story (which has at least something of a historical kernel), these things are clearly fictitious.
The 'romance' I was talking about isn't the historical existence of Khazaria, just its image in the mind of the Jew Koestler, who wanted to provide his people with a rather more glorious pedigree than Rhineland tradesmen and slavers, expelled eastward to become Polish cobblers and pawnbrokers.
Yiddish itself is proof enough.

The Roman and biblical population census counted the Jewish population in biblical "Israel" to around 500 000 - 800 000 Jews around 150 AD.
With the expulsion from their lands after the uprising towards the Romans, they where scattered around in small enclaves around north Africa, Europe and Middle East...

For 600 000 Jews living in the diaspora in hard strain and in small communities to count up for 15 million Jews in the beginning of the 1900, it's just impossible, and this alone credits the Khazar theory of large amount of Turcic people (Khazars) adapting Judaism, and from modern Russia spreading westward into Europe.

[SwordoftheVistula]

They are on the side of civilization as opposed to, say, gypsies.

They're civilized, but not 'on the side of civilization'. Since they view themselves as apart from white (european christian), they only feel comfortable in a multicultural society with as few ties as possible, so they push this as hard as they can and do what they can to undermine the traditional values of the host civilization. There's a few who don't, like David Horowitz, Don Feder and Michael Savage, but almost all of them support multiculturalism, even the neo-conservatives support multiculturalism, 'moderate muslims' and 'legal' immigration of 'assimilable' types who support 'universal values' such as 'Israels right to exist'

For 600 000 Jews living in the diaspora in hard strain and in small communities to count up for 15 million Jews in the beginning of the 1900, it's just impossible

That's 70 generations, plenty of time.

What was the population like in England in 150 AD? England went from 1.1 million in 1066 to almost 50 million (over 40 million of that English) by 1991, plus at least an equal number of English in the US, plus all the English people in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

[Lahtari]

For 600 000 Jews living in the diaspora in hard strain and in small communities to count up for 15 million Jews in the beginning of the 1900, it's just impossible, and this alone credits the Khazar theory

Eh, have you considered how sparsely populated the world was in the year 150AD? For comparizon, the population of the city of Rome at it's height was about 1 million people, being by far the world's biggest city. So 600,000 people in that age was more like the population of New York in a diaspora today.

As for the poll: like I said, I don't really care if they're considered "white" or not. White is an American concept - and thus not my problem - but I voted that they aren't.

[Lahtari]

What was the population like in England in 150 AD? England went from 1.1 million in 1066 to almost 50 million (over 40 million of that English) by 1991, plus at least an equal number of English in the US, plus all the English people in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

In your face, England.

Estimated Finnish Iron-Age population: 20,000 - 50,000.

Finnish population in the 21st century: ~5 million.

[Wildland]

That's 70 generations, plenty of time.

What was the population like in England in 150 AD? England went from 1.1 million in 1066 to almost 50 million (over 40 million of that English) by 1991, plus at least an equal number of English in the US, plus all the English people in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

Although for a people scattered around in small communities all over the world, and not taking act in agriculture.

Despite the Ashkenazi Jews' long residence in Europe, their Y signature has remained distinct from that of non-Jewish Europeans.

On the assumption that there have been 80 generations since the founding of the Ashkenazi population, Dr. Hammer and colleagues calculate that the rate of genetic admixture with Europeans has been less than half a percent per generation.

http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/346genetics.html