Image Source of Eran Elhaik: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eran-Elhaik-2
Recently, a user on X, Kraut Daddy (@14Svyatoslav), referenced a claim by Johns Hopkins in a post replying to @Capitalist70, myself and others, stating, “John Hopkins even released records stating 97.7% don’t have ties. Then they passed the law on dna” (x.com/ComptonMadeMe/…). This claim appears to support the debunked Khazarian Hypothesis, as promoted by the Marxist geneticist Eran Elhaik, suggesting that Ashkenazi Jews lack genetic ties to the Middle East and instead descend from the Khazars. Kraut Daddy also linked to a 2013 Forbes article by Jon Entine titled “Israeli Researcher Challenges Jewish DNA Links to Israel, Calls Those Who Disagree ‘Nazi Sympathizers’” to bolster his argument. In this blog, I will refute Kraut Daddy’s assertion, The Marxist Eran Elhaik’s hypothesis, and examine the Forbes article’s portrayal of Elhaik’s claims with genetic and historical evidence, incorporating Harry Ostrer’s 20-year study, historical marriage practices, and the critiques from multiple geneticists who have refuted the Marxist Eran Elhaik’s work.
Refuting Kraut Daddy’s Claim
Kraut Daddy’s statement that “John Hopkins even released records stating 97.7% don’t have ties” to the Middle East, followed by a reference to a “law on dna,” is misleading and lacks credible backing. There is no record of Johns Hopkins University releasing any study or records claiming that 97.7% of Ashkenazi Jews lack Middle Eastern genetic ties. This statistic appears to be fabricated. A related claim has circulated on social media, as noted in a 2025 AAP FactCheck article, where a similar statistic (97.5%) was falsely attributed to Johns Hopkins, misrepresenting a 2012 study by Elhaik that did not involve Jews living in Israel. Johns Hopkins’ published research on Jewish genetics instead supports Middle Eastern ancestry for Ashkenazi Jews (e.g., studies cited below). Additionally, there is no known legislation in the U.S. or elsewhere that bans or restricts DNA research related to Jewish ancestry, rendering the “law on dna” claim baseless.
Examining the Forbes Article and Elhaik’s Behavior
The Forbes article by Jon Entine, published on May 16, 2013, reports on Elhaik’s 2013 study in Genome Biology and Evolution, which claimed Ashkenazi Jews have significant genetic ties to the Caucasus region, supporting the Khazarian Hypothesis. The article highlights the Marxist Eran Elhaik’s inflammatory response to criticism, noting that he called leading geneticists “liars” and “frauds” and accused Entine’s reporting of sharing “common ground with the Nazism ideology.” Kraut Daddy seems to use this article to support his narrative, but the article itself is critical of Elhaik, not an endorsement. Entine notes that Elhaik’s study has been “eviscerated” by mainstream scientists and gained traction among neo-Nazi websites and radical anti-Israeli blogs, including being referenced (and oddly criticized) by former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke. There is truth to the Forbes article’s depiction of Elhaik’s unprofessional behavior, corroborated by a 2013 Reddit thread on r/Judaism, where users criticized his work as a tired trope used to attack Jewish connections to Israel. However, Entine’s tone suggests a personal stake in defending the genetic cohesiveness of Jews, possibly reflecting his own ideological leanings, as he authored Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People.
Harry Ostrer’s 20-Year Study and Other Geneticists Refuting the Khazarian Hypothesis
Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has conducted extensive research on Jewish genetics over the past two decades. In his 2012 book Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, Ostrer summarizes findings from his 20-year study, which firmly refutes the Khazarian Hypothesis. His research, including the Jewish HapMap Project, demonstrates that Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews form a distinctive population cluster closely related to Semitic and European populations, with a shared Middle Eastern ancestry. Ostrer’s work shows that Ashkenazi Jews are genetically more similar to other Jewish groups worldwide than to their non-Jewish neighbors in Europe, directly contradicting the idea of a Khazarian origin. In a 2020 article in Avotaynu, Ostrer specifically criticized Elhaik’s methodology, noting that Elhaik sampled only a small number of Ashkenazi Jews, assumed Armenians and Georgians were proxies for Khazars, and accepted the Khazarian Hypothesis as fact without sufficient evidence.
Several other prominent geneticists have also refuted Elhaik’s research:
Doron Behar, a geneticist at Rambam Health Care Campus in Israel, criticized Elhaik’s methodology in 2013, particularly the "GPS" (Geographic Population Structure) tool, for assuming modern populations are direct proxies for ancient ones, ignoring historical migrations and genetic drift. Behar’s own 2010 study in Nature confirmed that Ashkenazi Jews share a significant Middle Eastern ancestry with other Jewish populations.
Marcus Feldman, a population geneticist at Stanford University, called Elhaik’s study a “one-off” in the 2013 Forbes article, emphasizing that the consensus of genetic research supports a Middle Eastern origin for Ashkenazi Jews. Feldman’s critique highlighted Elhaik’s ideological bias and deviation from mainstream scientific standards.
Karl Skorecki, Professor Emeritus at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, found no evidence of a Khazar origin in his 2013 paper, as referenced in the 2025 AAP FactCheck article. Skorecki’s research reaffirmed the Middle Eastern and European ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews, directly contradicting Elhaik’s claims.
Gil Atzmon, a geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, co-authored a 2010 study in The American Journal of Human Genetics that demonstrated Ashkenazi Jews cluster genetically with Middle Eastern populations, not with Turkic or Caucasian groups, further debunking Elhaik’s hypothesis.
Shai Carmi, a geneticist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, conducted a 2014 study in Nature Communications that found Ashkenazi Jews’ ancestry to be roughly 50% Middle Eastern and 50% European. Carmi, in a 2020 study of ancient DNA from the Middle East (cited in the AAP FactCheck article), confirmed that Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry is between 15% and 50% Middle Eastern, directly refuting the “97.7% don’t have ties” claim.
Jian Xue, a geneticist involved in a 2017 study in Nature Communications, used ancient DNA to confirm Ashkenazi Jews’ genetic continuity with ancient Levantine populations, dating back over 2,000 years, showing no significant Khazarian genetic signatures.
Historical Marriage Practices and Genetic Evidence
Ostrer, Behar, and other scholars have discussed the historical events that shaped Ashkenazi Jewish genetics, particularly their marriage practices during the diaspora. Genetic evidence suggests that early Ashkenazi communities were founded by Jewish men who migrated from the Middle East to Europe, likely as traders, during the first millennium. These men initially married local European women who converted to Judaism, a practice that occurred for approximately three generations, as noted in Behar’s 2010 genome-wide map of the Jewish people and Ostrer’s research in Legacy. This is supported by mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis, which shows that around 40% of Ashkenazi Jews descend from four European women, indicating significant maternal European ancestry in their early formation (Behar et al., 2006, American Journal of Human Genetics). However, after these initial three generations, Ashkenazi Jews established their own communities and adopted strict endogamy—marrying only within their own group—due to diaspora traditions and religious practices. This endogamy is evidenced by high levels of identical-by-descent (IBD) sharing within Jewish populations, as noted in a 2012 study in Human Genetics by Ostrer and colleagues, which shows that Ashkenazi Jews are related to each other on average as fifth cousins.
The genetic studies by Carmi (2014) and Xue (2017) further support this narrative, showing a 50% Middle Eastern and 50% European ancestry mix, with the European component attributed to early admixture. The 2020 ancient DNA study cited in the AAP FactCheck article reinforces that most modern Jewish groups draw over 50% of their ancestry from the ancient Middle East.
The Flaws in Eran Elhaik’s Research
Elhaik’s 2013 study claimed Ashkenazi Jews’ DNA showed closer links to modern Caucasus populations than to Middle Eastern groups, but his methodology has been widely debunked by the geneticists mentioned above. Elhaik’s "GPS" method was criticized for its flawed assumptions, and his study ignored well-established genetic markers, such as Y-chromosome and mtDNA, that link Ashkenazi Jews to other Jewish populations and Middle Eastern groups like the Druze and Palestinians (Atzmon et al., 2010).
Historical and Archaeological Evidence
Historically, the Khazarian Hypothesis lacks evidence. While the Khazar elite converted to Judaism, as documented in the 10th-century Khazar Correspondence, there is no record of a mass conversion or migration into Europe. The Khazar Empire collapsed in the 10th century, and most of its population assimilated into neighboring groups or converted to Islam or Christianity, according to historian Kevin Brook in The Jews of Khazaria. In contrast, Ashkenazi Jews trace their origins to the Rhineland by the 10th century, speaking Yiddish—a language rooted in High German with Hebrew and Aramaic influences, showing no trace of a Turkic Khazar origin.
The Ideological Underpinnings of the Khazarian Hypothesis
The Khazarian Hypothesis has often been co-opted by anti-jewish narratives to delegitimize Jewish claims to a Middle Eastern heritage. The Forbes article notes that Elhaik’s work gained traction among wannabe national socialists and radical anti-Israeli groups, though even David Duke rejected it for not fitting his anti-jewish worldview. The Marxist Elhaik’s revival of the hypothesis, rooted in the Arthur Koestler’s Marxist-driven The Thirteenth Tribe, has been criticized for lacking scientific rigor and aligning with ideological frameworks that prioritize narrative over evidence, as Marcus Feldman noted in 2013. Kraut Daddy’s post, with its fabricated statistic and reliance on a misinterpretation of Elhaik’s work, echoes these problematic narratives.
Conclusion
Kraut Daddy’s claim about a Johns Hopkins study stating “97.7% don’t have ties” is baseless, and the Forbes article he cites does not support his assertion—it instead critiques Elhaik’s flawed research. Harry Ostrer’s 20-year study, alongside the work of geneticists like Doron Behar, Marcus Feldman, Karl Skorecki, Gil Atzmon, Shai Carmi, and Jian Xue, refutes the Khazarian Hypothesis by showing that Ashkenazi Jews share a common Middle Eastern ancestry with other Jewish groups worldwide. Historical marriage practices reveal that Ashkenazi Jews initially incorporated European women for three generations before adopting strict endogamy, forming distinct communities that maintained their genetic continuity with the Levant. Genetic, historical, and linguistic evidence confirms their origins in the Middle East, not the Caucasus. The Khazarian Hypothesis does not hold up as a primary explanation for Ashkenazi Jewish origins.
References
- Atzmon et al., "Abraham's Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry," The American Journal of Human Genetics, 2010.
- Behar et al., "The Matrilineal Ancestry of Ashkenazi Jewry: Portrait of a Recent Founder Event," American Journal of Human Genetics, 2006.
- Behar et al., "The Genome-Wide Structure of the Jewish People," Nature, 2010.
- Behar, Doron, critique of Elhaik’s methodology, 2013.
- Carmi et al., "Sequencing an Ashkenazi Reference Panel Supports Population-Targeted Personal Genomics and Illuminates Jewish Origins," Nature Communications, 2014.
- Xue et al., "The Time and Place of European Admixture in Ashkenazi Jewish History," Nature Communications, 2017.
- Brook, Kevin Alan, The Jews of Khazaria, 2nd ed., 2006.
- Ostrer, Harry, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, 2012.
- Ostrer, Harry, response to Elhaik in Avotaynu, 2020.
- Ostrer et al., "North African Jewish and Non-Jewish Populations Form Distinctive, Orthogonal Clusters," Human Genetics, 2012.
- Feldman, Marcus, critique of Elhaik’s ideological bias, 2013.
- Skorecki, Karl, critique of Elhaik’s Khazarian Hypothesis, 2013.
- AAP FactCheck, "Study misrepresented in Jewish ancestry claim," 2025.