By Ofri Ilani : Shattering a 'national mythology'
Talkback
Title:DNA shatters Khazar theory
Name:Esther
City: ChicagoState: IL
"Recent genetic research studies have contradicted the main thesis of The Thirteenth Tribe. For example, a 2000 study of haplotypes by Hammer et al indicates that the Y chromosomes of most Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are of Middle Eastern origin, containing mutations that are also common among Palestinians and other Middle Eastern peoples, yet are uncommon in the general European population. These results strongly suggest that most male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews can be traced primarily to the Middle East.[8]

A second study (2006) by Behar et al, based on haplotype analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), also indicates that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women. These four "founder lineages" were "likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool" originating in the Near East in the first and second centuries CE.[9]"

I read the "Thirteenth Tribe" about Khazaria, but DNA shatters the theory.