The Secret History of Crimea

The Jewish Khazar Empire

As the Ukraine spirals further into chaos, and the Mideast crises drag on without sign of resolution, it is interesting to ponder what might have been.

In the years just after World War II, Molotov was largely in control of the Soviet Union, and the expected successor to Stalin. He had a plan, ultimately vetoed by Stalin, to make the Crimea a Jewish homeland.

There was a lot of sense to the idea. Unlike Palestine, the Crimea had recently been depopulated. Stalin had deported the Crimean Tatars for collaboration with the Germans. So the land was up for grabs. Moreover, it had a history of Jewishness. The local Jewish population was significant, and it had been part of the Medieval Jewish kingdom of the Khazars. If Arthur Koestler is right, modern Askenazi Jews are actually mostly Khazar by blood.

Molotov's wife was Jewish

The Zionists, for their part, were not terribly picky at this point as to where their homeland was to be, so long as they were given one.

Had the plan gone through, we might have avoided most or all of the ongoing strife in the Middle East, and certainly several wars. We might also have avoided the recent troubles over Crimea. From the standpoint of the Jews, the Crimea is more defensible over the long term than Palestine, and more fertile. Moreover, it is European, as were most of the Jews who colonized Israel. It would have looked far less like the last colony of imperial Europe.