Nadene Goldfoot
Khazaria was a state that adopted Judaism as their state religion.
The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century AD established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. They created what for its duration was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Khaganate. Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and Southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the early medieval world, commanding the western marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East and Kievan Rus'. For some three centuries (c. 650–965) the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus.
Khazaria long served as a buffer state between the Byzantine Empire and both the nomads of the northern steppes and the Umayyad Caliphate and Abbasid Caliphate, after serving as the Byzantine Empire's proxy against the Sasanian Empire. The alliance was dropped around 900. Byzantium began to encourage the Alans to attack Khazaria and to weaken its hold on Crimea and the Caucasus and sought to obtain an entente with the rising Rus' power to the north, which it aspired to convert to Christianity.
907 was the 1st year of the Kievan Rus' fighting against the Byzantine Empire with Oleg of Novgorod leading them on.
Between 965 and 969, the Kievan Rus' ruler, Sviatoslav I of Kiev, as well as his allies, conquered the capital, Atil, and ended Khazaria's independence. The state became the autonomous entity of Rus' and then of Khazar former provinces (Khwarazm in which Khazars were known as Turks, just as Hungarians were known as Turks in Byzantium) in Volga Bulgaria.
Bulan was a Khazar king who led the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism. His name means "elk" or "hart" in Old Turkic. The date of his reign is unknown, as the date of the conversion is hotly disputed, though it is certain that Bulan reigned some time between the mid-8th and the mid-9th centuries. Nor is it settled whether Bulan was the Bek or the Khagan of the Khazars.
Our Jewish history has it that the king of Khazaria realized he was in the middle of Christians, Jews and Muslims in trading, so decided to join one of them, but which? He held a symposium of three representatives to hear what they offered. The rabbi had the most compelling speech, and the King converted along with many of his followers. For centuries, the Khazar territory had been a major region of settlement for Jewish refugees escaping persecution, and these refugees soon introduced Judaism to the Khazears. The king of Khazaria, Bulan, became convinced that Judaism was the true religion which led to their adopting Judaism as a state religion. In fact, most likely there are Jews with their origins from Khazaria today which a Y haplogroup DNA test could attest to.
The Jews of Khazaria by business studies student and amateur researcher, Kevin Brook, assume that he was the Bek due to references to him leading military campaigns. Khazar tradition held that before his own conversion, Bulan was religiously unaffiliated. In his quest to discover which of the three Abrahamic religions would shape his own religious beliefs, he invited representatives from each to explain their fundamental tenets. In the end, he chose Judaism.
Kiev Rus' were enemies of Khazaria. Obviously, their center was in Kiev, now in Ukraine, but back in the 700s-900s it wasn't.
The first ruler to start uniting East Slavic lands into what would become Kievan Rus' was Prince Oleg (879–912).
He extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east, and moved his capital to the more strategic Kiev. Oleg of Novgorod (Old East Slavic: was a Rurikid prince who ruled all or part of the Rus' people during the late 9th and early 10th centuries. He is credited by Rus' Chronicles with moving from either Staraya Ladoga (Old Norse: Aldeigjuborg) or Novgorod, and seizing power in Kiev (Kyiv) from Askold and Dir, and, by doing so, laying the foundation of the powerful state of Kievan Rus'. He also launched an attack on Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. According to East Slavic chronicles, Oleg was the supreme ruler of the Rus' from 882 to 912.
Sviatoslav I (943–972) achieved the first major expansion of Kievan Rus' territorial control, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazars.
Vladimir the Great (980–1015) introduced Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. This medieval Prince Vladimir deepened the Russian-Ukraine Split. Both countries now mark the 1,000th anniversary of his death.
Swedish–Novgorodian Wars were a series of conflicts in the 12th and 13th centuries between the Republic of Novgorod and medieval Sweden over control of the Gulf of Finland, an area vital to the Hanseatic League and part of the Varangian-Byzantine trade route. The Swedish attacks against Orthodox Russians had religious overtones, but before the 14th century there is no knowledge of official crusade bulls issued by the pope.
The trade routes seem to be the impetus of fighting and expansion in these early days, causing countries to do battle over them. This is nothing new. We have cause to repeat this many times. Jews were known for their trading skills, and did it without fighting, especially along the Silk Route, but when countries tried it, trouble arose.
Resource:
Book: Jews of Khazaria-2nd Edition by Kevin Alan Brook
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_of_Novgorod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulan_(Khazar)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27
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