Well, I figured I was gonna quit burning up my further time on this, but I guess I should respond to a couple of things...

The source that sparked my interest in the Khazars was not (sadly for Guest) a Neo-Nazi site, it was a friend of mine, in whom I place great trust and respect. She is a Jew, proud of it, and she's had a lifetime career of great accomplishment in the medical profession. She's also one of the most trustworthy and exemplary persons in character that I have ever known, and she has experienced anti-Jewish prejudice firsthand most of her life, mainly from upscale members of the monied Anglo-Saxon establishment in Canada. She's told me plenty of stories about the virulent anti-Jewish undercurrents in this town, let me tell you...there are some wealthy neighborhoods here where you are NOT going to buy a house if you are Jewish...not it the bigwigs in charge can help it. They pull strings to see that it doesn't happen. And they spread malicious gossip against anyone who is Jewish. As far as I'm concerned they (the anti-Jews) can rot in their own bile. Who the hell would want to live next to them anyway?

In spite of this, she is vehemently opposed to the expansionist policies of Israel that have been going down in the Middle East and regards Sharon's leadership as misguided and not in the interests of either Israelis or their Palestinian and Arab neighbours.

Evidently, for her as for me, being anti-Zionist is not equivalent to being either "anti-semitic" (the old misnomer) or "anti-Jewish".

The thing about the Khazars remains intriguing, but hard to verify beyond doubt, because it happened so long ago. A quick look on the Net shows me that, yes, there are a lot of weird sites that refer to it...both pro and con on the issue. People are using it to beat their own drum, whatever drum that may be. If Neo-Nazis use it...well, should that be any surprise? That doesn't prove anything one way or another about the Khazars, because Neo-Nazis would be happy to use any information that embarrassed Israel or Zionism or the Jews, wouldn't they? They certainly would not hesitate to use it if it WERE true. People with wrongful intentions are just as happy to use truthful info to fuel their arguments as anyone else is... :-)

My friend is a descendant of European Jews. She doesn't look even vaguely like most Middle Easterners today, nor do most European Jews, so I don't find it so incredible that they might have descended from different racial routes in ancient times, and not from the original twelve tribes that migrated out of Egypt. That doesn't say anything bad about them as people, it just says that they are not necessarily descendants of the same people who formed those original 12 tribes. And therefore, they may in fact not be Semites, although they ARE most certainly Jews.

Hell, Sammy Davis Junior is a Jew, isn't he? Anyone can become a Jew if they want to. Not anyone can become a Semite.

As for Shatner, that was a real surprise. I always figured Leonard Nimoy had to be Jewish, but I never saw a hint in the last 45 years that Shatner was. He certainly never made a point of it. I wonder who else is Jewish? About half the musicians I really like are, as far as I know. Maybe it's more than half... :-)