If the Khazars all became Jewish when their king converted, and the name "Cossacks" is a later form of "Khazars," then why weren't the Cossacks Jewish? That part's a bit confusing, no?

Nerd,
We don't know the extent of conversion among the Khazars, but Cossack has nothing to do with them. The word is actualy Kazak and is Turkish for adventurer, or free-booter. They came into being several centuries after the fall of Khazaria.

Yes, Dave, I am saying that most European Jews are descendants of converts to Judaism, going back to the conversion of a king to Judaism, and through him, his whole nation. That nation was called the Kazars, and they were located in southern Russia. They were not Semites. The nation converted en masse to the Jewish faith because the king did. That's how it worked in those days. The Kazars were later scattered by one of the periodic invasions of Mongols, and they scattered into many European nations, and became the source of the modern European Jew...not a Semite at all.

LittleHawk,
The Kagan converted and many Khazars as well, we do not know how many, but it was not obligatory! There were still lots of Christians, Muslims and Pagans. The Empire was destroyed by Prince Sviatoslav of Kiev in 969. They were dispersed throughout Europe, and the Jews mixed with the existing populations.