Famous European of Turkic Origin

The Famous European of Khazar-Turkic Origin... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews#Usage_of_the_name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars Heinrich Heine • Eliezer Ben-Yehuda • Ralph H. Baer Albert Einstein • Siegfried Marcus • Sigmund Freud Johann? Philipp Reis • George Gershwin • Bar Refaeli Rachel Weisz • John von Neumann • Gustav Mahler Vilna Gaon • Lauren Bacall • Leonard Bernstein Moses Mendelssohn • Max Born • Judit Polgár Franz Kafka • Theodore Herzl • Maya Plisetskaya Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities of the Rhineland in the west of Germany. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for the region which in modern times encompasses the country of Germany and German-speaking borderland areas. In reference to the Jewish peoples of Northern Europe and particularly the Rhineland, the word Ashkenazi is often found in medieval rabbinic literature. References to Ashkenaz in Yosippon and Hasdai ibn Shaprut's letter to the king of the Khazars would date the term as far back as the 10'th century, as would also Saadia Gaon's commentary on Daniel 7:8. The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who dominated the Pontic steppe and the North Caucasus from the 7th to the 10th century CE. The name 'Khazar' seems to be tied to a Turkic verb form meaning "wandering". In the 7th century CE, the Khazars founded an independent Khaganate in the Northern Caucasus along the Caspian Sea. Although the Khazars were initially Tengri shamanists, many of them converted to Christianity, Islam, and other religions. During the eighth or ninth century the state religion became Judaism. At their height, the Khazar khaganate and its tributaries controlled much of what is today southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the Northern Caucasus ( Circassia, Dagestan, Chechnya), parts of Georgia and the Crimea. Between 965 and 969, their sovereignty was broken by Sviatoslav I of Kiev, and they became a subject people of Kievan Rus'. Gradually displaced by the Rus, the Kipchaks, and later the conquering Mongol Golden Horde, the Khazars largely disappeared as a culturally distinct people.