Khazar The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, an ...

ruler during the early 10th century CE, Aaron ben Benjamin was the son of the Khazar king

Benjamin Benjamin ( ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

. Whether Aaron, like the rest of the Bulanids, was a Khagan or a Bek is an unresolved issue. According to the anonymous author of the Schechter Letter, during Aaron's reign a war was launched against Khazaria by a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

-inspired coalition led by the

Alans The Alans () were an ancient and medieval Iranian peoples, Iranic Eurasian nomads, nomadic pastoral people who migrated to what is today North Caucasus – while some continued on to Europe and later North Africa. They are generally regarded ...

, who had been allies of Aaron's father

. Aaron defeated his enemies with the help of Oghuz mercenaries and captured the king of the Alans. Rather than execute his captive, he demanded an oath of fealty and spared his life. The Alan king's daughter married Aaron's son

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

. In ''Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century'',

Omeljan Pritsak Omeljan Yosypovych Pritsak (; 7 April 1919 – 29 May 2006) was the first Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of History of Ukraine, Ukrainian History at Harvard University and the founder and first director (1973–1989) of the Harvard Ukrainian Rese ...

dated this war to the early reign of

Romanos I Romanos I Lakapenos or Lekapenos (; 870 – 15 June 948), Latinisation of names, Latinized as Romanus I Lacapenus or Romanus I Lecapenus, was Byzantine emperor from 920 until his deposition in 944, serving as regent for and senior co-ruler of ...

(i.e., the early 920s CE).

Sources

*Brook, Kevin Alan. ''The Jews of Khazaria.'' 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2006. * Dunlop, Douglas M. ''The History of the Jewish Khazars,'' Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954. * Golb, Norman and

. ''Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century.'' Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982. {{DEFAULTSORT:Aaron 02 Khazar rulers Jewish monarchs 10th-century monarchs in Europe 10th-century Jews Jewish royalty