Obadiah was the name of a

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 of the late eighth or early ninth century. He is described as coming from among "the sons of the sons" of Bulan, but whether this should be taken literally to mean that he was Bulan's grandson, or figuratively to imply a more remote descent, is unclear. King Joseph's ''Reply'' claimed that Obadiah strengthened

Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...

and Hebrew proficiency in Khazaria by building

synagogues A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

and schools and inviting Jewish sages to the country. In ''Sefer ha-Ittim'',

Judah ben Barzillai Judah ben Barzillai (Albargeloni) was a Catalan Talmudist of the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century. Almost nothing is known of his life. He came of a very distinguished family, on account of which he was not seldom called "ha-Na ...

's list of Khazar Jewish kings lacked Obadiah's name, and several scholars have concluded from this that Obadiah was a fictional character. He was succeeded by his son

Hezekiah Hezekiah (; ), or Ezekias (born , sole ruler ), was the son of Ahaz and the thirteenth king of Kingdom of Judah, Judah according to the Hebrew Bible.Stephen L Harris, Harris, Stephen L., ''Understanding the Bible''. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. "G ...

References

Sources

*Kevin Alan Brook. ''The Jews of Khazaria.'' 3rd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2018. * Douglas M. Dunlop, ''The History of the Jewish Khazars,'' Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954. *

Norman Golb Norman Golb (15 January 1928 – 29 December 2020) was a scholar of Jewish history and the Ludwig Rosenberger Professor in Jewish History and Civilization at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Life Golb was born in Chicago, Ill ...

and

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 ...

, ''Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century.'' Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982. Khazar rulers 9th-century monarchs in Europe Jewish monarchs 9th-century Jews Jewish royalty {{Europe-royal-stub