cultures. Their choice it seems, was either Islam or Judaism. So much therefore for them being Jews, although of course they could have been Jews before they became Christian and or assumed a new identity that could not be attributed to either. Their strange name however implies that their origins go further back and if their link with the Catthars (probable) is anything to go by, they were Yezidic or Mazdeans.
There is so little known about the Catthars that it makes sense to link them with the only thing that makes historical sense. Some hold that the Kazzars converted to whichever faith offered the highest security factors and could have had a hidden tradition in which case then, they could have been an offshoot of Christianity (because of the known Catthar /Jesus affinity) with Mazdean/(Mithraic or Yezidic origins (because of their so called Satanic acknowledgements). Curiously, this word rings bells with the term Hazidic which throws the cat among the pigeons. If they are of the same origins then the Ashkenazi and Hazidic could be of the same line and both potentially Yezidic which makes for very uncomfortbale bedfellowship. For the Catthars however, Jesus was their founder teacher and for whom they lived and prayed, but the devil (as with the Yezidis), was the perversive ruler of the earth and judging what they went through, they may well have been right – (if only to get off the subject on a lighter note). The curious thing is that the present day Hazidic call themselves descendants of the Ashkenazi and want to segregate themselves from their fellow Serphadi which starts to turn Jerusalem into an impossible equation likely to lose balance at any time.
The chosen race mistaken claim.
If there ever was