Ashkenazite Nation

Armenian: Թորգոմ/T’orgom ; Georgian: თარგამოს/T’argamos

This is a nation associated with the Ararat area; Jeremiah 51:27. In Talmudic sources, it is rendered as Asia (Targum Yonathan; Targum on 1 Chronicles 1:6; Yerushalmi, Megillah 1:9). In ancient times, besides denoting the entire continent, Asia also referred to what is now the western part of Asiatic Turkey, bordering on the Aegean Sea. However, there was also a tribe of Asies living in the area of Sardis (the modern Sart), the capital of Lydia (Herodotus 4:45). Both are the same area.

In Assyrian they are the Ashkuz and much has been written about them. The Greek word Scythia is accepted as being derived from the Assyrian Ashkuz.

The Scythian Ashkenaz nation were also known as “Tor-Gom” because they were the offspring of Tiras and Gomer whose descendants belong to Y-DNA Haplogroup CM217. Juansher's "Concise History of the Georgians" goes into detail about how they threw off the yoke of the Nimrodians. The Aparnoi are of the same extraction. It is not clear whether the Hebrew word פרס refers to this Parthia or to Elam.

Josephus, on the other hand, says that the Ashkenazites are the Reginians. Some associate this with Rhegium (the modern Regga), on the tip of the Italian peninsula (cf. Herodotus 1:167). However, there was also a Rhagae or Rages that was a major city in Medea (cf. Tobit 4:1). This was a bit south of the present Teheran, due south of the Caspean sea (cf. Arukh HaShalem, s.v. Asia). The Medes indeed were known to descend from the race of the Achemenids (Herodotus 7:61).

More logical, however, would be to associate the 'Reginia' of Josephus with Regnum Polemonis, to the south-east of the Black Sea, immediately in the Ararat area. The 'Asia' mentioned in Talmudic sources could then be Amasia, a city in that area.

By the tenth century, the term Ashkenaz was used to refer to Germany (Siddur Rav Amram Gaon). This may be because, as we have seen, Gomer, the father of Ashkenaz, was associated with 'Germania.' But according to this, the 'Reginia' mentioned in Josephus may have been the Rennus or Rhine area. There are numerous other sources that relate Ashkenaz to the Ashkuza mentioned in ancient writings, or to the Scythians from whom descends the term Scot. The nobility of a large nation in Scythia known as the Khazars is documented as having converted to Judaism and migrated west into central Europe.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Thargamosids.JPG