title: Transformation (genetics)

text: Competence is specifically induced by DNA damaging conditions. For instance, transformation is induced in "Streptococcus pneumoniae" by the DNA damaging agents mitomycin C (a DNA cross-linking agent) and fluoroquinolone (a topoisomerase inhibitor that causes double-strand breaks). In "B. subtilis", transformation is increased by UV light, a DNA damaging agent. In "Helicobacter pylori", ciprofloxacin, which interacts with DNA gyrase and introduces double-strand breaks, induces expression of competence genes, thus enhancing the frequency of transformation Using "Legionella pneumophila", Charpentier et al. tested 64 toxic molecules to determine which of these induce competence. Of these, only six, all DNA damaging agents, caused strong induction. These DNA damaging agents were mitomycin C (which causes DNA inter-strand crosslinks), norfloxacin, ofloxacin and nalidixic acid (inhibitors of DNA gyrase that cause double-strand breaks), bicyclomycin (causes single- and double-strand breaks), and hydroxyurea (induces DNA base oxidation). UV light also induced competence in "L. pneumophila". Charpentier et al. suggested that competence for transformation probably evolved as a DNA damage response.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: Logarithmically growing bacteria differ from stationary phase bacteria with respect to the number of genome copies present in the cell, and this has implications for the capability to carry out an important DNA repair process. During logarithmic growth, two or more copies of any particular region of the chromosome may be present in a bacterial cell, as cell division is not precisely matched with chromosome replication. The process of homologous recombinational repair (HRR) is a key DNA repair process that is especially effective for repairing double-strand damages, such as double-strand breaks. This process depends on a second homologous chromosome in addition to the damaged chromosome. During logarithmic growth, a DNA damage in one chromosome may be repaired by HRR using sequence information from the other homologous chromosome. Once cells approach stationary phase, however, they typically have just one copy of the chromosome, and HRR requires input of homologous template from outside the cell by transformation.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: To test whether the adaptive function of transformation is repair of DNA damages, a series of experiments were carried out using "B. subtilis" irradiated by UV light as the damaging agent (reviewed by Michod et al. and Bernstein et al.) The results of these experiments indicated that transforming DNA acts to repair potentially lethal DNA damages introduced by UV light in the recipient DNA. The particular process responsible for repair was likely HRR. Transformation in bacteria can be viewed as a primitive sexual process, since it involves interaction of homologous DNA from two individuals to form recombinant DNA that is passed on to succeeding generations. Bacterial transformation in prokaryotes may have been the ancestral process that gave rise to meiotic sexual reproduction in eukaryotes (see Evolution of sexual reproduction; Meiosis.)


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: Artificial competence can be induced in laboratory procedures that involve making the cell passively permeable to DNA by exposing it to conditions that do not normally occur in nature. Typically the cells are incubated in a solution containing divalent cations (often calcium chloride) under cold conditions, before being exposed to a heat pulse (heat shock). Calcium chloride partially disrupts the cell membrane, which allows the recombinant DNA to enter the host cell. Cells that are able to take up the DNA are called competent cells.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: It has been found that growth of Gram-negative bacteria in 20 mM Mg reduces the number of protein-to-lipopolysaccharide bonds by increasing the ratio of ionic to covalent bonds, which increases membrane fluidity, facilitating transformation. The role of lipopolysaccharides here are verified from the observation that shorter O-side chains are more effectively transformed – perhaps because of improved DNA accessibility.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: The surface of bacteria such as "E. coli" is negatively charged due to phospholipids and lipopolysaccharides on its cell surface, and the DNA is also negatively charged. One function of the divalent cation therefore would be to shield the charges by coordinating the phosphate groups and other negative charges, thereby allowing a DNA molecule to adhere to the cell surface.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: DNA entry into "E. coli" cells is through channels known as zones of adhesion or Bayer's junction, with a typical cell carrying as many as 400 such zones. Their role was established when cobalamine (which also uses these channels) was found to competitively inhibit DNA uptake. Another type of channel implicated in DNA uptake consists of poly (HB):poly P:Ca. In this poly (HB) is envisioned to wrap around DNA (itself a polyphosphate), and is carried in a shield formed by Ca ions.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: It is suggested that exposing the cells to divalent cations in cold condition may also change or weaken the cell surface structure, making it more permeable to DNA. The heat-pulse is thought to create a thermal imbalance across the cell membrane, which forces the DNA to enter the cells through either cell pores or the damaged cell wall.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: Electroporation is another method of promoting competence. In this method the cells are briefly shocked with an electric field of 10-20 kV/cm, which is thought to create holes in the cell membrane through which the plasmid DNA may enter. After the electric shock, the holes are rapidly closed by the cell's membrane-repair mechanisms.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: Most species of yeast, including "Saccharomyces cerevisiae", may be transformed by exogenous DNA in the environment. Several methods have been developed to facilitate this transformation at high frequency in the lab.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: Efficiency – Different yeast genera and species take up foreign DNA with different efficiencies. Also, most transformation protocols have been developed for baker's yeast, "S. cerevisiae", and thus may not be optimal for other species. Even within one species, different strains have different transformation efficiencies, sometimes different by three orders of magnitude. For instance, when S. cerevisiae strains were transformed with 10 ug of plasmid YEp13, the strain DKD-5D-H yielded between 550 and 3115 colonies while strain OS1 yielded fewer than five colonies.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: A number of methods are available to transfer DNA into plant cells. Some vector-mediated methods are:


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: There are some methods to produce transgenic fungi most of them being analogous to those used for plants. However, fungi have to be treated differently due to some of their microscopic and biochemical traits:


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: Introduction of DNA into animal cells is usually called transfection, and is discussed in the corresponding article.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: The discovery of artificially induced competence in bacteria allow bacteria such as "Escherichia coli" to be used as a convenient host for the manipulation of DNA as well as expressing proteins. Typically plasmids are used for transformation in "E. coli". In order to be stably maintained in the cell, a plasmid DNA molecule must contain an origin of replication, which allows it to be replicated in the cell independently of the replication of the cell's own chromosome.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: The efficiency with which a competent culture can take up exogenous DNA and express its genes is known as transformation efficiency and is measured in colony forming unit (cfu) per μg DNA used. A transformation efficiency of 1×10 cfu/μg for a small plasmid like pUC19 is roughly equivalent to 1 in 2000 molecules of the plasmid used being transformed.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: In calcium chloride transformation, the cells are prepared by chilling cells in the presence of (in solution), making the cell become permeable to plasmid DNA. The cells are incubated on ice with the DNA, and then briefly heat-shocked (e.g., at 42 °C for 30–120 seconds). This method works very well for circular plasmid DNA. Non-commercial preparations should normally give 10 to 10 transformants per microgram of plasmid; a poor preparation will be about 10/μg or less, but a good preparation of competent cells can give up to ~10 colonies per microgram of plasmid. Protocols, however, exist for making supercompetent cells that may yield a transformation efficiency of over 10. The chemical method, however, usually does not work well for linear DNA, such as fragments of chromosomal DNA, probably because the cell's native exonuclease enzymes rapidly degrade linear DNA. In contrast, cells that are naturally competent are usually transformed more efficiently with linear DNA than with plasmid DNA.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: The transformation efficiency using the method decreases with plasmid size, and electroporation therefore may be a more effective method for the uptake of large plasmid DNA. Cells used in electroporation should be prepared first by washing in cold double-distilled water to remove charged particles that may create sparks during the electroporation process.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: Because transformation usually produces a mixture of relatively few transformed cells and an abundance of non-transformed cells, a method is necessary to select for the cells that have acquired the plasmid. The plasmid therefore requires a selectable marker such that those cells without the plasmid may be killed or have their growth arrested. Antibiotic resistance is the most commonly used marker for prokaryotes. The transforming plasmid contains a gene that confers resistance to an antibiotic that the bacteria are otherwise sensitive to. The mixture of treated cells is cultured on media that contain the antibiotic so that only transformed cells are able to grow. Another method of selection is the use of certain auxotrophic markers that can compensate for an inability to metabolise certain amino acids, nucleotides, or sugars. This method requires the use of suitably mutated strains that are deficient in the synthesis or utility of a particular biomolecule, and the transformed cells are cultured in a medium that allows only cells containing the plasmid to grow.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: In a cloning experiment, a gene may be inserted into a plasmid used for transformation. However, in such experiment, not all the plasmids may contain a successfully inserted gene. Additional techniques may therefore be employed further to screen for transformed cells that contain plasmid with the insert. Reporter genes can be used as markers, such as the "lacZ" gene which codes for β-galactosidase used in blue-white screening. This method of screening relies on the principle of α-complementation, where a fragment of the "lacZ" gene ("lacZα") in the plasmid can complement another mutant "lacZ" gene ("lacZΔM15") in the cell. Both genes by themselves produce non-functional peptides, however, when expressed together, as when a plasmid containing "lacZ-α" is transformed into a "lacZΔM15" cells, they form a functional β-galactosidase. The presence of an active β-galactosidase may be detected when cells are grown in plates containing X-gal, forming characteristic blue colonies. However, the multiple cloning site, where a gene of interest may be ligated into the plasmid vector, is located within the "lacZα" gene. Successful ligation therefore disrupts the "lacZα" gene, and no functional β-galactosidase can form, resulting in white colonies. Cells containing successfully ligated insert can then be easily identified by its white coloration from the unsuccessful blue ones.


title: Transformation (genetics)

text: Other commonly used reporter genes are green fluorescent protein (GFP), which produces cells that glow green under blue light, and the enzyme luciferase, which catalyzes a reaction with luciferin to emit light. The recombinant DNA may also be detected using other methods such as nucleic acid hybridization with radioactive RNA probe, while cells that expressed the desired protein from the plasmid may also be detected using immunological methods.


title: Conn Smythe Trophy

text: The Conn Smythe Trophy () is awarded annually to the most valuable player (MVP) of his team during the National Hockey League's (NHL) Stanley Cup playoffs. It is named after Conn Smythe, the longtime owner, general manager, and head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Conn Smythe Trophy has been awarded 54 times to 47 players since the 1964–65 NHL season. Each year, at the conclusion of the final game of the Stanley Cup Finals, members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association vote to elect the player deserving of the trophy. The trophy is handed out by the NHL Commissioner before the presentation of the Stanley Cup and only the winner is announced, in contrast to most of the other NHL awards which name three finalists and are presented at a ceremony. Vote tallies for the Conn Smythe Trophy were released starting in 2017.


title: Conn Smythe Trophy

text: Unlike the playoff MVP awards presented in the other major professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada (the Super Bowl MVP, the NBA Finals MVP, the MLS Cup MVP and the World Series MVP), the Conn Smythe is based on a player's performance during the entire NHL postseason instead of just the championship game or series.


title: Conn Smythe Trophy

text: The Conn Smythe Trophy was introduced in 1964 by Maple Leaf Gardens Limited to honor Conn Smythe, the former owner, general manager and coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs and a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder. The centerpiece of the trophy is a stylized silver replica of Maple Leaf Gardens, the arena built under Smythe's ownership of the Maple Leafs, and their home from 1931 to 1999. Backing the arena replica is a large silver botanically-accurate maple leaf. The arena replica and leaf are set atop a square wooden foundation, the front of which bears a dedication plaque. Additional tiers below the foundation, sloping outward, contain maple leaf-shaped plates bearing the inscriptions of the winners' names.


title: Conn Smythe Trophy

text: The base of the Conn Smythe Trophy has been expanded twice over the years to accommodate more winners. Although the 16 nameplates on the original base tier were filled up after 1980, a new tier was not added until the 1983–84 season. Following the 2000 Stanley Cup playoffs, the 20 nameplates on the new tier were filled up, so the first nine winners' nameplates were moved up to the remaining three sides of the foundation tier, with the remaining nameplates shifted accordingly to keep the winners in chronological order. Due to the cancellation of the 2004–05 season, the trophy was not filled up again until 2010, after which a new tier was added, making room for 24 more names.


title: Conn Smythe Trophy

text: The first winner of the trophy was center Jean Beliveau of the Montreal Canadiens in 1965. The first player and only defenseman to win it twice was Bobby Orr, who scored the Cup-clinching goals for the Boston Bruins in 1970 and 1972. Goaltender Bernie Parent (for the Philadelphia Flyers) and centers Wayne Gretzky (for the Edmonton Oilers), Mario Lemieux, and Sidney Crosby (for the Pittsburgh Penguins) have also won it twice each, with Parent, Lemieux, and Crosby each winning theirs back to back (1974/1975, 1991/1992, and 2016/2017 respectively). Goaltender Patrick Roy is the only player to win the trophy three times, and also the only player to win it as a member of two different teams (with the Canadiens in 1986 and 1993, and with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001); his wins also fall into three different decades. Ken Dryden, the 1971 Smythe winner, is the only NHL player to win this trophy before winning the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year (in 1972): Montreal called him up to play only six regular season games, which is not enough to qualify as a rookie season. Dave Keon is the only Maple Leafs player to win the trophy donated by his club's parent company, while his eight playoff points in 1967 is the fewest ever by a non-goalie Conn Smythe winner as he was a defensive forward.


title: Conn Smythe Trophy

text: Though the trophy rewards a player who performed particularly well over the entirety of the playoffs, it has never been given to a player whose team did not at least reach the Stanley Cup Finals. The trophy has been awarded to members of the team that lost the Finals five times, most recently Jean-Sebastien Giguere of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003, who backstopped his team's surprise run to the Finals, where they pushed the New Jersey Devils to seven games. The only skater to win the award in a losing effort is Philadelphia's Reggie Leach, who won it in 1976 as he had set a league record for most goals in the playoffs (19), which included a five-goal game in the semifinals and four goals in the Finals, even though the Canadiens swept his Flyers.


title: Conn Smythe Trophy

text: Only ten players born outside of Canada have won the Conn Smythe Trophy. The non-Canadian winners are Americans Brian Leetch, who won it in 1994, Tim Thomas in 2011, Jonathan Quick in 2012, and Patrick Kane in 2013; Russians Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Ovechkin and Andrei Vasilevskiy who won it in 2009, 2018 and 2021, respectively; and Swedes Nicklas Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg and Victor Hedman, who won it in 2002, 2008 and 2020, respectively.


title: Conn Smythe Trophy

text: Only three players have won the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Hart Memorial Trophy for Most Valuable Player during the regular season in the same year: Orr in 1970 and 1972, Guy Lafleur in 1977 and Wayne Gretzky in 1985. These three players also won the Art Ross Trophy as regular season leading scorer, while Orr also won the James Norris Memorial Trophy as top defenceman to give him a record four individual original NHL awards in 1970.


title: Conn Smythe Trophy

text: As of 2019, the Conn Smythe Trophy has been awarded to centers 19 times, to goaltenders 17 times, to defencemen ten times, and to right wingers seven times, while the only left wingers to have won the award are Bob Gainey of Montreal in 1979 and Alexander Ovechkin of Washington in 2018. The Montreal Canadiens have received the most Conn Smythe Trophies with nine. The Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins have each received five, and the Edmonton Oilers, Philadelphia Flyers, and New York Islanders have each received four.


title: Cost of living

text: Cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. Changes in the cost of living over time can be operationalized in a cost-of-living index. Cost of living calculations are also used to compare the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living in different geographic areas. Differences in cost of living between locations can be measured in terms of purchasing power parity rates.


title: Cost of living

text: Cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. Changes in the cost of living over time can be operationalized in a cost-of-living index. Cost of living calculations can be used to compare the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living in different geographic areas. Differences in cost of living between locations can be measured in terms of purchasing power parity rates.


title: Cost of living

text: Employment contracts and pension benefits can be tied to a cost-of-living index, typically to the consumer price index (CPI). A COLA adjusts salaries based on changes in a cost-of-living index. Salaries are typically adjusted annually. They may also be tied to a cost-of-living index that varies by geographic location if the employee moves. In this later case, the expatriate employee will likely see only the discretionary income part of their salary indexed by a differential CPI between the new and old employment locations, leaving the non-discretionary part of the salary (e.g., mortgage payments, insurance, car payments) unmodified.


title: Cost of living

text: Annual escalation clauses in employment contracts can specify retroactive or future percentage increases in worker pay which are not tied to any index. These negotiated increases in pay are colloquially referred to as cost-of-living adjustments or cost-of-living increases because of their similarity to increases tied to externally determined indexes. Cost-of-living allowance is equal to the nominal interest minus the real interest rate.


title: Cost of living

text: When cost-of-living adjustments, negotiated wage settlements and budgetary increases exceed "CPI", media reports frequently compare the two without consideration of the pertinent tax code. However, CPI is based on the retail pricing of a basket of goods and services. Most purchases of that same basket require the use of after-tax dollars—dollars that were often subject to the highest "marginal tax rate". Consequently, the COLA will necessarily have to exceed the CPI inflation rate to maintain purchasing power.


title: Cost of living

text: The widely recognized problem known as bracket creep can also occur in countries where the marginal tax brackets themselves are not indexed — COLA increases simply place more dollars into higher tax rate brackets. Only under a flat tax system would a percentage gain on gross income translate into a comparable inflation-offsetting gain at the after-tax level.


title: Cost of living

text: Social security benefits in the United States receive cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) to match increases in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). The COLAs are made at most annually and are calculated based on the value of the CPI-W in the third quarter of the year (averaging the values from July, August, and September). COLAs can only increase benefits, so in deflationary years when the CPI-W drops there is no COLA.


title: Cost of living

text: The Economist Intelligence Unit produces a semi-annual (twice yearly) worldwide cost of living survey that compares more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services. They include food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs.


title: Cost of living

text: The survey itself is an internet tool designed to calculate cost-of-living allowances and build compensation packages for corporate executives maintaining a western lifestyle. The survey incorporates easy-to-understand comparative cost of living indices between cities. The survey allows city-to-city comparisons, but for the purpose of this report all cities are compared to a base city of New York City, which has an index set at 100. The survey has been carried out for more than 30 years.


title: Cost of living

text: The most recent survey was published in March 2017. Singapore remains the most expensive city in the world for the fourth year running, in a rare occurrence where the entire top five most expensive cities were unchanged from the year prior. Sydney and Melbourne have both cemented their positions as top-ten staples, with Sydney becoming the fifth most expensive, and Melbourne becoming the sixth. Asia is home to more than five most expensive cities in the top twenty but also home to eight cheapest cities of the cheapest ten.


title: Cost of living

text: Stipends or extra pay provided to employees who are being temporarily relocated may also be called cost-of-living adjustments or cost-of-living allowances. Such adjustments are intended to offset changes in welfare due to geographic differences in the cost of living. Such adjustments might more accurately be described as a per diem allowance or tied to a specific item, as with housing allowances. Employees who are being permanently relocated are less likely to receive such allowances, but may receive a base salary adjustment to reflect local market conditions.


title: Cost of living

text: A non-taxable cost-of-living allowance is frequently given to members of the U.S. military stationed at overseas bases if the area to which a service member is assigned has a higher cost of living than the average area in the United States. For example, service members stationed in Japan receive a cost of living allowance of between $300 and $700 per month (depending on pay grade, years of service, and number of dependents), in addition to their base pay.


title: Systema

text: Systema () is a Russian martial art. There are multiple schools of systems that began appearing after the end of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, with teachers claiming their respective "systems" (usually named after themselves).


title: Systema

text: The issue has gathered interest as its coverage has increased. Examples include CTV Travel's show "Go Warrior" in 2008 and "Black Belt" magazine in 2011. Starting in 2013, the FX cable series "The Americans", a series about two Russians undercover agents as an American husband and wife couple during the Cold War in the 1980s, use the techniques of systema in the fight choreography for the show. For the 2018 BBC crime drama "McMafia", actor James Norton learned aspects of systema with David Kirillov, who runs the London School of Systema, in preparation for his leading role as a London banker drawn into the violent world of the Russian mafia. Systema has also been used by Lamarr Houston of the Chicago Bears in his training. In Japanese fighting games like "Street Fighter V" by Capcom, character Kolin has a systema fighting style, as well as Koei Tecmo's "Dead or Alive 6" with Marie Rose. Systema was used as the basis for the fighting style of the Black Widow trained assassins in the 2021 Marvel Cinematic Universe film "Black Widow" starring Scarlett Johansson.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The 2000 season was the Baltimore Ravens' fifth in the National Football League (NFL) and the second under head coach Brian Billick. The Ravens ended the season as Super Bowl XXXV Champions.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens concluded their season with a 12–4 record, finishing 2nd in the AFC Central and qualifying for the playoffs as a wild card team. In the franchise's first post-season appearance, the Ravens won all three games, culminating in a trip to Tampa, Florida for Super Bowl XXXV, where they defeated the New York Giants, 34–7. The team's defense, which set a league record for fewest points allowed in a 16-game regular season with 10.3 points per game, is considered among the greatest of all time, including 4 games where they kept their opponents from scoring.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: Though just five seasons removed from the team's relocation from Cleveland, only three players (Matt Stover, Rob Burnett, Larry Webster) and no coaches remained from the 1995 Cleveland Browns roster and staff.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens ranked #22 on the 100 greatest teams of all time presented by the NFL on its 100th anniversary. They were the highest ranked team which did not win its division, and also the highest that had to win 4 playoff games.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens spent most of the offseason concerned with the status of their star linebacker Ray Lewis, who, along with two acquaintances, was arrested and charged with murder after an incident outside an Atlanta nightclub on January 31, 2000. On June 5, a plea bargain was struck, and murder and aggravated assault charges were dropped in exchange for Lewis' testimony against his companions. Lewis pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice and was sentenced to one year of probation. The NFL fined Lewis $250,000.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens made some key moves in the offseason to help bolster the team. They signed defensive tackle Sam Adams and tight end Shannon Sharpe in free agency. They used the fifth overall pick in the first round of the 2000 NFL Draft on running back Jamal Lewis.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens started the season with a 5–1 mark, with three of their victories coming by shutout. Despite the great play of the defense, the offense hit a major swoon after the first month of the season. Following a 37–0 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, the Ravens would not score a touchdown for five consecutive games. The Ravens won the first two of these games due to their defense and field goals from kicker Matt Stover, then lost the next three, including a critical division loss at home to the Tennessee Titans. During this game, quarterback Tony Banks was benched in favor of Trent Dilfer, who would take over for the rest of the season. After a loss at home to Pittsburgh to fall to 5–4, the Ravens broke both their touchdown-less streak and losing streak against the Bengals the next week. It would be the first of seven straight wins to end the regular season.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens finished one game behind the Titans in the AFC Central, so the Ravens had to begin their playoff run at home in the wild card round against the Denver Broncos. The team cruised to a 21–3 victory, setting up a date with the Titans the following week in Nashville. The Ravens prevailed 24–10, with linebacker Ray Lewis's 50-yard interception return for a touchdown clinching the game. The team then traveled to Oakland to meet the Raiders for the right to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. The Ravens advanced to their first Super Bowl after a 16–3 victory, as the defense held Oakland, the league's top rushing offense during the season, to just 24 yards on the ground. The Ravens easily defeated the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV, 34–7, as Ray Lewis led another dominant performance by the defense and was named most valuable player of the game for his efforts.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens relied heavily on their defense, which set several NFL records during the 2000 season, including fewest points ever allowed during a 16-game season (165) and fewest rushing yards ever allowed (970). The defense also forced more turnovers than any team in the league that year (49), and Ray Lewis was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year by the Associated Press. Starting cornerbacks Chris McAlister and Duane Starks combined to intercept ten passes, and defensive end Rob Burnett contributed with 10.5 sacks. Defensive tackle Sam Adams was voted to the Pro Bowl and first-team All-Pro, as was safety Rod Woodson, who had four interceptions and ranked second on the team in tackles during the regular season. The defense also had plenty of other key players, including linebacker Jamie Sharper, outside linebacker Peter Boulware, and defensive tackle Tony Siragusa. Siragusa played alongside Sam Adams, as the two men combining for nearly 700 pounds and were big factors in the Ravens setting the run-stopping record.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: Offensively, the Ravens relied heavily on the running game. Rookie running back Jamal Lewis led the way with 1,364 yards and veteran Priest Holmes added 588 rushing yards. The passing game was rather pedestrian (23rd in yards passing), but Trent Dilfer brought stability to the position when he took over for Tony Banks mid-season. Tight end Shannon Sharpe, acquired as an unrestricted free agent from Denver during the offseason, was the team's leading pass receiver with 67 catches for 810 yards. Left tackle Jonathan Ogden was selected first-team All-Pro, and widely regarded as the league's best Offensive Lineman. The Ravens also had one of the best special teams units in the NFL. Return specialist Jermaine Lewis scored two touchdowns on punt returns during the season, and ran back a kickoff for a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Placekicker Matt Stover made 35 field goals on 39 attempts and was voted to the Pro Bowl and first team All-Pro.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The 2000 Ravens team marked Baltimore's first playoff appearance in 23 years, since the Baltimore Colts were AFC East champions and made it to the AFC Divisional game in 1977.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: In the opening game for Baltimore's regular season, they squared off against division rivals Pittsburgh Steelers at their turf. In a game where the Ravens had 336 yards of total offense, they first scored points with a field goal kick from Matt Stover. Later in the first quarter, Qadry Ismail would catch a pass from Tony Banks for seven more points. After another field goal kick, the Steelers were being shut out by the end of halftime, 13–0. The final score in the game resulted from another field goal from Stover, and the final score resulted with the Ravens winning 16–0. With this win, the Ravens began their season at 1–0.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: At the Ravens first home game, Baltimore trailed the Jacksonville Jaguars for the majority of the game, where the home team gained another 300+ yards of total offense. The first quarter was dominated by Jacksonville, where the time period ended with two touchdown passes from Mark Brunell to Jimmy Smith and a field goal from Mike Hollis (17–0). Baltimore put up their first points in the second quarter with a touchdown pass from Tony Banks to Travis Taylor. However, the first half ended with two more field goals from the Jaguars. The third quarter began with the Ravens trailing 23–7. Two further touchdowns by the Ravens (one which was for two extra points) and a field goal from Jaguars put the home team with less than a touchdown differential. In the continuing scoring shootout, the Ravens scored first in the fourth quarter with a touchdown to lead for the first time during the entire game, 29–26. By the later portion of the quarter, the Jaguars had surpassed Baltimore once more at 36–32. In the last scoring drive of the game, Shannon Sharpe completed a 29-yard pass from Banks to defeat Jacksonville, 39–36. With this win, Baltimore's record elevated to 2–0.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: In week 3, the Ravens and the Miami Dolphins gained little offense in a defensive struggle for both teams. The first half was highlighted by Dolphins placekicker Olindo Mare's two field goals. The Ravens attacked back during the second half, with two field goals of their own by Matt Stover; however, with a touchdown pass from Jay Fiedler to Lamar Smith and a rushing touchdown from the latter, the Dolphins overcame Baltimore 19–6. In a game where the Ravens got just above 250 yards of total offense, Baltimore ultimately fell to a 2–1 record.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: In an attempt to redeem their road loss to the Dolphins, the Ravens faced division rivals Cincinnati Bengals. In a complete shut out, the Ravens gained a near 400 yards (391 yards exact) in a game where the defense shut down the Bengals for only 94 yards of offense. During the first half, the Ravens scored three touchdowns (two passes from Tony Banks to Travis Taylor and Shannon Sharpe, and a rush by Jamal Lewis) and a field goal by Matt Stover. The second half ended with two more field goals and a rushing touchdown from Obafemi Ayanbadejo to finish with a score of 37–0. With this win, Baltimore's record elevated to 3–1.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens began a five-game touchdown drought with their matchup against Cleveland. In a game dominated by both defenses, the Ravens allowed just under 250 offensive yards. The first half ended with three field goals from kicker Matt Stover, with the longest being from 45 yards in order to advance the Ravens to the locker room at 9–0. The final scoring in the game came during the third quarter when Stover kicked another field goal from 22 yards. In a shutout for the Browns, the Ravens improved their record to 4–1.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: Baltimore would travel back to Jacksonville in a Week 2 rematch against the Jaguars at their turf in Jacksonville. The Ravens went with their second consecutive game without a touchdown with their kicker Matt Stover delivering all their points. In the first quarter, Jaguars kicker Steve Lindsey delivered a 49-yard field goal but was answered with a Stover 47-yard field goal to tie up the game. The second quarter ended with another Stover kick that would take the game to halftime with the Ravens winning 6–3. Stover would kick three more consecutive field goals to increase the score to 15–3, but the Jaguars retaliated with the final score of the game: a 1-yard rushing touchdown from Fred Taylor. However, the game was ultimately decided at 15–10 and the Ravens record elevated to 5–1.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens traveled to their Capital Beltway neighbors, the Washington Redskins, for their third straight road game. In a defensive struggle, both teams allowed under 250 yards of total offense. Halftime ended with both teams tied at 3–3 as a result of two field goals: one from the Redskins (37 yards by Kris Heppner) and the Ravens (Matt Stover from 51 yards). That field goal from Stover would be the only score that the Ravens put up in this game, where in the fourth quarter, Stephen Davis ran for a 33-yard touchdown that put Washington 10–3 over the Ravens. With this final score, the Ravens suffered their second loss and fell to 5–2.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: In Week 8, the Ravens flew back home to face off against division rivals Tennessee Titans. The Ravens continued their touchdown-less streak, where Matt Stover produced the only score for Baltimore with two field goals (from the 21- and 38-yard lines). In the second quarter, Titans quarterback Steve McNair threw a 9-yard pass to Rodney Thomas to go ahead of the home team. Just under one point, the Ravens sought to get ahead of Tennessee, however, Tony Banks produced a game high of three interceptions, with the last one sealing the game for the Titans as they won 14–6. With this loss, the Ravens fell to 5–3.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: In a rematch from week 1, Baltimore continued their streak without a touchdown. However, second-string quarterback Trent Dilfer started in replacement of Tony Banks, who in the past four games had not thrown one touchdown but rather more interceptions. In this game, unlike Banks, Dilfer threw no interceptions but was unable to connect with any receiver into the endzone. The Ravens had the advantage heading into halftime with two field goals from Matt Stover that were over 40 yards. In the third quarter, the Steelers retaliated with six points of their own as a result of a touchdown and a missed extra point from Kris Brown.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: In a rematch of Week 4, the Ravens traveled to Ohio against AFC Central adversaries, Bengals. Matt Stover put the Ravens on the board with three points after a 38-yard field goal in the first quarter. Baltimore entered their season best second quarter in this game with three touchdown passes from new starting quarterback Trent Dilfer that had the Ravens up by 24 unanswered points. Cincinnati answered with a touchdown, and their only score, during the third quarter with Peter Warrick's 4-yard rush. The game came to a close following a field goal from Stover that had the Ravens defeat the Bengals 27–7. The Ravens improved their record to 6–4 and began a seven-game winning streak.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: Just after battling against Tennessee three weeks earlier, Baltimore traveled to Nashville to face off against the Titans. The Ravens scored first on a 46-yard reception by Qadry Ismail from Trent Dilfer in the first quarter. Jamal Lewis would then double the points with a 2-yard rush that put up the Ravens 14–0 during the second quarter. The Titans answered with two touchdown passes from Steve McNair to Derrick Mason and Lorenzo Neal, respectively. After a field goal from Matt Stover, halftime stood at 17–14, favoring the Ravens. In a defensive struggle in the third quarter, no team was able to score. However, the game became tied at 17–17 with a 23-yard field goal from Al Del Greco upon the final quarter. Tennessee sought to end the game after Perry Phenix intercepted a pass from Dilfer and returned it 87 yards for a touchdown; however, Del Greco failed to convert the extra point. This allowed the Ravens to end the game with a touchdown pass to Patrick Johnson from Dilfer and a successful extra point conversion. The Titans did drive into field goal range in the final seconds, but Del Greco missed a 43 yard field goal as time expired. With this win, the Ravens raised their record to 7–4 and became the first team to defeat the Titans in Adelphia Coliseum.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens defense put up another dominant performance in a 27–0 shutout of the Dallas Cowboys. Troy Aikman threw three interceptions and the Cowboys were held to 192 total yards and went 1/10 on third down. On the other hand, the Ravens offense racked up 479 total yards, which would be the most yards they would have that season. Jamal Lewis rushed for 187 yards and Priest Holmes put the game well out of reach with a late fourth quarter touchdown. With their third-straight win, the Ravens improved to 8–4, matching their win total from the previous season.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens and Giants set a Super Bowl record by scoring three touchdowns in three consecutive plays, tallying just 36 seconds in the third quarter. The Ravens defense completely shut down the Giants offense, not yielding a single point. The only points the Giants would score on would be a kickoff return for a touchdown. The Ravens held the Giants to 152 total yards of offense and forced five turnovers along with four sacks. The Ravens defense surrendered just one offensive touchdown in four playoff games and only allowed 16 points (4.0 points per game).


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: The Ravens defense in 2000 is often named among the greatest NFL defenses of all time. Baltimore gave up only 970 rushing yards (60.6 per game) all year, an NFL record for a 16-game season, and 186 fewer yards than the next lowest team, Baltimore's Super Bowl XXXV opponent, the New York Giants. Baltimore gave up only five rushing touchdowns all season, and allowed a paltry 2.7 yards per rush, both league bests. Baltimore only allowed 165 points all season, also an NFL record for a 16-game season. Including the postseason, Baltimore's defense allowed only 188 points in 20 games to opposing offenses that year (9.4 points per game). The Ravens allowed three other touchdowns that came from their opponents' defense and special teams (two interception returns and one kickoff return). Furthermore, the Ravens recovered an astronomical 26 opponent's fumbles during the season, double the total of the second-ranked team. Their defense also intercepted 23 passes to give them a total of 49 turnovers forced that season, most in the NFL. They did all of this despite their own offense's passing struggles and going five consecutive games without scoring a touchdown.


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: Statistical site Football Outsiders noted, "One more interesting note on the Baltimore defense: it was the only dominant defense of the past few years to be based on stopping the run instead of controlling the pass. For all the clichés about the need to stop the run, in general the best defenses are ranked the highest because they have the best ratings against the pass, not against the run – just like the best offenses are ranked the highest because they are the best through the air, not on the ground. The 2000 Ravens only rank seventh in defense against the pass, but their rushing defense ... is far and away the best of the past six seasons."


title: 2000 Baltimore Ravens season

text: Middle linebacker Ray Lewis was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year by the Associated Press. Five players represented the Ravens in the Pro Bowl: Lewis joined defensive tackle Sam Adams, safety Rod Woodson, offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden, and kicker Matt Stover. Matt Stover joined Lewis and Ogden on the associated press' All-Pro first team. Defensive end Rob Burnett joined Adams and Woodson on the AP All-Pro second team.


title: Greater London Authority

text: The Greater London Authority (GLA), colloquially known by the metonym "City Hall", is the devolved regional governance body of Greater London. It consists of two political branches: the executive Mayoralty (currently led by Sadiq Khan) and the 25-member London Assembly, which serves as a means of checks and balances on the former. Since May 2016, both branches have been under the control of the London Labour Party. The authority was established in 2000, following a local referendum, and derives most of its powers from the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and the Greater London Authority Act 2007.


title: Greater London Authority

text: It is a strategic regional authority, with powers over transport, policing, economic development, and fire and emergency planning. Three functional bodies—Transport for London, the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime, and the London Fire Commissioner—are responsible for delivery of services in these areas. The planning policies of the Mayor of London are detailed in a statutory London Plan that is regularly updated and published.


title: Greater London Authority

text: The Greater London Authority is mostly funded by direct government grant and it is also a precepting authority, with some money collected with local Council Tax. The GLA is unique in the British devolved and local government system, in terms of structure (it uses a presidential system-esque model), elections and selection of powers. The authority was established to replace a range of joint boards and quangos and provided an elected upper tier of local government in Greater London for the first time since the abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986.


title: Greater London Authority

text: The GLA is responsible for the strategic administration of the 1579 km (610 sq. miles) of Greater London. It shares local government powers with the councils of 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. It was created to improve the co-ordination between the local authorities in Greater London, and the Mayor of London's role is to give London a single person to represent it. The Mayor proposes policy and the GLA's budget, and makes appointments to the capital's strategic executive such as Transport for London. The primary purpose of the London Assembly is to hold the Mayor of London to account by scrutiny of his or her actions and decisions. The assembly must also accept or amend the mayor's budget on an annual basis. The GLA is based at City Hall in the London Borough of Newham, situated next to the redeveloped Royal Victoria Dock in Canning Town. The GLA moved to this building from the previous City Hall, in Southwark, in January 2022.


title: Greater London Authority

text: The GLA is different from the corporation of the City of London with its largely ceremonial lord mayors, which controls only the square mile of the city, London's chief financial centre.


title: Greater London Authority

text: In 1986, the Greater London Council was abolished by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. Many people have surmised that the decision to abolish the GLC was made because of the existence of a high-spending left-wing Labour administration under Ken Livingstone, although pressure for the abolition of the GLC had arisen before Livingstone took over, and was largely driven by the belief among the outer London borough councils that they could perform the functions of the GLC just as well.


title: Greater London Authority

text: On abolition, the strategic functions of the GLC were transferred to bodies controlled by central government or joint boards nominated by the London borough councils. Some of the service delivery functions were transferred down to the councils themselves. For the next 14 years there was no single elected body for the whole of London. The Labour Party never supported the abolition of the GLC and made it a policy to re-establish some form of citywide elected authority.


title: Greater London Authority

text: The Labour party adopted a policy of a single, directly elected mayor (a policy first suggested by Tony Banks in 1990), together with an elected assembly watching over the mayor; this model, based on the mayor–council government of many American cities, was partly aimed at making sure the new body resembled the erstwhile GLC as little as possible. After the Labour party won the 1997 general election, the policy was outlined in a white paper entitled "A Mayor and Assembly for London" (March 1998).


title: Greater London Authority

text: Simultaneously with the elections to the London Borough councils, a referendum was held on the establishment of the GLA in May 1998, which was approved with 72% of the vote. The Greater London Authority Act 1999 passed through Parliament, receiving royal assent in October 1999. In a controversial election campaign, the then prime minister, Tony Blair, attempted to block Livingstone's nomination and imposed his own candidate. In reaction, Livingstone stood as an independent candidate, resulting in his expulsion from the Labour Party and in March 2000, was elected as Mayor of London. Following an interim period in which the mayor and assembly had been elected but had no powers, the GLA was formally established on 3 July 2000.


title: Greater London Authority

text: For the first two years of its existence, the Greater London Authority was based at Romney House, 47 Marsham Street in Westminster. Meetings of the London Assembly took place at Emmanuel Centre, also on Marsham Street.


title: Greater London Authority

text: Between July 2002 and December 2021, the Greater London Authority was based at a building known as City Hall in Southwark, on the banks of the River Thames, close to Tower Bridge. City Hall was designed by Norman Foster and constructed at a cost of £43 million on a site formerly occupied by wharves serving the Pool of London. This building did not belong to the GLA but was leased under a 25-year rental agreement from the Kuwait Investment Authority.


title: Greater London Authority

text: In November 2020, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced plans to vacate City Hall at the end of 2021 and relocate to The Crystal in the Canning Town area of East London. The Crystal building is owned by the Greater London Authority and is currently under-occupied. City Hall was not owned by the authority itself and the proposed move would save the Greater London Authority £12.6 million a year in rental costs. The decision was confirmed on 3 November 2020. Newham Borough Council gave permission for a change of use for the building in December 2020. The authority vacated City Hall on 2 December 2021 and the move is due to completed in the first week of January 2022. The Crystal was renamed "City Hall" in December 2021.


title: Greater London Authority

text: In addition to City Hall, staff of the Greater London Authority are also based at Palestra House on Blackfriars Road and at the London Fire Brigade headquarters on Union Street, both in Southwark.


title: Greater London Authority

text: The predecessors of the Greater London Authority, the Greater London Council and the London County Council, had their headquarters at County Hall, upstream on the South Bank. Although County Hall's old council chamber is still intact, the building is unavailable for use by the GLA because of its conversion into, among other things, a luxury hotel, amusement arcade and aquarium.


title: Greater London Authority

text: Areas which the GLA has responsibility for include transport, policing, fire and rescue, development and strategic planning. The GLA does not directly provide any services itself. Instead, its work is carried out by functional bodies which come under the GLA umbrella and work under the policy direction of the mayor and assembly. These functional bodies (defined in section 424 (1) of the Greater London Authority Act 1999)are:


title: Greater London Authority

text: In November 2005, the government published a consultation document reviewing the powers of the GLA, making proposals for additional powers, including waste management, planning, housing, and learning and skills. The result of the consultation and final proposals were published by the Department for Communities and Local Government on 13 July 2006.


title: Greater London Authority

text: The GLA is responsible for co-ordinating land use planning in Greater London. The mayor produces a strategic plan, the "London Plan". The individual London Borough councils are legally bound to comply with the plan. The mayor has the power to over-ride planning decisions made by the London Boroughs if they are believed to be against the interests of London as a whole.


title: Greater London Authority

text: As of 2006, London generates 42 million tonnes of carbon emissions per year, 7% of the UK's total. 44% of this comes from housing, 28% from commercial premises, 21% from transport, and 7% from industry.


title: Greater London Authority

text: The Mayor's energy strategy planned to cut carbon emission levels by 20% by 2010 and 60% by 2050 (although achieving the first of these targets is unlikely). Measures taken to achieve this have included the creation of the London Climate Change Agency, the London Energy Partnership and the founding of the international Large Cities Climate Leadership Group.


title: Greater London Authority

text: The London Sustainable Development Commission has calculated that for housing to meet the 60% target, all new developments would have to be constructed to be carbon-neutral with immediate effect (using zero energy building techniques), in addition to cutting energy used in existing housing by 40%.


title: Greater London Authority

text: After the 2021 elections, Labour has the largest representation on the GLA with the mayor as well as eleven assembly members, followed by nine from the Conservatives, three Greens, and two from the Liberal Democrats.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Chernivtsi Oblast (), also referred to as Chernivechchyna () is an oblast (province) in Western Ukraine, consisting of the northern parts of the regions of Bukovina and Bessarabia. It has an international border with Romania and Moldova. The oblast is the smallest in Ukraine by area and second smallest by population. Chernivtsi was part of Romania. In 1408, when it was a town in Moldavia and the chief centre of the area known as Bukovina. Chernivtsi later passed to the Turks and then in 1774 to Austria. After World War I it was ceded to Romania, and in 1940 the town was acquired by the Ukrainian SSR.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: The oblast has a large variety of landforms: the Carpathian Mountains and picturesque hills at the foot of the mountains gradually change to a broad partly forested plain situated between the Dniester and Prut rivers. It has a population of 896,566 as of 2020, and its capital is the city Chernivtsi. The region spans 8,100 km.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Chernivtsi Oblast covers an area of . It is the smallest oblast in Ukraine, representing 1.3% of Ukrainian territory.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: In the oblast there are 75 rivers longer than 10 kilometers. The largest rivers are the Dniester (290 km, in the Oblast), Prut (128 km, in the Oblast) and Siret (113 km, in the Oblast).


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: The oblast covers three geographic zones: a forest steppe region between Prut and Dnister rivers, a foothill region between the Carpathian Mountains and Prut river, and a mountain region known as the Bukovinian part of the Carpathian Mountains.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Chernivtsi Oblast is bordered by Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ternopil Oblast, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Vinnytsia Oblast, Romania, and Moldova. Within the oblast the national border of Ukraine with Romania extends 226 km, and with Moldova .


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Chernivtsi oblast was created on August 7, 1940, in the wake of the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. The oblast was organized out of the northeast part of Ținutul Suceava of Kingdom of Romania, joining parts of three historical regions: northern half of Bukovina, northern half of the Hotin County county of Bessarabia, and Hertsa region, which was part of the Dorohoi county (presently Botoșani County) of proper Moldavia.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Archaeological sites in the region date back to 43,000-45,000 BC, with finds including a mammoth bone dwelling from the Middle Paleolithic. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture flourished in the area. In the Middle Ages, the region was inhabited by East Slavic tribes White Croats and Tivertsi. From the end of the 10th century, it became a part of the Kievan Rus', then Principality of Halych, and in the mid-14th century of the Principality of Moldavia (which in the 16th century became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire). In 1775, two counties of Moldavia, since then known as Bukovina, were annexed by the Habsburg monarchy as part of the Austrian Empire and its final iteration Austria-Hungary. In 1812, one half of Moldavia, since then known as Bessarabia, was annexed by the Russian Empire. Hertsa region remained in Moldavia until its union with Wallachia in 1859, a union which in 1881 became the Kingdom of Romania. In 1918 both provinces of Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: The Soviet occupation began on June 28, 1940. In addition to Bessarabia, the USSR demanded Northern Bukovina as compensation for the occupation of Bessarabia by Romania from 1918 to 1940. Hertsa region was not included in the demands that the Soviet Union addressed to Romania, but was occupied at the same time. Most of the occupied territories were organized on August 2, 1940, as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, while the remainder, including the Chenivtsi Oblast, which was formed on August 7, 1940, were included in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Throughout 1940-1941 several tens of thousands of Bukovinians were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan, some 13,000 of them on June 13, 1941, alone. This and later deportations were primarily based on social class difference, it targeted intellectuals, people employed previously by the state, businessmen, clergymen, students, railworkers. The majority of those targeted were ethnic Romanians, but there were many representatives of other ethnicities, as well. The protests of the Romanian population of Bukovina that found themselves under the Soviet rule brought about serious Soviet reprisals, including of ethnic character. In the winter and spring of 1941, the Soviet troops (NKVD) opened fire on many groups of locals trying to cross the border into Romania (for more, see: Lunca massacre and Fântâna Albă massacre).


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Between September 17 and November 17, 1940, by a mutual agreement between USSR and Germany, 43,641 "ethnic Germans" from the Chernivtsi region were moved to Germany, although the total ethnic German population was only 34,500, and of these some 3,500 did not go to Germany. Upon their arrival in Germany, the Nazi government sent most of non-ethnic Germans to concentration camps. Only some of them were freed after the protests of the Romanian government.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: During World War II, when the region returned under the control of the Romanian administration, the Jewish community of the area was largely destroyed by the deportations to ghettos and Nazi concentration camps, where about 60% died. Despite the anti-Semitic policies of the Ion Antonescu's government of Romania, the mayor of Cernăuți, Traian Popovici, now honored by Israel's Yad Vashem memorial as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, saved approximately 20,000 Jews.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: In 1944, when the Soviet troops returned to Bukovina, many inhabitants fled to Romania, and Soviet persecutions resumed, with the result that the region was seriously depopulated. In demographic terms, these war-time and post-war-time factors changed the region's ethnic composition. Today the number of Jews, Germans and Poles is negligible, while the number of Romanians has decreased substantially.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Ruthenian communities in Bukovina date back to at least 16th century. In 1775, Ukrainians (Ruthenians) represented some 8,000 out of a 75,000 population of Bukovina. By 1918, as a result of immigration of Ukrainian peasants from nearby villages in Galicia and Podolia, there were over 200,000 Ukrainians, out of a total of 730,000. Most of Ukrainians settled in the northern parts of Bukovina. Their number was especially large in the area between the Dniester and Prut rivers, where they became a majority. A similar process occurred in Northern Bessarabia. Throughout the history of the region, there were no inter-ethnic clashes, while the city of Chernivtsi was known for its German-style architecture, for a highly cultivated society, and for ethnic tolerance. Small ethnic disputes were, however, present on occasion. In 1918, many Ukrainians in Bukovina wanted to join an independent Ukrainian state. After an initial period of free education in Ukrainian language, in late 1920s Romanian authorities attempted to switch all education to the Romanian language. In 1940–1941, the Soviet reprisals were more massive in the parts of the Chernivtsi oblast were Romanians predominated; when, however, after 1944, Ukrainian anti-Soviet resistance rose up, Romanians and Ukrainians fought alongside against NKVD.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Many Ukrainians in the south-western mountain area of the Chernivtsi region belong to the Hutsul ethnic sub-group, a sophisticated cultural community inhabiting an area in the Carpathian Mountains in both Ukraine and Romania.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: When the Soviet Union collapsed, Chernivtsi Oblast, then part of the Ukrainian SSR, became part of the newly independent (August 24, 1991) Ukraine. It has a Ukrainian ethnic majority. In the referendum on December 1, 1991, 92% of Chernivtsi Oblast residents supported the independence of Ukraine, a wide support from both Ukrainians and Romanians.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Since July 2020, Chernivtsi Oblast is administratively subdivided into 3 "raions" (districts). These are


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: At the locality level, the territory of the oblast is divided among 11 cities, 8 urban-type settlements, and 252 communes.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: According to the latest Ukrainian Census (2001), Ukrainians represent about 75% (689.1 thousands) of the population of Chernivtsi Oblast. 12.5% (114.6 thousands) reported themselves as Romanians, 7.3% (67.2 thousand) as Moldovans, and 4.1% (37.9 thousands) as Russians. The other nationalities, such as Poles, Belarusians, and Jews sum up to 1.2%.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: The separate categories for the Moldovans and Romanians as two ethnicities has been criticized by Romanian organizations in Ukraine. However, all census respondents had to write in their ethnicity (no predetermined set of choices existed), and could respond or not to any particular census question, or not answer any questions at all. Also, no allegation of counting fraud were brought up. However, Interregional Union, one of Romanian communities in Ukraine criticized what they see as the continuous usage of Romanians and Moldovans as two separate ethnic groups.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: According to the Romanian census of 1930, the territory of the future "Chernivtsi Oblast" had 805,642 inhabitants in that year, out of which 47.6% were Ukrainians, and 28.2% were Romanians. The rest of the population was 88,772 Jews, 46,946 Russians (among them an important community of Lipovans), around 35,000 Germans, 10,000 Poles, and 10,000 Hungarians.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: During the inter-war period, Cernăuți County had a population of 306,975, of which 136,380 were Ukrainians, and 78,589 were Romanians. Storojineţ County had 77,382 Ukrainians and 57,595 Romanians. (The three other counties of Bukovina, which remained in Romania, had a total of 22,368 Ukrainians). The northern part of the Hotin County had approximately 70% Ukrainians and 25% Romanians. The Hertsa region, smaller by area and population, was virtually 100% Romanian.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: Major demographic changes occurred during the Second World War. Immediate after the Soviet takeover of the region in 1940 the Soviet government deported or killed about 41,000 Romanians ("see Fântâna Albă massacre"), while at the same time further encouraging an influx of Ukrainians from the Ukrainian SSR. Most Poles were deported by the Soviet authorities, while most Germans forcibly returned to Germany. After the Kingdom of Romania took control of the region during the war (1941–1944), the Jewish community of the area was largely destroyed by the deportations to ghettos and concentration camps.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: The languages of the population closely reflect the ethnic composition with over 90% within each of the major ethnic groups declaring their national language as the mother tongue.


title: Chernivtsi Oblast

text: On the territory of the Chernivtsi region there are 836 archeological monuments (of which 18 have national meanings), 586 historical monuments (2 of them have national significance), 779 monuments of architecture and urban development (112 of them national significance), 42 monuments of monumental art.


title: A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting

text: A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting is a 2020 American dark fantasy comedy film directed by Rachel Talalay and distributed by Netflix. The film was written by Joe Ballarini and is based on his book trilogy of the same name. It stars Tom Felton, Indya Moore, Tamara Smart and Oona Laurence.


title: A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting

text: Kelly Ferguson is a babysitter on a mission to find the child in her care who has been kidnapped by the Boogeyman on Halloween night. She discovers a secret society of children-protecting babysitters exists, as does an entire world of monsters, which she must fight.


title: A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on critic reviews, with an average rating of . On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 31 out of 100 based on 4 critic reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Jack Dee

text: James Andrew Innes Dee (born 24 September 1961), known professionally as Jack Dee, is an English stand-up comedian, actor, presenter and writer known for his sarcasm, irony and deadpan humour. He wrote and starred in the sitcom "Lead Balloon" and hosts the panel show "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue".


title: Jack Dee

text: His UK television appearances include being a team captain on "Shooting Stars" and hosting "Jack Dee: Live at the Apollo", which was nominated for a BAFTA in 2006. He also presented "The Jack Dee Show", "Jack Dee's Saturday Night" and "Jack Dee's Happy Hour". He won "Celebrity Big Brother 1" in 2001.


title: Jack Dee

text: Jack Dee was the youngest of three children born to Rosemary ( Stamper) and Geoffrey Dee, after Joanna Innes Dee and David Simon Innes Dee. He was born in the Municipal Borough of Bromley, Kent (now within the London Borough of Bromley) and grew up in Petts Wood before moving with his family to Winchester when he was young. His father was a printer and his mother was the daughter of two repertory actors, Henry Lionel Pope Stamper (1906–1985) and Edna May Howard Innes (1904–1969).


title: Jack Dee

text: Dee was educated at both independent and state schools. His first school, The Pilgrims' School, a preparatory school in Winchester, was followed by the state Montgomery of Alamein School for his secondary education, and for a period he attended Frensham Heights School. He took his A-levels at Peter Symonds' College, and left with a D and an F grade. Following this, he planned to attend drama college, but his plans were scuppered when his mother persuaded him to get a vocation, and so he entered the catering industry and became a waiter.


title: Jack Dee

text: Dee's first public act was an open-mic gig in 1986 at The Comedy Store, which he went to one evening after work. He was encouraged to write additional material and to tour the circuit.


title: Jack Dee

text: Since the 1990s, he has performed sell-out acts at many high-profile venues (including the London Palladium and the Hammersmith Apollo). After he scooped the British Comedy Award for Best Stage Newcomer in 1991, Dee was offered his own show; "The Jack Dee Show" first went out on Channel 4 in February 1992, bringing him to a wider audience. His combination of stand-up routines on television continued with "Jack Dee's Saturday Night" on ITV, "Jack Dee's Happy Hour" in 1997 and later "Jack Dee Live at the Apollo" in 2004 on BBC One.


title: Jack Dee

text: In 1996, he starred alongside Jeremy Hardy in "Jack and Jeremy's Real Lives", a collection of mockumentaries similar to their previous collaboration, "Jack and Jeremy's Police 4". Each episode would focus on the pair playing bizarre characters from a particular profession. Shot on film and featuring no laugh track, the show failed to catch on. After three episodes, it was moved to air after midnight. The pilot featured Sacha Baron Cohen being electrocuted. Aside from his successful stand-up career, Dee has played starring roles and guest appearances in television series. He played the part of Doug Digby in the "Grimleys" pilot (1997) before the role was recast for the series, and made guest appearances on such programmes as "Silent Witness", "Dalziel and Pascoe" and "Jonathan Creek".


title: Jack Dee

text: In 2001, he won "Celebrity Big Brother" (then linked to fundraising for Comic Relief). During evictions, he dressed up in a tweed jacket and cap and held his packed suitcase, hoping to be voted out. During the eviction of another housemate he briefly absconded to sneak a quick kiss with his wife. He also escaped for several hours at night-time. He has subsequently said that he dislikes the treatment of the housemates by the show and its producers, and has refused all permission for any of the clips to be shown again.


title: Jack Dee

text: In 2004, he played the role of Steven Sharples MP the self-styled 'Deputy Home Secretary' alongside Warren Clarke and Dervla Kirwan in "The Deputy". Dee's performance was praised, though the film itself received a lukewarm response. Later that year he starred in another one-off drama, "Tunnel of Love". He was the celebrity advocate in "Britain's Best Sitcom" for "Fawlty Towers" and presented an hour-long documentary about the series.


title: Jack Dee

text: In 2005, he co-hosted "Comic Aid", a one-off gathering of comedians that aimed to raise money for the Asian Tsunami Appeal. In May of the same year he appeared on the "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" segment of the BBC Two series "Top Gear", achieving a lap time of 1:53.5 (52nd on the Suzuki Liana leader board). His series "Lead Balloon", which he also co-wrote, began on BBC Four on 4 October 2006. Described as "Britain's answer to "Curb Your Enthusiasm"", "Lead Balloon" sees Dee play the semi-biographical role of Rick Spleen. A second series of eight episodes was commissioned and was broadcast on BBC Two in 2007, with a third series debuting on Thursday 13 November 2008. A fourth series finished on the BBC on 5 July 2011. He also starred as Harry in the 2005 film "Short Order".


title: Jack Dee

text: In February 2009, it was announced that Dee would be one of a trio of hosts to replace the late Humphrey Lyttelton for the summer series of "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" (the others being Stephen Fry and Rob Brydon). He subsequently became the permanent host from the 52nd series onwards. He is also a frequent guest on "QI" and "Have I Got News for You", which he has guest-presented ten times, and he hosts segments of the BBC's biennial Comic Relief telethon. He starred in advertisements for John Smith's Bitter in the 1990s, becoming known as "the midget with the widget". He made his stage debut in 1998, playing Yvan in Yasmina Reza's Olivier award-winning "'Art'". He later returned as Serge for a 13-week run at the request of the director.


title: Jack Dee

text: In 2008, Dee took part in the 15th anniversary special of "Shooting Stars" where he replaced Will Self as captain of Team A. The show aired on 30 December 2008 on BBC2. Dee returned as team captain in series 6 of "Shooting Stars" on 26 August 2009, and again for the 7th series. Over Christmas 2009, Dee played the role of John Tweedledum in "The News at Bedtime".


title: Jack Dee

text: In 2010, Dee took part in "Channel 4's Comedy Gala", a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March. In 2013, Dee joined Dara Ó Briain, Chelsee Healey, Greg James, Melanie C and Philips Idowu in "Through Hell and High Water", a Comic Relief challenge which involved British celebrities canoeing the most difficult rapids of the Zambezi River. They raised more than £1 million for the charity.


title: Jack Dee

text: In 2017, Dee co-wrote and starred in "Bad Move", a sitcom about a middle-aged man and his wife (played by Kerry Godliman) who move from the city to a country cottage in search of the rural dream, which becomes more of a nightmare. A second series was broadcast in 2018.


title: Jack Dee

text: Dee met Susan Jane Hetherington in 1986, when he was working as a waiter in Fulham and she was a receptionist at a nearby hotel. They married in Winchester, Hampshire, in 1989. The couple divide their time between a family home in Wandsworth, London and a holiday house near Chichester, West Sussex. Together, they have four children.


title: Jack Dee

text: Dee suffers from depression, and he has claimed that his work is the best therapy for his condition, saying "if you have the impulse to be creative, you ignore it at your peril".


title: Jack Dee

text: In his twenties, Dee worked at the Ritz in Central London and started drinking heavily. He attended church and attempted to become a priest. After he realised that was not for him he gave it up, and never quit drinking, although he would later describe his condition as "alcohol abuse" rather than alcoholism, which was the diagnosis at the time. Since the 1990s, he has advertised John Smith's Bitter, becoming known as "the midget with the widget".


title: Jack Dee

text: Following his appearance on "Celebrity Big Brother", he had a relapse, though did not attend AA meetings because he did not want paparazzi photographing him leaving the meetings.


title: Jack Dee

text: In 2007, the "Daily Express" reported that he was in negotiations with publishers to release his autobiography. He signed with Doubleday in 2008 and the book, "Thanks for Nothing: The Jack Dee Memoirs", was released in October 2009, along with an audiobook of the same title which he narrates. According to Dee, "it's really the story of how I got into comedy... It's kind of an autobiography but isn't, as it stops about 25 years ago. It goes right up to the first time I do stand up."


title: Jack Dee

text: In February 2009, Dee and several other entertainers wrote an open letter to "The Times" supporting Baháʼí leaders, then on trial in Iran.


title: Jack Dee

text: Dee is a director of Open Mike Productions, co-founded with Addison Cresswell, which produces shows for television and radio including "Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow" and "".


title: The Catcher Was a Spy (film)

text: The Catcher Was a Spy is a 2018 American war film directed by Ben Lewin and written by Robert Rodat, based on the book of the same name by Nicholas Dawidoff. It stars Paul Rudd as Moe Berg, a former baseball player who joined the war effort during World War II and participated in espionage for the U.S. Government. Mark Strong, Sienna Miller, Jeff Daniels, Tom Wilkinson, Giancarlo Giannini, Hiroyuki Sanada, Guy Pearce, and Paul Giamatti also star. The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and was released on June 22, 2018, by IFC Films.


title: The Catcher Was a Spy (film)

text: Moe Berg, a 15-year baseball veteran, joins the war effort as a spy to beat Nazi Germany in the race to build the first atomic bomb.


title: The Catcher Was a Spy (film)

text: In 1936, Berg is playing for the Boston Red Sox near the end of a long if undistinguished pro career. On a goodwill baseball exhibition tour of Japan, Berg sneaks onto the roof of a Tokyo hospital to covertly film Tokyo's harbor and Navy shipyards. The Office of Strategic Services Chief to whom he presents the film is impressed by Berg’s enterprise, as well as the extensive language skills that Berg has picked up at Princeton and elsewhere, and Berg is hired. Werner Heisenberg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1932 for pioneering quantum physics, is now in charge of the Nazis’ attempts to create an atom bomb. If he succeeds, the Germans could win the war. Berg is smuggled into Italy and then Switzerland, with the task to discover if Heisenberg is anywhere near that goal. If so, it will fall to Berg to assassinate the brilliant physicist.


title: The Catcher Was a Spy (film)

text: The project was announced on April 26, 2016, with Ben Lewin hired to direct, Robert Rodat tasked with adapting the biography, and Paul Rudd cast as Moe Berg; PalmStar Media would produce.


title: The Catcher Was a Spy (film)

text: In February 2017, Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, Paul Giamatti, Sienna Miller, and Giancarlo Giannini were added to the cast. Filming began on February 13, with filming locations being Prague and Boston. Hiroyuki Sanada was cast in March, with Tom Wilkinson, Connie Nielsen, and Shea Whigham joining in April. Principal photography lasted for 30 days.


title: The Catcher Was a Spy (film)

text: The film was set to have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017, but the film was pulled out after it was realized that post-production was not completed in time. It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. IFC Films acquired the film and set a release date of June 22, 2018.


title: The Catcher Was a Spy (film)

text: "The Catcher Was a Spy" made $114,771 from 49 theaters in its opening weekend, for an average of $2,459 per venue.


title: The Catcher Was a Spy (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, ""The Catcher Was a Spy" loses sight of the most interesting elements of its fact-based story, dropping the ball and leaving likable lead Paul Rudd stranded." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: The Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry, often called the Khazar myth by its critics, is a largely abandoned historical hypothesis. The hypothesis postulated that Ashkenazi Jews were primarily, or to a large extent, descended from Khazars, a multi-ethnic conglomerate of mostly Turkic peoples who formed a semi-nomadic khanate in and around the northern and central Caucasus and the Pontic–Caspian steppe. The hypothesis also postulated that after collapse of the Khazar empire, the Khazars fled to Eastern Europe and made up a large part of the Jews there. The hypothesis draws on some medieval sources such as the Khazar Correspondence, according to which at some point in the 8th–9th centuries, a small number of Khazars were said by Judah Halevi and Abraham ibn Daud to have converted to Rabbinic Judaism. The scope of the conversion within the Khazar Khanate remains uncertain, but the evidence used to tie the Ashkenazi communities to the Khazars is meager and subject to conflicting interpretations.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: Genetic studies on Jews have found no substantive evidence of a Khazar origin among Ashkenazi Jews. Doron Behar and other geneticists have concluded that such a link is unlikely, noting that it is difficult to test the Khazar hypothesis using genetics because there is lack of clear modern descendants of the Khazars that could provide a clear test of the contribution to Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, but found no genetic markers in Ashkenazi Jews that would link them to peoples of the Caucasus/Khazar area. This and other studies have instead found evidence that the Ashkenazi have mixed Near Eastern and Southern European/Mediterranean origins.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: Although the majority of contemporary geneticists who have published on the topic dismiss it, one still finds occasional defenders of its plausibility. In the late 19th century, Ernest Renan and other scholars speculated that the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe originated among Turkic refugees who had migrated from the collapsed Khazarian Khanate westward into Europe, and exchanged their native Khazar language for Yiddish while continuing to practice Judaism. Though intermittently evoked by several scholars since that time, the Khazar-Ashkenazi hypothesis came to the attention of a much wider public with the publication of Arthur Koestler's "The Thirteenth Tribe" in 1976. It has been revived recently by geneticist Eran Elhaik, who in 2012 conducted a study aiming to vindicate it.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: The hypothesis has been abused at times by anti-Zionists to challenge the idea that Jews have ties to ancient Israel, and it has also played some role in antisemitic theories propounded by fringe groups of American racists, Russian nationalists and the Christian identity movement. The term "Khazarian Mafia" sometimes is used by antisemitic media as a derogatory term for Jews, especially in connection with conspiracy theories such as 9/11.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: Some sources attribute to the Ukrainian Rabbi Isaac Baer Levinsohn (1788–1860) the first reference of a connection between the Ashkenazi Jews and the Khazars. Levinsohn also recorded that the tradition of their forefathers was that Ashkenazi Jews had earlier spoken Russian before acquiring Yiddish. The hypothesis was advanced in 1808 by Johann Ewers, in the context of an early controversy over the foundations of the Russian state, which pitted scholars espousing a Norman origin for the Varangians against those who argued that these founders of the Kievan Rus' were Slavic and indigenous. Ewers proposed the idea that the Viking/Varangian founders were in fact Khazars. The Russian historian Nikolay Karamzin advanced the claim, asserting that considerable numbers of Khazars had left Khazaria for Kievan Rus' in the time of Vladimir I (980–1015). The German Orientalist Karl Neumann suggested as early as 1847 that the migration of Khazars might have contributed to the formation of the core population of the Jews of Eastern Europe, without however specifying whether he was referring to Judaizing Turks or ethnic Jewish residents of Khazaria.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: Subsequently, Abraham Eliyahu Harkavi suggested in 1869 that there might be a link between the Khazars and European Jews. Three years later, however, in 1872, a Crimean Karaite, Abraham Firkovich, alternatively proclaimed that the members of his Turkic-speaking sect were descended from Turkic converts to Judaism. This hypothesis, that the descendants of Khazar converts to Judaism formed a major proportion of Ashkenazim, was first proposed to a Western public by Ernest Renan in 1883. In a lecture delivered in Paris before the "Cercle du Saint-Simon" on 27 January 1883, Renan argued that conversion played a significant role in the formation of the Jewish people, stating that:


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: This conversion of the kingdom of the Khazars has a considerable importance regarding the origin of those Jews who dwell in the countries along the Danube and southern Russia. These regions enclose great masses of Jewish populations which have in all probability nothing or almost nothing that is anthropologically Jewish in them.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: The lively discussions of this thesis in the 19th century in Eastern Europe diminished as fears that both Russian nationalism and Jewish Ashkenazi identity might be compromised by it led to a suppression of research. Rabbi Samuel Kohn in 1884, as Magyarization proved increasingly popular among Hungarian Jews, argued that they, like Hungarian Christians, shared a common ethnic descent from the intermarriage of Khazars and Magyars.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: Renan's thesis found an echo soon after, in 1885, when Isidore Loeb, a rabbi, historian and secretary of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, in arguing for the cause of Jewish emancipation, challenged the notion that nations were based on races, and the Jews therefore, could be excluded as alien. To the contrary, he argued, they were no different from other peoples and nations, all of which arose from miscegenation: the Jews were no exception, and one could assume, he added, that many German and Russian Jews descended from the Khazars.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: Occasional suggestions emerged that there was a small Khazar component in East European Jews in works by Joseph Jacobs (1886), Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu (1893), Maksymilian Ernest Gumplowicz, and by the Russian-Jewish anthropologist Samuel Weissenberg.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: Leroy-Beaulieu, a critic of antisemitism who perhaps drew on Renan, queried whether or not thousands of Polish and Russian Jews might have their origins traced back to the "old nomads of the steppes."


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: In 1909 Hugo von Kutschera developed the notion into a book-length study, arguing that Khazars formed the foundational core of the modern Ashkenazi. Maurice Fishberg introduced the notion to an American audience in 1911 in his book, "The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment".


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: When at the Versailles Peace Conference, a Jewish Zionist called Palestine the land of the Jewish people's ancestors, Joseph Reinach, a French Jewish member of parliament who was opposed to Zionism, dismissed the idea, arguing that Jews descended from Israelites were a tiny minority. In his view, conversion had played a major role in the expansion of the Jewish people, and, in addition, he claimed, the majority of "Russian, Polish and Galician Jews descend from the Khazars, a Tatar people from the south of Russia who converted to Judaism en masse at the time of Charlemagne."


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: The idea was also taken up by the Polish-Jewish economic historian and General Zionist Yitzhak Schipper in 1918, by scholarly anthropologists, such as Roland B. Dixon (1923), and by writers like H. G. Wells (1921) who used it to argue that "The main part of Jewry never was in Judea", a thesis that was to have a political echo in later opinion. In 1931 Sigmund Freud wrote to Max Eitingon that the sculptor Oscar Nemon, for whom he was sitting, showed the lineaments of a "Slavic Eastern Jew, Khazar or Kalmuck or something like that".


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: In 1932, Samuel Krauss ventured the theory that the biblical Ashkenaz referred to northern Asia Minor, and he identified it with the Khazars, a position immediately disputed by Jacob Mann.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: This interwar period consolidated also a belief, originally developed by the Russian Orientalists V.V. Grigor’iev and V.D. Smirnov, that the East European congregations of the Karaite sect of Judaism were descendants of Turkic Khazars. The idea of a Khazarian origin of the Karaites was then adopted as their official viewpoint. Seraja Szapszal (1873–1961), from 1927, the ḥakham of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community had begun to implement a thorough-going reform policy of dejudaizing Karaite culture and traditions and transforming along Turkic lines. As a secular Jew and orientalist he was influenced by Atatürk's reforms, and his policy was dictated by several considerations: Jews were suffering from harassment in public and private in Eastern Europe; he wished to forestall the threat he had intuited was imminent in both Fascism and Nazism, which were beginning to gain a foothold; he was passionate about the Karaites' language, Karaim, and its Turkish tradition, and somewhat insouciant of the Judaic heritage of his people. In 1934 Corrado Gini, a distinguished statistician, interested also in demography and anthropology, with close ties to the fascist elite, led an expedition in August–October 1934 to survey the Karaites. He concluded that Karaites were ethnically mixed, predominantly Chuvash which he mistook to be Finno-Ugric descendants of the Tauro-Cimmerians who at one point had been absorbed into the Khazars who for Gini however were not Turkic. A further conclusion was that the Ashkenazi arose from ‘Turko-Tatar converts to Judaism.’ Though the Khazar-Karaite theory is unsubstantiated by any historical evidence, - the early Karaite literature speaks of Khazars as mamzerim, 'bastards' or 'strangers' within Judaism - this myth served a political purpose, of taking that community out of the stranglehold of antisemitic regulations and prejudices directed generally against Jews in Eastern Europe.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: In 1943, Abraham N. Polak (sometimes referred to as "Poliak"), later professor of the history of the Middle Ages at Tel Aviv University, published a Hebrew monograph in which he concluded that the East European Jews came from Khazaria.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: In Nazi Germany, unlike most race theorists in Germany down to his time Hans F. K. Günther argued that the Jews were not a pure race, although he nevertheless considered them to be highly inbred. He argued that the Ashkenazi were a mix of Near Eastern, Oriental, East Baltic, Eastern, Inner-Asian, Nordic, Hamite, and Negro peoples and separate from the Sephardim. Günther believed that the conversion of the Khazars, whom he took to have been a Near Eastern race constituted a further external element in the racial makeup of the Ashkenazi Jews, strengthening its Near Eastern component. Günther's theorizing about racial consequences flowing from the conversion of the Khazars was embraced by Gerhard Kittel.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: The Karaite claim not to be ethnic Jews, but descendants of the Khazars, was eventually accepted by the Nazis who exempted them, unlike the Crimean Krymchaks with whom they had historic ties, from the policy of genocidal extermination on these grounds.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: In debates leading up to the UN plan in 1947 to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, the British politicians John Hope Simpson and Edward Spears, intent on denying Zionism that part of its claim that drew on biblical arguments, asserted that Jewish immigrants to Mandatory Palestine were the descendants of pagan converts and not of the Israelites. The approach was one shared by both gentile and Jewish anti-Zionists. Rory Miller claims that their denial of lineal descent from Israelites drew on the Khazar theory.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: In anti-Zionist argumentation delivered at the UN in 1947 Faris al-Khoury and Jamal Al-Husseini used the theory to oppose the creation of a Jewish state on racial and historic grounds. Cecil Hourani claimed that the Arab leaders had been convinced of the value of the argument by Benjamin H. Freedman. Internal British documents seem to support the claim. It would later play a role in Arab anti-Zionist polemics, taking on an antisemitic edge, though Bernard Lewis, noted in 1987 that serious Arab scholars had dropped it, remarked that it only occasionally emerged in Arab political polemics.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: D.M. Dunlop, writing in 1954, thought very little evidence backed what he regarded as a mere assumption, and argued that the Ashkenazi-Khazar descent hypothesis went far beyond what "our imperfect records" permit.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: Léon Poliakov, while assuming the Jews of Western Europe resulted from a "panmixia" in the first millennium, on the basis of serology research showing their blood types overlapped with those of other European populations, asserted in 1955 that it was widely assumed that Europe's Eastern Jews descended from a mixture of Khazarian and German Jews. Polak's work found some support from Salo Wittmayer Baron and Ben-Zion Dinur, but was dismissed by Bernard Weinryb as a fiction (1962).


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: In 1957 Salo Wittmayer Baron, called by his biographer an "architect of Jewish history", devoted a large part of a chapter in his "Social and Religious History of the Jews" to the Khazarian Jewish state, and the impact he believed that community exercised on the formation of East European Jewries in his "Social and Religious History of the Jews" (1957). The scarcity of direct Jewish testimonies did not disconcert Baron: this was to be expected since medieval Jews were "generally inarticulate outside their main centers of learning". The Khazarian turn to Judaism was, he judged, the "largest and last mass conversion", involving both the royal house and large sectors of the population. Jews migrated there to flee the recurrent intolerance against Jews and the geopolitical upheavals of the region's chronic wars, which often proved devastating to northern Asia Minor, between Byzantium, Sassanid Persia, and the Abbasid and Umayyad Caliphates.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: For Baron, the fact of Jewish Khazaria played a lively role in stirring up among Western Jews an image of "red Jews", and among Jews in Islamic countries a beacon of hope. After the dissolution of Khazaria, Baron sees a diaspora drifting both north into Russia, Poland and the Ukraine, and westwards into Pannonia and the Balkans. where their cultivated presence both established Jewish communities and paved the way, ironically, for the Slavonic conversion to Christianity. By the 11th and 12th centuries, these Eastern Jews make their first appearance in the Jewish literature of France and Germany. Maimonides, bemoaning the neglect of learning in the East, laid his hopes for the perpetuation of Jewish learning in the young struggling communities of Europe but would, Baron concludes, have been surprised to find that within centuries precisely in Eastern Europe would arise thriving communities that were to assume leadership of the Jewish people itself.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: The Khazar-Ashkenazi hypothesis came to the attention of a much wider public with the publication of Arthur Koestler's "The Thirteenth Tribe", which made sweeping claims for a Khazar legacy among the Ashkenazi in 1976, including the argument that the Jews could not have reached 8 million in Eastern Europe without the contribution of the Khazars. Koestler's ideas drew on Hungarian Jewish speculations about their own origins. His book was both positively and negatively reviewed. Israel's ambassador to Britain branded it "an anti-Semitic action financed by the Palestinians", while Bernard Lewis claimed that the idea was not supported by any evidence whatsoever, and had been "abandoned by all serious scholars". Raphael Patai, however, registered some support for the idea that Khazar remnants had played a role in the growth of Eastern European Jewish communities, and several amateur researchers, such as Boris Altschüler (1994) and Kevin Alan Brook, kept the thesis in the public eye. Brook's views evolved as new data became available: in the first edition of his book (1999), he contended that about one-fourth of Ashkenazic ancestry may trace back to the Khazars, whereas in the second edition (2006) he regarded the Khazar contribution as "small" and in the third edition (2018) he argued against any Khazar contribution. Koestler argued that the Khazar theory would mitigate European racially based antisemitism.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: In 2007, Peter Golden suggested that at least some of the Ashkenazi Jews of Hungary in particular (along with some Hungarians) might have inherited a minority of their ancestry from Khazar remnants that migrated west.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: The theory has been used to counter the concept of Jewish nationhood. It has been revived recently in a variety of approaches, from linguistics (Paul Wexler) to historiography (Shlomo Sand) and population genetics (Eran Elhaik). In broad academic perspective, both the idea that the Khazars converted "en masse" to Judaism, and the suggestion that they emigrated to form the core population of Ashkenazi Jewry, remain highly polemical issues.


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: In June 2014, Shaul Stampfer published a paper challenging the Khazar hypothesis as ungrounded in sources contemporary with the Khazar period, stating: "Such a conversion, even though it’s a wonderful story, never happened".


title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

text: Before modern DNA population genetics entered the field, Raphael Patai described the Khazars in racial terms as being a Turkic people with some Mongoloid admixture. After major advances in DNA sequence analysis and computing technology in the late 20th and early 21st century, a plethora of genetic research on Jewish and other human populations has been conducted worldwide. Summing up the results in 2015, the Yiddish scholar Alexander Beider stated that genetic studies often resulted in contradictory outcomes, complicated at times by the political or religious views of some researchers.