I'll flush this all out for any of you out there who are interested, in time, it's very convoluted, these bloodlines, the rarity of solid clues … but I've been reading and digesting the work of 'John' – author of 'Tracking Ladon Gog and the Hebrew Rose' (his stuff is always a difficult read), and I'm finally starting to see the picture.

It's all in this page, if you have the fortitude…

http://www.tribwatch.com/SingleFile.htm

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Edit – This is one of those conundrums.  It is recorded that Charlemagne defeated the greater Avar kingdom with the help of the "Western Avars".   These were Avars living in France.  It is also recorded that one 'Makhir' aided he and his son, Pepin in their crusade against the great Avar kingdom on Charlemagne's right flank, in what is now Hungary/Romania.  I have discovered that this famous ally of Charlemagne & Peppin, one Exilarch named Makhir, was the son of another Makhir, and exilarch, who in turn was the son of one Judah Zakkai, a famous "competing exilarch", also known to history by his Frankish name, Eudes of Aquitaine.  It is also written that "the western exilarchs were of purer blood" than those of Babylon. This could only have pertained to Judah Zakkai and his progeny. 

An Avar Cross, with fleur-de-lis tips was dug up in Hungary (or Romania, not sure) which matches crosses of the "Grail" family – Bouillon, Rangabe, the Fulks of Anjou, and surprisingly above the head of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland (the daughter of Edward the Exile and one Agatha, probably the daughter of Vladimir I, Grand Prince of Kiev and who almost certainly descended from the Robertian "Red" line).  

Was Judah Zakkai, the Jewish Exilarch of Aquitaine, an Avar???  Avar presence in Frankish Gaul at this time is confirmed by town names … Avaricon, Auverne, etc.  How could an Avar have been an Exilarch (Jewish royalty descended from David)?  Clearly, the Avars were Hebrew, the names of two Avar Kagans were recorded around the time of Charlemagne's death – Abraham and Isaac.  Maybe, lost tribes of Isreal mixing with nomadic tribes in Scythia (also with roots in the Holy Land, if you look into the roots of the Hungarian peoples as per their own mythology) after the invasion of Israel by the Assyrians & Babylonians can easily explain this.  Furthermore, the oldest Jewish communities in the world are in Georgia – between Mesopotamia and ancient Scythia, indicating a  (probable) migration route.

But why were there two separate Avar populations, one scattered around central (and possibly western, i.e. Aquitaine) Gaul, and the Avar kingdom reflected in standard histories, located in the Pannonian basin which would, a hundred years after Charlemagne & Pepin's victory be taken by the Magyars under the Arpad clan (descended from Attila)?

Attila had pressed far into Gaul much earler in history (5th century)  – maybe some Avars stayed?  – I don't know … but, there were Avars in central and, possibly, western Gaul (France) when the Peppinids came to power, and they became allied, and together conquered the Avar "Ring" (fortress) in the Pannonian basin at the end of the 8th century.  

This Avar Cross has perked my curiosity.  I find no "fleur-de-lis" decorating any Merovingian crowns, jewelry or anything else of the period.   It seems to appear in France concurent with the rise of the Carolingian monarchs and their "western" Avar allies.

So, it seems confirmed.   Judah Zakkai (Eudes of Aquitaine) was, in addition to being an Exilarch and father and grandfather of the two Makhirs (the second Makhir being one and same as Michael Rangabe – read, "Makhil the Angle" – the grandfather of Melissena and general-come-Byzantine Emperor whose ancestry, officially, has been completely erased from history) was also an Avar, explaining the 'fleur-de-lis-tipped" Crosses used on the coats of his (Judah's) progeny, extending all the way to Godfrey de Bouillon, allegedly of the "Grail Family", which was manifest when Juddah Zakkai married Lampade of Austrasia, the daughter of the killed (at the order in Peppin of Herstal in collusion with the Catholic Church of Rome) Dagobert II – the last effective King of the Merovingian line, whose line reconnects in the next generation with the son (Sigebert V) of the union of Dagobert II's son and one … (drum roll) Magdalene of Narbonne (!!!)

When Jesus was crucified, as, allegedy, per tradition, a criminal was pardoned – the Jews chose Barrabis, the "thief", for clemency.   Barrabis' first name, hardly mentioned, was Jesus.   Who was Jesus Barrabis?    Maybe, he wasn't really a thief, maybe he was a "dissident".  Maybe the name should be looked at from a different angle …  Jesus bar Rabbis, i.e., Jesus son-of-the Rabbi, the son of Jesus and Mary (of Magdala).   Marseilles legend has it that the pregnant Mary of Magdala, wife of Jesus, with a son, landed in southern France some years after the crucifixion.   Could this Magdala (Magdalen) of Narbone have been of that bloodline?   And could the whole Cathar revolution of southern France, which resulted in the most prosperous and enlightened culture of its time, have been a result of this bloodline and the teachings of the "Christ" handed down from direct descendents, in contrast to the edited and perverted dogma espoused by the Church of Rome? – If the Jews of Septimania had inside knowledge of the revelations and stories of Jesus through his (and Mary's) own descendents, is it any wonder that they rejected the dogma of the Catholic Church and chose their own, 'Cathar', form of Christianity?

The utopia in southern France lasted a couple of centuries.  Many Cathar knights fought in the 1st crusade alongside their Norman allies.  But the Catholics figured out what was going on … and responded with unparalelled violence.   Knights loyal to the Catholic cause spent 40 years slaughtering anyone who looked or smelled like a Cathar in southern France.  This was the Albigensian crusade. 

I got off track a bit, so excuse me for swerving back to the point.   Was Juddah Zakkai an Avar?

I would have thought so, I would have been convinced … but for one thing.   He lost in battle once to the Moors for lack of stirrups.

Wahhh???

Yup, stirrups.  The Moors (Muslims) knew about stirrups, and so had an effective cavalry.    Eudes of Aquitaigne (Juddah Zakkai) apparently did not, and lost a big battle.   Yet, the Avars are famous for their invention of the stirrup, at least a hundred years before Eudes' battle with the Moors.    So, if Eudes (Judah Zakkai) was an Avar, why hadn't he fitted his forces horses with stirrups? 

Scratching my head… 

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The Avars WERE important, they were the most respected and feared of the many "Turkik" nomadic peoples, and, owing to a civil war within the Avar kingdom, the western Avars led by the "tudun" allied with Charlemagne, his son Pepin, and Eric of Friuli, resulting in the destruction of the Avar "Ring" fortress and eventual collapse of the Avars in modern Hungary and Transylvania.  

And, since Avar Kagans following this chaotic time are recorded as being two named Abraham and Isaac, I assumed the Avars were Hebrew/Jewish.   They may have been, but these "Avar" Kagans with Hebrew names were in fact (Jewish) Khazars, muscling-in in the void that was created by the civil war and the chaos following Pepin & Eric of Friuli's campagne.

So, the idea that the Avars were Jewish, or that the Exilarchs in Aquitaine were Avars, is pretty much de-bunked.  

We still have that nagging 'Avar cross' showing up in these family lines, and the claim that 'Varangian' is a contraction of Avar and Angevin, and that "Avar"-like names appear in towns in central France – apparently many of these western Avars did relocate to France, and their high-culture (google Avar jewelry!) was probably on par at least with the Carolingian kingdom in Gaul.  

But, as in nearly all of these explorations, we butt up against a near-total absence of records.  As with the Cathars, there are secrets here that, apparently, the Catholic Church destroyed.  

I do know that the roots of the Avars are in the Holy Land – when the Gokturk advanced on the Avars in Central Asia, some escaped, later forming the Avar kingdom in what is now Hungary/Transylvania, but some stayed and succumbed to Gokturk rule.  Their descendents are still there (in the Caucasus) and male Y-chromosome DNA tests show that these people are genetically related to the people of (ancient) Subartu.    Subartu was just right of Ugarit in Mesopotamia, and the name of this place distorted into 'Sparta' after people from that place relocated to Greece (!).