Implications of The Text
The Letter challenges a number of long-held assumptions. First, its version of the conversion posits a partially Judean descent for Khazar contemporaries of the author. Whether or not this is an accurate account, it indicates that the Khazars saw themselves as fully integrated members of world Jewry.
The letter states that in the early days after Khazars' conversion to Judaism, some Alanians already practised Judaism, to a degree that Alania came to save Khazaria from its enemies (lines 52–53). This is the only evidence corroborating the record of Benjamin of Tudela about Judaism in Alania.
In addition, the text refers to Oleg. According to the Primary Chronicle, Oleg died in 913 and his successor, the prince Igor, ruled from then until his murder in 944. For years scholars disregarded the Schechter Letter account; recently, however, Constantine Zuckerman has suggested that the Schechter Letter's account is in harmony with various other Russian sources, and it suggests a struggle within the early Rus polity between factions loyal to Oleg and to the Rurikid Igor, a struggle that Oleg ultimately lost. Zuckerman posited that the early chronology of the Rus had to be re-determined in light of these sources. Among the beliefs of Zuckerman and others who have analyzed these sources are that the Khazars did not lose Kiev until the early 10th century (rather than 882, the traditional date), that Igor was not Rurik's son but rather a more distant descendant, and that Oleg did not immediately follow Rurik, but rather that there is a lost generation between the legendary Varangian lord and his documented successors.
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