The Thirteenth Tribe: Khazar Empire and Its Heritage [Illustriert] [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

This book is dated but is still a masterpiece also because the subject matter is
(fortunately) presented in a popularised, non academic fashion. I highly recommend
it to anyone interested in getting closer to the truth regarding the origin of the
vast majority of 'Jews' in the world today. These issues are however politically
sensitive and this inevitably results in controversy.
The commonly available theory of the origin of the Ashkenazis, or East-European
Jews, is the Renanian Theory (see e.g. Wikipedia). Namely, the Ashkenazis would
descend from refugees of Crusade- and Black-Death-time persecutions of 'authentic'
Jews from western Germany who sought a new life in faraway Poland. However, this
theory does not hold to antropomorphic considerations, considerations of numbers
of refugees and size of ensuing communities in the East and, most importantly,
to a lingustic analysis of the ashkenazi Yiddish language (which points rather
to a Southeast-Germany, Slavic and Turkik origin of that idiom). The standard
theory also does not explain most of the peculiar customs and surnames of the
Ashkenazis and their historical and economical development in continuous conflict
with the populace of the host countries.
Koestler, following an earlier proposal by Hugo von Kutschera (1910) - but also
in accordance with Jewish Encyclopedia pre-1917 articles - rekindles the Khazar
Theory of the ashkenazi origins in this book. Potential readers can follow the
existent reviews to learn about the details, so it suffices to state that
according to this theory the bulk of the Ashkenazis would be the descendants of
a turkik tribe (the medieval Khazars) who at the end of the first millenium held
an important (and little mentioned) empire in Southern Russia and converted en
masse to (rabbinic) Judaism for political and commercial convenience. The empire
was however ephimeral and further invasions, both from the early Russians and
from newcomer turko-mongol tribes from Central Asia, swept the jewish Khazars
away from history (some scholars say BECAUSE of their conversion to Judaism).
But did the new converts really disappear? Koestler proposes not, that these
people in fact eventually turned into the Ashkenazis of Poland-Lithuania, Hungary,
the Ukraine, Russia and even of Germany and Austria. Later, these 'Jews' moved
to France, England, the USA, Israel, the world over. So, are the great majority
of Jews really akin to the people of the Bible?
Opponents of the Khazar Theory claim the jewish Khazars disappeared from history
due to the onslaught of kievian Rus' and of tribes from the East: Pechenegs,
Kumans (Kipchaks) and Mongols. Strange, because cartographers of Venice Polo
Family's travels to Central Asia report a 'Gazaria' and a 'Cumania' in existence
around 1250 after the mongol invasions. The Pope's envoy to the mongol court,
Giovanni da Piano Carpini, reported encountering a jewish tribe among the
constellation of peoples associated with the Mongols. Genoese traders knew the
Crimea peninsula with the name 'Gaziria' well into the 1350s. Indeed, the last
jewish Khazars left the Crimea (Krym in Russian) as Karaim during imperial
russian control of the region. As others have pointed out, the geographic
contours of the jewish Pale of Settelments under russian imperial rule overlap
significantly the contours of the reduced khazarian province after the Mongols
(Gazaria). So what is more natural than these jewish Gaziri turning into the
Ashkenazis? That is the shocking thesis of the vonKutschera-Koestler theory.
Indeed, why only the jewish Khazars ought to have disappeared? All of their
imperial confederate peoples still live on: the Magyars turned into the
Hungarians (taking with them the judaic Kabars); the Bulghars turned into the
(danubian) Bulgarians and the Volga Bulghars (now Bashkiri, Chuvashi, ...); the
Kumans turned into Kipchaki in the East and then Cumani (Kun) in the West
(playing a role in the formation of modern Romania and Hungary). Take the Alans
(also allied to the Khazars): have they also disappeared? They turned into the
Alamanni (a mixture of Alans and germanic southwestern tribes), into the modern
Catalans (Goth-Alans) and survive the ancient 'As' people (as known to the
Persians) in loco as modern Ossetians. Likewise, the Khazars did not disappear.
Koestler explains: they were divided into Ak-Khazars (more sedentary casts)
and Kara-Khazars (more nomadic ones, warrior casts). The first converted and
eventually turned into the Ashkenazis, the second group remained nomadic.
Together with other nomadic groups from the Kipchaks and the Bulghars they
eventually formed those former mercenaries of the steppes called Kazakhi in
Russian: the Cossacks! These accepted slavic fugitives from medieval serfdom
in their midst and thus turned orthodox christian, becoming the scourge of the
Ashkenazis many times over and - peculiarly - staunch supporters of the Tzars.
The steppes of Eurasia are the strangest place on Earth and reserve us peculiar
surprises, so why not jewish Turks? As the reader will learn, some of the Kipchak
and some of the Seljuk Turks also converted to Judaism in former times, forming
a base for Jews in Romania and in modern Turkey.
More recent objections to the Khazar Theory come from modern genetic research,
as some reviewers have rebuked. They jump to rushed conclusions. As some
experts have remarked, sample populations in these studies were small and not
randomly selected, and thus the results may not be statistically significant.
We may never know what percentages of 'semitic blood' and of 'turanic blood'
the Ashkenazis do carry, and the question is ill-founded since we shall never
be able to genetically test vastly mixed populations that moved their settlement
regions sometimes many times over. Indeed one should test not only Ashkenazis,
Sephardis and their host populations, but also true accepted descendants of the
Khazar, Kuman and Seljuk Turks. Until this is done, these genetic studies are
meaningless even when their statistical basis is improved. Not surprisingly the
conclusions of these studies are simplistic and in clear contradiction with each
other: first the 'few founding middle-eastern fathers' scenario, then a
'communities formed by unions between Jewish men and local women' scenario, more
recently the 4-women (!) scenario: 'the Ashkenazi population as descended
matrilineally from just four women, likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool
originating in the Near East in the first and second centuries CE'. It's hard to
believe such hasty conclusions drawn from studies on statistically restricted
(and ethnically selected) population samples. Has the genetic approach been tested
on accepted, uncontroversial situations?
The Khazar Theory is important and very well described in Koestler's book. It's
important not only in the context of Israel's founding myths (which however
Koestler duly considers), but as a unique key to understanding Eastern Europe's
(and the world's) medieval and modern history.

It is curious that in Israel, where I am from, the Khazar's history is only briefly mentioned in school. We did study "letters to the Khazar" by Jehuda Halevi, but more as a literary piece that in context with the Khazars. That is the reason that the book was so interesting for me: It presents a theory which is quite unacceptable to the religious population in Israel. (and outside as well). Are all the eastern european Jews in essence converts? It makes the whole question, so much dealt with in Israel, of "who is a Jew" rather ironical. Are the religious Jews the "real" Jews? And how can they be so much against conversions to judaism, if they themselves are converts? Interesting! Of course, the theory the book presents that ALL the east european Jews are descendants of the Khazars is only a theory, but Koestler surely presents some interesting arguments! Fascinating reading!

Others have written on the whole argument of whether today's Ashkenazi are Khazars or not. However, leaving that aside, this is a must for anyone interested in general Jewish history and the Black Sea region esp. southern Russia and the Ukraine. Books on the Khazars are hard to come by, and this is fairly readable.
(There is also an unusual novel on these folk "The Dictionary of the Khazars" - have a look at that on Amazon and see what you think).