Customer Reviews

The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage

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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).

Arthur Koestler had a long and illustrious writing career. Many of us were captivated by "Darkness at Noon," "Thieves in the Night," Promise and Fulfilment," "The Sleepwalkers," "The Trail of the Dinosaur," and many other great works. This book, from 1976, is about the Khazars, a people of Turkish stock that lived to the northeast of the Black Sea and converted to Judaism in the eighth century AD.

The obvious question, which had been asked by many people prior to Koestler, is to what extent the Khazars are the ancestors of the Ashkenazic Jews. Koestler suspected it is to a great extent.

I think there is substantial evidence that many Khazars did in fact convert to Judaism. And there is also some evidence that the initial number of Jews who wound up in the major Jewish population centers of Eastern Europe via the Middle East and Germany was rather small. That suggested to Koestler that the presumably more numerous Khazars dominated the Jewish population in Eastern Europe 1000 years ago and that they are the principal ancestors of today's Ashkenazic Jews. However, it seems that recent scholarship has not given much support to this guess. On the contrary, genetic evidence has strongly indicated that the small number of Jews coming from Germany may well have been by far the main ancestors of today's Ashkenazim.

As Koestler feared, his hypothesis has been quoted by those trying to find an excuse to deny present-day Israelis their rights to their homes. That is why Koestler explains that whether the genes of Israel's people are of Khazar, Spanish, Roman, or Semitic origin is irrelevant. It "cannot affect Israel's right to exist - nor the moral obligation of any civilized person, Gentile or Jew - to defend that right."

In any case, I found the book interesting.

Unlike other reviewers I found this to be a very interesting book. Despite being labeled anti-semitic by some reviewers Arthur Koestler was himself of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and proud of it. His book quotes many sources and his thesis should not be dismissed out of hand. In itself it is of historical interest to learn of the Khazar empire that ruled for several hundred years and who were a power equal to the Byzantine empire and one that stopped the Muslim onslaught against Byzantium. I can strongly encourage others to read this book and make up their own mind.

Another fascinating read regarding history which deals more with the Khazars, but also historical figures such as Sargon the Great, who established the first semitic dynasty in Mesopotamia, is a book by Laura Knight-Jadczyk called "The secret history of the world".

Koestler wrote an intriguing, popularized account, in this book, of the theory that many of today's Jews (mostly those of Eastern European descent) are of non-Semitic origin. Essentially the book recounts the tale of the Khazars, a middle Asian Turkic tribe, or tribal group, which settled in the southern steppes of what is today's Russia, during the seventh and eighth centuries, and adopted Judaism (in reaction to the conflicting demands of nearby 'great powers' espousing Christianity and Islam).

In the process of telling this tale, Koestler concludes that the conversion of the Khazars, which seems to be historically documented, explains the significant presence of Jews in Eastern Europe at the end of the Middle Ages (since extant records do not show them arriving from the Mediterranean world, or even western Europe, in any great numbers in ancient or later times). This theory is a quite rational one though it poses problems for Orthodox Jewry since the premise of the faith depends so much (though not exclusively) on the historical link to Abraham, a Semite. Complicating the matter is the suspicion that the Khazar conversion may not have been a 'kosher' one. Orthodox Jews have not, accordingly, been quick to embrace the Khazar thesis and others tend to shy away from it for this and other reasons. However, the facts do seem to indicate that modern Jews are a mixture of many different genetic influences (just look at the physical evidence).

But if the Khazars did contribute substantially to the Jewish gene pool, they didn't do so exclusively as modern scientific research indicates that there are clear genetic markers which connect modern Jews (Orthodox and otherwise) to a single source which spans both the Eastern European and Sephardic Jewish heritages, suggesting that the Khazar influence was limited at best. But even if this research did not exist, so what? The record also suggests that there were Semitic Jews (from Constantinople and Persia) living among the Khazars before and after the conversion who certainly would have intermingled with a "Jewish" Khazar population in whose midst they lived. And no one knows what method the conversion may have taken in any case, whether rabbincally sanctioned at the outset or only after the fact, or not at all. Just as people from all pagan backgrounds quite legitimately enrolled in the Christian and Muslim folds from ancient times going forward, so there is no reason to deny the Judaism of Jews whose ancestors may have been non-Semites but who embraced the religion which traces its roots back to Abraham and Moses.

Now there are those who seize on the existence of the Khazars to deny modern Jews their claim to Jewishness. This is absurd, even if there is a substantial genetic link with a non-Semitic Turkic people in the Jewish past. Still others see the Khazars as a convenient hook on which to hang negative aspersions they wish to cast on modern Jews, suggesting that Jews are descended from a cruel and barbaric middle Asian horde, not fit to stand with the great civilizations and cultures of history. Jews, in this view, are not the ancient people of the covenant we find in the bible but rather historical imposters. But this is just as absurd as using the Khazar connection to deny modern Jews their link to their heritage. Like the Khazars, other European groups came from middle Asia at different historical times and intermixed with many different groups. If some adopted Christianity while others chose Judaism, there is yet no reason to suggest that the one group was better than the other. In fact the historical record shows that, while the Khazars were nomadic tribesmen in Byzantine times, they were no worse than the more 'civilized' Christian peoples of the Byzantine Empire in terms of their dealings with friends and enemies (and possibly they were better as they were a good deal more tolerant and less intrusive on their subjects' lives). Yes, the Khazar empire blew away without leaving a trace -- unless one seeks and finds that trace in the European mores and culture of the Jews coming out of that region (big fur hats and long coats, for instance, may have been a carry-over from the nomadic Khazar horsemen). However, the record, such as it is, also suggests that the Khazars were unusually enlightened 'conquerors' who treated their subject peoples with great mildness. In fact, this very mildness may have been the source of their downfall since they did not ruthlessly suppress their enemies or enforce any sort of cultural hegemony which might have created a unified state capable of withstanding the Russians who eventually overran them. Or the Pecheneg horsemen who were much more brutal and benighted. Or the Mongols, who came after, about whom little more need be said.

As to Koestler's book, it does present a very simplified version of all this, largely derived from the the work of the scholar, D. M. Dunlop of Columbia University who wrote a much better one (THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH KHAZARS) some years before. Most of Koestler's information seems to have come from Dunlop's book though, in many cases, he over-simplified or simply got his facts wrong. So, if you're interested in the Khazar thesis I'd suggest you check out Dunlop's book first, although Koestler's is an easier read and adds to the case Koestler's own, not unreasonable, speculation about the relationship of the Khazars to modern Jewry (Dunlop doesn't go there). But as an easy introduction to this particular line of thinking, Koestler's book is alright. Just beware the oversimplifications and errors.

SWM

Arthur Koestler tackled an obscure but potentially explosive topic in this little book about the Khazars, a people who lived in the area between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea in the decades before 1000 AD. Their story make fascinating reading, as the author delves into the limited number of sources that mention them. They wielded great influence in the world of their time, which - as in the present - included conflict between different religious groups. There were Muslims, Jews and Christians who lived in the vicinity and the Khazars were tolerant of all. But the Khazar leaders, who originally had a traditional religion from their nomadic roots, were interested in the three major religions. Folklore has it that they called together the wise men of each religion and asked about its beliefs and practices. When they found that both the Muslims and Christians honored the Jewish God and that the Jewish religion was the oldest, they decided to adopt Judaism. The Khazars became Jews.

It is the contention of this book that these Khazar Jews are the ancestors of the Jews of Eastern Europe who were persecuted by Hitler and who eventually founded the modern state of Israel. These Ashkenazi Jews, according to this theory, are not a Semitic people, as are the Sephardic Jews. They do not descend from "God's chosen people," but rather from the nomadic tribes of the Caucasus. The Khazar empire disappeared in the years following the first millennium, wiped out by the Mongol tribes, who formed an alliance with Byzantium. The Khazars and their control of trade routes became irrelevant after that and many migrated to what is now Poland, Hungary and Germany and founded "shetls" - small villages, where they continued to practice the Jewish religion and contributed to the culture of Eastern Europe.

You can argue whether these Khazar Jews were "true Jews" but there clearly were Jews from the Diaspora living in the Khazar territory at the time of their conversion, and it seems clear that the Khazar Jews were a mixture. Koestler discusses the high rate of intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews throughout all historic periods. Oddly enough, intermarriage slowed only when Jews were forced to live in ghettoes, with limited contact with non-Jews. There were also many births resulting from rape of Jewish women during the years of brutal pogroms. So all Jews are of mixed origins.

It appears to me that Koestler did not write this meticulously researched book to support anti-Jewish or anti-Israel sentiment. He was simply interested in the origin of the Jewish people and felt that the history of the Khazars was little-known and had possibly been suppressed. His later chapters deal with the perception of ethnicity ("I can always tell a Jew when I see one."). He says culture, not genes, produces characteristics of a people. Some people claim they can always tell an American, even though Americans descend from a melting pot. His contention is that ethnicity is largely nonsense and it is the language and culture and shared values that make "a people." He makes the point that Israelis are a people, since they now share a country, a language and a culture. Although some Israelis may believe that "God gave this land to me," that is not what gives Israel the right to exist. The country was legally constituted by the united Nations and is today a country of people who mainly identify themselves as Jewish. Does it really matter who their ancestors were?

If you ever wondered where the high pink cheeks and blue eyes came from, or the obvious syntactic differences between Yiddish and its ostensible German origin, Koestler's book is a great place to start an exploration...or maybe even satisfy your curiousity. Penned by a writer with scholarship (rather than a scholar who writes), it packs a difficult history of cross migrating tribes, Huns and Mongols and Vikings, of an occult middle kingdom into a readable package, without any of the self conscious and specious scholasticism of more recent tomes. There is some dated, politically incorrect but amusing exploration in a later chapter concerning Semitic features the predates recent DNA tracings, but all in all, it's thoroughly enjoyable and certainly a great subject for the book club, and a jump off into ancient geopolitics that still resonate today.

Like Emmanuel Velikovsky (on different fascinating subjects), Koestler goes where conventional thinkers fear to tread.My personal criteria for a book or theory that breaks new ground is to ask myself what was the author's motivation. If I decide the author approaches the subject with an open mind,I am highly inclined toward their view. But then I am predisposed to the contrarian view. Without innovators willing to take risks, civilization would still be in the Dark Ages. The Thirteenth Tribe is tall on research, solid on its historical base regarding the Khazar conversion to Judaism and credible in its conclusion theory of the Khazar migration. Koestler, being a Jew, knew the hornet's nest he would stir up with his theory and proceeded with his version of the truth of the matter. I can think of no better argument that he believed very strongly in the veracity of his conclusions than that he was willing to take the vehement criticism from his own people as a cost of getting his theory into the public domain.

Back in the 1970s, Arthur Koestler, author of "Darkness at Noon", wrote this amazingly innovative book. I read it in Rarotonga in 1980---a suitably exotic place to read a serious book on a rather exotic topic. Recently I returned to it, though I long ago disagreed with the author's main conclusions.

In the first 121 pages, Koestler describes the history of a long-vanished, Turkic people called the Khazars, whose ruler, faced with pressure from both Muslim and Christian nations around them, took the radical step of converting to Judaism. As this is one of the very few instances (if not the single one) in history of such a royal move, the Khazars have attracted scholarly attention ever since, particularly, but not only, from Jews. Indeed, you can log on to a Khazar Studies website today. For another, less factual view of this interesting tribe, you can read Milorad Pavic's poetic, absurdist novel "Dictionary of the Khazars". In any case, Koestler's history makes fascinating reading, containing accounts by ancient Arab travellers, stories of Jewish crusaders in northern Iraq, and descriptions of the links to Vikings, Byzantium, Islam, and Magyars. I have no professional knowledge as to how accurate it all is, but if I were awarding stars for good history writing, I'd give five here.

However, THE THIRTEENTH TRIBE is not just a history. In the remainder of the book, Koestler constructs an argument for the Eastern European Jews' being the descendants of these Khazars. He asks where the Khazars all disappeared to. He says population statistics from the period 1300-1500 bear evidence that there could not have been so many Jews to be killed by the brutal Bogdan Khmielnitsky in the great massacres of 1648-49 in the Ukraine unless the Khazars had become the Polish-Ukrainian Jews by then. He deals in some dubious racial theorizing, throws in a few arguments based on place names, and concludes that the "original stock" of the Jews was predominantly Turkish. This theorizing turned me off back in 1980 and it still does. As an anthropologist, I have to ask: in all cases known in history, when a people converts en masse to another religion, a large body of pre-existing language and culture always remains. Why not with the supposed Khazar-Jews ? Is there an element of Turkish in Yiddish ? No. Are there any kinds of nomadic or Turkish cultural behaviors among the Eastern European Jews ? The answer is no. This would be just about impossible if Koestler's theory were correct. Secondly, to rely on statistics gleaned from medieval records is extremely dubioius especially when the Jews were hardly deemed members of European society and may never have been counted. Numbers of people killed or born were routinely exaggerated or ignored all over Europe. I rejected Koestler's theory 24 years ago. Since then, DNA research, unknown at the time, has shown that most Eastern European Jews have a mixed Semitic and European heritage. Despite the passage of many centuries, genetically the closest people to them are still the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. Koestler's theory remains only an interesting thought. It is worth reading for the historical part and to see how convincing incorrect theories can still be.