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The Jews of Khazaria chronicles the history of the Khazars, a people who, in the early Middle Ages, founded a large empire in eastern Europe (located in present-day Ukraine and Russia). The Khazars played a pivotal role in world history. Khazaria was one of the largest-sized political formations of its time, an economic and cultural superpower connected to several important trade routes. It was especially notable for its religious tolerance, and in the 9th century, a large portion of the royal family converted to Judaism. Many of the nobles and commoners did likewise shortly thereafter. After their conversion, the Khazars were ruled by a succession of Jewish kings that began to adopt the hallmarks of Jewish civilization, including the Torah and Talmud, the Hebrew script, and the observance of Jewish holidays. In this thoroughly revised edition of a modern classic, The Jews of Khazaria explores many exciting new discoveries about the Khazars' religious life, economy, military, government, and culture. It builds upon new studies of the Khazars, evaluating and incorporating recent theories, along with new documentary and archaeological findings. The book gives a comprehensive accounting of the cities, towns, and fortresses of Khazaria, and features a timeline summarizing key events in Khazar history.
This book traces the history of the ancient Khazar Empire, a major but almost forgotten power in Eastern Europe, which in the Dark Ages became converted to Judaism. Khazaria was finally wiped out by the forces of Genghis Khan, but evidence indicates that the Khazars themselves migrated to Poland and formed the cradle of Western Jewry. To the general reader the Khazars, who flourished from the 7th to 11th century, may seem infinitely remote today. Yet they have a close and unexpected bearing on our world, which emerges as Koestler recounts the fascinating history of the ancient Khazar Empire. At about the time that Charlemagne was Emperor in the West. The Khazars' sway extended from the Black Sea to the Caspian, from the Caucasus to the Volga, and they were instrumental in stopping the Muslim onslaught against Byzantium, the eastern jaw of the gigantic pincer movement that in the West swept across northern Africa and into Spain. Thereafter the Khazars found themselves in a precarious position between the two major world powers: the Eastern Roman Empire in Byzantium and the triumphant followers of Mohammed. As Koestler points out, the Khazars were the Third World of their day. They chose a surprising method of resisting both the Western pressure to become Christian and the Eastern to adopt Islam. Rejecting both, they converted to Judaism. Mr Koestler speculates about the ultimate faith of the Khazars and their impact on the racial composition and social heritage of modern Jewry. He produces a large body of meticulously detailed research.
The World of the Khazars by Peter B. Golden,Haggai Ben-Shammai,András Róna-Tas Pdf
The Khazar Empire was one of the major states of medieval Eurasia. Drawing on a variety of disciplines (history, linguistics, archaeology, literary studies), the papers in this volume shed new light on many of the disputed topics in Khazar history.
The Khazars were one of the most important Turkic peoples in European history, dominating vast areas of southeastern Europe and the western reaches of the Central Asian steppes from the 4th to the 11th centuries AD. They were also unique in that their aristocratic and military elites converted to Judaism, creating what would be territorially the largest Jewish-ruled state in world history. They became significant allies of the Byzantine Empire, blocking the advance of Islam north of the Caucasus Mountains for several hundred years. They also achieved a remarkable level of metal-working technology, and their military elite wore forms of iron plate armour that would not be seen in Western Europe until the 14th century. The Khazar state provided the foundations upon which medieval Russia and modern Ukraine were built. Fully illustrated with detailed colour plates, this is a fascinating study into the armies, organisation, armour, weapons and fortifications of the Khazars.
The Jewish Dark Continent by Nathaniel Deutsch,S An-Ski Pdf
At the turn of the twentieth century, over forty percent of the world’s Jews lived within the Russian Empire, almost all in the Pale of Settlement. From the Baltic to the Black Sea, the Jews of the Pale created a distinctive way of life little known beyond its borders. This led the historian Simon Dubnow to label the territory a Jewish “Dark Continent.” Just before World War I, a socialist revolutionary and aspiring ethnographer named An-sky pledged to explore the Pale. He dreamed of leading an ethnographic expedition that would produce an archive—what he called an Oral Torah of the common people rather than the rabbinic elite—which would preserve Jewish traditions and transform them into the seeds of a modern Jewish culture. Between 1912 and 1914, An-sky and his team collected jokes, recorded songs, took thousands of photographs, and created a massive ethnographic questionnaire. Consisting of 2,087 questions in Yiddish—exploring the gamut of Jewish folk beliefs and traditions, from everyday activities to spiritual exercises to marital intimacies—the Jewish Ethnographic Program constitutes an invaluable portrait of Eastern European Jewish life on the brink of destruction. Nathaniel Deutsch offers the first complete translation of the questionnaire, as well as the riveting story of An-sky’s almost messianic efforts to create a Jewish ethnography in an era of revolutionary change. An-sky’s project was halted by World War I, and within a few years the Pale of Settlement would no longer exist. These survey questions revive and reveal shtetl life in all its wonder and complexity.
The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand Pdf
A historical tour de force that demolishes the myths and taboos that have surrounded Jewish and Israeli history, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a new account of both that demands to be read and reckoned with. Was there really a forced exile in the first century, at the hands of the Romans? Should we regard the Jewish people, throughout two millennia, as both a distinct ethnic group and a putative nation—returned at last to its Biblical homeland? Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical back fill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, The Invention of the Jewish People uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths. After a long stay on Israel’s bestseller list, and winning the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, The Invention of the Jewish People is finally available in English. The central importance of the conflict in the Middle East ensures that Sand’s arguments will reverberate well beyond the historians and politicians that he takes to task. Without an adequate understanding of Israel’s past, capable of superseding today’s opposing views, diplomatic solutions are likely to remain elusive. In this iconoclastic work of history, Shlomo Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.
At a time when Charlemagne ruled, the Byzantines were encroaching upon Russia, and the faith of Allah was flourishing in Baghdad, there existed a kingdom with a tolerant, advanced civilization: somewhere between the Caucasus mountains and the Volga, the Khazar kingdom grew and flourished, and in one of the oddest choices ever made, converted itself to Judaism. A thousand years later, when the writer Marc Sofer is given an ancient Khazarian coin by a mysterious visitor, he is drawn into investigating the fascinating enigma of the Khazars. Why did these Steppe warriors decide to become Jews? Why, after centuries of power and prosperity, were they effaced from history? What is the connection between this ancient, vanished people, and the terrorist group calling themselves the New Khazars, who have begun attacking oil plants on the Caspian sea? Taking place both in the 10th century and the 21st, this absorbing, dramatic tale is part historical novel, part thriller. The story of the Khazars is interwoven with a contemporary political conspiracy in an unusual blend of reality and fiction that explores the ever important themes of history and identity.
Framed as a dialog between the king of the Khazars, a Central Asian kingdom, and a Rabbi, the Khazari is an exposition of late medieval Jewish philosophy. Legend has it that the king of the Khazars held a symposium to decide whether his people should convert to Judaism, Christianity or Islam. This book is an account of the Jewish side of this debate.
The Origin of Ashkenazi Jewry by Jits van Straten Pdf
Where do East European Jews – about 90 percent of Ashkenazi Jewry – descend from? This book conveys new insights into a century-old controversy. Jits van Straten argues that there is no evidence for the most common assumption that German Jews fled en masse to Eastern Europe to constitute East European Jewry. Dealing with another much debated theory, van Straten points to the fact that there is no way to identify the descendants of the Khazars in the Ashkenazi population. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the author draws heavily on demographic findings which are vital to evaluate the conclusions of modern DNA research. Finally, it is suggested that East European Jews are mainly descendants of Ukrainians and Belarussians. UPDATE: The article “The origin of East European Ashkenazim via a southern route” (Aschkenas 2017; 27(1): 239-270) is intended to clarify the origin of East European Jewry between roughly 300 BCE and 1000 CE. It is a supplement to this book.
"In a counterfactual world resembling the 1930s, the state of Khazaria, an isolated nation of warriors Jews, is under attack by the Germanii. Esther, the precocious daughter of Khazaria's chief policy advisor, sets out on a quest to ensure the survival of her homeland"--
The World of the Khazars by Peter Golden,Haggai Ben-Shammai,András Roná-Tas Pdf
The Khazar Empire was one of the major states of medieval Eurasia. Drawing on a variety of disciplines (history, linguistics, archaeology, literary studies), the papers in this volume shed new light on many of the disputed topics in Khazar history.
"The Rabbi King" is a history-based adventure novel that tells the story of David, the fictional last Khagan of a remnant of the historical Jewish Kingdom of Khazaria that may have existed into the early thirteenth century. It was located in the area of the Caucasus that now comprises Dagestan and Chechnya, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. In the middle of the eighth century the Khazar Khagan (king) and his nobles adopted Judaism as their religion. In the novel, David, son of the Khagan, is sent from his homeland in the Caucasus to Spain at age seven. There, he studies in the same household with another boy who is later called Maimonides, earning the right to be called Rabbi, a scholar of the laws, scriptures and customs of Judaism. When the time comes to return home, seventeen-year-old David leaves civilization to rule an untamed country. His Khazaria is sparsely populated by pagan nomads and by the descendants of many Jewish immigrants who fled persecution in Persia and Byzantium and intermarried with Khazar converts. To survive, they must emulate the lifestyle of the nomads. When Davids father dies, he becomes Khagan and is sworn to keep his homeland safe and under a Jewish sovereign. He faces many difficulties, not the least of which is trying to balance his wish to keep the Jewish laws and customs he learned in Spain against the need to survive in a wild country under attack by barbarian tribes. In an effort to reverse a betrayal of his people, David of Khazaria undertakes a long journey, both physically and spiritually, to save his kingdom. He meets many important historical personages and plays a role in some of the events that shaped history in the years between 1150 and 1170 C.E.in the Caucasus, Persia, Byzantium and Egypt. A Review From The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition: Who is a Khazar? By Gabriel A. Sivan February, 20 2002 (February 20)The Rabbi King: David of Khazaria. a Historical Adventure by Monroe S. Kuttner. Xlibris/Random House. 505 pages. A once-upon-a-time true fable about a Jewish kingdom in south-eastern Russia continues to capture the imagination. Though a work of fiction, this is one of several books that testify to renewed interest in the Khazars, a formerly nomadic people of Turkish stock whose ruling class embraced Judaism in or around 740 CE and established an empire stretching from the Crimea to the Aral Sea. By tradition, it was after a debate between representatives of Judaism, Christianity and Islamin which the Jewish arguments proved most convincingthat King Bulan made Khazaria Jewish. The faith that he adopted contained an admixture of paganism, however, and normative rabbinic Judaism was only introduced by his successors. Khazar merchants traded through_out the Near East; Khazar troops helped the Magyars conquer Hungary and joined the Byzantines in a war against Persia. Vague accounts of this remote but powerful empire heartened Jewish communities in Western Europe and inspired Judah Halevis famous exposition of Judaism, Sefer ha-Kuzari (see box). Tragically, from 965, the Khazar state declined and eventually collapsed under savage Russian and other attacks. "However, it is documented that Khazars, and a land called Khazaria, existed well into the early 13th century, probably in the area of Russian Dagestan and Chechnya," writes Monroe Kuttner, author of The Rabbi King, who obviously did a great deal of research. True enough, Khazars appear to have survived as an ethnic group until the Mongol invasion in 1237, and the last remnants were no doubt absorbed by Jewish, Karaite and Christian populations. Kuttner evidently believes that there were Khazars among his ancestors in Hungary and Russia. On that basis, he invents a khagan or king named David, Khazarias last rulerduring the years 1150-1170whose empire is limited to what is now Dagestan. Ordained as a rabbi in Cordova, where young Moshe ben Maimon was a fe
