Re: [Cz-L] ?The Thirteenth Tribe - YouTube

[Jim... next time, please post in Plain Text --thanks]

Hardy.

I have watched the video and want to warn our list readers against
taking this seriously: it is antisemitic nonsense, which basically
blames communism on descendants of "Khazar" Jews (also the slave trade!).

The film takes snippets from Koestler's provocative 1970s book--some of
which are undeniable facts, some of which are dubious
interpretations--and likewise tendentiously mixes some legitimate images
and maps with others intended to propagate its distorted and hostile,

I happen to have a deep interest in the Khazars, so I am pretty familiar
with the history and the literature on the subject.

We now know beyond a doubt that the Khazars did convert to Judaism
(though now ,we think, in the early 9th rather than 8th
century)--eventually the people as a whole, and not just the royal house
or elite--and create a vast and flourishng Jewish empire in medieval
Europe for several centuries. However, scholars reject Koestler's
provocative thesis that most Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars;
the genetic evidence confirms this. He thought he was doing the world a
favor by showing that Jews were not Semites foreign to Europe, and thus
perversely thought he was fighting antisemitism.

Instead, this has inadvertently given rise to a new (or reinforced an
older) strain of antisemitic thinking, the least vicious strand of which
is: Jews have no connection to Israel, Israel should not exist. The more
vicious strain further claims that the Khazars have been responsible for
basically all the world's evils ever since: persecution of Christianity,
general barbarism, communist bloodbaths, etc. etc.

Again, the Khazars did convert, and what happened to them after the
destruction of their empire by the Russians remains a mystery. Some
(many, perhaps) disappeared as they blended into the Christian or Muslim
population. Some seem indeed to have contributed to the rise of Polish
Jewry. Some may have migrated into "our" region or the regions our
ancestors came from--i.e. Poland, Ukraine, etc. (as you know, the Jewish
population of the Bukovina circa 1800 was minuscule) before settling the
Bukovina. Khazars allied with the Magyars and played a vital role in the
formation of early Hungary. Most startlingly, Khazars may well account
for about half the population of Ashkenazi Levites (a whole story in
itself).

But what the film presents is a complete and dangerous distortion.

I would be happy to share more information if anyone needs it.

Jim

On 26/05/2012 11:02, HARDY BREIER wrote:
> The Khazari origin:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHyw0Q21GO8&feature=related
>
> Hardy
>

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Received on 2012-05-26 11:44:07