http://www.apfn.org/THEWINDS/library/khazars.html <--Jewish Kingdom
in Central Asia
"A THOUSAND YEARS before the establishment of the Modern State of
Israel, there existed a Jewish kingdom in the eastern fringes of
Europe, astride the Don and Volga rivers..." So begins a thesis by
Jewish author Kevin Alan Brook. The kingdom of which he speaks appears
at first consideration to be comprised of nearly as much
disinformation, misinformation, "myth"information, and, curiously,
NO-information as there is actual provable historical fact. Yet upon
closer scrutiny this kingdom, known as Khazaria, or the Kingdom of the
Khazars, is clearly revealed in a vast body of historical evidence,
much of which has come to light only in the last three to five decades.
This mysterious kingdom, which has sculpted our modern world to an
astounding (and alarming) degree, once occupied an immense land area of
over a million square miles extending from western Hungary/Austria
eastward to the Aural Sea, north to the Upper Volga, and its southern
region extending to the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and
Caspian seas. It was at that time literally the largest country on
earth. It has only been in the last several decades, however, that
greater documented evidence from ancient manuscripts has come to light
and revealed the astonishing historical truth of this ancient kingdom
and its connection to the origins of modern-day Israel.
Though little known to the West, and, for that matter, to even
those currently occupying its ancestral land, the Khazar kingdom has
been responsible for substantially shaping the history and political
landscape of Europe and specifically Western Asia, but also to a
remarkable degree the entirety of human events on this planet.
Arthur Koestler, author of The Thirteenth Tribe, easily the most
expansive single work on the subject, states, "The story of the Khazar
Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the
most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated." 1
This is the story of a kingdom of belligerent, warlike Caucasian
nomads, having no linked ancestry with anything Israelite this side of
Noah, yet adopting Talmudic Judaism and becoming the dominant -- and
virtually only -- current force in twenty-first century international
Jewry.
During the course of this work salient facts and issues will be
presented without a too-extensive reliance on tedious historical
documentation. However, considering the delicacy of the subject --
especially in this modern age where any divergence from certain agendas
for "political correctness" can result in epithets of racism or
anti-Semitism -- and for the obvious sake of accuracy, reasonably
comprehensive documentation is necessary.
In this it will be shown that the cry of "anti-Semitism" hurled
against those who do oppose the international actions of ones calling
themselves Jews, would be much like an immigrated Scotsman to America
deciding to live on an Apache Indian reservation, coming to dominate
its politics and economics, and then claiming that anyone disagreeing
with his political and social agenda is racist and anti-Apache in their
beliefs.
What under different circumstances could prove to be a dry treatise
on Eastern European Jewish history is, if closely examined, actually a
narrative of events that have laid a sequential pathway to, and beyond,
the destruction of the New York World Trade Center on September 11,
2001. This historical time line has been fixed in its present course,
which, by all appearances and in a most unexpected manner, is
culminating in the fulfillment of the Biblical prophecies of
Armageddon. But then, it has always been so with prophecy. The most
consistent aspect in the nature of prophetic fulfillment is that it is
consistently surprising. God has invariably worked to complete His
desires, prophetically, in ways that have not been understood until
revealed in retrospect -- in the light of their actual happening.
An Historical Perspective
Shortly after the death of Mohammed in AD 632, according to
Columbia University Professor, D. M. Dunlop, Arab armies began a
campaign northward, sweeping "through the wreckage of two empires and
carrying all before them till they reached the great mountain barrier
of the Caucasus. This barrier once passed," Dunlop observes, "the road
lay open to the lands of eastern Europe." 2 Had the Caliphate (the
armies of the Muslim Caliph) surmounted that immense geological
deterrent unchallenged, the history of Europe and, indeed, the rest of
the Judeo-Christian world would have been vastly different than it now
is.
It was at the Caucasus, however, that the Arabs encountered the
Khazars, initiating a war that lasted over a century and effectively
prevented Europe from becoming Islamic. So powerful, socially and
militarily, were the Khazars that, as Kevin Alan Brook relates in his
work The Jews of Khazaria, "a 10th-century emperor of the Byzantines
[Roman Empire], Constantine Porphyrogenitus, sent correspondence to the
Khazars marked with a gold seal worth 3 solidi - more than the 2 solidi
that always accompanied letters to the Pope of Rome, the Prince of the
Rus, and the Prince of the Hungarians." 3
Rutgers University Professor Peter Golden, referred to by Brook as
"one of the principal authorities on the Khazars," wrote, "Every
schoolchild in the West has been told that if not for Charles Martel
and the battle of Poitiers there might be a mosque where Notre Dame now
stands. What few schoolchildren are aware of," Golden emphasizes, "is
that if not for the Khazars...Eastern Europe might well have become a
province of Islam." 4
The Khazarian mounted forces, with a soldiery of mainly Turkic and
pagan origin, could at times and when accounted for, show a disastrous
fierceness and cruelty to the enemies of Khazaria. They were also
probably the most disciplined, as well as tactically and strategically
the most potent, martial power at that time and in that region.
Evidence that they were supremely calculating in their approach to
international matters lay in the fact that, in contrast to their
brutality, Khazar officials were often consulted as diplomatic
emissaries and mediators by all the political powers surrounding
Khazaria. The Khazars and their empire were at that time both highly
respected and greatly feared -- with good reason. 5
At the peak of their empire it is believed that the Khazars had a
permanent standing army that could have numbered as many as one hundred
thousand and controlled or exacted tribute, astonishingly, from thirty
different nations and tribes inhabiting the vast territories between
the Caucasus, the Aral Sea, the Ural Mountains and the Ukrainian
steppes. 6 , 7 During their zenith, Khazaria completely girded the
lands of what are currently Astrakhan, Kalmykia, Daghestan, Volgograd,
Rostov, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkarsk, North Ossetia, and Chechnya.
"At its maximum extent (in the ninth century)," says Brook, "Khazaria
not only encompassed the northern Caucasus and the Volga delta, but
also extended as far west as Kiev [Russia]." 8
Soviet archaeologist M. I. Artamonov states that, for a century and
a half, the Khazars were the supreme masters of the southern half of
Eastern Europe and presented a virtually impenetrable bulwark, blocking
the Ural-Caspian gateway from Asia into Europe. During that entire
period, they held back the onslaught of the nomadic tribes from the
East. 9
Until recently, a great part of the problem with the historical
obscurity of ancient Khazaria lay with the fact that the geographical
area of the country was part of the Soviet Union, which insisted on
interpreting archaeological data "within the framework of Marxist
historical materialism." 10 This Iron Curtain version of historical
revisionism caused the Soviets to interpret that data in such a way as
to present as fact that which was well fabricated -- but wrong.
This peculiar and obscure race inhabiting that land were described
as blue-eyed and of very fair complexion. Commonly they had long
reddish hair and were reported as very large of stature and fierce of
countenance. 11 Other sources have added observations that there were
"Black Khazars" and "White Khazars," noting that the latter were
"light-skinned and handsome, while the former were dark-skinned." This
has, however, been rather conclusively refuted by scholars who have
established that the distinction was not racial but social. The "Black"
or "Kara" Khazars constituted the lower strata or caste, while the
"White" or "Ak" Khazars were of the noble or royal classes. This type
of class distinction was fairly common in Eastern Europe as evidenced
by the more commonly known terms "Black Russian" and "White Russian,"
denoting not skin color but class. 12
In his book An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples,
Peter Golden claims that the Chinese T'and-shu chronicle describes the
Khazars, generally, as "...tall, with red-hair, ruddy-faced and
blue-eyed. Black hair is considered a bad omen." 13
THE KHAZARS OF CONQUEST AND WAR
Of the ferocity and warlike tendencies of the Khazars there is
little doubt and much historical evidence, all of it pointing to a race
of people so violent in their dealings with their fellow men that they
were feared and abhorred above all peoples in that region of the world.
The Arab chronicler Ibn-Said al-Maghribi writes, "they are to the
north of the inhabited earth towards the 7th clime, having over their
heads the constellation of the Plough. Their land is cold and wet.
Accordingly their complexions are white, their eyes blue, their hair
flowing and predominantly reddish, their bodies large and their natures
cold. Their general aspect is wild." 14
The ninth-century monk Druthmar of Aquitaine, in his commentary on
Matthew 24:14 in Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam, stated that the
Gazari, or Khazars, dwelt "in the lands of Gog and Magog." 15
Legends and stories abound, some of which are true according to the
above quoted Aquitaine monk, that center around Alexander the Great and
his attempt to enclose the Khazars and quarantine them, due to their
violent and barbaric nature, from the rest of the civilized world. This
endeavor apparently failed, Druthmar claimed, and they escaped. Some
legends even claim they were cannibals. 16
After the kingdom's conversion to Judaism, the term "Red Jews" came
into usage out of the superstition of medieval Germans, who equated
their red hair and beards and their violent nature with deceit and
dishonesty. It is also well documented that they heavily taxed those
passing through their lands, for none dared refuse them. 17
According to Benjamin H. Freedman, himself a Jew and an apparent
long-time associate and confidant of presidents and statesmen, in an
address presented in 1961 at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., the
Khazars were so belligerent and hostile that they were eventually run
out of Asia and scattered amongst the nations of Eastern Europe.
Heinrich von Neustadt, around 1300, wrote of them as the "terrifying
people of Gog and Magog." 18
The territory of the Bulgars, themselves legendary for their
fierceness in battle, was conquered by the Khazars in AD 642. A portion
of them fled westward to the region of the Danube in the Balkans and
formed what is now modern-day Bulgaria. 19 Even in modern times, Muslim
history recalls the Khazar raids and the terror of those inhabiting
that land. To this day they call the Caspian, Bahr-ul-Khazar -- "the
Khazar Sea." 20
It is not difficult to determine some of the motivating factors
behind the legendary Khazar ferocity in war. "When the bek [the Khazar
head of the military and second in command only to the Kagan himself]
sends out a body of troops, they do not in any circumstances retreat.
If they are defeated, every one who returns to him is
killed....Sometimes he cuts every one of them in two and crucifies them
and sometimes he hangs them by the neck from trees." 21
Logically it seems that this would not likely happen more than
once, since reason would reveal to even the dullest soldier that defeat
was not an option. Such a practice would also have provided a strong
impetus to the legend of Khazar fierceness since, when faced with the
choice of winning in battle or facing a worse death at home, the
options -- and the rational responses to them -- become painfully
distinct.
All of these facts, mingled with the semi-factual legends of
Alexander the Great and his attempts to wall up the Red Jews and
isolate them, has led to the numerous mythologies of the coming escape,
at the end of time, of Gog and Magog from the area enclosed by the
Caucasus Mountains. This, as the legends say, in order to fulfill Bible
prophecy in the final destruction of the world. Indeed, even Islam has
such legends in its mythology.
In a writing by the Imam Ibn Kathir, he asserts that the prophet
Mohammed has claimed, "Every day, Gog and Magog are trying to dig a way
out through the barrier [the Caucasus mountains]. When they begin to
see sunlight through it, the one who is in charge of them says, 'Go
back; you can carry on digging tomorrow,' and when they come back, the
barrier is stronger than it was before. This will continue until their
time comes and Allah wishes to send them forth." 22
As shall be shown, the Muslims to the south of the Khazarian
kingdom had good reason to attach such legends to their ferocious
northern neighbors.
However, no nation can long survive,no matter how strong, by being
exclusively belligerent, and the Khazars were not an exception to this.
As a vital addition to their brutality they were possessed of a native,
calculating wisdom in knowing, as the gambler's creed says, "when to
hold 'em and when to fold 'em". This prescient political sense became
evident in their diplomatic encounters with the Romans. The Roman
Emperor Heraclius, in 627, formed a military alliance with the Khazars
for the purpose of a final defeat of the Persians. Upon the first
meeting of the Khazar king, Ziebel, with the Roman Emperor, the Khazars
displayed, in full array, their skills at diplomatic flattery -- skills
that would serve them well and would not disappear with their kingdom.
He "with his nobles dismounted from their horses," says Gibbon, "...and
fell prostrate on the ground, to adore the purple of the Caesar." So
enamored was the Byzantine Emperor with this display of obeisance that
it eventually led to the offer, along with many riches, of the Caesar's
daughter Eudocia in marriage. 23 That union never took place due to the
death of Ziebel while Eudocia was enroute to Khazaria. However, after
the final defeat of Islam's designs on the Northern Kingdom in AD 730,
a marriage between a Khazar princess and the heir to the Byzantine
Roman Empire resulted in an offspring who was to rule Byzantium as Leo
the Khazar. Thus the "King of the North" had skilfully managed to place
himself on the throne of the Roman Empire. 24
After the defeat of the Persians a new triangle of power emerged,
consisting of the "Islamic Caliphate, Christian Byzantium and the newly
emerged Khazar Kingdom of the North. It fell to the latter to bear the
brunt of the Arab attack in its initial stages, and to protect the
plains of Eastern Europe from the invaders." 25 Because of their unique
geographical location within the cusp created by the Caspian and Black
Seas on either side, and the frightful stone barrier of the Caucasus
Mountains along their southern border, defending their land was made
considerably easier. This situation of geography was, according to
historians, one of the major factors in shaping the history of Eastern
Europe, the European continent, and ultimately the world.
The Khazars had, for years, been venturing forth southward, in
their marauding raids on the Muslim countries south of the Caucasus.
Now, in the early part of the seventh century, Islam came northward
through the same Kasbek Pass the Khazars had used, and began a long war
with the "Northern Kingdom." The major attempt of the Muslim armies to
take control of the Transcaucasus came in 622 while Mohammed was still
leading Islam. They conquered "Persia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and
surrounded the Byzantine heartland (present-day Turkey) in a deadly
semi-circle, which extended from the Mediterranean to the Caucasus and
the southern shores of the Caspian." This began a long series of
incursions by both sides (Khazaria and Islam) that lasted for another
thirty years. These wars eventually saw the Arabs defeated at every
advance, finally ending in 652 with the death of four thousand Arab
soldiers, including their commander, Abdal-Rahman ibn-Rabiah, and the
Arab armies in complete disarray.
This inability to traverse the Caucasus successfully, made it
logistically impossible for the Muslim armies to create an effective
siege against the Roman capital of Constantinople. "Had they been able
to outflank the capital across the Caucasus and round the Black Sea,"
says Arthur Koestler, "the fate of the Roman Empire would probably have
been sealed." 26 It was this fortuitous situation, coupled with the
military barrier presented by the Khazars themselves, that prevented
Europe from coming under the crescent moon of Islam and creating a very
different history than that which has been.
Following this expulsion of the Arabs from the Khazar homeland, the
kingdom began to war for territory rather than spoil, "incorporating
the conquered people into an empire with a stable administration, ruled
by the mighty Kagan [the title given the Khazar king, sometimes spelled
Khagan], who appointed his provincial governors to administer and levy
taxes in the conquered territories. At the beginning of the eighth
century their state was sufficiently consolidated for the Khazars to
take the offensive against the Arabs" rather than merely defending
themselves against Muslim attacks. 27
There was a brief period of Muslim incursion into Khazaria where
the Caliph Marwin II, in a surprise, two-pronged attack, drove the
Khazars as far back in their own land as the Volga region. His only
terms for peace were that the Kagan convert to the "True Faith" --
Islam -- with which the Khazar king complied, but apparently only long
enough for the Muslim Caliph to withdraw back across the Caucasus. This
incident preceded by only a few years the Khazar monarch's conversion
to Judaism. Most historians agree as to the motivation behind the
Caliph's withdrawal. The Muslim ruler apparently realised that, unlike
the more civilised Persians, Armenians or Georgians, the barbaric
Khazars could not be kept under military rule at such a distance.
As mentioned previously, most historical accounts credit Charles
Martel and his Francs for saving Europe from Islam. This Anglicanized
version of history does not, either by ignorance or design, consider
the fact that the Franco defence of Western Europe would have been
futile had not the Khazars stopped the Muslim onslaught from the east.
The astounding historical result of all this is that the Khazar
kingdom was able, eventually, to set up and depose an emperor from the
throne of the greatest ruling power on earth at that time, The
Roman/Byzantine Empire. 28 This, apparently, was only the beginning,
though the records of antiquity, until recently, have largely lost
sight of this historically obscure but immensely influential people.
An interesting side note to the legendary Khazarian ferocity again
reveals their budding nature as negotiators and consummate politicians,
a talent that only intensified under Talmudic Judaism. In The
Thirteenth Tribe, Koestler tells of the Byzantine Emperor, Theodosius
II, who was intent on securing the friendship of the warrior race, "but
the greedy Khazar chieftain, named Karidach, considered the bribe
offered to him inadequate, and sided with the Huns. Attila defeated
Karidach's rival chieftains, installed him as the sole ruler of the
Akatzirs [a name given the "White Khazars"], and invited him to visit
his court. Karidach thanked him profusely for the invitation, and went
on to say that 'it would be too hard on a mortal man to look into the
face of a god. For, as one cannot stare into the sun's disc, even less
could one look into the face of the greatest god without suffering
injury.' Attila must have been pleased, for he confirmed Karidach in
his rule."
The death of Atilla the Hun, however, precipitated the collapse of
the Hunnic empire and left an Eastern European power-vacuum which the
Khazars eventually filled. They then proceeded to subjugate all other
surrounding tribes to the extent that, shortly after their defeat,
those tribes went virtually unmentioned in subsequent historical
accounts. The Khazars had just swallowed them up, historically
speaking. The most difficult time they encountered in their conquests
was from the Bulgars, who were "crushingly defeated" around AD 641,
with a great many migrating westward toward the Danube, and as
previously mentioned, eventually establishing what is now modern
Bulgaria. 29
THE KHAZAR KINGDOM'S CONVERSION TO JUDAISM
"A warrior-nation of Turkish Jews must have seemed to the
[western] rabbis as strange as a circumcized unicorn." A. Koestler
According to Benjamin Freedman the Khazars' conversion to Judaism
was first precipitated by their monarch's abhorrence of the moral
climate into which his kingdom had descended. Freedman has claimed, and
other historians confirmed, that the "primitive" Khazars engaged in
extremely immoral forms of religious practices, among them phallic
worship. Animal sacrifices were also included in their rites.
The Khazar religious structure centered around a shamanism known as
Tengri, which incorporated the worship of spirits and the sky as well
as zoolatry, the worship of animals. Tengri was also the name of their
"immortal god who created the world," and the primary animal sacrifices
made to this deity were horses. 30
The actual mechanics of the Khazarian kingdom's turn to Judaism
was, most historians agree, rather well thought out -- from a
humanistic perspective at least -- rather than random and capricious as
some have believed.
According to George Vernadski, in his book A History of Russia, in
AD 860 a delegation of Khazars were sent to Constantinople (now known
as Istanbul), which was then what remained of the ancient capitol of
the old Roman Empire turned Christian under the Emperor Constantine.
Their message was:
We have known God the Lord of everything [referring here to Tengri]
from time immemorial ... and now the Jews are urging us to accept their
religion and customs, and the Arabs, on their part, draw us to their
faith, promising us peace and many gifts. 31
This appeal, in all its implications, was obviously made for the
purpose of drawing the Christian Roman Empire into the debate with an
eye perhaps toward a balanced argument amongst the major monotheistic
religions.
Brook makes the observation that "this statement reveals that the
Jews were actively seeking converts in Khazaria in 860." He also adds
that "in the year 860, [Christian] Saints Cyril and Methodius were sent
as missionaries to the Khazars by the Byzantine emperor Michael III
.... since the Khazars had requested that a Christian scholar come to
Khazaria to debate with the Jews and Muslims." 32
Inasmuch as the world has seldom (or perhaps never) witnessed any
culture of people more adept at the art of religious debate than
rabbinical Jews, the Khazar's conversion to Talmudic Judaism is not a
surprising outcome, given that such a forum was to be the determining
factor in their choice, rather than purely spiritual perceptions. The
outcome was even further assured by the fact that the Christian
representatives in the debate came from a church in the latter
formative years of the Holy Roman Empire in which, by that time,
spiritual sensitivity had become somewhat rare to nearly extinct.
It was at that period of time (about AD 740) that King Bulan of
Khazaria was reputed to have converted to Judaism. In the debate
amongst the Islamic mullah, the Christian priest and the Jewish rabbi,
each presented to the king the advantages and truths of his own
precepts of faith. This king, however, according to some accounts of
history, had his own logic for determining which he should embrace. He
asked each representative in turn, which of the other two faiths he
considered superior. The result was that the Muslim indicated Judaism
over Christianity, and the Christian priest chose it over Islam. The
king then concluded that Judaism, being the foundation upon which both
of the other monotheistic religions were built, would be that which he
and his subjects should embrace. The Khazars, themselves being
monotheistic, had also apparently expressed reservations about the
polytheistic nature of the Trinity doctrine of the Christians. 33
So as not to exclude the Islamic account of these events, the
following is taken by D. M. Dunlop from al-Bakri's eleventh century
work the Book of Kingdoms and Roads:
"The reason for the conversion of the king of the Khazars, who had
previously been a heathen, to Judaism was as follows. He had adopted
Christianity. Then he recognised the wrongness of his belief and began
to speak with one of his governors about the concern with which he was
filled. The other said to him, O king, the People of the Book form
three classes. Invite them and enquire of them , then follow whichever
is in possession of the truth. So he sent to the Christians for a
bishop. Now there was with him a Jew skilled in debate, who disputed
with the bishop, asking him, What do you say about Moses, son of Amram,
and the Torah which was revealed to him? The other replied, Moses is a
Prophet, and the Torah is true. Then said the Jew to the king. He has
admitted the truth of my creed. Ask him now what he believes. So the
king asked him and he replied, I say that the Messiah, Jesus the son of
Mary, is the Word, and that he has made known the mysteries in the name
of God. Then the Jew said to the king of the Khazars, He confesses a
doctrine which I know not, while he admits what I set forth. But the
bishop was not strong in bringing proofs. So he invited the Muslims,
and they sent him a learned and intelligent man who understood
disputation. But the Jew hired someone against him who poisoned him on
the way, so that he died. And the Jew was able to win the king for his
religion." 34
Koestler presents an interesting alternative to these views. His
position was that the king's conversion was essentially a political
decision. "At the beginning of the eighth century," he writes, "the
world was polarized between the two super-powers representing
Christianity and Islam. Their ideological doctrines were welded to
power-politics pursued by the classical methods of propaganda,
subversion and military conquest."
It may be observed here that it is quite evident modern
Christianity has well learned this same form of statecraft (propaganda,
subversion and military conquest) inasmuch as they have torn a page
directly from the first millennium history of the church.
"The Khazar Empire represented a Third Force," Koestler continues,
"which had proved equal to either of them, both as an adversary and an
ally. But it could only maintain its independence by accepting neither
Christianity nor Islam -- for either choice would have automatically
subordinated it to the authority of the Roman Emperor or the Caliph of
Baghdad." 35
Although they suffered no want of protracted efforts by either
Islam or Christianity to convert the Khazars to their respective
religions, it resulted in no more than an exchange of political and
dynastic courtesies (i.e., intermarriages and shifting military
alliances, etc.). It was clear that the Khazars were determined to
preserve their supremacy as a "Third Force" in the world, and
undisputed leader of the countries and tribal nations of the
Transcaucasus. They saw that the adoption of one of the great
monotheistic religions would confer upon their monarch the benefit of
both prelatic and judicial authority that their system of shamanism
could not, and that the rulers of the other two powers clearly enjoyed.
36
J. B. Bury concurs: "There can be no question," he says, "that the
ruler was actuated by political motives in adopting Judaism. To embrace
Mohammadanism would have made him the spiritual dependent of the
Caliphs, who attempted to press their faith on the Khazars, and in
Christianity lay the danger of his becoming an ecclesiastical vassal of
the Roman Empire. Judaism was a reputable religion with sacred books
which both Christian and Mohammadan respected; it elevated him above
the heathen barbarians, and secured him against the interference of
Caliph or Emperor." 37
It would be illogical, however, to think that the Khazarian rulers
had embraced Judaism blindly without intimate knowledge of what they
were accepting. They had encountered the faith numerous times
throughout the preceding century from traders and refugees fleeing
persecution at the hands of the Romans, and, to a lesser degree, Jewish
flight from the Arab conquests of Asia Minor.
Benjamin Freedman expresses differently the science behind the
process of choosing a national Khazarian religion. He claims they were
much more informal and random, and not nearly so intellectual in their
approach.
It matters little what the mechanics were of the conversion of the
Khazar kingdom to Judaism. It matters only that it happened, and that
it happened with a clanging historical ring that resounds to the
present age.
"The religion of the Hebrews," writes John Bury, "had exercised a
profound influence on the creed of Islam, and it had been a basis for
Christianity; it had won scattered proselytes; but the conversion of
the Khazars to the undiluted religion of Jehovah is unique in history."
38
It is indeed a unique historical event, as Bury claims; however it
is also interesting that he should refer to their conversion to
Talmudic Judaism as "to the undiluted religion of Jehovah." It is
evident that present-day Ethiopian Jews would disagree with Mr. Bury on
this matter since they do not adhere to the precepts of the Talmud,
Mishnah, Midrash or any of the extra-biblical writings that have arisen
since the close of the Old Testament canon. These Jews of North Africa
claim only Torah as their scriptural authority. And, unlike their
distant "brothers" of the Talmud, they practice their religion quietly
and with relatively no involvement in worldly politics.
According to an ancient document entitled King Joseph's Reply to
Hasdai ibn Shaprut, Joseph (a later Khazarian king) stated that, "From
that time on the Almighty God helped him [King Bulan] and strengthened
him. He and his slaves circumcised themselves and he sent for and
brought wise men of Israel who interpreted the Torah for him and
arranged the precepts in order." 39
There appears to be as many historical accounts as to how King
Bulan was converted to Judaism as there are historians and mystics to
present them. Many of them involve visions of angels, such as the tale
by a Sephardic Jewish philosopher detailing a dream in which an angel
told the king that his "intentions are desirable to the Creator" but
the continued observance of shamanism was not. 40 In the aforementioned
document, King Joseph's Reply, its author claims that in that same
dream God promised King Bulan that if he would abandon his pagan
religion and worship the only true God that He would "bless and
multiply Bulan's offspring, and deliver his enemies into his hands, and
make his kingdom last to the end of the world".
It is believed by scholars that the dream was designed to simulate
the Covenant in Genesis and meant to imply "that the Khazars too
claimed the status of a Chosen Race, who made their own Covenant with
the Lord, even though they were not descended from Abraham's seed." 41
[emphasis supplied]
King Joseph corroborates this in his document as he claims to have
positively traced his family's ancestry back, not to Shem the father of
the "Shemites" or Semite peoples, but to another of Noah's sons.
"Though a fierce Jewish nationalist, proud of wielding the 'sceptre
ofJudah'," Koestler says, "he cannot, and does not, claim for them
Semitic descent; he traces their ancestry...to...Noah's third son,
Japheth; or more precisely to Japheth's grandson, Togarma, the ancestor
of all Turkish tribes."
Koestler adds a footnote to King Joseph's genealogical claims that
is piercingly relevant to this study: "It also throws a sidelight on
the frequent description of the Khazars as the people of Magog. Magog,
according to Genesis 10:2-3 was the much maligned uncle of Togarma."
Add to this that two other of the sons of Japheth, the progenitor of
the Khazars, are Meshech and Tubal, central figures in biblical
prophecies of the end times.
King Joseph's Reply also revealed that the successor to King Bulan,
his son Obediah, "reorganized the kingdom and established the [Jewish]
religion properly and correctly," bringing in numerous Jewish sages who
"explained to him the twenty-four books [the Torah], Mishnah, Talmud,
and the order of prayers."
This entrenchment in the Jewish religion outlasted the kingdom
itself and was transplanted, whole cloth, into the Eastern European
settlements of Russia and Poland. 42
Whatever the religious machinery (and/or chicanery) that was set in
motion to accomplish the task, the consequence is historically
undeniable that the Khazarian king was indeed converted to Talmudic
Judaism. And the temporal consequences of that conversion have rung
down through history like a warped and distorted bell, answering
clearly to prophetic declarations of the last days of earth's history.
THE DECLINE OF THE KHAZARS AND
THE EMERGENCE OF THE ASHKENAZIM
The Khazarian kingdom reached its peak of power and world influence
in the latter half of the eighth century. The death knell of their
empire was eventually seen in the dragon-headed ships of the Vikings
who were to cross and navigate all the major waterways in their
onslaughts. Even the legendary ferocity of the Khazars was outdistanced
by these Norsemen who "did not deign to trade until they failed to
vanquish; they preferred bloodstained, glorious gold to a steady
mercantile profit." 43 They were also called Rus, from which descended,
among others, the Russians.
Because historical Scandinavian literature did not begin until
after the time of the Vikings, little of actual fact is known of them,
with much of it apocryphal and contradictory and almost none of it
laudatory. Of their military powers, however, virtually all accounts
are in harmony. In his book, The Magyars in the Ninth Century, C. A.
Macartney quotes the Arab historian, Ibn Rusta:
"These people are vigorous and courageous and when they descend on
open ground, none can escape from them without being destroyed and
their women taken possession of, and themselves taken into slavery." 44
There was even coined a specific term for the Viking ferocity:
berserksgangr, from which is derived the English word berserk.
"Such were the prospects," says Koestler, "which...faced the
Khazars."
Even in light of their viciousness and military prowess, these
Norse Vikings focused their pillaging assaults on the Byzantine Roman
Empire, preferring to trade with the Khazars rather than to tangle with
them. Though eventually outmatched in ferocity, the Khazars were still
able, for a while, to exact their ten percent taxes even from the
Vikings on all of their "cargo" (more correctly spelled plunder) that
passed through their land.
An interesting story emerges from this period of the Khazar Empire
that gives a clear vignette of the emerging cultural schematic that was
eventually to be scattered throughout the world.
In 912 the Rus Vikings, with an armada of 500 ships, each manned by
100 warriors, were set on invading and plundering the Muslim lands
south of the Khazars, with whom the Khazars had a loose alliance of
protection due to the thousands of loyal Muslims in the Kagan's army.
The Rus commander sent a letter to the Kagan asking permission to pass
through his territory, to which the Khazar king acceded on condition of
receiving half of the spoils upon their return.
On the Viking's return from their bloody mission, and paying the
tribute required by the Khazars, the Muslims loyal to the Khazarian
monarch, who lived in the eastern part of his kingdom, requested of the
Kagan that they be permitted to fight the Vikings in retaliation for
what they had done to their brethren to the south. The king granted
them permission to do so, which resulted in the complete eradication of
the Rus force -- except for five thousand who escaped and were
subsequently killed by the Butas and Bulgars to the north.
Here pictured is a classical perspective of what was to become the
Khazar/Jewish heritage in nearly all their dealings -- business, social
or cultural: a king who becomes a willing though passive confederate of
marauding Rus/Vikings, claims half of the loot they have taken in their
bloody assault, licenses a retributive attack against them by Muslims
under his own command, but then informs the Vikings of the imminent
reprisal he himself has authorised. 45
The weakening of the Khazar military influence had a very wide and
unexpected influence in that it greatly hastened the extinction of the
Byzantine Empire. They no longer had a powerful force on their eastern
borders to prevent the Vikings, Mongols and others from invading an
already weakened dominion. This, and internal factions within Khazaria,
was the prolog to the scattering of the Khazar/Jewish seed throughout
Russia and eastern Europe -- and eventually, as shall be shown, to the
reshaping of world history.
The swan song of the Khazar kingdom was not a precipitous decline
in a climactic or decisive series of battles, but rather a gradual,
evolutionary succumbing to superior forces over a protracted period of
time.
"In general, the reduced Khazar kingdom persevered," says S. W.
Baron. "It waged a more or less effective defense against all foes
until the middle of the thirteenth century, when it fell victim to the
great Mongol invasion set in motion by Jenghiz Khan. Even then it
resisted stubbornly until the surrender of all its neighbours....But
before and after the Mongol upheaval the Khazars sent many offshoots
into the unsubdued Slavonic lands, helping ultimately to build up the
great Jewish centres of eastern Europe." 46
"Here, then," remarks Arthur Koestler, "we have the cradle of the
numerically strongest and culturally dominant part of modern Jewry."
The ancient Hebrew nation had started branching into the Diaspora
long before the destruction of Jerusalem. Ethnically, the Semitic
tribes on the waters of the Jordan and the Turko-Khazar tribes on the
Volga were of course 'miles apart', but they had at least two important
formative factors in common. Each lived at a focal junction where the
great trade routes connecting east and west, north and south intersect;
a circumstance which predisposed them to become nations of traders, of
enterprising travellers, or 'rootless cosmopolitans' -- as hostile
propaganda has unaffectionately labelled them. But at the same time
their exclusive religion fostered a tendency to keep to themselves and
stick together, to establish their own communities with their own
places of worship, schools, residential quarters and ghettoes
(originally self-imposed) in whatever town or country they settled.
This rare combination of wanderlust and ghetto-mentality, reinforced by
Messianic hopes and chosen-race pride, both ancient Israelites and
mediaeval Khazars shared -- even though the latter traced their descent
not to Shem [S[h]emites] but to Japheth." [underscore supplied]
This more recent "Diaspora" resulted in a strong, oftentimes
politically overwhelming, Khazar/Jewish influence in especially Hungary
and Poland, but also in the whole of Eastern Europe. Jews were found in
positions of power and political influence in virtually every major
category of life, business and society. There may have already been a
small population of what Koestler calls "real Jews" living in that
region, "but there can be little doubt that the majority of modern
Jewry originated in the migratory waves of ... Khazars who play such a
dominant part in early Hungarian history".
The Khazar influx into the Hungary/Poland region was only a small
part of an overall "mass-migration" from their homeland to Eastern and
Central Europe. They were employed as "mintmasters, administrators of
the royal revenue, controllers of the salt monopoly [at that time salt
was a valuable commodity often used in place of money. From this comes
the saying "worth his salt".] , taxcollectors and 'money-lenders' --
i.e., bankers."47
Western European Jews historically displayed such a talent and
acumen at trading and as userers (money lenders) that in virtually any
society and culture in which they found themselves, they became the
possessors of and controlling influence over large portions of that
nation's wealth. "In the 'dark ages' the commerce of Western Europe,"
wrote Cecil Roth in the 1973 edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica,
"was largely in Jewish hands, not excluding the slave trade, and...Jew
and Merchant are used as almost interchangeable terms."
"The floating wealth of the country," Roth continued, "was soaked
up by the Jews, who were periodically made to disgorge into the
exchequer [national or royal treasury]" 48 It was evident that the
ruling class periodically became intimidated by the mass of their
nation's wealth accumulating to the hands of so small a minority -- and
a very clannish minority at that. This would logically give any ruling
authority cause for concern -- when a particular group virtually
controls the nation's economics while at the same time appearing to
have a tenuous allegiance to the country in which they reside. Such a
course of events evidently led to the creation of a stereotyping
blueprint for Jews and Jewish communities that has been expressed --
and reacted to -- in various cultures for centuries.
"The nucleus of modern Jewry," remarks Koestler, "thus followed the
old recipe: strike out for new horizons but stick together." 49 This,
as previously mentioned, was the course of Western European Jews, but
the similarity between them and the Khazarian Jews is striking,
especially in their unequalled aptitude at things economical and
political.
This mass of historical data "has lead several historians to
conjecture that a substantial part, and perhaps the majority of eastern
Jews -- and hence of world Jewry -- might be of Khazar, and not of
Semitic Origin."
The far-reaching implications of this hypothesis may explain the
great caution exercised by historians in approaching this subject -- if
they do not avoid it altogether. Thus in the 1973 edition of the
Encyclopaedia Judaica the article "Khazars" is signed by Dunlop, but
there is a separate section dealing with "Khazar Jews after the Fall of
the Kingdom", signed by the editors, and written with the obvious
intent to avoid upsetting believers in the dogma of the Chosen Race.
[underscore supplied] 50
Abraham N. Poliak, Tel Aviv University's post-war Professor of
Mediaeval Jewish History, wondered at "how far we can go in regarding
this [Khazar] Jewry as the nucleus of the large Jewish settlement in
Eastern Europe. The descendants of this settlement," Poliak declares,
"those who stayed where they were, those who emigrated to the United
States and to other countries, and those who went to Israel --
constitute now the large majority of world Jewry. [emphasis supplied]
51 Some historians, such as Austrian Hugo Kutschera, assert that
Eastern European Jewry was not part, but entirely of Khazarian origin.
52
Still further proof that the Jews of Eastern Europe had no origins
in the West is Yiddish, the language commonly used by the Eastern Jews.
Yiddish was, until the latter part of the twentieth century, a dying
language. It is an amalgamation of several tongues, primarily Hebrew,
and written with Hebrew characters, but which includes much of
mediaeval German and components of other languages like Slavonic. The
German elements incorporated into Yiddish have been clearly shown to
have originated in the east of Germany where it joined the Slavonic
regions of Eastern Europe. Yiddish is a sort of linguistic "sponge" in
that it readily absorbs and incorporates whatever words or idiomatic
expressions best suit its purpose. It would therefore naturally have
become a cultural marker for whatever region in which it was spoken,
absorbing the telltale indicators of dialect like a tattoo. 53
Another respected Austrian historian, Matisyohu Meises, questions,
"Could it be that the generally accepted view, according to which the
German Jews once upon a time immigrated from France across the Rhine,
is misconceived?" Meises, who knew virtually nothing about the Khazars,
was perplexed at the fact that no Yiddish linguistic roots whatever
could be traced to Western Europe. He also noted that, inexplicably,
there was a large geographical gap clearly delineating the Yiddish
spoken by the Eastern Khazar transplants from any spoken in Western
Europe. 54
"The evidence," Mr. Koestler nicely summates, "...adds up to a
strong case in favour of those modern historians -- whether Austrian,
Israeli or Polish -- who, independently from each other, have argued
that the bulk of modern Jewry is not of Palestinian, but of Caucasian
origin. The mainstream of Jewish migrations did not flow from the
Mediterranean across France and Germany to the east and then back
again. The stream moved in a consistently westerly direction, from the
Caucasus through the Ukraine into Poland and thence into Central
Europe. When that unprecedented mass-settlement in Poland came into
being, there were simply not enough Jews around in the west to account
for it; while in the east a whole nation was on the move to new
frontiers." 55
With the overwhelming evidence that the modern Jewish population is
of Khazar origin, Koestler remarks that this would clearly indicate
that "their ancestors came not from the Jordan but from the Volga, not
from Canaan but from the Caucasus, once believed to be the cradle of
the Aryan race; and that genetically they are more closely related to
the Hun, Uigur and Magyar tribes than to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob." This conclusion would then logically render the epithet
"anti-Semitism" "void of meaning," Koestler says.
The latter conclusion is a position Palestinian Arabs might well
dispute with Mr. Koestler due to the fact that this revelation
ironically places the modern Jew, currently occupying Palestine, in the
unenviable position of, themselves, being anti-Semitic -- an historical
mockery of somewhat amazing proportions. 56
But what, one may ask, became of the greater part of the population
of "real Jews"?
Towards the close of the ninth century the Jewish settlements of
Germany, who were nearly all of Semitic origin, had been virtually
wiped out by the "mob-hysteria" that resulted from the First Crusade in
1096. The Encyclopedia Britannica on the Crusades vividly sets forth
the mindset of the crusaders:
"He might butcher all, till he waded ankle-deep in blood, and then
at nightfall kneel, sobbing for very joy, at the altar of the Sepulchre
-- for was he not red from the winepress of the Lord?" 57
The Jews who found themselves in that "winepress" significantly
assisted in their own demise. Like those of Massada who committed mass
suicide rather than surrender to the armies of Rome, a great many of
the Jews of the Rhineland and surrounding countries, when presented
with the choice of baptism into "Christianity" or death at the hands of
their captors, chose neither, opting for the Massada solution.
Imitating on a grand scale Abraham's readiness to sacrifice Isaac,
fathers slaughtered their children and husbands their wives. These acts
of unspeakable horror and heroism were performed in the ritualistic
form of slaughter with sacrificial knives sharpened in accordance with
Jewish law. At times the leading sages of the community, supervising
the mass immolation, were the last to part with life at their own
hands. In the mass hysteria, sanctified by the glow of religious
martyrdom and compensated by the confident expectation of heavenly
rewards, nothing seemed to matter but to end life before one fell into
the hands of the implacable foes and had to face the inescapable
alternative of death at the enemy's hand or conversion to Christianity.
58
Of the German cities of Worms and Spires, being somewhat
representative of the whole of Western European communities that were
devastated by the Crusades, Salo Baron writes, "the total Jewish
population of either community had hardly exceeded the figures...given
for the dead alone". 59
The most common historical concept, before the modern revelation of
the existence of Khazaria, was that the 1096 Crusade literally "swept
like a broom" virtually the entire German Jewish population into
Poland. This was an invention of apparent necessity because those
historians could account by no other means for the inexplicably large
population of Eastern European Jews. They concluded this in the face of
the total absence of any historical account of a mass migration of Jews
to eastern Germany and certainly not Poland.
By the close of the 1300s much of Western Europe was, for all
practical purposes, completely empty of any perceivable Jewish
population. What the Crusades failed to accomplish in the eradication
of Western European Jewry the "Black Death" -- the Bubonic Plagues of
the bacilli Pasteurella pestis -- virtually completed. Those Jews of
that era suffered doubly; from the plague itself and from the
proliferation of superstitious rumours that they were responsible for
the disease by poisoning wells, just as they were blamed earlier for
"the ritual slaughter of Christian children." This resulted in the
burning alive of Jews in great numbers over the whole of Europe. 60
Later some of the Sephardic Jews of Spain immigrated northward,
accounting for some of the smaller Jewish populations of Western
Europe.
"Because of the long and varied history of the Jews," says the 2001
edition of World Book Encyclopedia, "it is difficult to define a Jew.
There is no such thing as a Jewish race. Jewish identity is a mixture
of religious, historical, and ethnic factors." Thus, those who might
have truly claimed to be of the genealogy of Abraham and of true
Semitic origin became extinct as a discernible race, being replaced by
the white Khazars of the Transcaucasus, none of whose ancestors, as
Benjamin Freedman phrases it, have ever placed a foot in the land of
Palestine. This causes a serious problem with modern Christianity's
infatuation with the Jews and their "return to their Homeland," begging
the question: How can one return to a place where they have never been?
Khazaria kingdom map
end part 1