Khazaria the Thirteenth Tribe

The question is why are there so many Jews in Ukraine, today’s southern Russia, Poland, and Germany?

The Thirteenth Tribe is a 1976 book by Arthur Koestler^[1] advocating the Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry, the thesis that Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from the historical Israelites of antiquity, but from Khazars, a Turkic people. Koestler hypothesized that the Khazars (who converted to Judaism in the 8th century) migrated westwards into Eastern Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries when the Khazar Empire was collapsing.

Koestler used previous works by Douglas Morton Dunlop, Raphael Patai and Abraham Polak as sources. His stated intent was to make antisemitism disappear by disproving its racial basis.

Popular reviews of the book were mixed, academic critiques of its research were generally negative, and Koestler biographers David Cesarani and Michael Scammell panned it. In 2018, the New York Times described the book as “widely discredited.”^[2] Neither was it effective in disproving antisemitism, as antisemites merely adapted it — like prior work on the hypothesis — to argue the illegitimacy of present-day Jews.

The Khazar Khaganate was a powerful and influential Turkic state that existed between the 7th and 10th centuries. Located primarily in the northern Caucasus and western steppes of modern-day southern Russia, the Khazar Khaganate controlled vast territories, including parts of the Volga River, the Crimea, and the Caspian Sea region.

Key Points about the Khazar Khaganate:
1. Origins: The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who emerged as a political force following the collapse of the Western Turkic Khaganate in the mid-600s. They eventually established their own state, with a ruling class known as the Khaganate.
2. Religion: One of the most unique aspects of the Khazar Khaganate was the ruling elite’s conversion to Judaism sometime in the 8th or 9th century. The exact reasons for this conversion remain debated, but it set the Khazars apart from their Christian and Muslim neighbors, such as the Byzantine Empire and the Caliphates.
3. Trade and Economy: The Khazars were known for their significant role in the Silk Road trade network, controlling key trade routes between Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Their capital, Atil, on the Volga River, was a major commercial hub.
4. Diplomatic Relations: The Khazar Khaganate maintained a strategic diplomatic balance between the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim Caliphates, often serving as a buffer state between the two. They also had interactions with the emerging Kievan Rus and other Slavic states.
5. Military Power: The Khazars had a strong military and often engaged in warfare with their neighbors. They were known for employing a mix of cavalry and mercenary forces, and their military might helped them maintain control over their vast territory.
6. Decline and Fall: The Khazar Khaganate began to weaken in the 10th century due to internal strife, economic pressure, and attacks from external forces. One key factor in their decline was the rise of the Kievan Rus, which defeated the Khazars in a series of campaigns, culminating in the destruction of Atil around 965 AD. By the early 11th century, the Khazar state had largely disintegrated.
7. Legacy: The Khazars are often remembered for their unique religious identity and their role in medieval trade and diplomacy. Their influence extended over a wide area, and they are considered a key player in the history of the Eurasian steppes.
The Khazar Khaganate holds a special place in history for its blend of Turkic nomadic culture, religious diversity, and strategic political positioning.

What Is Hanukkah, and Why Do We Celebrate It?

Story by Lauren Cahn in the Reader’s Digest

Because Hanukkah and Christmas fall around the same time of year, people often wonder if Hanukkah is a Jewish version of Christmas. At least religiously speaking, it is not. Whereas Christmas marks the birth of Jesus, Hanukkah, which was celebrated for centuries before Jesus was born, commemorates something entirely different.

Hanukkah commemorates the victory in 164 B.C. of a group of Jewish people (the Maccabees) over the Syrian Greeks, who had been occupying the Land of Israel since before 167 B.C. Not only had the Greeks destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, but they also banned the practice of Judaism entirely. After a three-year fight, the Maccabees liberated the temple—and won the Jewish people the right to practice their religion.

In 2023, Hanukkah begins at sundown on Thursday, Dec. 7, and finishes at sundown on Friday, Dec. 15. If you’re wondering why Hanukkah falls on a different date every year, it actually doesn’t, according to the Hebrew calendar. The rededication took place on the 25th day of the month of Kislev in 164 B.C. Every year since then, the start of Hanukkah has been on 25 Kislev. But the Hebrew calendar is lunar, meaning it follows the moon, whereas most of the rest of the world uses a solar-based calendar, which follows the sun. Because the lunar and solar calendars don’t line up precisely, Hanukkah can fall anytime from late November to late December.

Thousands of menorahs in Billings, Montana

Billings, Montana is not the home of a large Jewish population. I found there are estimates of 5,000 Jews in all of Montana.

Jews light the menorah during Hanukkah to remember the miraculous triumph of the Maccabee in ancient times, lighting one candle each night for eight nights. Classical Jewish texts recommend placing menorahs in windows of homes to publicize the celebration of a miracle.

“In that way, in a sense, the light will be spread,” says Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism. “The light of understanding, the light of tolerance, the light of Jewish identity, all of those.”

But will a menorah in a window really make a difference in the fight against antisemitism?

It can – and has.

Look no further than the town of Billings, Montana, whose citizens fought back in 1993 after someone launched a brick through the window of then 5-year-old Isaac Schnitzer’s bedroom. A menorah in the window sparked the attack, according to The New York Times. The Billings Gazette published a menorah drawing in response, and thousands hung these makeshift menorahs on their windows. Jews and non-Jews alike.

The Billings Gazette is recreating the full-page menorah ad this year and will ask the community to repeat history and place them in their windows. The move comes after swastikas and threatening messages recently appeared at a local high school.

“It’s important to mark this anniversary because we don’t ever want to forget the power of love,” Cole says. “Common decency is more powerful than hate.”

Billings is working with Shine A Light, a coalition of organizations raising awareness about antisemitism. In addition to engaging several local communities like Billings, the group has partnered with corporations like Google, iHeart Media and Airbnb.

All this begs the question, about 30 years later, “what’s the wider community able to do to make Jewish families and the Jewish community feel more secure, at a very insecure moment?” asks Jacobs.

Menorahs in public spaces this time of year suggests solidarity.

“It’s a statement against antisemitism broadly given what has been happening,” Neufeld says. “It’s a sign of allyship to Jews, that they are not alone, and that these attacks affect everyone. It’s also a deep recognition that antisemitism doesn’t just affect Jews, but affects everybody, that it is part of the conspiratorial glue, that is key to so much of hate in society today.”

8 Other Laws That Could Be Ignored Now That Religions Get To Pick And Choose

From AOL.com

NUDITY LAWS Entire colonies of people are dedicated to the belief that being compelled to wear clothes is wrong. Others don’t believe they should be compelled to make love only indoors.

TAXES Most religions profess a deep affinity for peace (while drenching history in blood in the name of religion, but whatever). Why should religious pacifists be compelled to pay taxes that subsidize war?

LSD There isn’t much more religious of an experience than talking directly with God. Hell, Huston Smith included a section on acid in his definitive book The World’s Religions.

GROWING HEMP If you’ve ever talked to a hemp evangelist, you know belief in the crop borders on the religious.

STONING The Bible is packed with tales of impure women meeting a just end under a pile of stones. Today, in certain countries, they’re known as honor killings. Will the court make an exception to murder for the deeply religious?

GENITAL MUTILATION Female circumcision — more commonly and accurately known as genital mutilation — is central to the practice of some religions, according to some people who have strong beliefs. What is a democracy to tell people otherwise? In fact, the same could go for domestic violence, polygamy and whatever else.

PASTEURIZED MILK For some Amish folk, following a strict religious interpretation of “Do unto others what you would have others do unto you” means selling raw, unpasteurized milk, a practice banned under U.S. law for its potential to carry dangerous bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE To hell with the Violence Against Women Act, when the Quran authorizes you to strike a disobedient wife, as illustrated in Chapter 4, Verse 34. And we don’t have to limit the freedom to Muslim men. As Deuteronomy 25:11-12 testifies, “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.”

Trancoso’s Hidden Jews

More than five centuries after Portugal’s Jews were compelled to convert to Catholicism, the Torah has finally returned to Trancoso. Today visitportugal.com recognizes the history of the Jewish population of the town.

by Michael Freund

Slowly but energetically, the festive procession made its way through the narrow and winding alleyways of the ancient Portuguese town.

The sounds of buoyant Hebrew song cascaded off the cool stone walls, prompting residents to open their windows and stare inquisitively at the unfamiliar sight, as dozens of people from across the country danced and clapped in a rousing surge of emotion.

Among the participants, who were all swept away in the moment, many a moist eye could be seen glistening in the midday sun at this remarkable and most unexpected turn of events.

More than five centuries after Portugal’s Jews were compelled to convert to Catholicism, the Torah has finally returned to Trancoso.

In a moving ceremony organized with the local municipality this past Sunday, Shavei Israel, the organization I founded and chair, arranged for the dedication of a Torah scroll to inaugurate the village’s new Jewish cultural and religious center.

It will serve the large numbers of B’nai Anusim (people whose Iberian Jewish ancestors were forcibly converted to Catholicism in the 14th and 15th centuries and whom historians refer to by the derogatory term “Marranos”) who reside in the area.

The facility, named the Isaac Cardoso Center for Jewish Interpretation, is named after a 17th-century Trancoso-born physician and philosopher who came from a family of B’nai Anusim. Cardoso later moved to Spain with his family and then fled to Venice to escape the Inquisition, where he and his brother Miguel publicly embraced Judaism.

He went on to publish a number of important works on philosophy, medicine and theology, including a daring treatise in 1679 titled The Excellence of the Hebrews, which defended Judaism and the Jewish people from various medieval stereotypes such as ritual murder accusations and the blood libel.

The initiative for the center came from Trancoso’s mayor, Julio Sarmento, who invested more than $1.5 million in erecting the modern structure, which will include an exhibition about the Jewish history of Portugal and the renewal of Jewish life in the region in recent years.

At Sarmento’s insistence, the building also contains a new synagogue, Beit Mayim Hayim, “the House of Living Waters,” whose name was suggested by Rabbi Raphael Weinberg of Jerusalem, the first rabbi to visit Trancoso.

Near the entrance to the synagogue is a memorial wall filled with the names of B’nai Anusim who were tried and punished by the Inquisition for secretly practicing Judaism, including some who were publicly burned at the stake in the 18th century, nearly three centuries after their ancestors had been dragged to the baptismal font.

Located in the Guarda district in Portugal’s northeastern interior, the charming village of Trancoso was home to a flourishing Jewish community prior to the expulsion and forced conversion of Portugal’s Jews in 1497.

A local journalist and historian, Jose Levy Domingos, who has spent decades lovingly recording and preserving the town’s Jewish past, has discovered well over one hundred stone etchings and other physical traces of that bygone era in Trancoso’s old Jewish quarter, some of which are poignant and emotive.

On typical Jewish homes, for example, the windows were laid out in a decidedly asymmetrical fashion, at varying heights and lengths, creating a sense of architectural imperfection and inadequacy.

Domingos explains that this was done intentionally because the Jews wanted to underline that only the Temple which once stood in Jerusalem embodied perfection.

Many of the medieval homes have crosses engraved adjacent to the entrance as an ostensible statement of piety. Fearful of running afoul of the watchful eyes of the inquisition, Trancoso’s B’nai Anusim also engaged in this practice, albeit with a twist.

Domingos points out that at the bottom of the etching, they added what appear to be three prongs, as if holding up the cross. But to Jewish eyes, it is clear what their real intention was as the three spokes clearly form an inverted “Shin,” the Hebrew letter that is often used to denote one of the Divine names.

This was how Trancoso’s hidden Jews sought to cling to their heritage, subtly indicating that they had not forgotten, nor abandoned, the faith of their forefathers.

The Jewish spark cannot be extinguished. We truly are the immortal nation.

It is in memory of their tenacity that we gathered dozens of their descendants, all of them Portuguese B’nai Anusim, to take part in the ceremony this past Sunday. Symbolically, we began the procession with the Torah facing a large and imposing cathedral in the very same public square where the Inquisition had once tormented Trancoso’s hidden Jews.

Speaking to the assembled crowd, my voice cracked with emotion as I pointed at the basilica and told the B’nai Anusim, “we are here today because your forefathers did not surrender to those who sought to force them to abandon their faith. They bravely and stubbornly clung to their Jewishness in secret, risking everything. Let us all take inspiration from their example.”

As we neared the synagogue, I noticed a young man, one of the B’nai Anusim from a nearby village, looking longingly at the Torah, but seemingly shying away from it at the same time. Taking the scroll, I went over to him and offered it to him to hold. He hesitated for a moment, the surprise on his face giving way to joy as he lovingly embraced it and danced it towards its destination.

It was, I later discovered, the first time since his ancestors had converted to Catholicism in 1497 that he or anyone else in his family had ever held a Torah in their arms, as far as he knew.

And then I understood as clearly as I have ever felt before: the Jewish spark cannot be extinguished.

We truly are the immortal nation.

David Bancroft

Equality is something for Everyone!

Some of the people in my family are devoutly religious. None are in my immediate family. I am quite certain that they believe marriage is between a man and a woman. They believe it cannot be any other way. Homosexuality is, in their view, something to be hidden and something to be ashamed of. It must have been VERY difficult for Senator Rob Portman, who had taken a strong stand against gay marriage to learn that his 21 year old son is gay.

I personally find sexual relations between two people of the same sex to be revolting. Especially sex between two men. There was nothing funny about “I Love You Phillip Morris” starring Jim Carrey. To me it was horrifying.

Despite my feelings, I recognize that there are people in this world who are attracted to others of the same sex. They have the right to live their lives as happily as does the rest of society. Homosexual marriages will not impact my marriage in any way. The religious may believe that homosexual marriage will demean the basic principles of marriage. Those that have that belief probably also find all deviations from orthodox religion as unacceptable behavior too.

No one makes you associate with those you find an anathema to your views or beliefs. You are not required to associate with people of another religion, race, political party, etc. that you consider unacceptable.

“Modern Family” really is a profile on the early 21^st century as “The Jeffersons” were in the last part of the 20^th century.

I have no idea how the Supreme Court will rule on California’s Proposition 8 or DOMA. I would recommend the justices re-read the American Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the Constitution.

Equality is something for Everyone! No law should limit that right!

Did the Pope Resign as the Result of Child Abuse/Sex Abuse Cases?

There are suspicions about the reason for Pope Benedict’s resignation. After all, no pope has resigned in about 600 years. The others all died in office. I am sure that many of them were in poor health but continued as best they could. So why did the current pope believe he could no longer perform the duties required of the position?

CNN posted this on the bottom of their screen during “Reliable Sources” today. “Italian media are buzzing with reports that the pope’s resignation was tied to a secret report on gay priests. The Vatican strongly condemns the allegations, calling them ‘deplorable.’ The allegations may be deplorable (synonym for unforgivable) but are they accurate?

Here are the cardinals involved in sex abuse case cover-up:

Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York
Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles

Instances of abuse listed on Wikipedia. Even if these cases are exaggerated the extent of abuse is overwhelming.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas paid $30.9 million in 1998 to twelve victims of one priest.^[21] In July 2003 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville paid $25.7 million to “settle child sexual-abuse allegations made in 240 lawsuits naming 34 priests and other church workers.”^[21]

In 2003 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston also settled a large case for $85 million with 552 alleged victims.^[87]

In 2004, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange settled nearly 90 cases for $100 million.^[88]

In April 2007 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon agreed to a $75 million settlement with 177 claimants and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle agreed to a $48 million settlement with more than 160 victims.^[89]

In July 2007 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a $660 million agreement with more than 500 alleged victims, in December 2006, the archdiocese had a settlement of 45 lawsuits for $60 million.^[23][90]

In September 2007 the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego reached a $198.1 million “agreement with 144 childhood sexual abuse victims.”^[91]

In July 2008 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver agreed “to pay $5.5 million to settle 18 claims of childhood sexual abuse.”^[92] The Associated Press estimated the total from settlements of sex abuse cases from 1950-2007 to be more than $2 billion.^[23] According to BishopAccountability reports that figure reached more than $3 billion in 2012.^[6][20]

In the late 1980s allegations were made of physical and sexual abuse committed by members of the Christian Brothers, who operated the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

In June 2010, Belgian police raided the Belgian Catholic Church headquarters in Brussels, seizing a computer and records of a Church commission investigating allegations of child abuse.

In April 2010 it was reported that former bishop of the Norwegian Catholic Church, Georg Müller, had confessed to the Norwegian Police in early January 2010 that he had sexually abused an underaged altar boy 20 years earlier.

In November 2010, an independent group in Austria ^[82] that operates a hotline to help people exit the Catholic Church released a report documenting physical, sexual, and emotional abuse perpetrated by Austrian priests, nuns, and other religious officials.

In 2012 an Australian police report in the Victoria state jurisdiction detailed 40 suicide deaths by people who had been abused by Catholic clergy.

Perhaps Pope Benedict is so dismayed that he can’t bring himself to lead the church any longer. Perhaps he too is guilty of some of the crimes. We will never really know. It is sad that one of the world’s greatest religions has this horrible mark on its history. What other marks does it have?