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ATTACHMENT #8

KHAZARS

Discussed in conversations of Barney R. Radov, Clare Levin and Jordan Sakol.

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KHAZARS

The  Khazars  were  a  Turkic  people  who  migrated  from  western  China  to  western  Russia,  probably  around  the  5th  Century.    By  the  8th  Century,  they  were  a  small  but  militarily  powerful  group,  settling  mainly  in  Volgograd  and  Kiev,  but  with  holdings  south  to  Persia  and  west  to  Hungary.    At  that  time,  they  were  pagan,  and  famed  for  their  productivity  and  tolerance.    According  to  legend,  they  invited  an  Imam,  Priest,  and  Rabbi  to  discuss  what  religion  they  should  accept  as  they  moved  from  Shamanism  to  Monotheism,  and  upon  listing  to  the  arguments,  including  comments  by  the  Christians  and  the  Muslims  that  if  they  weren't  their  own  religion,  Judaism  would  be  a  close  second,  the  royal  family  and  nobility  converted  entirely  to  Judaism  and  took  with  them  a  significant  part  of  their  people.    Widely  disbursed  following  Russian,  Hungarian,  and  Viking  conquests,  the  now  Jewish  Khazars  migrated  in  great  numbers  to  Lithuania,  Poland  and  Romania,  where  they  assimilated  among  the  Ashkenazi  and  later  the  exiled  Sephardic  communities.    Nevertheless,  significant  numbers  remained  near  Kiev.    (Kiev  was  founded  by  Khazars,  with  the  name  itself  Turkic-­‐Khazar,  Kui  (riverbank)  plus  ev  (settlement)).    Perhaps  5%  or  more  of  all  Ashkenazis  have  significant  Khazar.    Khazaris  are  noted  by  their  looks  as  an  attractive  people,  with  the  broad  cheekbones  of  the  Steppes,  flashing  eyes  and  red  hair  (the  source  of  red  hair  in  Ukrainian  Jews,  including  presumably,  some  Radovs).    They  lived  on  fish  and  barley  and,  as  to  language,  as  long  as  they  stayed  in  Russia,  they  failed  to  learn  Yiddish.    The  only  written  remnant  of  the  original  language  is  one  word  of  the  famous  Kievian  Letter  of  930,  authored  by  a  Khazarian  Jew,  written  in  Hebrew,  approved  in  Khazarian  by  the  local  (Jewish)  magistrate.    As  to  occupation,  they  were  the  dominant  traders  on  the  Silk  Road,  allied  and  inter-­‐married  with  the  other  early  Jewish  traders,  the  Radhanites  (speculation  here  is  welcome  on  Radov  family  name  etymology),  in  trading  silk,  furs,  wax,  silver  and  spices.  

Khazaria  in  800  

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 Luba's  looks  and  original  lack  of  Yiddish,  along  with  being  from  the  Kiev  area,  fit  precisely  this  model.    To  the  right  is  a  picture  of  an  antecedent  Khazari,  that  is  one  who  never  left  Western  China  and  is  now  referred  to  as  Uyghur,  without  generations  of  inter-­‐marriage  with  Ashkenazis.    My  own  memory  of  Luba,  in  a  conversation  from  the  1950s,  when  she  and  my  grandfather  were  in  the  front  seat  of  their  car,  my  mother  and  I  and  (I  think)  someone  from  the  Kerness  family  in  the  back  seat,  involved  Luba  complaining  at  great  length  about  the  smallness  and  insubstantial  nature  of  her  nose  compared  to  everyone  else's  in  the  family,  in  a  way  that  seemed  sincere  by  her,  but  baffling,  I  do  believe,  to  the  others.    As  for  the  flashing  eyes  and  the  lack  of  Yiddish,  they  were  long  self-­‐evident.  

Early  Khazar  

For  those  who  see  Separdic  (Spanish)  and  Eastern  European  Jews  as  distinct  (see  generally,  Ashkenazi  Jews,  A121-­‐126),  consider  the  comments  of  Abraham  ibn  Daud  of  Toledo,  Spain,  in  The  Book  of  Tradition  (1161):    You  will  find  the  communities  of  Israel  spread  abroad...as  far  as  Dailam  and  the  river  Itil  where  live  Khazar  peoples  who  became  proselytes.    The  Khazar  king  Joseph  sent  a  letter  to  Hasdai  ibn-­Shaprut  and  informed  him  that  he  and  all  his  people  followed  the  rabbinical  faith.    We  have  been  descendants  of  the  Khazars  in  Toledo,  students  of  the  wise,  and  they  have  told  us  that  the  remnant  of  them  is  of  the  rabbinical  belief.    

Khazar  silver  belt  with  buckle  

Khazar  Coin  

For  further  info,  see  Kevin  Brook,  The  Jews  of  Khazaria  (2nd  Ed.  2006);  Richard  Mason,  “The  Religious  Beliefs  of  the  Khazars,”  51  The  Ukrainian  Quarterly  383  (1995);  Thomas  Noonan,  “The  Khazar  Economy,”  9  Archivum  Eurasiae  Medii  Aevi  253  (1995);  Douglas  Dunlap,  The  History  of  the  Jewish  Khazars  (1967);  Leonid  Chekin,  “Christian  of  Stavelot  and  the  Conversion  of  Gog  and  Magog:  A  Study  of  Ninth-­‐Century  Reference  to  Judaism  Among  the  Khazars,”  9  Russia  Mediaevalis  17  (1997).