Wstawiam stary tekst zamordowanego DR Ratajczaka
THE KHAZAR TRAIL
I have long argued that history as a science is subordinated to politics. This is particularly true of recent history, but not only. Also events that are more distant in time and, to be more precise, some scientific theories that are connected with them are in danger of being pushed into the abyss of oblivion. Because they are inconvenient, incorrect, even dangerous for the mighty of this world. One such theory, not without controversy but plausible, concerns the origin of most European Jews, whose descendants, apart from our continent, live in the Americas, Australia and Israel. In the latter, they form the ruling layer of the state to this day. Simply put, it is about the ethnogenesis of the Ashkenazim.
In the early Middle Ages in the Eurasian steppes stretching from the Volga, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus, the Khazar tribes appeared. They were a nomadic Turkic (or rather Turkic-Tatari-Mongolian) people who soon became partially settled on the land. In the 8th cent. Khazars already formed a well-organized state organism covering the Crimea and the northern edges of the Black Sea to the Dniester River. A real empire: from the Caucasus to the territories of modern Moldavia! Serving as an intermediary for trade between east and west, Khazaria was ruled by a khan (kagan) with three main provinces, seven dependent kingdoms and seven fief tribes. The tribal fiefs were dominated by Slavs and Finnish peoples.
Originally the Khazars were pagan shamanists, later it seemed that they would embrace Islam, but eventually they converted to... Judaism, which becoming the state religion also embraced the simple folk. They became the "Khazar Jews", although - let us not forget - the khanate was also inhabited by "Jewish-Semites" fleeing the power of Byzantium and the Muslims. Murad Magomedov's excavations in Belendjer and Semender (former Khazar cities on the Caspian Sea) bear witness to this. This scientist discovered not only the tombs of the khans, but also the symbol of their power: a six-pointed star.
The Judaized Khazars, obviously numerically superior to the Semitic refugees, were formidable opponents to their neighbors. They warred with Byzantium and undertook exceptionally cruel and plundering expeditions into purely Slavic lands. These escapades echoed in Russian and Russian legends for a long time. They mentioned dramatic battles with the "Great Jew". For obvious reasons, he could not be a "Jew-semite" but a Khazar convert. Perhaps the later reluctant attitude of many Russians and other eastern Slavs towards the Jews was a consequence of the events of more than 1000 years ago, which were fixed in folk memory. After all, nothing happens in history without a reason.
The ethnic impact of the horrific raids was obvious. Captured men were sold into slavery by the attackers, while Slavic women became Khazar concubines or, after conversion to Judaism, wives. This would explain the contemporary anthropological picture of the descendants of European Jews, among whom the Semitic type does not predominate (its features are at most in some cases more or less pronounced) but the Turkish-Tatar-Slavic type.
The fundamental issue: what happened to the Judaized Khazars? Could such a strong, vital tribe have vanished into thin air? Well, in the second half of the tenth century, around the time of the Christianization of Poland, the Khazar state was smashed by Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev. In revenge, the Slavs drove many Khazars into Ruthenia. The rest joined their brethren later, fleeing from the hordes of Genghis Khan to Poland, Ruthenia-Lithuania, Hungary and beyond. In this way they became European Jews. It is open to question how long they retained certain Khazar customs or, more generally, the consciousness of their origin. Or how firmly fixed in them resentment or even hatred for the perpetrators of the fall of Khazaria.Were these feelings permanent, subconsciously projecting their attitude to the successor of Kievan Rus until modern times? An interesting question, but I dare not answer it.
The version of the Khazar origin of European Jews (Ashkenazim) has its supporters. In the West, however, it was pioneered by none other than Arthur Koestler. Almost 30 years ago, the author of "Darkness at Noon" wrote a book entitled "The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage," in which he proved that the Khazars were the ancestors of the Ashkenazim, i.e. the source of European Jewry. He thus supported the earlier findings of an Israeli resident, Natan M. Pollock. This translator of scientific texts and proofreader for a publishing company devoted 40 years of his life to proving the thesis that 6 out of 10 Jewish residents of Israel and 9 out of 10 Jews living in Europe and the Americas have Khazar, not Semitic, roots. As an interesting aside, according to Pollock's findings, the names: Halperin, Alpert, Halpern, Galpern, etc.-so common among European Jews-testify to the Khazar ancestry of their bearers (e.g., "Alper" in Khazar means "bold knight"; this title was given by the khan to particularly outstanding warriors). Also similar: Kaplan, Caplon, Koppel, etc. ("Kaplan" means "wild hawk") and, of course, Kogan, Kagan, Kaganovich.
In September 1966, Pollock decided to officially commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Jewish-Khazar alliance. The Israeli authorities did not agree to this, among other reasons, because the theory of the Khazar, i.e. non-Palestinian, origin of European Jews was taken up by the Arabs. Really none of the officials cared whether Pollock was right or wrong. Once again, politics prevented history from striking out on its own.
By the way: I wonder what the publicists of "Gazeta Wyborcza" would write if it turned out that the alleged Polish anti-Semites are in fact harmless anti-Chazars!
DARIUSZ RATAJCZAK
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