Historia Zydow.

[Gość: Daniel]

Wiekszosc Zydow nie ma nic wspolnego z historycznymi zydami. Pochodza z Gruzji.
Khazars..

Are Russian Jews Descended from the Khazars?
A Reassessment Based upon the Latest Historical, Archaeological, Linguistic,
and Genetic Evidence
by Kevin Alan Brook


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This page is Copyright (C) 2000-2001 by Kevin Brook, all rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction of this page is prohibited.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The "traditional" view is that Eastern European Jews descend almost entirely
from French and German Jews. This essay presents the pros and cons of the
controversial "Khazar theory" of Eastern European Jewish origins and will
attempt to provide a likely middle-ground solution to the question. Unlike
other treatments of the question, this essay uses recent discoveries, is meant
to be objective, and is fully sourced so that you can be guaranteed of the
authenticity of the information. In summary, I argue in this essay that Eastern
European Jews descend both from Khazarian Jews AND from Israelite Jews.

PART 1. Evidence in favor of the Khazar theory
Judaism is now known to have been more widespread among the Khazar inhabitants
of the Khazar kingdom than was previously thought. The findings described below
add strength to the argument that there were many Jews residing in eastern
Europe prior to the immigration of German, Austrian, Bohemian, Spanish, and
Portugese Jews into Poland and Hungary.


Hebrew characters were allegedly found engraved on utensils from a Khazarian
site in the Don river valley of Russia:

"The Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg, Russia finishes reconstructing
fragments of utensils found in Khazarian sites, where the word 'Israel' in
Hebrew characters is mentioned several times." - Alicia Dujovne Ortiz, "El
fantasma de los jázaros." La Nación (Buenos Aires, Argentina, August 14, 1999).


"No one, on the other hand, could distinguish a specific culture, a fortiori a
Jewish culture, until the very recent reconstitution by the Hermitage Museum,
in Saint Petersburg (Russia), of fragments of utensils, put at the day in 1901,
revealed four times the word 'Israel' in Hebraic letters." - Nicolas
Weill, "L'histoire retrouvée des Khazars." Le Monde des Livres (July 9, 1999):
12.

"Russian archeologists reexamining finds excavated from Khazar sites in the
area of the Don River in southern Russia recently discovered an ancient vessel
inscribed with the word "Israel" in Hebrew lettering. The broken fragments of
the vessel, originally unearthed in the 60s, were only recently put together.
The result is the firmest verification yet of historical sources that point to
the mass conversion to Judaism of the Khazar empire in 740 C.E." - Ehud
Ya'ari, "Archaeological Finds Add Weight to Claim that Khazars Converted to
Judaism." The Jerusalem Report (June 21, 1999), page 8.

A so-called "Jewish Khazar" ring was buried in a grave in medieval Hungary:

"A silver ring found in a cemetery in Ellend, near Pécs in southwestern Hungary
and not far from the villages of Nagykozár and Kiskozár, is believed to be of
Khazar-Kabar origin. The ring, which dates from the second half of the eleventh
century, was found next to a woman's skeleton, and has thirteen Hebrew letters
engraved on it as ornamentation." - Kevin Alan Brook, The Jews of Khazaria
(Jason Aronson, 1999), pages 208-209, following the argument of Alexander
Scheiber and Attila Kiss which was also adopted by Raphael Patai and Eli
Valley. However, it does not spell out real Hebrew words, and is mixed with
many non-Hebrew letters and symbols. Scheiber, Kiss, and others argued that the
woman was from one of the two nearby Khazar villages.

Jewish symbols were placed on bricks at another burial site in medieval
Hungary, which is now located in northern Serbia:

"In 1972, 263 graves were discovered near the village of Chelarevo, in the
Vojvodina district of present-day Serbia... More important, Jewish motifs have
been found on at least seventy of the brick fragments excavated from the
graves. The Jewish symbols on the fragments include menorahs, shofars, etrogs,
candle-snuffers, and ash-collectors. One of the brick fragments, which was
placed over the grave of Yehudah, has a Hebrew inscription that
reads, 'Yehudah, oh!' The skulls in the Chelarevo graves had Mongolian
features..." - Kevin Alan Brook, The Jews of Khazaria (Jason Aronson, 1999),
page 251.

"One can conjecture that this burial ground belonged to the Kabar tribes which
joined the Hungarians at the time when they discovered their fatherland. Some
of the Kabars, arriving from Khazaria, apparently kept their Judaic religion." -
István Erdélyi, "Kabari (Kavari) v Karpatskom Basseyne." Sovietskaya
Arkheologiya 4 (1983): 179.

"The early-medieval graveyard and settlement at CHelarevo, near Novi Sad,
offers the most numerous and most unusual finds with Jewish symbols. Along with
several hundreds of graves of typically Avaric characteristics (judging by the
pottery, jewellery and horsemen's gear), excavations begun in 1972 produced
several hundreds of graves of the same shape but lacking any additional burial
objects.... each grave was marked by a fragment of a Roman brick (never a whole
brick, although these were plentiful in the near-by older Roman sites) into
which a menorah was cut, and most frequently two other Jewish symbols on its
left and right sides: the shofar and an etrog, a lulav on some bricks, and even
a small Jewish six-pointed star. Some 450 brick fragments have so far been
found. The position and size of the incised motifs were adapted to the size and
shape of each of the fragments, which means that the motifs were not there on
the original whole bricks. Some of the fragments had a Hebrew inscription
added - a name or a few words which, with the exception of JERUSALEM and
ISRAEL, are difficult to decipher because of the damage. Some of the Hebrew
characters are carved with great precision.... Several hypotheses have been
proposed on the possible origin of a Jewish or Judaised population who marked
the graves of their dead in this unusual way and had literate people among
them. The influence of the Crimea Khazars has been mentioned in this context;
their ruler, nobility and part of the population were Judaised in the 8 c., and
many Jews who had emigrated from Asia Minor and Byzantium, lived among them." -
Ante Soric et al (editors), Jews in Yugoslavia: Muzejski prostor, Zagreb,
Jezuitski trg 4. (Zagreb: MGC, 1989), page 28.

"In excavations at a large graveyard apparently dating to the end of the eighth
and beginning of the ninth centuries, when the region was under the domination
of the Avar tribe, archeologists have unearthed hundreds of brick fragments
inscribed with menorahs and other Jewish symbols, including at least one small
six-pointed Star of David. Some brick fragments also were inscribed with Hebrew
letters. Research has shown that the people buried at Celarevo were of the
Mongol race, apparently a tribe that had newly migrated into the area from the
east. Beyond that, the origin of this Jewish settlement remains a mystery: One
hypothesis has suggested that they may have been influenced by the Crimean
Khazars, a tribe whose leaders converted to Judaism in the eighth century." -
Ruth Ellen Gruber, Jewish Heritage Travel, 3rd edition (Jason Aronson, 1999),
page 248.

In addition to the Hungarian site above, the Star of David was found at two
sites in the Khazar kingdom, even though it is unclear whether the symbol was
used there for Jewish purposes:

"Engravings of the six-pointed Jewish star of David were found on circular
Khazar relics and bronze mirrors from Sark