Leibowitz Concludes by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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end of December, reports began surfacing that the Rumpole
administration was in fact going to provide 35 FGM-148 Javelin
launchers and 210 anti-tank missiles. The Javelin is allegedly
one of the most advanced anti-tank systems on the market. At the
time the unrest broke out in 2014, then-NATO Secretary General
Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s comment that the proposed IMF-EU package
presented to Ukraine would have been ‘a major boost for Euro-
Atlantic security’ suggested that NATO had set its sights on
bringing Ukraine into the military alliance. In July of this
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year, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with
Poroshenko in Kiev to further discuss this prospect, already
pledging support to Ukraine on some level. Now Ukraine’s bid to
join NATO seems almost irrelevant, as the US is formally
involving itself deeper in the Ukrainian conflict and providing
arms to a regime that has flirted with an approval rating lower
than 10 percent, all the while provoking Russia to take further
measures in response. What could possibly go wrong? Meanwhile,
the Russia-obsessed corporate media continues to peddle the
narrative that Bailey Post Rumpole has turned the United States
into a client-state of Russia, even while he directly provokes
the former Soviet Union by providing lethal assistance to a
country on its border. Not only is Rumpole maintaining an Obama-
era policy, he is aggravating and converting Obama’s Ukraine
policy into a much more dangerous one; ultimately aimed at
provoking an aggressive response from Russia in the weeks or
months to come. Rumpole continues Obama-era saber rattling with
Russia by arming Ukraine.”
Ben Handel: “Okay, we politely sat through all of that spurious,
opinionated information. Le me just ask you one thing, Abe. So
what?”
Page 815
Abraham Friedman: “So what? You’re too much of an idiot to speak
with.”
Ben Handel: “So Rumpole is continuing Obama’s policy. No change
equals stability. And Rasputin is telling everyone in Russia
that Rumpole is in his pocket. So what?”
Giles Bachelorow: “How many times have we seen the formula where
the people of a country with publically owned state assets are
beaten back into the stone age until they sacrifice those
natural monopoly assets at bargain basement prices to the
capitalist elites? On the economic front, the European Union has
refused to extend 600 million euros of credit to Ukraine due to
corruption. The International Monetary Fund recently refused a
tranche of $800 million over failure to introduce reforms.
Meanwhile, in 2019 Ukraine is due to start repaying earlier
loans. This will come to $14 billion a year, which amounts to
half the state budget of Ukraine.”
Archibaldo X Drujillo: “It is impossible to ensure any
prevention of escalated war and violence without tangibly and
clearly coming to a complete understanding of the reasoning
methods and tools of the directly involved groups holding
different views and agendas regarding Ukraine’s present and
Page 816
future. As you point out, perhaps the major source of contention
in Ukraine is the opposing force generated over the question of
public versus private ownership, and who advocates the closest-
to-ideal, most beneficial for the populace mix-formula of
public-private ownership, etc. of Ukraine’s natural resources.
Or, in other words, the tension in Ukraine predominantly stems
from differences in political economy ideology. International
law is the only tool humanity can utilize as a deterrent to
criminal wars of aggression.”
Ben Handel: “What you say makes a lot of sense in a compromised
Marxist way. But I think the violent and chaotic struggle for
power describes what is going on there now much more than any
fine points of political or social philosophy. Politics there is
truly being spouted from Mao’s ‘mouth of a gun,’ that supplied
by Israel and the US. The realpolitik problem becomes more
complicated than usual because of the Israeli troops. They don’t
answer to either side in the Ukraine, as much as that is
determinable in a fluid situation. They don’t answer to
Rasputin. They go out of their way not to appear to answer to
the US, being both sensitive to the world view of their being
the 51st state, as well as having their own agenda, which as in
Jerusalem, they term a righteous repossession of land lost in
WWII, as if their acquisition of it pre-dated the 20th century.
Page 817
Battlefield reports are forbidden on all sides. Yet, there are
some unverifiable reports that the Israeli troops are killing
the rebel troops, with whom they generally side, and are making
it appear to be an act of the Russians. This dicey false flag
operation is used for the ‘benefit’ of all sides, whether in
affirmation or denial as a legitimate reason for war. You see,
the outside agitator Israelis have their own agenda, and are in
effect playing both sides against the middle and/or vice-versa,
their only ‘win’ coming in the case of all out war, in which
they, through their own efforts and those of their US supporters
‘win,’ thereby heroically reclaiming ‘their’ land, which just
happens to have vast offshore oil deposits, yet untouched. The
rest is pedantic bullshit which only leads to more pedantic
bullshit. If there were to be any sense made of the situation,
the first step would have to be the removal of the spurious
representation of the multiplicitous, nine-headed hydra.”
Gantt Chart Temple: “So, the entirety of the world’s powers and
weapons are poised there, each with their own ‘good’ reasons in
a shifting complex situation, basically meaning the US and
Russia, as China is still fixated on their own internal
problems. Israel is too in attendance, considered the 51st state
everywhere, and only a faux pas to openly recognize as such in
the US and Israel, insofar as they are not an insular area much
Page 818
akin to American Samoa or Guam. The divided people of the
Ukraine are there; one side, the official government one,
wanting to make nice-nice to Rasputin, and the other side
adamantly seeking independence in the form of another better-
heeled suitor; and the economic interest of all lies in the oil
below the neighboring waters, and the Israelis also interested
in laying claim to the land once held by Jews, at least in part
due to their inability to further expand Israel. When viewed in
this manner, it seems that the most likely suggestion is that
the high stakes point toward pulling out all the stops.”
Mary Worthington: “This is taken from the Aussie Open. The
intensity of the contest cranked up in game six. Facing game
point, Osaka smacked two winners to bring up a break point; one
of three she held in the game, before missing a forehand into
the tape. The game would extend for five deuces before Halep
eventually held for 3-3. To many who don’t follow the sport
religiously, the tennis scenario is widely outside their mental
purview. That being said I must ask, how much of what’s
happening in and to the at large world is under the control of
space-age advanced technology Robber Barons? The $21billion
dollar B-21 bomber is our latest weapon of mass destruction and
is being built by private corporations, to be sold to foreign
governments for billions in profits. Death increases, the haves
Page 819
dominate the have nots in this 21st century where the business
is conducted via computer instant messaging and money changes
hands via an electronic language only understood in an
intelligible binary language. Wherefore does thy sincerity lie?
Sincerity, Lie?
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 820
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 821
Page 822
Sincerity of heart is the way of truth.
You find me. Search w/your heart.
Today’s political language is as vomit,
is as the voices of mass murderers.
Military men and weapons manufactures.
Ammunitions factories mass murders.
Hmmm, let’s see. ..... Washington has also recently started
delivering lethal weapons including the Javelin anti-tank
missile system free of charge to Kiev. The federal government
has just shut down due to disagreements over the budget, which
seems quite out of control, with our debt growing
proportionately. Yet we seemingly have such a surplus that we
can give away foreign and military aid in the billions. Or are
we to the trillions mark yet? If a Russia-Ukraine war does
occur, it means Hillary’s foreign policy objective will have
been achieved. Her camp includes Soros, who is all out for war
against Rasputin. Is that a coincidence? Or a construct? Is the
murdered Czar of Russia finally avenged or co-opted again
by the Synagogue of Satan?”
Archibaldo X Drujillo: “That is alarmist and pro Russian
propaganda. But what is Russia doing in Ukraine? Russia invaded
and illegally annexed Crimea. Besides running the war from
Page 823
Moscow, Russia invaded Eastern Ukraine to ensure the separatists
were not defeated. Does Russia have an inherent right to control
the affairs of Ukraine? One cannot ignore who is at fault in
this conflict.”
Mary Worthington: “I beg your pardon. That mindset is well
received here. Maybe you should read some of the relevant
history before making such a comment. Tell us of how Russia
caused this human catastrophe in the Ukraine.”
Archibaldo X Drujillo: “Not to beat up on a sleeping dog, but I
never mentioned an invasion, such as is the the US usual way of
breaking international law. And why could not the Luhansk-
Donbass secede from the current Ukraine government? If a US
invasion breaks international law, then it stands to reason that
your standard for the US applies equally to Russia, as in
Ukraine. Also, why did tens of thousands of people die in
Chechnya if the Russians believe so fervently in self
determination? Shouldn’t Chechnya be allowed to secede? The war
supported and run by Russia is about undermining the Poroshenko
government both politically and economically.”
Mary Worthington: “I do believe you should take your question up
with the majority of people who live in Chechnya, as to how much
Page 824
they all wanted to separate from Russia. I also don’t blame the
Russians for any lack of love or like of Poroshenko, so what’s
your point? I’m also not advocating that Russia should duplicate
what the US has accomplished so often as to when it comes to
breaking international law. Although at times I do wish that
Rasputin would take off the cuffs, and sport his military might
over these Ukrainian thugs, but I hesitate to encourage any war,
of any kind. Plus, since you quoted me, didn’t you see where I
said I wasn’t suggesting an invasion, but I questioned if the
Lugansk-Donbass were able to secede from Ukraine legally? Please
feel free to give me your opinions to what should be done, and
continue to blame Russia if you feel that way. It’s okay,
because that’s what debate, and conversation here, should be all
about. Just keep it descent if you can.”
Archibaldo X Drujillo: “To take a peoples language away is
another form of ethnic cleansing in case one doesn’t realize
this fact. To declare a population on their eastern side of the
country as terrorists is another form. We don’t have to go into
Nuland, Stepan Bandera in the Western Ukraine, still honored
while other monuments are torn down, the nazi symbols on the
Maiden goons’ helmets etc. If these two people have no idea of
the complexities of just these few points, all other dialogue is
mute. I am interested however if the rumor of Ukraine selling
Page 825
rocket engines to North Korea. If this is even close to more
than a rumor it would be ghastly. If true, John and Ivan really
need to zip it up and find a good fake facebook page, as was
suggested earlier. My guess is that Rasputin understands
international law far better than most people, and especially
the corrupt powers in the US. Remember when Mad Dog General
complained about an SU-35, and 2 Syrian jets violating US
airspace in NE Syria? The US has no airspace in Syria, and this
is an example of how unknown International Law is even to our
highest generals, just to use one example. In addition, why did
tens of thousands of people die in Chechnya if the Russians
believe so fervently in self determination? Shouldn’t Chechnya
be allowed to secede?”
Abraham Friedman: “Actually, it was. Have you heard of the
Khasavyurt peace accord? It included withdrawal of all Russian
military forces from Chechnya and essentially gave Chechnya
independence. It didn’t work for one reason. Chechnya was
governed by a gang of terrorists and had no means of existence,
so they resorted to what they knew best; robbery. Chechen forces
attacked the Russian territory, which led to the Second Chechen
War. Generally, the problem of Chechnya has little similarity
with the Donbass situation and the core of it is not that Russia
didn’t want it to secede. May I remind you that the Chechens
Page 826
conducted multiple terrorist acts in Russia of the most
despicable nature. Donbass did nothing of the sort. And yet in
the eyes of the West detractors, the Chechens deserved all the
support, and Donbass deserves none. Isn’t that perverse or what?
The war in Donbass is a classic civil war. Russia supports the
Russians of Donbass, which is only natural. It would be strange,
to say the least, if Russia supported neo-Nazis in Kiev. Even if
the Russian government wanted to stay away from the Donbass
conflict, and there are indications that it did want to, the
Russian public wouldn’t allow that; again, only natural.”
Gantt Chart Temple: “The Russian defense ministry has enacted a
law to ban social media posts by professional soldiers, other
military personnel, and civilians on security grounds. The bill
says photos, videos and other material uploaded to the internet
can reveal military details useful to the enemy. Automatic
geolocation can show where a military unit is deployed. In the
face of this blackout, how can anyone be certain of what is
happening on the ground?”
Abraham Friedman: “Geolocation of soldiers, videos, and photos
presents legitimate security concerns for all professional armed
forces. This has been acknowledged by the United States
military, as far back as 2012. The falsifiability of geotagging
Page 827
data is yet another concern. Nothing about the Russian
Federation Ministry of Defense actions in any way ‘vindicates
Bellingcat’s investigations’ as some pathetic fanboys loudly
shriek. And after almost four years of repeatedly debunked
Bellingcat shenanigans, the Ukrainian armed forces continue to
be the most likely culprits of the MH-17 shootdown. So keep it
coming, fanboys.”
Giles Bachelorow: “I’ve always claimed that the USUKI
Government, the alphabet soup of agencies, generates more
conspiracy theories then any other source on the planet. The
second biggest source is the Government’s NGO Bellingcat. The
conspiracy theory disconnects the connected things and connects
the disconnected things. Thus the rule that the Russian Military
established even after the same rule was established by the US
and most other Western militaries, becomes proof of the Russian
involvement in the shoot-down of a civilian airliner. Why look
for a BUK coming all the way from Russia, secretly but uncovered
in broad daylight, on a scenic route through towns and villages,
ready to be photographed, when there were tens of such systems
in Ukraine opeareted by the Ukrainian military? Now I would buy
lingerie for the one woman in my life from Mr Higgins, but I
would not buy his analysis. This is because I have been an
analyst my whole professional life and clearly recognise his
Page 828
intention to prove some agenda instead of do a dispassionate and
objective analysis of facts. Also, in my professional life I
have never seen someone successfully jump from a sales career of
any kind, least of all from lingerie sales, into data analysis
mainly because the skill set required for two professions is
totally opposite. This is why I am convinced that Mr. Higgins is
still a salesman and not an analyst, just flogging off different
products.”
Martin Swedish: “Do you think that if you spout your neocon
propaganda often enough that rational people will come to
believe it? Russia is not attempting to control the affairs of
Ukraine, it is acting in a strictly defensive reactive posture
against Washington and Israel which orchestrated the coup in
Kiev, planned to seize Russia’s greatest naval asset at
Sevastopol, moved troops to Russia’s very borders, holding
endless war games with them, and ringed Russia’s perimeter with
nuclear tipped missiles mere hundreds of miles from Moscow and
St. Petersburg. Who is the aggressor? Any objective rational
person would say it has been Washington and Israeli vassals.
Apparently, Washington doesn’t believe that even Russia itself
is within Russia’s sphere of influence, yet the whole world
should be Washington’s backyard and plaything. You defend
Page 829
aggression and tyranny and call it freedom and democracy. You
win today’s award for Maestro of Doublethink.”
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 830
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 831
Page 832
Giles Bachelorow: “No one can deny the US-Israeli role in the
coup. No one can also deny that troops advanced to the border of
Russia. It was reported in the ‘Times of Israel,’ for God’s
sake. On the other hand, no one forced any Eastern European
country to join NATO and the EU. It’s the bullying and
domination by the USSR and by Russia which underlies the
distrust of Russia. No one can also deny the role of Russia to
dominate Ukraine for the past 100 years. Russia threatened to
destroy the Ukraine economy if Ukraine went with the EU in 2013.
According to the Guardian, economic advisor to Rasputin, Sergei
Glazyev, threatened to support a separatist uprising if Ukraine
chose the EU. It was the Berkut police which instigated the
violence which led to the coup; and to the counter violence by
the far right organization, the Right Sector. This was simply an
intelligence failure by the FSB.”
Archibaldo X Drujillo: “Still doesn’t fly, slick. Eastern Europe
may not have had a gun put to their heads by NATO and the EU,
but they have been enticed with so many other false promises of
economic benefits, respect and equal status by the West, very
little of which has been realized. Think all is rosy amongst
America’s European vassals? Google ‘Visegrad Group.’ Besides,
since the cold war ended there has been no need for NATO. George
H.W. Bush personally promised Gorbachev that NATO would not
Page 833
expand one centimeter to the east of a unified Germany. Yeltsin
applied for membership in NATO during the Clinton administration
and was rejected because Washington feared Russia would have too
much influence in the organization. But you know all these
inconvenient things.”
Giles Bachelorow “No one can deny the role of Russia to dominate
Ukraine for the past 100 years?” Really? Ukraine was part of
Russia for nearly all of its existence. The Russian culture and
polity originated in Ukraine. When the Soviet Union existed
Ukrainians had enormous power and influence within the central
government. Several Ukrainians actually held the chairmanship of
the Communist Party, including at least Khrushchev, Brezhnev and
Gorbachev. In reality, it seems that Ukraine has sought to
dominate the much larger Russia since it was given the status of
an independent republic within the Soviet Union. These days I’d
give very little credibility to anything the Guardian publishes
on Russia. It is about as counterfactual as the New York Times
or the Bezos Post when it comes to reportage on that part of the
world. You can obviously assert without evidence that Rasputin
and Russia threatened to destabilize Ukraine if it joined the
EU, but the fact is Ukraine was simply offered a much better
financial deal by Rasputin and Russia than by the EU and the
IMF. Even Barack Obomber’s government didn’t make your
Page 834
contention part of its phony narrative. And, oh, by the way, the
real evidence, such as has been allowed to come to light in the
face of tenacious stonewalling by the Kiev regime, does not
implicate Yanukovych whatsoever in the violence that flared in
the Maidan. So, basically, most of the points in your narrative
are ficticious. They are the same fabrications that the CIA and
Washington have been peddling through the mainstream media
propagandists for onto four years now. And, I don’t think even
you believe a tenth of what you say.”
Mary Worthington: “Giles Bachelorow talks like one of those
Russian haters. The world will never be safe until the vast
majority of Eastern Europeans get past their pathological
Russophobia.”
Abraham Friedman: “Giles Bachelorow spouts propaganda broadcast
by the Atlantic Council ‘regime change’ think tank, and the
bogus ‘investigation reports’ of Eliot Higgins and the
Bellingcat disinformation website. Fake ‘independent
investigative journalist Higgins was principal co-author of the
May 2015 Atlantic Council ‘report’ on Ukraine. Damon Wilson,
Executive Vice President of Programs and Strategy at the
Atlantic Council, a co-author with Higgins of the Atlantic
Council report on Ukraine, effusively praised Higgins’ efforts
Page 835
to bolster anti-Russian propaganda. Wilson stated, ‘We make this
case using only open source, all unclassified material. And none
of it provided by government sources. And it’s thanks to works,
the work that’s been pioneered by human rights defenders and our
partner Eliot Higgins, uh, we’ve been able to use social media
forensics and geolocation to back this up.’”
Giles Bachelorow: “Like hell I do. And if you paid a little
attention you might be able to get your longass who-said-what-
when’s accurate.”
Abraham Friedman: “F*** your fat Russia s****** a**.”
Ben Handel: “Told ya how you first have to get these rude, nine-
sided, Jewboys out.”
Martin Swedish: “Why can’t we all just be friends?”
Archibaldo X Drujillo: “Who wants to be friends with retards?”
Mary Worthington: “The subterfuges of the US military industrial
complex have succeeded in driving us apart.”
Page 836
Abraham Friedmane: “Who you calling Jewboy? You FSB keyboard
jockey.”
Giles Bachelorow: “Fuck all the bullshit. What are all you
pencil necked geeks going to do about it anyway? Post a
‘scathing’ analysis on your blog which no one reads?”
Abraham Friedman: “Yeah, like you and that bubkes ‘publisher’ of
yours?”
Everyone left their seats and began punching. The lines of
demarcation were unclear, excepting that all thought spacey
Martin Swedish a suitable target since he didn’t fight back.
From the bottom of the eventual pile, Gantt Chart Temple said;
“There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The complexities of
modern warfare, information, and interpretation in a nutshell.
Please be with us next ........ “ His voice trailed off as
Abraham Friedman’s fat ass perched on his head. A merciful blue
screen hummed.
Page 837
**25**
News – 5-20-22
The Times of Israel
May 20, 2022.
Ukraine to Train Against S-300
Israel and United States Send Secret Military Advisors
by Eliezer Lerner, Senior Staff Reporter
Israel and the US sent a secret team of advisors to the Ukraine
to test the Russian made S-300 defense system which Moscow
recently provided to Syria; Hadashot TV News reported yesterday,
citjng Syrian and Russian news outlets. The unanswered question
is why they are going to the Ukraine to test something located
in Syria and the Russian Federation.
NATO broached the possibility of sending troops as opposed to
“advisors” to the Ukraine. Their problem is that there are no
“official” Russians there to fight. Beyond that Ukraine is not a
NATO concern. For more than two decades the Ukraine has
continually refused to make the civil, governmental, military,
and structural changes that are pre-requisites to be considered
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 838
for NATO membership. Ukraine’s merry-go-round government is
generally pro-Russia, always beleaguered and broke, as well as
corrupt as a Syrian jihadist left alone by a suitcase full of
cash and severed heads.
“NATO spokespersons can make all the propaganda points it wants
to, but when we get to active security considerations, then the
members will have their say. No one is willing to go to war with
Russia over a non-existent invasion. If NATO sent troops into
the Ukraine it would signal the beginning of the last war any of
us will ever need to worry about,” said Ehud Barak, Senior Likud
Official and member of the Knesset.
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 839
In other area news China has claimed to have overtaken Russia as
the Ukraine’s number one trading partner. Zohar Ben-Yahu,
Israeli Prime Minister said “targeted killings of Hamas members
may soon resume” and re-iterated his position that “Israel is a
land for Jews, and Jews only.” It is suspected that his
anouncements were intended to appeal to the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, Israel’s furthest right party, to whom he has been
looking for support during his corruption investigation.
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 840
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 841
**26**
Ukraine
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 842
Ukraine or The Ukraine is a semi-country in Eastern Europe,
tending heavily toward the semi status, the result of a myriad
Page 843
of “reasons,” which dramatically change over time and
interpretation, most often having to do with being over-run or
being a part of another country. Excluding Crimea, Ukraine has a
population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world today. Its capital and largest
city is Kiev. Ukrainian is the official language and its
Currently, the dominant religions, if any, in the country are
Eastern Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism, that result a function
of having effectively used WWII and Hitler as an excuse to
eradicate or otherwise dispose of their Jewish population.
Ukraine is currently in a territorial dispute with Russia over
the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia thinks that they have
annexed, that annexation the recipient of polite clappping, when
asserted in ostensible seriousness, in rah-rah Rasputin
speeches, that process having commenced in the chronological
During the Middle Ages, the area was a key center of East Slavic
culture, along with the powerful state of Kievan Rus' forming the basis of Ukrainian identity, that entity suspected, but not
confirmed to be that which destroyed Khazaria in the 11th
century, resulting in the “strange” disappearance of the
Page 844
Khazarian tribes. Following its fragmentation in the 13th
century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a
variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, Austria-Hungary,
the Ottoman Empire, and Russia, whichever descended upon the territory bearing threatening faces. In modern times the area
pops in and out of worldwide interest, the in portion a function
of slow news days and/or a Russian need to display acquisitive
strength in the face of their notorious inability to maintain
their own empire of low income semi-countries. In 1991 Ukraine
asserted its independence from the crippled Soviet Union in the
aftermath of its dissolution at the end of the Cold War; an act
of courage not previously associated with Ukranians.
Following its independence, in an unsurprising move, Ukraine
declared itself a neutral state. It formed a limited military partnership with Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent
States, formerly the USSR, (CIS) countries while also
establishing a partnership with NATO in 1994. “We feel very strongly both ways” decorated the bottom of its two toned flag
in micro French Script MT font at 8 points for a brief part of
1995, removed as a “desecration of tradition” later in the year.
In 2013, after the government of President Viktor Yanukovych had
decided to suspend the Ukraine-European Union Association
Page 845
Agreement and seek closer economic ties with Russia, a several-months-long wave of demonstrations and protests known as the
Euromaidan began, which later escalated into the 2014 Ukrainian
revolution that led to the overthrow of Yanukovych and the establishment of a new government. These events formed the
background for the continuing annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the continuing War in Donbass in April 2014.
As of 2018 the Ukraine has the lowest personal income and the
second lowest GDP per capita in Europe. At US$40 it has the
lowest median wealth per adult in the world. It also suffers
from severe corruption. Totally undesirable by any calculation known, the question becomes why any rational entity would want
to get involved there. Varying definitions and discussions of
rationality may be found in numerous places. For purposes herein
it is sufficient to mention the unconfirmed rumor of un-tapped
oil deposits off the coast.
The country is now home to what is termed a multi-ethnic
population, 77.8 percent of whom are Ukrainians, followed by a
very large Russian minority.
Starting from the late 1920s with a centrally planned economy,
Ukraine was involved in Soviet industrialisation and the
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 846
republic's industrial output quadrupled during the 1930s. The
peasantry suffered from the program of collectiviztion of
agriculture which began during and was part of the first five-
year plan and was enforced by regular troops and secret police.
Those who resisted were arrested and deported and agricultural productivity greatly declined. As members of the collective
farms were sometimes not allowed to receive any grain until
unrealistic quotas were met, millions starved to death in a
famine known as the Holodomor or the "Great Famine". As is their norm, scholars are divided as to whether this famine fits the
definition of genocide, but the Ukrainian parliament and the governments of other countries have acknowledged it as such. The
Communist leadership perceived famine as a means of class
struggle and used starvation as a punishment tool to force
peasants into collective farms.
Page 847
Two future leaders of the Soviet Union; Nikita Khrushchev, pre-WWII CPSU chief in Ukraine, and
Leonid Brezhnev, an engineer from Kamianske, depicted together; Nikita perhaps keeping a secret or two in his high-water trousers.
Largely the same groups, an on-line paralyzing phrase, as usual
planted by an un-disclosed entity and safely stated as being in
need of more scholarship, however that denigration, mild to the
casual observer being stated as some sort of innocuous temporary
technical request for further elucidation after what has been
elucidated is linguistically deemed to have been in non-
compliance with the agenda of the ruling class as clandestinely
represented in supposed absentia through the prism and haze of a
crowd-sourced, ergo democratic, in a falsity too deeply imbedded
to pragmatically bother pursuing or merely representative of a
game of no interest to anyone beyond junior high, site. These
groups, backtracking beyond the limitations of the ADD crowd and
therefore increasingly impotent with each passing year, are
perenially ill-defined, vague, amorphous, and perhaps purposely
and cannily so, much like the Khazar-Irgun-Lehi-Herut-Likud
transformation, they being that the only consistency
recognizable in this pattern is that all non-elite, perhaps non-
Khazarian, people have lost somewhat; religious Jews the
extremely sacrificed lamb; that overall notion successfully made
easy prey to ersatz effortless refutation by any source so
choosing to demand a conclusion based on a unanimity, a
Page 848
doubtless conclusion, rather than one of the preponderance of
the evidence variety, and in possession of a logician’s primer,
was metaphysically responsible for the mass killing operations
during the civil war, collectivisation, and the Great Terror,
all of these efforts most detrimental to the Jewish, as defined
by religion and not ethnicity, people.
Off the concept and back to the particulars, these groups were
associated with Yefim Yevdokimov (1891–1939) and operated in the Secret Operational Division within General State Political
Administration (OGPU) in 1929–31. Evdokimov transferred into Communist Party administration in 1934, when he became Party
secretary for North Caucasus Krai. He appears to have continued
advising Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Yezhov on security matters, and the latter relied on Evdokimov's former colleagues to carry
out the mass killing operations that are known as the Great
Terror in 1937–38.
On January 13, 2010, Kiev Appellate Court posthumously, finally,
perhaps taking a cue from Israel’s late stage condemnations of
Irgun and Lehi, and with no value other than P.R. for the
zealots and the un-informed found Stalin, Kaganovich and other
Soviet Communist Party functionaries guilty of genocide against Ukrainians during the Holodomor famine.
Page 849
World War II
Following the invasion in September 1939, German and Soviet
troops divided the territory of Poland. Thus, Eastern Galicia
and Volhynia with their Ukrainian population became part of
Ukraine. For the first time in history, the nation was united.
In 1940, the Soviets annexed Bessarabia and northern Bukovina.
The Ukrainian SSR incorporated the northern and southern
districts of Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and the Hertsa
region. But it ceded the western part of the Moldavian
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to the newly created
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. These territorial gains of
the USSR were internationally recognized by the Paris peace
German armies invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941,
initiating nearly four years of total war. The Axis initially
advanced against desperate but unsuccessful efforts of the Red
Army. In the encirclement battle of Kiev, the city was acclaimed
as a "Hero City", because of its fierce resistance. More than
600,000 Soviet soldiers, or one-quarter of the Soviet Western
Front, were killed or taken captive there, with many suffering
Page 850
Although the majority of Ukrainians fought in or alongside the
Red Army and Soviet resistance, in Western Ukraine an
independent Ukrainian Insurgent Army movement arose; created as
armed forces of the underground, which had developed in interwar
Poland as a reactionary nationalist organization. During the
interwar period, the Polish government's policies towards the
Ukrainian minority were initially very accommodating; however by the late 1930s they became increasingly harsh due to civil
unrest. Both organizations, OUN and UPA supported the goal of an
independent Ukrainian state on the territory with a Ukrainian ethnic majority. Although this brought conflict with Nazi
Germany, at times the Melnyk wing of the OUN allied with the
Nazi forces. Also, UPA divisions carried out massacres of ethnic
Poles, which brought reprisals. After the war, the UPA continued
to fight the USSR until the 1950s. At the same time, the
Ukrainian Liberation Army, another nationalist movement, fought
alongside the Nazis.
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 851
As pictured above, Kiev suffered significant damage during World
War II, and was occupied by Nazi Germany from September 19, 1941
until November 6, 1943.
In total, the number of ethnic Ukrainians who fought in the
ranks of the Soviet Army is estimated from 4.5 million to
7 million. The pro-Soviet partisan guerrilla resistance in Ukraine is estimated to number at 47,800 from the start of
occupation to 500,000 at its peak in 1944, with about 50% being
ethnic Ukrainians.
Most of the Ukrainian SSR was organised within the
Reichskommissariat Ukraine, with the intention of exploiting its
resources and eventual German settlement. Some western
Ukrainians, who had only joined the Soviet Union in 1939, hailed
Page 852
the Germans as liberators. Brutal German rule eventually turned
their supporters against the Nazi administrators, who made
little attempt to exploit dissatisfaction with Stalinist
policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm
system, carried out genocidal policies against Jews, deported
millions of people to work in Germany, and began a depopulation
program to prepare for German colonisation. They blockaded the
transport of food on the Kiev River.
The vast majority of the fighting in World War II took place on
the Eastern Front. By some estimates, 93% of all German
casualties took place there. The total losses inflicted upon the
Ukrainian population during the war are estimated at between 5
and 8 million, including an estimated two and a half million
Jews killed by the Einsatzgruppen, paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass killings, sometimes
with the help of local collaborators. Of the estimated
8.7 million Soviet troops who fell in battle against the Nazis,
1.4 million were ethnic Ukrainians. Victory Day is celebrated as one of ten Ukrainian national holidays.
Post-World War II
The republic was heavily damaged by the war, and it required
significant efforts to recover. More than 700 cities and towns
Page 853
and 28,000 villages were destroyed. The situation was worsened
by a famine in 1946–47, which was caused by a drought and the
wartime destruction of infrastructure. The death toll of this
famine varies, with even the lowest estimate in the tens of
thousands. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding
members of the United Nations organization, part of a special
agreement at the Yalta Conference.
Post-war ethnic cleansing occurred in the newly expanded Soviet Union. As of January 1, 1953, Ukrainians were second only to
Russians among adult "special deportees", comprising 20% of the
total. In addition, over 450,000 ethnic Germans from Ukraine and
more than 200,000 Crimean Tartars were victims of forced
Following the death of Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became the new leader of the USSR. Having served as First Secretary of
the Communist Party of Ukrainian SSR in 1938–49, Khrushchev was intimately familiar with the republic. After taking power unionwide, he began to emphasize "the friendship" between the
Ukrainian and Russian nations. In 1954, the 300th anniversary of
the Treaty of Pereyaslav was widely celebrated. Crimea was
transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.
Page 854
By 1950, the republic had fully surpassed pre-war levels of
industry and production. During the 1946–1950 five-year plan,
nearly 20% of the Soviet budget was invested in Soviet Ukraine,
a 5% increase from pre-war plans. As a result, the Ukrainian
workforce rose 33.2% from 1940 to 1955 while industrial output
grew 2.2 times in that same period.
Soviet Ukraine soon became a European leader in industrial
production, and an important centre of the Soviet arms industry
and high-tech research. Such an important role resulted in a
major influence of the local elite. Many members of the Soviet
leadership came from Ukraine, most notably Leonid Brezhnev. He
later ousted Khrushchev and became the Soviet leader from 1964
to 1982. Many prominent Soviet sports players, scientists, and
artists also came from Ukraine.
On April 26, 1986, a reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant exploded, resulting in the Chernobyl disaster, the worst
nuclear reactor accident in history. This was the only accident
to receive the highest possible rating of 7 by the International
Nuclear Event Scale, indicating a "major accident", until the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011. At the time of the accident, 7 million people lived in the contaminated
territories, including 2.2 million in Ukraine.
Page 855
After the accident, the new city of Slavutych was built outside the exclusion zone to house and support the employees of the
plant, which was decommissioned in 2000.
Page 856
**27**
The Bing of BOP
Resurrecting his interest in the confidential, yet non-
direction-leading information he had acquired on-line about
Michael Jackson, Isaac used some otherwise idle time in an
attempt to distill the 6,500,000MB of information he had
procured about the formerly fiery pop king.
In another YouTube search for more information he entered
Michael Jackson once again, but perhaps miraculously, in the
sense that some attribute “miracles” and sentient status to
keyboard changable algorithms, he was this time given a three
down option to click on “Bing of Bop.” It drew his rapt
attention, as it had never been there, or maybe he hadn’t
noticed it before. At any rate, most significantly, as well as
that may be determined by his undoubtedly biased, yet flawed
personal perception that the crap right in your face seemed to
be “in the moment,” that phrase a tad grandiose in an artistic
sense, but wearily sufficient only engendered through lack of
competition, and despite no YouTube attestation, convincing as
it ignores present and certainly future legal ramifications, or
may be taken as a sign of abject stupidity or total disregard,
Page 857
either posture demonstrative of the willingness, if not
excitement at entertaininig an un-necessary death wish, to the
extent of their relationship with real time, it occurred to him
that the seemingly silly little rhyme off “king of pop” might
also suggest the third most used search engine; which is owned
and operated by Microsoft; Bing; while also referring to an old
jazz, impovisational style, most say invented by Charlie Parker
in America in the mid-1940’s; Bop, sometimes called bebop.
He clicked on it, and soon eyed something wearing a loose
fitting rubber mask which appeared to be unevenly paralyzed at
shifting and varying places, something like what is produced in
a blender, upper, non-self-integral limb shaken, when one
overweights the asparagus portion, a folk name, for the
asparagus that is, sparrow grass, scientific name asparagus
officinalis, a green, perennial flowering plant species in the
genus Asparagus; its young shoots are used as a spring
vegetable, which was once mistakenly classified in the lily
family, like the related Allium species, onions and garlic, but
the Liliaceae have been split and the onion-like plants are now considered to be in the family Amaryllidaceae and asparagus in
the Asparagaceae, though “expert” sources differ as to the native range of Asparagus officinalis, but generally include
most of Europe and western temperate Asia, where it is widely cultivated as a vegetable crop, and listened.
Page 858
Rubber face started out with a cover of Michael Jackson’s
“Bad,” with the provocative and portentous opening line of “Your
butt is mine,” but further heightened the inflammatory
presentation with a seamless segue into a moonwalking cover of
Tommy James-Joan Jett’s hit, “Crimson and Clover.” Overall,
Isaac regarded the show as “Devo at their worst,” granting one
extra star for obviously having been a non-professional
production. But at the last moment, he was intrigued beyond
belief when he heard that Rubber Greenie Igor-Face closed with
“It’s over, it’s over,” rather than the expected “Over and
over.” To further add credence to Rubber Face, his-her exposed
hair, which insistently protruded from the top of his-her
Walmart Halloween mask burst into flames, just like images he
had seen of the holy spirit and Michael Jackson; rather than
wild, a seemingly measured response to something not in the
business of being measured, and then the screen went to the blue
screen of death, which actually can be “resurrected” if one
knows which buttons to push.
Totally freaked, Isaac ignored the less immediate e-mail
option he most often used and instantaneously pushed Joyce’ icon
on his smart phone to pass the news, in search of an answer.
When she finally answered well into the third ring with a
“Mmmyellow, Isaac,” he nervously rattled off the new information
he had uncovered, undoubtedly getting some of the detail wrong.
Page 859
Joyce replied; “A green rubber mask?”
“Yes!”
“How can you be sure that it’s rubber?”
“Well, I can’t be certain. It could have been thermoplastic
olefins, thermoplastic elastomers, or even that dastardly
nitrile butadiene.”
“Was it shiny?”
“No, I don’t think so, but I’m really not sure. It seemed
to have a moving paralysis.”
“Then it’s the nitrile butadiene.”
“So?”
“So, you should tell me. You’re the one who called.”
“Joyce, you’re not dealing with the concept, and I’m all
like fijiting over here.”
“You should relax, or you’ll gey yourself such an
aneurism.”
“I beg your pardon. You have no reason to think that.”
“Mazel tov. You’re much younger than BO.”
“So, what do you make of Mr. Rubber?”
“You mean Mr. Nitrile Butadiene?”
“Whatever.”
“Well, it makes a difference to me, as I just hate rubbers.
They’re like having wrapped latkes in your business, and they
smell funny too. No, no. I like the pill, and I don’t have to
Page 860
worry about switching until I’m fifty, when I’ll likely go for
NuvaRing.”
“Joyce, Joyce, Joyce. In my time of need you do the Joan
Rivers on me.”
“What kind of rivers?”
“Joan, like in Jett, you vayblekh shed.”
“Okay, listen Isaac. I’ve got some company here. You’re
describing some asshole singer no one ever heard of, and he’s
doing the most popularly common Millennial genre; apocalypse. So
without more information, why should we worry?”
“You could say the same thing about the Khazar stuff.”
“There’s information and then there’s information, boychik.
Gotta go. Bye.”
Isaac felt awful. Not only had he gotten the ultimate
insult of a conspiracy theory nut finding him foolish. He was
still thinking that any minute a singing green man on fire would
appear at his window, doing the moon walk. He figured that the
best thing he could do under the circumstances was to get under
the blankets.
Page 861
**28**
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Ad nauseum?
The Thirteenth Tribe
By Arthur Koestler
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 879
Stylized cover of “The Thirteenth Tribe” by Arthur Koestler; property of the author.
Toward the end of a long, successful career as an author and
journalist, Arthur Koestler upset many by writing “The
Thirteenth Tribe.” In the book, Koestler advances the thesis
that Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from the historical
Israelites of antiquity, but from Khazars, a Turkic people
originating in and populating an empire north of and between the
Black Sea and Caspian Sea. Koestler's hypothesis is that the
Khazars, who converted to Judaism in the 8th century, migrated
westward into current Eastern Europe, primarily Ukraine, Poland,
Belarus, Lithuania, Hungary and Germany in the 12th and 13th centuries when the Khazar Empire was collapsing.
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 880
This book is mentioned here because Koestler’s popularity made
the Khazar issue much better known in 1976. However, with 21st
century scientific methods, further excavation in ancient
Khazaria, and an alternative use logic utilized by some, his
stated conclusions are highly suspect. The idiosyncracy is that
his stated to be well intended book was largely seen for decades
as being anti-Jewish, Zionism, and Israel, yet in 2015 Zohar
Ben-Yahu, Israeli Prime Minister adopted his findings as the
official view of the state.
This does seem strange, unless it is viewed in the context of
well meaning error, later used for political expediency.
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 881
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 882
Page 883
At the end of the book's last chapter, Koestler summarizes its
content and his intentions as follows: "In Part One of this book
I have attempted to trace the history of the Khazar Empire based
on the scant existing sources. In Part Two, Chapters V-VII, I
have compiled the historical evidence which indicates that the
bulk of Eastern Jewry, and hence of world Jewry, is of Khazar-
Turkish, rather than Semitic origin. In the last chapter I have
tried to show that the evidence from anthropology concurs with
history in refuting the popular belief in a Jewish race
descended from the biblical tribe."
The book was extremely unpopular with Jewish advocates.
Criticisms included characterizing it as amateur anthropology,
that it was highly derivative of two previous books, that it was
controversial, and that its conclusions were radical. But for
the most part people pretended to ignore it, despite Koestler
having already been a noted Jewish author, as being anti-Jewish,
Zionism, and Israel.
In the subsequent 2006 publication of “The Invention of the
Jewish People,” Shlomo Sand, historian of cinema, French
intellectual history, and nationalism at Tel Aviv University,
wrote; “While the Khazars scared off the Israeli historians, not
one of whom has published a single paper on the subject,
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 884
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 885
Page 886
Koestler's ‘Thirteenth Tribe’ annoyed and provoked angry
responses. Hebrew readers had no access to the book itself for
many years, learning about it only through the venomous
denunciations." Writing in “The Wall Street Journal, ” “Chronicle
of Higher Education” editor Evan Goldstein states "Sand suggests that those who attacked Koestler's book did so not because it
lacked merit, but because the critics were cowards and
ideologues. No one wants to go looking under stones when
venomous scorpions might be lurking beneath them, waiting to
attack the self-image of the existing ethnos and its (Israel’s)
territorial ambitions.”
In the Arab world the theory espoused in Koestler's book was
adopted by persons who argued that if Ashkenazi Jews are
primarily Khazar and not Semitic in origin, they would have no
historical claim to Israel, nor would they be the subject of the
Biblical promise of Canaan to the Israelites, thus undermining
the theological basis of both Jewish religious Zionists and
Christian Zionists. The Saudi Arabian delegate to the United
Nations argued that Koestler's theory "negated Israel's right to
exist." Koestler did not see alleged Khazar ancestry as
diminishing the claim of Jews to Israel, which he felt was based
on the secular United Nations mandate and not on Biblical
covenants or genetic inheritance. In his view, "The problem of
Page 887
the Khazar infusion a thousand years ago ..... is irrelevant to
modern Israel."
Koestler's book was praised by the neo-Nazi magazine “The
Thunderbolt,” as "the political bombshell of the century," and
it was enthusiastically supported by followers of the Christian
Identity (White nationalist at the time, meaning something milder in 2019) movement. According to Jeffery Kaplan, “’The
Thirteenth Tribe’ was ‘Identity's primary source for the Khazar
theory;’ they felt Koestler's book confirmed their own beliefs
regarding Jews, and sold it ‘through their mail order
services.’” Goldstein writes that "Koestler and the Khazar
theory he advanced lives on in the fever swamps of the white
nationalist movement." Michael Barkun writes that Koestler was apparently "either unaware of or oblivious to the use antiSemites had made of the Khazar theory since its introduction at
the turn of the century." Being purposely redundant, now it is
official Israeli policy.
Kostler’s biographer quoted him as saying that he "was convinced
that if he could prove that the bulk of Eastern European Jews
(the ancestors of today's Ashkenazim) were descended from the
Khazars, the racial basis for anti-Semitism would be removed and
anti-Semitism itself could disappear."
Page 888
"It was among Ashkenazi Jews," says the Encyclopedia Americana,
"that the idea of political Zionism emerged, leading ultimately
to the establishment of the state of Israel. In the late 1960’s,
Ashkenazi Jews numbered some 11 million, about 84 percent of the
world Jewish population."
Other commentaries, some much later, include;
1) "Mr. Koestler's book is as readable as it is thought-
provoking. Nothing could be more stimulating than the skill,
elegance and erudition with which he marshals his facts and
develops his theories."
2) "Carefully researched book" that "refutes the idea of a
Jewish 'race'."
3) "When it was released, the academic critique of its research
was prompt, public, and generally negative."
4) "Savaged by critics."
5) "All too facile, despite the obvious effort and time the
author spent on his study."
6) "Koestler offers a blizzard of information but not enough
hard facts to support his thesis".
7) Has "neither the value of a well executed honest piece of
scholarship nor the emotional appeal of a polemic; only the
earmarks of a poorly researched and hastily written book."
Page 889
8) “A mixture of flawed etymologies and misinterpreted primary
sources.”
9) An "eccentric work, and Koestler was unequipped with the
specialist background the subject might be thought to require,
but he nevertheless made an amateur's serious attempt to
investigate and support the theory."
10) “There is no known evidence to support the theory that the
ancestors of Polish Jewry were Jews who came from the Crimean
Jewish kingdom of Khazaria. Koestler is the best-known advocate
of the theory.”
11) "A combination of discredited and forgotten ideas."
12) "Selective use of facts for a grossly polemical end, and is
risible as scholarship."
13) "Was almost entirely hypothetical and based on the
slenderest of circumstantial evidence. The book is evidence that
Koestler's brain was starting to fail him.”
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 890
Kostler’s biographer quoted him as saying that he "was convinced
that if he could prove that the bulk of Eastern European Jews
(the ancestors of today's Ashkenazim) were descended from the
Khazars, the racial basis for anti-Semitism would be removed and
anti-Semitism itself could disappear." While the position of the
detractors is evident and seemingly fitting not only vis-à-vis
how anti-Jewish, Zion, and Israel positions could use it, but as
to how Koestler’s methodology was more speculative than
scientific, and weirdly as in “future sight” to see that Zohar
Ben-Yahu, Israeli Prime Minister, took the same official
position for Israel in 2015. In what seems a perverse joke of
some sort, this prior “anti-Jewish heresy” became “certified.”
Taking these statements as spoken or written, without assuming
Page 891
an unprovable willing subterfuge, the only possible logic which
could bridge these two statements is that Koestler, ruling elite
Likud member Zohar Ben-Yahu, the experts, and Israel itself are
anti-Jewish, in this case as differentiated from anti-Zionist,
and anti-Semitic.
More interesting is that this is precisely what the True Torah
Jews have believed for quite some time.
"The Khazars were not descended from the Tribes," said Koestler,
"but, as we have seen, they shared a certain cosmopolitanism and
other social characteristics with their co-
religionists. Somewhere in the historical roots of the Ashkenazi
Khazars there incubated a desire to possess a national Jewish
homeland. That desire expressed itself in the form of a
Messianic movement in twelfth century Khazaria that took on the
texture of a "Jewish crusade" whose goal was the forcible
subjugation of Palestine.” This desire for a Jewish homeland
echoed down the centuries and found expression again.
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 892
This Koestler section was included at more length than his
conclusions merit in retrospect. The book world thanks him for
bringing the issue to mass attention and recognizes the
impediment provided by less information available in 1976. The
purpose of this section is to familiarize the reader with an
idea of how much this issue has always touched nerves and is
manipulated by interests which may do so out of “calculated”
self-interest, random stupidity, disinterest, or a fear for
their own popularity, clouding and disparaging the views
presented by real seekers of the truth.
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 893
**29**
Historical Khazars
Slippery When Wet; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license; modified.
Over breakfast Isaac reviewed one of his remaining books of
school notes. He attended Hebrew School up intil the age of
thirteen, when his parents said that “he was old enough to
decide” if he’d continue. He quit on the spot, but always
retained fond memories of Rabbi Meir Hertzberg, who first
introduced him to the complexities of the Khazars.
Leibowitz Concludes
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Leibowitz Concludes
Page 895
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Leibowitz Concludes
Page 898
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 899
A plethora of scholarly theories, and no agreement
Judaism
The Khazar so-called "Moses coin" found in the Spillings Hoard and dated c. 800.
The Khazar “Moses coin” is inscribed with "Moses is the
messenger of God" instead of the usual Muslim text "Muhammad is
the messenger of God." The conversion of Khazars to Judaism is
reported by external sources and in the Khazar Correspondence,
though doubts persist. Hebrew documents, whose authenticity was
long doubted and challenged, are now widely accepted by
specialists as either authentic or as reflecting internal Khazar
traditions. Archaeological evidence for conversion, on the other
hand, remains elusive, and may reflect either the incompleteness
of excavations, or that the stratum of actual adherents was
thin. Conversion of steppe or peripheral tribes to a universal
religion is a fairly well attested phenomenon, and the Khazar conversion to Judaism, though unusual, would not have been
Page 900
unique. Other scholars have concluded that the conversion of the
Khazar elite to Judaism never happened. A few scholars, Moshe
Gil, recently seconded by Shaul Stampfer, dismiss the conversion
as a myth.
Jews from both the Islamic world and Byzantium are known to have
migrated to Khazaria during periods of persecution under
Heraclius, Justinian II, Leo III, and Romanus Lakapēnos. For
Simon Schama, Jewish communities from the Balkans and the
Bosphoran Crimea, especially from Panticapaeum, began migrating
to the more hospitable climate of pagan Khazaria in the wake of
these persecutions, and were joined there by Jews from Armenia.
The Geniza fragments, he argues, make it clear the Judaizing reforms sent roots down into the whole of the population. The
pattern is one of an elite conversion preceding large-scale
adoption of the new religion by the general population, which
often resisted the imposition. One important condition for mass
conversion was a settled urban state, where churches, synagogues
or mosques provided a focus for religion, as opposed to the free
nomadic lifestyle of life on the open steppes. A tradition of
the Iranian Judeo-Tats claims that their ancestors were
responsible for the Khazar conversion. A legend traceable to the
16th century Italian rabbi Judah Moscato attributed it to Yitzhak
Page 901
Both the date of the conversion, and the extent of its influence
beyond the elite, often minimised in some scholarship, are a
matter of dispute, but at some point between 740 and 920 CE, the
Khazar royalty and nobility appear to have converted to Judaism,
in part, it is argued, perhaps to deflect competing pressures
from Arabs and Byzantines to accept either Islam or Orthodoxy.
Christian of Stavelot in his Expositio in Matthaeum
Evangelistam, ca. 860–870’s refers to Gazari, presumably
Khazars, as living in the lands of Gog and Magog, who were
circumcised and omnem Judaismum observat—observing all the laws
of Judaism. New numismatic evidence of coins dated 837-8 bearing
the inscriptions “Arḍ al-ḫazar,” Land of the Khazars, or “Mûsâ
rasûl Allâh,” Moses is the messenger of God, in imitation of the
Islamic coin phrase: Muḥammad rasûl Allâh, suggest to many the
conversion took place in that decade. Olsson argues that the
837-8 evidence marks only the beginning of a long and difficult
official Judaization that concluded some decades later. A 9th
century Jewish traveller, Eldad ha-Dani, is said to have
informed Spanish Jews in 883 that there was a Jewish polity in
the East, and that fragments of the legendary Ten Lost Tribes,
part of the line of Simeon and half-line of Manasseh, dwelt in
“the land of the Khazars”, receiving tribute from some 25 to 28
kingdoms. Another view holds that by the 10th century, while the
Page 902
royal clan officially claimed Judaism, a non-normative variety
of Islamisation took place among the majority of Khazars. By the
10th century, the letter of King Joseph asserts that, after the royal conversion, "Israel returned (yashuvu yisra'el) with the
people of Qazaria (to Judaism) in complete repentance (bi-
teshuvah shelemah). Persian historian Ibn al-Faqîh wrote that
“all the Khazars are Jews, but they have been Judaized
recently.” Ibn Fadlân, based on his Caliphal mission of 921–922
to the Volga Bulğars, also reported that “the core element of
the state, the Khazars, were Judaized,” something underwritten
by the Qaraite scholar Ya'kub Qirqisânî around 937. The conversion appears to have occurred against a background of
frictions arising from both an intensification of Byzantine
missionary activity from the Crimea to the Caucasus, and Arab
attempts to wrest control over the latter in the 8th century and
a revolt, put down, by the Khazars around the mid-9th century is often invoked as in part influenced by their refusal to accept
Judaism. Modern scholars generally see the conversion as a slow
process through three stages, which accords with Richard Eaton's
model of syncretic inclusion, gradual identification and,
finally, displacement of the older tradition.
Some time between 954 and 961, Ḥasdai ibn Shaprūṭ, from al-
Andalus (Muslim Spain), wrote a letter of inquiry addressed to
Page 903
the ruler of Khazaria, and received a reply from Joseph of
Khazaria. The exchanges of this Khazar correspondence, together
with the Schechter letter discovered in the Cairo Geniza and the
famous platonizing dialogue by Judah Halevi, Sefer ha-Kuzari ('The Khazar'), which plausibly drew on such sources, provide us
with the only direct evidence of the indigenous traditions
concerning the conversion. King Bulan is said to have driven out the sorcerers, and to have received angelic visitations
exhorting him to find the true religion, upon which, accompanied
by his vizier, he travelled to desert mountains of Warsān on a
seashore, where he came across a cave rising from the plain of
Tiyul in which Jews used to celebrate the Sabbath. Here he was
circumcised. Bulan is then said to have convened a royal debate
between exponents of the three Abrahamic religions. He decided
to convert when he was convinced of Judaism's superiority. Many
scholars situate this c. 740, a date supported by Halevi's own
account. The details are both Judaic and Türkic: a Türkic
ethnogonic myth speaks of an ancestral cave in which the Āshǐnà
were conceived from the mating of their human ancestor and a
wolf ancestress. These accounts suggest that there was a
rationalising syncretism of native pagan traditions with Jewish
law, by melding through the motif of the cave, a site of
ancestral ritual and repository of forgotten sacred texts,
Türkic myths of origin and Jewish notions of redemption of
Page 904
Israel's fallen people. It is generally agreed they adopted
Rabbinical rather than Qaraite Judaism.
Ibn Fadlan reports that the settlement of disputes in Khazaria was adjudicated by judges hailing each from his community, be it
Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Pagan. Some evidence suggests that
the Khazar king saw himself as a defender of Jews even beyond
the kingdom's frontiers, retaliating against Muslim or Christian
interests in Khazaria in the wake of Islamic and Byzantine
persecutions of Jews abroad. Ibn Fadlan recounts specifically an
incident in which the king of Khazaria destroyed the minaret of
a mosque in Atil as revenge for the destruction of a synagogue
in Dâr al-Bâbûnaj, and allegedly said he would have done worse
were it not for a fear that the Muslims might retaliate in turn
against Jews. Ḥasdai ibn Shaprūṭ sought information on Khazaria
in the hope he might discover “a place on this earth where
harassed Israel can rule itself” and wrote that, were it to
prove true that Khazaria had such a king, he would not hesitate
to forsake his high office and his family in order to emigrate
there.
Abraham Harkavy noted in 1877 that an Arabic
Leibowitz Concludes
Page 905
commentary on Isaiah 48:14, ascribed to Saadia Gaon or to the
Karaite scholar Benjamin Nahâwandî, interpreted "The Lord hath
loved him" as a reference "to the Khazars, who will go and
destroy Babel" or Babylonia, a name used to designate the
Page 906
country of the Arabs. This has been taken as an indication of
hopes by Jews that the Khazars might succeed in destroying the
Islam
In 965, as the Qağanate was struggling against the victorious
campaign of the Rus' prince Sviatoslav, the Islamic historian
Ibn al-Athîr mentions that Khazaria, attacked by the Oğuz,
sought help from Khwarezm, but their appeal was rejected because
they were regarded as “infidels.” Save for the king, the
Khazarians are said to have converted to Islam in order to
secure an alliance, and the Turks were, with Khwarezm's military
assistance repelled. It was this that, according to Ibn al-
Athîr, led the Jewish king of Khazar to convert to Islam.
Claims of Khazar ancestry
Claims of Khazar origins for peoples, or suggestions that
Khazars were absorbed by them, have been made regarding the
Slavic Judaising Subbotniks, the Muslim Karachays, Kumyks,
Kazakhs, Avars, the Cossacks of the Don region, the Turkic-
speaking Krymchaks and their Crimean neighbours the Karaites to
the Moldavian Csángós, the Hungarians, the Mountain Jews and
others. Turkic speaking Crimean Karaites, known in the Crimean
Tatar language as Qaraylar, some of whom migrated in 19th
Page 907
century from Crimea to Poland and Lithuania have claimed Khazar origins. Specialists in Khazar history question the connection.
Scholarship is likewise sceptical of claims that the Tatar-
speaking Krymchak Jews of the Crimea descend from Khazars.
Several scholars have suggested that the Khazars did not
disappear after the dissolution of their Empire, but migrated
west to eventually form part of the core of the later Ashkenazi
Jewish population of Europe. This hypothesis is greeted with
scepticism or caution by most scholars. The German Orientalist
Karl Neumann, in the context of an earlier controversy about
possible connections between Khazars and the ancestors of the
Slavic peoples, suggested as early as 1847 emigrant Khazars
might have influenced the core population of Eastern European
Jews.
The theory was then taken up by Abraham Eliyahu Harkavi in 1869, when he also claimed a possible link between the Khazars and
Ashkenazi, but the theory that Khazar converts formed a major
proportion of Ashkenazi was first proposed to a Western public
in a lecture by Ernest Renan in 1883. Occasional suggestions emerged that there was a small Khazar component in East European
Jews in works by Joseph Jacobs (1886), Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, a
critic of anti-Semitism (1893), Maksymilian Ernest Gumplowicz,
and by the Russian-Jewish anthropologist Samuel Weissenberg. In
Page 908
1909 Hugo von Kutschera developed the notion into a book length
study, arguing Khazars formed the foundational core of the
modern Ashkenazi. Maurice Fishberg introduced the notion to American audiences in 1911. The idea was also taken up by the
Polish-Jewish economic historian and General Zionist Yitzhak
Schipper in 1918. Scholarly anthropologists, such as Roland B.
Dixon (1923), and writers like H. G. Wells (1921) used it to argue that "The main part of Jewry never was in Judea," a thesis
that was to have a political echo in later opinion. In 1932,
Samuel Krauss ventured the theory that the biblical Ashkenaz
referred to northern Asia Minor, and identified it with the
Khazars, a position immediately disputed by Jacob Mann. Ten
years later, in 1942, Abraham N. Polak, later professor for the
history of the Middle Ages at Tel Aviv University, published a
Hebrew monograph in which he concluded that the East European
Jews came from Khazaria. D.M. Dunlop, writing in 1954, thought
very little evidence backed what he regarded as a mere
assumption, and argued that the Ashkenazi-Khazar descent theory
went far beyond what "our imperfect records" permit. Léon
Poliakov, while assuming the Jews of Western Europe resulted from a "panmixia" in the 1st millennium, asserted in 1955 that
it was widely assumed that Europe's Eastern Jews descended from
a mixture of Khazarian and German Jews. Poliak's work found some
support in Salo Wittmayer Baron and Ben-Zion Dinur, but was
Page 909
dismissed by Bernard Weinryb as a fiction in 1962. Bernard Lewis
is of the opinion that the word in Cairo Geniza interpreted as
Khazaria is actually Hakkari and therefore it relates to the
Kurds of the Hakkari mountains in southeast Turkey.
The Khazar-Ashkenazi hypothesis came to the attention of a much
wider public with the publication of Arthur Koestler's “The
Thirteenth Tribe” in 1976, which was both positively reviewed, but most often dismissed as a fantasy, and a somewhat dangerous
one. Israel's ambassador to Britain branded it "an anti-Semitic
action financed by the Palestinians," while Bernard Lewis
claimed that the idea was not supported by any evidence
whatsoever, and had been abandoned by all serious scholars.
Raphael Patai, however, registered some support for the idea
that Khazar remnants had played a role in the growth of Eastern
European Jewish communities, and several amateur researchers,
such as Boris Altschüler (1994), kept the thesis in the public
eye. The theory has been occasionally manipulated to deny Jewish
nationhood. Recently, a variety of approaches, from the
linguistics of Paul Wexler to to the historiography of Shlomo
Sand and the population genetics of Eran Elhaik, a geneticist
from the University of Sheffield have emerged to keep the theory alive. In broad academic perspective, both the idea that the
Khazars converted en masse to Judaism, and the suggestion they
Page 910
emigrated to form the core population of Ashkenazi Jewry, remain
highly polemical issues.
One thesis, held that the Khazar Jewish population went into a
northern diaspora and had a significant impact on the rise of
Ashkenazi Jews. Connected to this thesis is the theory,
expounded by Paul Wexler, that the grammar of Yiddish contains a Khazar substrate. In 2018, Kevin Alan Brook cited genetic data
to argue against the claim that Ashkenazim have any amount of
Khazarian ancestry.
Use in anti-Semitic polemics
According to Michael Barkun, the Khazar hypothesis never played
any major role in anti-Semitism, though he writes that histories
of the latter rather oddly overlook the influence it has
exercised on American antisemites since the restrictions on
immigration in the 1920s. Maurice Fishberg and Roland B Dixon's
works were later exploited in racist and religious polemical
literature in both Britain, in British Israelism, and the United
States. Particularly after the publication of Burton J.
Hendrick's “The Jews in America” in 1923, it began to enjoy a vogue among advocates of immigration restriction in the 1920s;
racial theorists like Lothrop Stoddard; anti-Semitic conspiracy-
theorists like the Ku Klux Klan's Hiram Wesley Evans; anti-
Page 911
communist polemicists like John O. Beaty and Wilmot Robertson,
whose views influenced David Duke. According to Yehoshafat
Harkabi in 1968 and others, it played a role in Arab anti-
Zionist polemics, and took on an anti-semitic edge. Bernard
Lewis, noting in 1987 that Arab scholars had dropped it,
remarked that it only occasionally emerged in Arab political
discourse. It has also played some role in Soviet anti-Semitic
chauvinism and Slavic Eurasian historiography, particularly in
the works of scholars like Lev Gumilev. It came to be exploited
by the White supremacist Christian movement and even by
terrorist esoteric cults like Aum Shinrikyō.
Genetic studies
See also: Ashkenazi Jews § Genetic origins, Genetic studies on
Jews, and Khazar theory of Ashkenazi ancestry § Genetics
The hypothesis of Khazarian ancestry in Ashkenazi has also been
a subject of discussion in the field of population genetics,
wherein claims have been made concerning evidence both for and
against it. Eran Elhaik argued in 2012 for a significant Khazar
component in the paternal line based on the study of Y-DNA of
Ashkenazi Jews using Caucasian populations, Georgians, Armenians
and Azerbaijani Jews, as proxies. The evidence from historians
he used has been criticised by Shaul Stampfer and the technical response to such a position is dismissive, arguing that, if
Page 912
traces of descent from Khazars exist in the Ashkenazi gene pool,
the contribution would be quite minor, or insignificant.
According to Nadia Abu El-Haj, the issues of origins are
generally complicated by the difficulties of writing history via
genome studies and the biases of emotional investments in
different narratives, depending on whether the emphasis lies on
direct descent or on conversion within Jewish history. The lack
of Khazar DNA samples that might allow verification also
presents difficulties.
Crimean Karaite claims
In 1839, Abraham Firkovich was appointed by the Russian
government as a researcher into the origins of the Jewish sect
known as the Karaites. In 1846, one of his acquaintances the
Russian orientalist Vasilii Vasil'evich Grigor'ev (1816–1881)
theorized that the Crimean Karaites were of Khazar stock.
Firkovich vehemently rejected the idea. The allegation, though
unfamiliar to the Karaites themselves at the time, was quickly
taken up by outsiders. Firkovich successfully petitioned the
Russian government to exempt the Karaites from anti-Jewish laws
on the grounds that Karaites had immigrated to Europe before the
crucifixion of Jesus and thus could not be held responsible for
his death. He travelled widely and amassed a large collection of
Page 913
Judaic artefacts, visiting Egypt and Palestine, as well as the
Caucasus and Crimea. The authenticity of his collection has been
widely challenged among historians, and today Firkovich is
widely regarded as a forger who falsified older documents and
changed the dates on tombstones, and also exaggerated the size
and importance of the kingdom.
Many Karaim deny Israelite origins and consider themselves to be
descendants of the Khazars, while specialists in Khazar history
also question the connection. Brook's genetic study of European
Karaites found no evidence of a Khazar or Turkic origin for any
uniparental lineage but did reveal the European Karaites' links
to Egyptian Karaites and to Rabbinical Jewish communities.
In literature
“The Kuzari” is an influential work written by the medieval
Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (c.
1075–1141). Divided into five essays, it takes the form of a
fictional dialogue between the pagan king of the Khazars and a
Jew who was invited to instruct him in the tenets of the Jewish
religion. The intent of the work, although based on Ḥasdai ibn
Shaprūṭ's correspondence with the Khazar king, was not
historical, but rather to defend Judaism as a revealed religion,
written in the context, firstly of Karaite challenges to the
Page 914
Spanish rabbinical intelligentsia, and then against temptations
to adapt Aristotelianism and Islamic philosophy to the Jewish
faith. Originally written in Arabic, it was translated into
Hebrew by Judah ibn Tibbon. Benjamin Disraeli's early novel
“Alroy” (1833) draws on Menachem ben Solomon's story. The
question of mass religious conversion and the indeterminability
of the truth of stories about identity and conversion are
central themes of Milorad Pavić's best-selling mystery story.
Dictionary of the Khazars
H.N. Turteltaub's “Justinian,” Marek Halter's “Book of Abraham”
and “Wind of the Khazars,” and Michael Chabon's “Gentlemen of
the Road” allude to or feature elements of Khazar history or
create fictional Khazar characters.
Cities associated with the Khazars
Atil, Khazaran, Samandar; in the Caucasus, Balanjar, Kazarki,
Sambalut, and Samiran; in Crimea and the Taman region, Kerch,
Theodosia, Yevpatoria, Samkarsh, and Sudak; and in the Don
valley, Sarkel. A number of Khazar settlements have been
discovered in the Mayaki-Saltovo region. Some scholars suppose