THE KHAZAR KINGDOM'S CONVERSION TO JUDAISM
"A warrior-nation of Turkish Jews must have seemed to the
[western] rabbis as strange as a circumcized unicorn." A. Koestler
According to Benjamin Freedman the Khazars' conversion to Judaism was first precipitated by their monarch's abhorrence of the moral climate into which his kingdom had descended. Freedman has claimed, and other historians confirmed, that the "primitive" Khazars engaged in extremely immoral forms of religious practices, among them phallic worship. Animal sacrifices were also included in their rites.
The Khazar religious structure centered around a shamanism known as Tengri, which incorporated the worship of spirits and the sky as well as zoolatry, the worship of animals. Tengri was also the name of their "immortal god who created the world," and the primary animal sacrifices made to this deity were horses. 30
The actual mechanics of the Khazarian kingdom's turn to Judaism was, most historians agree, rather well thought out -- from a humanistic perspective at least -- rather than random and capricious as some have believed.
According to George Vernadski, in his book A History of Russia, in AD 860 a delegation of Khazars were sent to Constantinople (now known as Istanbul), which was then what remained of the ancient capitol of the old Roman Empire turned Christian under the Emperor Constantine. Their message was:
We have known God the Lord of everything [referring here to Tengri] from time immemorial ... and now the Jews are urging us to accept their religion and customs, and the Arabs, on their part, draw us to their faith, promising us peace and many gifts. 31
This appeal, in all its implications, was obviously made for the purpose of drawing the Christian Roman Empire into the debate with an eye perhaps toward a balanced argument amongst the major monotheistic religions.
Brook makes the observation that "this statement reveals that the Jews were actively seeking converts in Khazaria in 860." He also adds that "in the year 860, [Christian] Saints Cyril and Methodius were sent as missionaries to the Khazars by the Byzantine emperor Michael III .... since the Khazars had requested that a Christian scholar come to Khazaria to debate with the Jews and Muslims." 32
Inasmuch as the world has seldom (or perhaps never) witnessed any culture of people more adept at the art of religious debate than rabbinical Jews, the Khazar's conversion to Talmudic Judaism is not a surprising outcome, given that such a forum was to be the determining factor in their choice, rather than purely spiritual perceptions. The outcome was even further assured by the fact that the Christian representatives in the debate came from a church in the latter formative years of the Holy Roman Empire in which, by that time, spiritual sensitivity had become somewhat rare to nearly extinct.
It was at that period of time (about AD 740) that King Bulan of Khazaria was reputed to have converted to Judaism. In the debate amongst the Islamic mullah, the Christian priest and the Jewish rabbi, each presented to the king the advantages and truths of his own precepts of faith. This king, however, according to some accounts of history, had his own logic for determining which he should embrace. He asked each representative in turn, which of the other two faiths he considered superior. The result was that the Muslim indicated Judaism over Christianity, and the Christian priest chose it over Islam. The king then concluded that Judaism, being the foundation upon which both of the other monotheistic religions were built, would be that which he and his subjects should embrace. The Khazars, themselves being monotheistic, had also apparently expressed reservations about the polytheistic nature of the Trinity doctrine of the Christians. 33
So as not to exclude the Islamic account of these events, the following is taken by D. M. Dunlop from al-Bakri's eleventh century work the Book of Kingdoms and Roads:
"The reason for the conversion of the king of the Khazars, who had previously been a heathen, to Judaism was as follows. He had adopted Christianity. Then he recognised the wrongness of his belief and began to speak with one of his governors about the concern with which he was filled. The other said to him, O king, the People of the Book form three classes. Invite them and enquire of them , then follow whichever is in possession of the truth. So he sent to the Christians for a bishop. Now there was with him a Jew skilled in debate, who disputed with the bishop, asking him, What do you say about Moses, son of Amram, and the Torah which was revealed to him? The other replied, Moses is a Prophet, and the Torah is true. Then said the Jew to the king. He has admitted the truth of my creed. Ask him now what he believes. So the king asked him and he replied, I say that the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, is the Word, and that he has made known the mysteries in the name of God. Then the Jew said to the king of the Khazars, He confesses a doctrine which I know not, while he admits what I set forth. But the bishop was not strong in bringing proofs. So he invited the Muslims, and they sent him a learned and intelligent man who understood disputation. But the Jew hired someone against him who poisoned him on the way, so that he died. And the Jew was able to win the king for his religion." 34
Koestler presents an interesting alternative to these views. His position was that the king's conversion was essentially a political decision. "At the beginning of the eighth century," he writes, "the world was polarized between the two super-powers representing Christianity and Islam. Their ideological doctrines were welded to power-politics pursued by the classical methods of propaganda, subversion and military conquest."
It may be observed here that it is quite evident modern Christianity has well learned this same form of statecraft (propaganda, subversion and military conquest) inasmuch as they have torn a page directly from the first millennium history of the church.
"The Khazar Empire represented a Third Force," Koestler continues, "which had proved equal to either of them, both as an adversary and an ally. But it could only maintain its independence by accepting neither Christianity nor Islam -- for either choice would have automatically subordinated it to the authority of the Roman Emperor or the Caliph of Baghdad." 35
Although they suffered no want of protracted efforts by either Islam or Christianity to convert the Khazars to their respective religions, it resulted in no more than an exchange of political and dynastic courtesies (i.e., intermarriages and shifting military alliances, etc.). It was clear that the Khazars were determined to preserve their supremacy as a "Third Force" in the world, and undisputed leader of the countries and tribal nations of the Transcaucasus. They saw that the adoption of one of the great monotheistic religions would confer upon their monarch the benefit of both prelatic and judicial authority that their system of shamanism could not, and that the rulers of the other two powers clearly enjoyed. 36
J. B. Bury concurs: "There can be no question," he says, "that the ruler was actuated by political motives in adopting Judaism. To embrace Mohammadanism would have made him the spiritual dependent of the Caliphs, who attempted to press their faith on the Khazars, and in Christianity lay the danger of his becoming an ecclesiastical vassal of the Roman Empire. Judaism was a reputable religion with sacred books which both Christian and Mohammadan respected; it elevated him above the heathen barbarians, and secured him against the interference of Caliph or Emperor." 37
It would be illogical, however, to think that the Khazarian rulers had embraced Judaism blindly without intimate knowledge of what they were accepting. They had encountered the faith numerous times throughout the preceding century from traders and refugees fleeing persecution at the hands of the Romans, and, to a lesser degree, Jewish flight from the Arab conquests of Asia Minor.
Benjamin Freedman expresses differently the science behind the process of choosing a national Khazarian religion. He claims they were much more informal and random, and not nearly so intellectual in their approach.
It matters little what the mechanics were of the conversion of the Khazar kingdom to Judaism. It matters only that it happened, and that it happened with a clanging historical ring that resounds to the present age.
"The religion of the Hebrews," writes John Bury, "had exercised a profound influence on the creed of Islam, and it had been a basis for Christianity; it had won scattered proselytes; but the conversion of the Khazars to the undiluted religion of Jehovah is unique in history." 38
It is indeed a unique historical event, as Bury claims; however it is also interesting that he should refer to their conversion to Talmudic Judaism as "to the undiluted religion of Jehovah." It is evident that present-day Ethiopian Jews would disagree with Mr. Bury on this matter since they do not adhere to the precepts of the Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash or any of the extra-biblical writings that have arisen since the close of the Old Testament canon. These Jews of North Africa claim only Torah as their scriptural authority. And, unlike their distant "brothers" of the Talmud, they practice their religion quietly and with relatively no involvement in worldly politics.
According to an ancient document entitled King Joseph's Reply to Hasdai ibn Shaprut, Joseph (a later Khazarian king) stated that, "From that time on the Almighty God helped him [King Bulan] and strengthened him. He and his slaves circumcised themselves and he sent for and brought wise men of Israel who interpreted the Torah for him and arranged the precepts in order." 39
There appears to be as many historical accounts as to how King Bulan was converted to Judaism as there are historians and mystics to present them. Many of them involve visions of angels, such as the tale by a Sephardic Jewish philosopher detailing a dream in which an angel told the king that his "intentions are desirable to the Creator" but the continued observance of shamanism was not. 40 In the aforementioned document, King Joseph's Reply, its author claims that in that same dream God promised King Bulan that if he would abandon his pagan religion and worship the only true God that He would "bless and multiply Bulan's offspring, and deliver his enemies into his hands, and make his kingdom last to the end of the world".
It is believed by scholars that the dream was designed to simulate the Covenant in Genesis and meant to imply "that the Khazars too claimed the status of a Chosen Race, who made their own Covenant with the Lord, even though they were not descended from Abraham's seed." 41 [emphasis supplied]
King Joseph corroborates this in his document as he claims to have positively traced his family's ancestry back, not to Shem the father of the "Shemites" or Semite peoples, but to another of Noah's sons. "Though a fierce Jewish nationalist, proud of wielding the 'sceptre ofJudah'," Koestler says, "he cannot, and does not, claim for them Semitic descent; he traces their ancestry...to...Noah's third son, Japheth; or more precisely to Japheth's grandson, Togarma, the ancestor of all Turkish tribes."
Koestler adds a footnote to King Joseph's genealogical claims that is piercingly relevant to this study: "It also throws a sidelight on the frequent description of the Khazars as the people of Magog. Magog, according to Genesis 10:2-3 was the much maligned uncle of Togarma." Add to this that two other of the sons of Japheth, the progenitor of the Khazars, are Meshech and Tubal, central figures in biblical prophecies of the end times.
King Joseph's Reply also revealed that the successor to King Bulan, his son Obediah, "reorganized the kingdom and established the [Jewish] religion properly and correctly," bringing in numerous Jewish sages who "explained to him the twenty-four books [the Torah], Mishnah, Talmud, and the order of prayers."
This entrenchment in the Jewish religion outlasted the kingdom itself and was transplanted, whole cloth, into the Eastern European settlements of Russia and Poland. 42
Whatever the religious machinery (and/or chicanery) that was set in motion to accomplish the task, the consequence is historically undeniable that the Khazarian king was indeed converted to Talmudic Judaism. And the temporal consequences of that conversion have rung down through history like a warped and distorted bell, answering clearly to prophetic declarations of the last days of earth's history.

Hamas lied, Gaza rioters died'
Top IDF spokesman says even Hamas has admitted it lied about claims riots on Israel's border were 'peaceful resistance'.


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/246217


http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5264506,00.html

Jerusalem Post Opinion
THINK ABOUT IT: Israel and the Gaza Strip
There was nothing wrong with the Israeli reaction to the riots along the border, there is a lot wrong with the Israeli policy – or rather lack of policy – vis-à-vis the Palestinian population ...

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/THINK-ABOUT-IT-Israel-and-the-Gaza-Strip-557921

The far-reaching implications of this hypothesis may explain the great caution exercised by historians in approaching this subject -- if they do not avoid it altogether. Thus in the 1973 edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica the article "Khazars" is signed by Dunlop, but there is a separate section dealing with "Khazar Jews after the Fall of the Kingdom", signed by the editors, and written with the obvious intent to avoid upsetting believers in the dogma of the Chosen Race. [underscore supplied] 50
Abraham N. Poliak, Tel Aviv University's post-war Professor of Mediaeval Jewish History, wondered at "how far we can go in regarding this [Khazar] Jewry as the nucleus of the large Jewish settlement in Eastern Europe. The descendants of this settlement," Poliak declares, "those who stayed where they were, those who emigrated to the United States and to other countries, and those who went to Israel -- constitute now the large majority of world Jewry. [emphasis supplied] 51 Some historians, such as Austrian Hugo Kutschera, assert that Eastern European Jewry was not part, but entirely of Khazarian origin. 52
Still further proof that the Jews of Eastern Europe had no origins in the West is Yiddish, the language commonly used by the Eastern Jews. Yiddish was, until the latter part of the twentieth century, a dying language. It is an amalgamation of several tongues, primarily Hebrew, and written with Hebrew characters, but which includes much of mediaeval German and components of other languages like Slavonic. The German elements incorporated into Yiddish have been clearly shown to have originated in the east of Germany where it joined the Slavonic regions of Eastern Europe. Yiddish is a sort of linguistic "sponge" in that it readily absorbs and incorporates whatever words or idiomatic expressions best suit its purpose. It would therefore naturally have become a cultural marker for whatever region in which it was spoken, absorbing the telltale indicators of dialect like a tattoo. 53
Another respected Austrian historian, Matisyohu Meises, questions, "Could it be that the generally accepted view, according to which the German Jews once upon a time immigrated from France across the Rhine, is misconceived?" Meises, who knew virtually nothing about the Khazars, was perplexed at the fact that no Yiddish linguistic roots whatever could be traced to Western Europe. He also noted that, inexplicably, there was a large geographical gap clearly delineating the Yiddish spoken by the Eastern Khazar transplants from any spoken in Western Europe. 54
"The evidence," Mr. Koestler nicely summates, "...adds up to a strong case in favour of those modern historians -- whether Austrian, Israeli or Polish -- who, independently from each other, have argued that the bulk of modern Jewry is not of Palestinian, but of Caucasian origin. The mainstream of Jewish migrations did not flow from the Mediterranean across France and Germany to the east and then back again. The stream moved in a consistently westerly direction, from the Caucasus through the Ukraine into Poland and thence into Central Europe. When that unprecedented mass-settlement in Poland came into being, there were simply not enough Jews around in the west to account for it; while in the east a whole nation was on the move to new frontiers." 55
With the overwhelming evidence that the modern Jewish population is of Khazar origin, Koestler remarks that this would clearly indicate that "their ancestors came not from the Jordan but from the Volga, not from Canaan but from the Caucasus, once believed to be the cradle of the Aryan race; and that genetically they are more closely related to the Hun, Uigur and Magyar tribes than to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." This conclusion would then logically render the epithet "anti-Semitism" "void of meaning," Koestler says.
The latter conclusion is a position Palestinian Arabs might well dispute with Mr. Koestler due to the fact that this revelation ironically places the modern Jew, currently occupying Palestine, in the unenviable position of, themselves, being anti-Semitic -- an historical mockery of somewhat amazing proportions. 56
But what, one may ask, became of the greater part of the population of "real Jews"?
Towards the close of the ninth century the Jewish settlements of Germany, who were nearly all of Semitic origin, had been virtually wiped out by the "mob-hysteria" that resulted from the First Crusade in 1096. The Encyclopedia Britannica on the Crusades vividly sets forth the mindset of the crusaders:
"He might butcher all, till he waded ankle-deep in blood, and then at nightfall kneel, sobbing for very joy, at the altar of the Sepulchre -- for was he not red from the winepress of the Lord?" 57
The Jews who found themselves in that "winepress" significantly assisted in their own demise. Like those of Massada who committed mass suicide rather than surrender to the armies of Rome, a great many of the Jews of the Rhineland and surrounding countries, when presented with the choice of baptism into "Christianity" or death at the hands of their captors, chose neither, opting for the Massada solution.
Imitating on a grand scale Abraham's readiness to sacrifice Isaac, fathers slaughtered their children and husbands their wives. These acts of unspeakable horror and heroism were performed in the ritualistic form of slaughter with sacrificial knives sharpened in accordance with Jewish law. At times the leading sages of the community, supervising the mass immolation, were the last to part with life at their own hands. In the mass hysteria, sanctified by the glow of religious martyrdom and compensated by the confident expectation of heavenly rewards, nothing seemed to matter but to end life before one fell into the hands of the implacable foes and had to face the inescapable alternative of death at the enemy's hand or conversion to Christianity. 58
Of the German cities of Worms and Spires, being somewhat representative of the whole of Western European communities that were devastated by the Crusades, Salo Baron writes, "the total Jewish population of either community had hardly exceeded the figures...given for the dead alone". 59
The most common historical concept, before the modern revelation of the existence of Khazaria, was that the 1096 Crusade literally "swept like a broom" virtually the entire German Jewish population into Poland. This was an invention of apparent necessity because those historians could account by no other means for the inexplicably large population of Eastern European Jews. They concluded this in the face of the total absence of any historical account of a mass migration of Jews to eastern Germany and certainly not Poland.
By the close of the 1300s much of Western Europe was, for all practical purposes, completely empty of any perceivable Jewish population. What the Crusades failed to accomplish in the eradication of Western European Jewry the "Black Death" -- the Bubonic Plagues of the bacilli Pasteurella pestis -- virtually completed. Those Jews of that era suffered doubly; from the plague itself and from the proliferation of superstitious rumours that they were responsible for the disease by poisoning wells, just as they were blamed earlier for "the ritual slaughter of Christian children." This resulted in the burning alive of Jews in great numbers over the whole of Europe. 60 Later some of the Sephardic Jews of Spain immigrated northward, accounting for some of the smaller Jewish populations of Western Europe.
"Because of the long and varied history of the Jews," says the 2001 edition of World Book Encyclopedia, "it is difficult to define a Jew. There is no such thing as a Jewish race. Jewish identity is a mixture of religious, historical, and ethnic factors." Thus, those who might have truly claimed to be of the genealogy of Abraham and of true Semitic origin became extinct as a discernible race, being replaced by the white Khazars of the Transcaucasus, none of whose ancestors, as Benjamin Freedman phrases it, have ever placed a foot in the land of Palestine. This causes a serious problem with modern Christianity's infatuation with the Jews and their "return to their Homeland," begging the question: How can one return to a place where they have never been?

I have no beef with Shepardim

Modern Jews are essentially divided into two major categories, ethnically and culturally: Sephardim and Ashkenazim.
The former are primarily of Spanish origin; the name Sephardim being derived from Sepharad, the Hebrew word for Spain, and are likely the closest to actual Semitic Jews that can be established. They were expelled from Spain toward the beginning of the sixteenth century and immigrated to the eastern Mediterranean and Balkans.
As late as 1960s the Sephardic Jews numbered only about 500,000, compared with the Ashkenazim of the same period estimated at approximately twelve million. 61
In defining the origins of the Ashkenazim, Alan Brook states that "The geographic location of the Ashkenaz, based on references in the Torah, may be centered around southern Russia, Armenia, and Asia Minor. The ashkaenoi (askae or askai) were the people also known as Phrygians or Mysians (Meshech)." Some historians claim that the name Ashkenaz applies exclusively to German Jews. However, more recent evidence shows that they had immigrated from the southern regions of Russia and western Asia and Asia Minor -- that region clearly identified as the location and origin of the ancient Khazars. The name originally indicated Iranians and was later given as the name of the god of Meshech, Men Askaenos. "It should also be pointed out," Brook adds, "that Ashkenaz did not become a definite Jewish designation for Germany until the eleventh century." 62
"According to the explanation by the Talmud," writes Hugo Freiherr, "Ashkenaz thus means a country near the Black Sea between Ararat and the Caucasus, within the original region of the Khazar empire." 63 This, again, is precisely the geographic locality of the Khazarian empire. The Talmudic observation is abetted by Scripture which names Ashkenaz as descending not from Shem but from Japheth through Gomer, and whose uncles were Magog and Tubal. (See Gen. 10:3)
Ashkenaz (alt. spelling: Ashchenaz) is mentioned in but one scripture other than 1 Chronicles 6:1, which is only another reference to the genealogy as descending from Japheth. In the book of Jeremiah the prophet, God announces that Israel is to call upon other nations as allies in bringing His judgments against Babylon. Among those allies, who are not part of Israel or Judah, and therefore could not be numbered as Jews, is Ashchenaz. (See Jer. 51:27)
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, published a series of booklets entitled, The Race Question in Modern Science, in which oneof the authors, Harry Shapiro, states:
The wide range of variation between Jewish populations in their physical characteristics and the diversity of the gene frequencies of their blood groups render any unified racial classification for them a contradiction in terms. For although modern racial theory admits some degree of polymorphism or variation within a racial group, it does not permit distinctly different groups, measured by its own criteria of race, to be identified as one. To do so would make the biological purposes of racial classification futile and the whole procedure arbitrary and meaningless. ...despite the evidence efforts continue to be made to somehow segregate the Jews as a distinct racial entity. 64
Thus, attempting to claim the existence of a "race" of Jews has been proven to be an anthropological impossibility. Though their God consistently warned them against intermingling themselves amongst non-Jewish races, their miscegenistic tendencies are well documented, and has resulted in their complete erasure as a distinct, genetic peoples.
When, inevitably, there was mixing of Western European and Khazarian Jews, there was a notable difference between the educational levels of the two Jewish sub-cultures. The Khazars greatly admired their vastly less numerous but far more learned Western (German speaking) brethren and quickly adopted their language, education and cultural practices. This resulted, also, in an assimilation of their other talents in the area of economics, business and things politik.
"The Khazars were not descended from the Tribes," says Koestler, "but, as we have seen, they shared a certain cosmopolitanism and other social characteristics with their co-religionists." 65
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. A Khazar Jew named Solomon ben Duji instigated the movement and began an international correspondence with all the Jews of surrounding nations.
It seems that ben Duji was possessed of messianic delusions of his own in that he claimed that "the time had come in which God would gather Israel, His people from all lands to Jerusalem, the holy city, and that Solomon Ben Duji was Elijah, and his son the Messiah." 66
This desire for a Jewish homeland echoed down the centuries and found expression again. "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 1960s, Ashkenazi Jews numbered some 11 million, about 84 percent of the world Jewish population." 67
At times Arthur Koestler, in his broad and extensive treatment of this subject, appears, as a Jew himself, to wrestle with the glaring contradiction that the Jews, who have no genetic or true ethnic identity, are entitled to land they have never, by any right of descent, owned or possessed, and whose ancestors have never occupied. Then, claiming to be the state of Israel, created by United Nations fiat, they arbitrarily removed that land from the possession of those who have legitimately owned and occupied it for thousands of years. Mr. Koestler claims that such right "is not based on the hypothetical origins of the Jewish people, nor on the mythological covenant of Abraham with God; it is based on international law -- i.e., on the United Nations' decision in 1947 to partition Palestine...[actually declared, May 14, 1948.]" 68

That means nothing to me. There is so much fake scripture out there it's pointless to even care. All I said is that... "I can't think of any reason why some of you would be so outlandish with your claims unless you had reason to defy logic and be so extreme with your prejudice." You responded as if I was making some outrageous claim about the prejudice of the people here who are obviously defending Zionism. Dude. It's not an outrageous claim. It's downright obvious! So, coming back with obscure passages from ancient texts that may or may not even be real does nothing to diffuse that reality.

Did you think that by describing how prejudiced the other side is your can somehow exonerate the prejudice of your own side?

Newsflash: This is a hotly contested issue, so naturally, there is prejudice on all sides. I'm prejudice too... As a Christian and a defender of human rights I'm VERY prejudiced against Zionists. I hate what they do with a passion and it's a struggle for me to keep an open mind about them. You're responses tell me that you have a similar prejudice against the Palestinians.

So, can you stop denying your prejudice and just answer the question? In case you forgot what the question is... here it is again... Do you think the conflicts in Israel are a prophecy?

I noticed that so far no one has dared to answer this question.

Think about this if you will... most of the inhabitants in Palestine back in the 1920's were tenant farmers not land owners Jews & Arabs... so if you rent a property & the owner of that property sells out to a new owner who wants to occupy that property what are your choices?... A... move out or B...negotiate a new lease or .C...stay & kill the new owners if they are Jews... why is it that intelligent people choose C when Palestine is concerned?... EITHER way it was the sellers who walked away with all the profits...the Arabs...