Harry's Place

Thanks for this. My heart sunk when this book appeared in my Amazon recommendations and I wondered how long it would take for people with a certain axe to grind to get hold of it. Clearly not very long.

There was a lot to disgust one in what Sands had to say last night, but I reserve a rather special derision for the man next to me, who leapt to his feet during one of Jonathan’s moments of heated challenges, and quaveringly announced himself asaJew who wished to be utterly dissociated from Jonathan and another man who had forcefully challenged Sands, and expressed his wish that both these disgraceful Jews (unlike his good Jewish self) should be thrown out.

This book was already being quoted at length on CIF in the past weeks: prepare for it to become a standard on those pages.

However mendacious Sands book is, (and it is) I was even more dismayed by Andrew Marr’s intro to the book on Start the Week, saying there was a Masterplan to depict the history of the Jewish people which up to now, had been “swallowed whole” by the modern world. Its those Elders, again, turns out they have been duping the whole world.

I second Ana. I too had the feeling of a sinking heart, when I turned on the Radio yesterday and heard yet another argument dedicated to the deconstruction of the Jewish people.

Thank you Mr Hoffman for this rebuttal.

And another thing (a wee bit OT sorry) This man (afaik) has no right to bandy around the word rape to score political points. I am yet to encounter a rapist who has improved the life expectancy of the victim, planted some trees in her garden, offered her the choice of being raped or not, invested in the water systems of her home town or offered her compensation. When this happens, or alternatively when Hamas collectively develop an eating disorder, low self esteem and trust issues then I will consider accepting the analogy. Rant over.

The Andrew Marr programme, like most BBC
propaganda, has a penchant for
celebrating the “achievements” of islam.
Often confusing arabs with muslims.

This book was a “must” for Marr, & the other
guests swallowed it, as they were not qualified to
discuss it.

That it provided ammunition for the repellent
“Left”, would not have passed through anybody’s mind
at the BBC.
As a “balanced” broadcaster al Beeb is happy
to present arabs who hate Israel & Jews who hate Israel.

That the New Statesman was involved in promoting
this stuff says it all.

Well Jews are a collection of people who either chose their religion or chose to stick with the religion of their mothers. From this Sand makes his money? This is only news to the ignorant.

These obscene revisions of history started some time ago:

“They found not a single stone proving that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine at all” london based arabic daily Al- Hayat, Interview with Yasser Arafat, MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series No. 428, October 11, 2002.

“Israel demands control of the Temple Mount based on its claim that its fictitious Temple stood there” Nabil Sha’ath, Al-Ayyam newspaper July 27, 2000. Translation MEMRI.

“For Islam there never was a Jewish Temple at Al-Qods (Jerusalem) but a distant mosque” Sa’eb Erakat to a French reporter. From Charles Enderlins, Shattered Dreams: the failure of the peace process in the middle east 1995-2002, page 272. Dore Gold, The Fight For Jerusalem.

And there is more of this type of Temple denial, lots more. Deny there was a Temple and it is an easy step to denying the Jews were ever there at all.

Is Trajan’s column a forgery, were the historians of old Lying?

This shit is really getting out of hand, this is the sort of nazi era rewriting of history and anti-semitism that led to the horrors of the second world war.

On the genetic front:

The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora.

and

In summary, the combined results suggest that a major portion of NRY biallelic diversity present in most of the contemporary Jewish communities surveyed here traces to a common Middle Eastern source population several thousand years ago. The implication is that this source population included a large number of distinct paternal and maternal lineages, reflecting genetic variation established in the Middle East at that time. In turn, this source diversity has been maintained within Jewish communities, despite numerous migrations during the Diaspora and long-term residence as isolated subpopulations in numerous geographic locations outside of the Middle East.

from:

Hammer, T.F. et al. (2000) Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes. PNAS, 97, 6769-6774.

http://www.pnas.org/content/97/12/6769.long

>> And Skorecki has done DNA research which shows that the same array of chromosomal markers was found in 97 of 106 Cohens tested (a Cohen is a descendant of the Priests in the High Temple).

To be honest, I don’t have much truck for this argument, per se. But, it matters to people like Sand that it’s not so, making it good enough for me.

In the book Sand attempts to prove that the Jewish people never existed as a “nation-race” with a common origin. His thesis is that Jews are a rag-tag collection of flotsam and jetsam that at various stages of history just happened to adopt the same religion. He argues that for a number of Zionist ideologues, the mythical perception of the Jews as an ancient people led to racist thinking.

This is funny, because this kind of anti-blood-and-soil argument is put forward by the vast majority of centre and centre-left people in the UK, when applied to Britishness. Mongrel race and all that.

Homercles,

that is because Britain has been subject to immigration waves – the Scots from Ireland, the Angles, Saxons & Jutes, the Vikings, the Flemish, the Welsh, might even be the odd trace of Pict left kicking around. Not to mention a bit of Frank.

britain, as we know it, is the city state of London (hence the great vowel shift).

But then, all nations are simply selective invented traditions and generally horseshit.

Red Deathy, please go down to a bookshop today and buy Professor Bryan Sykes book “Blood of the Isles” in fact buy all three, “Adams Curse” and “The Seven Daughters of Eve” are the other two.

You need a serious dose of scientific reality, you really do.

Even if Jews were a mongrel race would that make the persecution suffering and need for a home of modern Jews any less valid?

I too was at the New Statesman evening last night. MacShane was an absolute disgrace and had no right being there. It was quite in order for the person who interrupted him to ask that he keep to the point. As for Mr Hoffmann’s behaviour, on the other hand, the less said about that the better.

Anamaxander,

even if his results were that we show inheritance traits, the facts are that significant proportions of the population genetics come from the migratory patterns, which are attested to in the historical record. Given the small historical populations (less than a couple of million across the whole island) and the recent explosion in population, it’s not a surprise to find large scale genetic simularity.

But the facts are that Flemmings, Normans, Saxon, Vikings, etc. have all bred into the pool, and large scale migrations have occurred.

The myths of aboriginal beritish are dogs knackers.

That aside, even if we were all clones from the same gene ancestor it wouldn’t matter a hairy fart.

I see, well then there is nothing more to add then is there.

You know it is said that when Galileo was on trial for his “heresy”, for saying that Jupiter had moons, he simply asked his accusers to look through the telescope and see for themselves, they refused to look.

As I have said before the “facts” only matter in science, in religion and politics they are ignored or worse, to some they don’t matter.

Eburnant: McShane’s field is antisemitism in the UK on which he is excellent, but he is not versed in the history and politics of Israel, so he was an inappropriate guest for this event. But for this, blame the New Statesman for wheeling him in a spurious attempt at window dressing for “Balance”. But it is wholly uncalled for to call McShane a disgrace.

Commenters, don’t bother to argue genetics/DNA. Sand’s way of getting around the comprehensive trashing of his theories by the DNA studies quoted above was last night to feign outrage at the field of DNA studies to be so deployed for being racist, and then referred vaguely and disgustedly to DNA work being done in Israel but which sounded to me they might be about combating genetic diseases.

Was Peter Oborne editor at the NS when it published its hideously anti-semitic cover?

there is a ‘Dispatches’ into the Israel Lobby coming soon and its presented by Peter Oborne.

MattG

I know let’s measure Jews’ head and count the bumps on their faces.

Sand’s entire project is utter shit. For those who are into the “connection” between the Hazars and East European jewy, there is a nice discussion of it in “The Kidnly Ones”. It is a debate between an SS officer and a nazi “scientist”. It is the appropriate location for issues of this kind.

What this nonsense and it’s being given a place on talk-shows, etc. is precisely how quick matters concerning Jews degenrates into “racial” and ” racialised” categories.

Anamaxander,

I did take a scoot around to look at the evidence before replying, and the point is, even if it is proven that we pure breed British are indeed some special and distinct stock, it doesn’t make an iota of difference – a pure breed Poodle is still a dog when all is said and done, and will run and breed with any pack.

actually, i think he was/is at The Spectator rather than the NS?

So coming at the jews from a position of the ‘Toff right’ rather than the ‘islamic allianced left’.

Slightly preferable i guess.

On topic, is there no end to the procession of ‘good jews’ like Shlomo. They really are a bit tiresome. As for Andrew Marr – I cant stand the sight of the smug little git. the old school type who likes to help jews that are emaciated in striped pyjamas, but finds the rest just a little vulgar.

MattG

MattG,

No, Peter Oborne has never to my knowledge been remotely aligned with the New Statesman; I think he was most prominent as Politics Editor of the Spectator.

(Googling him, I see the cached version of his wikipedia entry begins “is an English journalist, political commentator and far right-wing Thatcherite twat.” This may be unfair and overstated but should at least serve to distance him from anything the utterly unreadable NS might be up to).

I have absolutely no inkling of what his foreign policy stance might be

This is yet another example of Jewish exceptionalism.

All nations have national myths; but, somehow, the Jewish and Israeli myth is deemed to be inherently malevolent.

This type work is typical of a new generation of Israeli “left” – of a same kind who discuss the place of the Shoah within Israeli founding tales. It is interesting stuff (well, most of it – any work that falls back on genes and DNA is, by definition problematic).

Where is falls down, however, is in its reception outside Israel where it connects with all types of anti-Jewish mythologies.

I have absolutely no inkling of what his foreign policy stance might be

He’s a paid up member of the CamelCorps

I saw you and your acolytes at the Shlomo Sand talk, Jonathan, and I have to say that while I find his book and views quite disturbing, your behaviour did Israel’s cause no favours. Do you and your friends honestly think that shouting “anti-Semite” and “Liar” at the speaker, while not even trying to prove that he is deserving such epithets is helpful? By the way, he is right that there is no book on the exile and that many Israeli historians, including the mainstream ones, accept that the biggest “diaspora” was a result of the Khazars.
There is a saying in Hebrew: “Tzaddikim, melachtam ne’esayt biydei acherim” (”The work of the righteous is done by others”). I’m not saying that the anti-Zionists or the pro-Palestinians are righteous, but you are certainly doing their work for them.

Listen Red, we all come from Africa, that is what the evidence says and until a alternative verifiable hypothesis is presented that is what I for one unreservedly accept.

Now it would be absolutely fantastic for every member of our species to accept that we are all, on current evidence, descended from a common ancestor, nothing would make me happier, but that is probably going to take millennia to be accepted by our entire species, if indeed ever.

It seems on current evidence that the majority of the Humans who currently inhabit the British Isles have a link, an genetic lineage going back thousands of years.

I am not trying to say that is some kind of evidence for a ‘pure breed’ of Britons that have some racial claim of superiority, it is simply scientific evidence, you can dismiss it if you wish, you can claim that it doesn’t matter, you can say that the British or any other race for that matter are mongrel dogs who will breed with anyone, but there is no denying the science.

Communism is not science my Red friend, it is a political ideology and as such can not be ‘verified’ by science and seeing as how my “faith” is in science I feel I can dismiss your arguments as being nothing more than your ‘view’, a view I happen to disagree with.

As I said facts only matter in science.

Listen Red, we all come from Africa, that is what the evidence says and until a alternative verifiable hypothesis is presented that is what I for one unreservedly accept.

Were a different hypothesis (and perhaps evidence for such) emerge would the historians of old who based their work on the original hypothesis have “been lying”?

“to emerge” of course…ho hum.

There are of course massive tomes to be read on why history is not a science (and therefore why scientists, approaching history from their own training and perspectives, always get so frustrated.)

I can see us next heading into the history of science, a mention of the name Thomas Kuhn, and all sorts of accusations of postmodern relativism being thrown around…

OK. What sand is attempting to do (pace Foucault’s “archeologies”) is to place the discursive origins of “Jewish” (as an identity) in 19th century Germany. Not surprisingly, more traditional historians of Judaism are miffed and modern zionists are fuming. But I seem to remember Arthur Koestler trying something like this (based upon the intellectual fashions of the time) in the late 70s – although if anyone can remember the name of his book now I’ll be surprised.

In a sense this is all about publicity for “the historian”. You have to buy his book (and about 15 of Foucault’s) in order to understand what he’s on about. Result: nice big royalty cheque for Mr Sand, kerfuffle in the popular press and lots of virtually unread books gathering dust on shelves forever.

IanLRabbak:

“By the way, he is right that there is no book on the exile and that many Israeli historians, including the mainstream ones, accept that the biggest “diaspora” was a result of the Khazars.”

How do you quantify “many”? how do you define “mainstream”?

Here are some questions for you:
- How many Jews were there in the Roman Empire (Europe,N. Africa and parts of Middle East) in 67 AD? What was the total population of the Roman Empire?
- How many Jews were there in the same areas in 1939? What was the total population?

Why does a relatively stagnant Jewish population need a massive influx of Khazars to explain this non-growth?

From the article by Prof. Anita Shapira:

“According to the calculations of historians such as Itzhak Schipper and Salo W. Baron, which are based on the estimates of taxes paid by Polish Jews in 150 (about 400 years after the destruction of the Khazar kingdom) Poland had only 24,000-30,000 Jews. According to another historian (Bernard D. Weinryb) there were only 10,000. Either way these figures match both the migration rates of Jews from the West and the natural increase without having to resort to masses of Khazars to balance the account”.

Sand is a historian of French cinema. It’s mystifying to me why any serious person would consider him an authority on the origins of nations. Particularly after his book was so roundly discredited when it was originally published in Hebrew. Oh wait… did someone say “political agenda”?

Rather than shout liar and anti-Semite at him, surely a more appropriate response would be to laugh and point, or ask him about his ‘expert opinion’ on the mechanisms of gene therapy, engineering or any other subject about which he is equally well qualified to speak.

Yellow Boy

Sand is a historian of French cinema. It’s mystifying to me why any serious person would consider him an authority on the origins of nations. Particularly after his book was so roundly discredited when it was originally published in Hebrew. Oh wait… did someone say “political agenda”?

Rather than shout liar and anti-Semite at him, surely a more appropriate response would be to laugh and point, or ask him about his ‘expert opinion’ on the mechanisms of gene therapy, engineering or any other subject about which he is equally well qualified to speak.

Yellow Boy

and that many Israeli historians, including the mainstream ones, accept that the biggest “diaspora” was a result of the Khazars. Not at all. Of course there has been some conversion in the course of two thousand years, anything else would be unnatural and we should not ,forget the pogroms and inevitable rapes.

Sand is a historian of French cinema

Oh well there you are: Monsieur Hulot does history!

Anaximanders other sandal,

well, I checked out the Oppenheimer (similar to the Sykes) and even by his measures, we’re talking about a significant degree of admixture (up to about 15% Saxon in the east) and plenty of Viking in the North as well, and a clear genetic boundary between England and Wales (I didn’t check for Scotland and Ireland, but it would seem to hold with what I read in my lunch hour), all within a largely similar North West Europe migration pattern. Of course, he spends time discussing rival theories, which suggests there is at least some debate in the question of how you model the science.

Even then, these same groupings seem to scale down to smaller geographical clusters, which, when mixed with the clear cultural shifts make it hard to designate any overall indiginous population for ‘Britain’ prior to its creation in the early modern period.

MattG

Peter Oborne’s book on Basil D’Oliveira was great and proved me right for campaigning against the school cricket match with the MCC in 1969.

I dread his programme on the Israel Lobby on C4 on 16th though. I fear he will try and do a Walt/Mearsheimer on the UK. I’m sure there will be an HP post about it on 17th ….

p.s. Interestingly, you’ll note, I haven’t disputed the facts, merely the connotations that derive from them.

p.p.s. forgot to mention, ppen heimer talks of about 250,000 Angles coming into a population of about 1-2 million in the Isles, that’s the small scale we’re talking about here.

> By the way, he is right that there is no book on the exile and that many Israeli historians, including the mainstream ones, accept that the biggest “diaspora” was a result of the Khazars.But I seem to remember Arthur Koestler trying something like this [...] although if anyone can remember the name of his book now I’ll be surprised.< Graham

It’s called The Thirteenth Tribe, and I’ve been trying to find my paperback copy since the Marr progframme.

Sorry – my previous comment got mangled. The first part of the quote is from Iain L Rabbak, and I wrote that the khazar theory would be more convincing if there was a scrap of linguist evidence – brought over into yiddish – or Jewish dialects in any particular vernacular – to confim it

Do you mean there is no such thing as a “British people” ??
So the Brits are just a rag-tag collection of flotsam and jetsam that at various stages of history just happened to adopt the same philosphy of imperialism and colonialism?

Good grief, what an idiot. Origin myths for any nation have been superceded by science – genetics just answers these questions.

In relation to Jews, Koestler’s Khazar myth, and others, are laid to rest as just wrong.

The piece on khazars and dna in wiki is quite good

I’m a British Jew of Polish Descent, and I’m a Rabinowycz which means ‘descended from Rabbis’ not ‘descended from Khazars’ dammit!

I won’t have this crap, do you hear me. I won’t have it!

Ahhh, MacShane, the indefatigable antiracist

http://heathlander.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/crazy-drunkard-slimy-hacks-and-paid-shill-attempt-to-defend-the-indefensible/

http://cambridgetab.co.uk/news/macshane-on-you/

12.57pm
“Do you and your friends honestly think that shouting “anti-Semite” and “Liar” at the speaker, while not even trying to prove that he is deserving such epithets is helpful?”

it’s certainly amusing

Why get non-academic, non-historian Denis Macshane to speak with Sand?

Why not an academic Jewish historian from the nearby UCL Hebrew and Jewish studies department?

Is this a silly question?

I am a student immersed every day in many of the primary texts in which Sand, a historian in French cinema, is far from a specialist. I can tell you that the assumption that Jews are a people dispossessed of temple, city and land is very ancient. It is a datum of both Christian and Islamic culture and civilisation from their beginnings i.e. the cultures and societies in which most Jews have lived for the last 2000 years. But it is an ancient, traditional Jewish datum too. It is far from a 17th century invention.

Sand’s holding a post-Revolutionary French notion of nationality as the touch stone of its definition is absurd: the Greeks and the Romans regarded Jews as a distinct ethno-national group, along with Syrians and Egyptians.

But, more to the point, Sand’s criterion proves the very opposite of his thesis: the granting to Jews of French citizenship was significant precisely because it was the first time since antiquity that Jews could transcend their (anciently regarded) Jewish ethno-nationality without having first to convert from Judaism to Christianity.

The intellectuals of the French Republic all assumed the Jews were an ethno-national group historically dispossessed because this was not merely how Jews saw themselves, it had been a datum of European culture for nearly 2000 years.

It was precisely this identity Jews were supposed to surrender in order to become French citizens. That was why orthodox rabbis viewed emancipation with such ambivalence, and why Liberal Judaism evolved as a response.

i received a press copy of this book a while ago. it was obvious from the press release exactly what the nature of the book was, so i didn’t bother reading it.

aside from the fact, as mentioned by several commentators, the argument of the book flies in the face of dna evidence, there were several red flags. the publisher proudly states that it is also the home of Tariq Ali and John Pilger publications. a Tony Judt quote is used as the main praiseworthy review. the publishers also claim that sand’s so-called refutation of a biological lineage between present day and biblical jews is “unequivocal evidence for a one-state solution”, a conclusion that is clearly suspect.

it really gets comical when the press release states that “Sand finds Palestinian Arabs to be the true heirs of biblical Jews”. by his own spurious logic, ie the importance of direct biological descent, there is no evidence to support this. arabs certainly did not constitute a major population of palestine in biblical times.

Why get non-academic, non-historian Denis Macshane to speak with Sand?

because this has nothing to do with history and everything to do with ideology.

zkharya, for some reason your comments are being sent to the spam folder. It may have to do with the email address. Try another one.

In what sense can anyone ever say that European Jews are descended from Khazars anyway?

How did Khazars get to be Jewish would be the question, and so on, until you get to the root that Middle East Jews in the diaspora married local people in Europe. This doesn’t deny their root back to the Middle East.

If you followed this absurd de-Judaeification then you can argue that Oona King can’t be Jewish because she Black.

Hitler never argued that they weren’t Jews because they looked European. The whole point about Israel is that it is the single birth place of Judaism and home of The Jews.

If the Jews are not a people, how comes that they defended themselves 1947-1949 against an onslaught of Arab Armies?
If the Jews are not a people, how comes that they rejuvenated the Hebrew language and created a specific Hebrew culture?

But it is an ancient, traditional Jewish datum too. It is far from a 17th century invention.

Well, I have not read Sand’s book but I’d be surprised if what he is trying to do is write off the easily provable fact that there were Jewish people around 2000 years ago. I’d suspect that what he is trying to say is that the modern Jewish identity was formed in the 19th century and that this identity has as little to do with Jews of old as the modern identity of “gay” has with the ancient Greek “erastes”. That would be the normal Foucaldian position of examining how discursive identities came to be created. Although having not read the book I wouldn’t be certain that this was his intention. But if this is what he is doing then in a sense attacking him for his perceived forgetting about ancient history misses his point and Zhkyra’s criticisms of more modern aspects are much more useful.

I find the idea of Jew flu to be pretty funny, when you consider that asajew sounds like a sneeze.
Antisemitic Jews are self loathing by definition, but they are very effective.
I have a close friend (kind of a girl friend, but the relationship is not very definable, who is not Jewish (but I digress)), who tells me that she thinks she understands the history and politics of the conflict, but gets confused when she hears Jews saying things that are contrary to her understandings.
I’m at work, and I get paid for writing software, here is a routine in perl that illustrates this in its simplest form. I have thought of creating a computer program that plots the impacts of peoples affiliations on different observers ($observer). This would be a part of it. I hope the blogging software does not recognize it as computer code and filter it out.

“ne” means not equal to, and some other religions of the $religion variable will be in the negative numbers.

if ($observer ne “Jew”)
{
if (($religion eq “Jew”)&& ($subject eq “Israel”))
{
$credibility = 1;
}
else
{
$credibility = 0;
}
}

Just playing around. I think it really is time to get to work.

Stan

This was a subject which deserved, and demanded a proper discussion and debate with someone to give an opposing view to Sands on the Marr show. Marr readily accepted everything he was told when half an hour on the internet would provide enough information for serious doubt.

As Marr stated this is a book which had conclusions which would have serious consequences, so the question is why did he treat it as if he were just talking about the next Dan Brown thriller?
Marr’s historical broadcasting pedigree is already questionable after his ‘The Making of Modern Britain’ in which he tells us that Darwin and the concentraton camps in South Africa led directly to Aushcwitz.

Presumably so did the Olympics with their predilection for physical supremacy and survival of the fittest, & did Stevenson or Trevithick’s railways lead to Auschwitz too?

I posted a comment above citing sources that there is no need for a Khazar influx to account for European Jewish demographic statistics. But perhaps those good Christians who are so gleefully attending Sands’ lectures just can’t understand how after more than a thousand years of Christian ‘culture’ there were still so many European Jews. After all, Inquisitions and pogroms are fundamentals of Christian civilization, so there has to be an explanation why those Jews are still around in such numbers. Sands theories seem to provide them with the answer: European Christian civilisation did not fail !

zkharya
10 November 2009, 2:56 pm

Yes, it is a silly question.

My ex-husband had the rare opportunity to attend 1st year classes given at York U (Toronto) about 40 years ago by Margaret Atwood, before she became one of Canada’s most successful novelists. In her first class she posed the question: why do people write> After amusing herself by listening to her students propose the usual lofty reasons, she told them that it really boiled down to wanting to make money.

Likewise the people who publish and promote the sale of books.

Publishing articles, books, films, song lyrics however spurious, that attack Israel makes lots of money these days. Those providing Sand with a venue from which to hawk his book are hardly motivated to invite a well-qualified speaker to present facts to the contrary. I also doubt that Sand would share a public stage with someone qualified to rip him apart.

At a glance, this seems to be the perfect far-left kind of argument. Sands gets up and says “The Jews are a mongrel race with no rights to a homeland of their own.”

If you succeed in refuting him — and it’s easy to do, as shown repeatedly above — the attack immediately defaults back to “Aha! So the Jews are exclusive, elitist, Chosen People, who keep themselves to themselves. They are racists who have no right to a homeland of their own.”

Entertainingly, people like Sands who attack the idea of Jewish nationhood would be righteously aghast if anyone were to deconstruct the Palestinians likewise, pointing out, for instance, that until the 1920s at least, they were quite sure that they were Syrians.

And heaven forbid that anyone should note that the Hamas politician Musheer al Masri and the Palestinian journalist Hani al Masri (among innumerable examples) are, respectively, Musheer and Hani “the Egyptian” and the renowned Palestinian historian Albert Hourani is (or was) “Albert the Syrian”. How dare I suggest such a racist view.

There is something so typical of the Israel-haters that when Sand presents his book it is treated as a literary event to be used to bash Israeland he is questioned by the literary Editor of the New Statesman – a man, one might imagine, of strong opinions on the matter, but little knowledge.

So we had a Professor of French History being questioned by a literary editor about matters which might better be discussed by researchers into DNA and genealogy – perhaps appropriate for what many have come to accept is a work of fiction.

The reality is far more interesting, and Sand seems to have now scrambled things to a point where it will probably take years to undo the emotions on both sides and actually look at what increasing appears to be the reality.

DNA research at Hadassah by Professor Ariela Oppenheim, Devorah Filon, and Marina Feyerman has shown strong links between Ashkenazi Jews and many WB Arabs and Bedouin, some of who actually preserve old Jewish rituals similar to those of the “conversos”. In fact, the research has shown that the DNA of many WB Arabs is closer to that of Ashkenazi Jews than to other Arabs. The cause, which is about the only part of Sand’s theory,is that these Arabs are descended from Jews who were forced to convert when the Moslems invaded the area .

This was all reported in a fascinating broadcast on Israel TV on May 1, 2009. (I transcribed it – it runs to several pages). In one scene, we see an Arab taking out a set of tefillin (phylacteries) from a secret hiding place in his house and explaining that he puts them on when there is sickness in the family or other troubles as a way, he hopes, of curing the ill or overcoming the problem. We see Bedouin women discussing when the proper time is to light Sabbath candles and circumcise their sons, and gravestones in a village with niches for a candle, similar to old Jewish traditions.

Sand has apparently completely messed up. Instead of taking this research, and using it to show that today’s Ashkenazi Jews are, in fact, directly tied to the land of Israel and represent a coherent group that left the area and maintained their identity for millenia, he somehow drew exactly the opposite conclusion and chased after the Khazar myth, while accepting that many of the WB Arabs are descended from the Jews who remained after the Roman conquest.

That does not invalidate the fact that the Jews who spread throughout the world and did not convert to Islam are Jewish and derive from ancestors in the land of Israel, mainly from Roman times. The more interesting question is why Arabs who accept that they derive from the Jews have not returned to their original faith now that the threat of the sword has been lifted from their necks.

So – perhaps the solution to the I/P problem is for the Arabs on the WB to convert back to Judaism and then include Judea and Samaria as part of the State of Israel …

Just a thought … or at least, for both sides to recognize their common ancestry and agree to live side by side. Where is the WB Shlomo Sand??

As to why people like Sand or Neve Gordon are employed at Israeli universities – its a mystery greater than trying to unravel the sources of the Jews.

PS – I am a Cohen and have the gene ..!!

At a glance, this seems to be the perfect far-left kind of argument.

Well indeed, absolutely. The real force of the argument for the far-left is in the second question where they can raise the “chosen people” trope.

But the argument started out as a right-wing view, and featured in such esteemed publications as Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent.

Not the first time that the left has taken up right-wing antisemitic ideas and rebranded them as their own

Sand’s point is spurious…the English are essentially German…so does that mean we should have a One State solution…have we to be ‘Unified’ with the Fatherland like East Germany and West?

Sands tells us that the Palestinians were Jewish before being persuaded to convert to Islam, so they are really Israelis and are entitled to be included in the Israeli state? Then why did the Muslims in India want their own state? They weren’t happy to be with their fellow blood brothers because of religion, so why do the Israelis have to be the exception? Muslims want their own state…so let the Jews have theirs. & Will Norwegians boycott Pakistan?

Let’s reunite Israeli Jews with their long lost, now Muslim, brothers, and then reunite India and Pakistan as one big happy family recognising each other’s differences but together in adversity.

Tevye:

“Not the first time that the left has taken up right-wing antisemitic ideas and rebranded them as their own”.

When it comes to anti-semitism there is no difference between the European left and right. It is a universal concept that has consistently been adopted by all European Christian nations throughout the centuries – Catholic and Protestant, East and West, North and South, Left and Right.

If you succeed in refuting him — and it’s easy to do, as shown repeatedly above — the attack immediately defaults back to “Aha! So the Jews are exclusive, elitist, Chosen People, who keep themselves to themselves. They are racists who have no right to a homeland of their own.”

It’s a bit like Henry VII and Morton’s Fork, surely the original Catch 22. If the noble entertaining Henry did so lavishly, then he was rich and could afford to give money to the king. If he entertained him frugally, then he’d saved money, and could afford to give money to the king.

We’re either not a people, so we don’t merit a country of our own, or we’re exclusive racists who don’t deserve a country of our own.

I assume everybody’s familiar with the old adage “A woman’s place is in the wrong”?

Substitute Jew for woman, and there we have it.

This is just splendid.
In a matter of seventy
years, the antisemitic discourse has shifted from “Jews are a race and should therefore be eliminated” to “Jews are not a race and should therefore be eliminated”.

Do these racists ever think of the option: “Jews are not a race, just like the vast majority of self-defined nations, and should therefore be left alone”?

I too had the feeling of a sinking heart, when I turned on the Radio yesterday and heard yet another argument dedicated to the deconstruction of the Jewish people.

I think you mean ‘destruction’.

Marr is a common-or-garden BBC … hmm … Jew-loving deep thinker. What a surprise.

If the Jews are not a people, how comes that they rejuvenated the Hebrew language and created a specific Hebrew culture?

If the Jews are not a people, how come there is a Hebrew language in the first place?
Yes, I know, I know … Hebrew is a later pastiche of Arabic. And the Kingdom of David and Solomon never existed. And the Old Testament is a 9th-century AD forgery.

“Not the first time that the left has taken up right-wing antisemitic ideas and rebranded them as their own”.

Indeed ……….. GuardianCIF or Stormfront?

http://cifwatch.com/2009/11/09/test-your-knowledge-of-cif-threads-comment-is-free-or-stormfront/

Khzarya is an anagram of my name.

many Israeli historians, including the mainstream ones, accept that the biggest “diaspora” was a result of the Khazars

Hilarious. You really couldn’t make up such stuff. It must have been implanted in your brain by aliens from Proxima Centauri VI.
Nobody sane with any knowledge of history and/or genetics ‘accepts’ any such thing.

BTW, I think Seth Frantzman’ s critique of Sand by far the weaker of those which Jonathan Hoffman offers. It is muddled, incoherent and often irrelevant, in my view (which is surprising, given how strong a writer Frantzman often is). I think Shapira’s and Bartal’s the better.

Sand, who clearly did not have a clue about British politics or constitutional arrangements kept trying to draw absurd analogies. One of his more “coherent” ones in support of his argument for the absurdity of Israel as a Jewish state was: Imagine if Gordon Brown tomorrow declared that Great Britain was English! All the Scots, Irish Welsh etc would be up in arms wouldn’t they!
The less coherent ones I couldn’t make enough sense of to recount here.

Thank you for your criticisms, Graham. But I don’t think Sand is merely surveying the formation of a modern Jewish national identity (as if there is a shortage of modern Israeli or Jewish writing on that). He seems to be saying there never has been a Jewish nation, qua modern France as a nation, if not an ethno-national group, ever.

My answer to the former is, Yes, so what? the latter,Tummy rot.

He is exposing one of the Great Lies of Our Times. Twit.

Zand’s book was written to justify his political view about the replacement of the Jewish state with the so called “the state of all its citizens”. This is the politization of history.The idea is to return the refugees to Israel and to turn the Palestinians into the majority. Then Israel will become PALESTINE by democratic vote.

Zand took 3 marginal episodes in Jewish history and turned them into the mainstream of Jewish history, thus concluding that there is no Jewish nation, but groups of converted peoples.

Another idea in his book is the Palestinians are Jews who had converted to Islam after the Arabic- Muslim conquest of the country in the 7th century. He based this idea mainly on a book written by Ben Gurion and Ben Zvi in 1918 and an article by prof’ A.N Polak in 1967. I can bring 10 studies published after this date that dispove this thesis. I am an historian

What lies below the whole discussion is the following problem. Whenever and wherever there is some kind of territorial dispute between two different groups, there are two, and only two ways to settle it, that is, to answer the question: “Who owns this land?”

The practical, open-minded and modern answer is necessarily based on the contemporary realities on the ground. If needed, the doubts can be settled through a referendum or plebiscite.

But, then, there’s the reactionary, “blood & soil” argument: “We are the rightful owners because we were here 200 or 10.000 years before you”.

Rational people tend to say: peoples move around the world all the time, history may be confusing or dubious, it might be manipulated and so on. What interests us is to solve the present problem so that the living can go on with their life and business. Let’s reach a compromise, draw the least bad possible borders and forget what happened 50 or 50.000 years ago. Transylvania, for instance, belonged to the medieval kingdom of Hungary. But, then, the Romanian speaking peasant population outgrew the Magyars, and the majority wanted to join Romania. On the other hand, there were parts of Transylvania were the Magyars were the majority, and they would have stayed in Hungary, but weren’t given the choice. Still, Hungarians and Romanians continue to argue about who got there first.

By 1947 there were over half a million Jews in Palestine. One can call them imperialistic invaders and/or colonizers. But one could, as well, consider them legal or illegal immigrants, refugees etc. Anyway, they were there, and, since then, millions of Jews were also born there.

In any other context or situation, the progressives would side with them, as they side with legal or illegal Mexican immigrants in the US or African and Asian immigrants in Europe. If a Pakistani or Nigerian couple had entered the UK illegally, but then had children already born in the UK, no progressive, liberal or leftist would ask for the couple’s deportation back to their homelands nor, even less, would he/she deny UK citizenship to their kids and try to expel them.

The only place in the planet where the “blood and soil” argument is approved of by progressives and leftists is the Middle East, especially Israel/Palestine. That land’s demography 60 or 60.000 years ago should be irrelevant, because what really counts is the rights and necessities of those alive, the living individuals. And it is for those, both Arabs and Jews, that a solution should be sought. That solution shouldn’t in any way imply the expulsion of any ethnic, religious, national or linguistic group already there, though different groups have a right to draw borders between each other and to chose with whom they want to live and with whom they don’t want to live.

Since, anyway, the “blood and soil” argument became respectable for leftist and liberals when dealing with that region, it is obvious that both groups would try to prove they were there before. It shouldn’t be so, but it is. And the problem for the Arabs is that, though they can prove they were the majority there 100 years ago, the Jews can prove they were a majority much earlier. From the point of view of an individual and from the point of view of those according to whom what counts are the rights of individuals, not groups, it is absolutely indifferent what were the demographic realities 1, 10 or a 100 generations before his/her birth.

There are 6 million Jews living there right now, and that’s what gives them the right to be there. But since, in their case, that’s not enough, they can say they were there before the Arabs and before Islam was invented. But then, in their case, and their case only, what counts is not who was there or who was the majority first, but who was the majority exactly 61/62 years ago.

Anyway, let’s not forget that what applies to the whole world, especially to Europe and the US, doesn’t seem to apply to the so-called Arab World. North Africa and the Middle East are not the Arab World. They are multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic and multireligious regions. That’s how they should behave and be dealt with. The problem with Israel’s existence is that it threatens and defies an unjust Arab/Muslim hegemony. If something similar were happening in Europe, if a non-white, non-Christian group were claiming its rights against the hegemonic majority, every liberal would be backing it. But when it comes to the Jews, it’s different. It always is.

Not exactly on topic, but Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine has recently published “What’s Wrong With the One-State Agenda?” which has, apparently been nicknamed “the temporary racist usurping book,” by people who have neither read the book nor will debate him.

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/hussein_ibish_on_the_fantasy_w.php

Any bets on the BBC, the New Statesman et all giving Mr. Ibish the opportunity to explain why the two state option really is the only option for both parties and how to get there? Hint: not by engaging Hamas

But I don’t think Sand is merely surveying the formation of a modern Jewish national identity

No I don’t think he is surveying either. I suspect that what he is trying to do is deconstruct the modern Jewish identity in what (for historians) is a quite fashionable way to do things (if he’s not doing this then he has “gone off on one” quite on his own…). If he is going beyond Foucalt’s “different way of looking at things” and is actually denying the work of other historians and intellectuals such as yourself then he really has created a state of affairs – whether for political reasons or for cold hard cash.

I wish people would get off this Chosen People canard. As I understand it, the term only is meant in a religious sense, not in a racial or cultural sense. It just means that the Jews have a covenant with God. And why not? After all, the Jews invented him.

Many Christians believe that they have inherited the covenant, the Jews having lost it because they failed to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. That view is called “supersessionism” or “replacement theology.” And the Muslims believe that they inherited the covenant with God because Muhammad was his last messenger. None of this involves racism. I know of no racist doctrine in Judaism, pure and simple.

It’s as if those who oppose Israel had to look for debating points to use against the Jews, and they seized on the “Chosen People” idea because it could be presented as racism. A very cynical move.

As for the Khazars, that link was disproved years ago. DNA studies took neat care of that. Arthur Koestler made that theory popular with his book The Thirteenth Tribe, but, as I said, it’s been debunked. But, hey, never let the truth get in the way of a useful theory.

For a lot of people, the problem is simply ignorance. But when a Jewish Israeli historian gets into the act, you know he’s consciously engaging in polemics. If the political culture in Britain had been friendly to Israel, Sands would have been laughed off the stage.

To SteveF,

The reference you give above [Hammer, T.F. et al. ] was very helpful. Thanks. I think there was also a New York Times article a few years ago on the same subject.

Oops, my message got cut off. Here’s the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/14/science/in-dna-new-clues-to-jewish-roots.html?scp=1&sq=Jews DNA&st=cse

Joanne

At one point I was in fits of laughter, he is so ridiculous.

The problem is, no-one else saw the joke….

On a quick look Bartal’s criticisms seem strongest but Frantzman puts the approach in the simplest language: saying that Sand decided to write about the Jews by looking at how the Jews (and others) had written about the Jews and concluding that the best writing about the Jews took place in 19th century Germany so thats where the “imagined community” must have been invented!

Is there a named fallacy for deciding something is true based on choosing how and where it was represented most strongly and in the best literary style I wonder?

Part of the name of the site is cut off from the underline red bit, but I tested it and it works.

My computer is acting funny and keeps cutting this site off, but there was one other point that I wanted to make: What do you think happened when the news of the DNA link became known? Well, nothing happened. Barely a reaction.

The only comment I read concerning the ramifications of this finding was that, since the Jews are related to the Arabs, they should treat them better. That was all I saw!

The reaction was muted, to say the least. Yet, if DNA results had proven that the Jews really had no common descent, that would have been all over the airwaves and the press, at least the opinion press. And now we still have that Khazar story knocking about.

Talk about selectivity.

http://www.tiny.cc/

Joanne – this site makes long URLs short – very useful

To Jonathan Hoffman: “No one else saw the joke.”

Ah, but as Shakespeare would say, “Therein lies the rub.”

Two points: 1-The genetics are clear, but few here have talked about the linguistic issue. Sand derives the linguistic “proof” for his theory from one Paul Wexler, an avowed anti-zionist professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University, who claims that Yiddish isn’t derived from old German, as virtually all other linguists who study the matter contend. Rather, according to Wexler, Khazarian Jews “relexified” their language twice — first into a Slavonic form, and then into old Yiddish. This is a spectacularly rubbish line of inquiry. It ignores the fact that there isn’t a single word derived from any turkish dialect in Yiddish. It also presupposes that the Khazars were a distinct “people,” when in fact they were one of many Turkish/Mongol peoples who intermixed after wave on wave of conquest, usually from the east. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that the bulk of the population of Khazaria, such as it was, ever converted to Judaism in the first place, though their rulers did.
To believe Wexler’s theory, you pretty much have to believe that Jews don’t behave like other human beings, that they can discard their own language so completely that not a shred remains. In fact, anyone who knows anything about Jews knows they are exactly the opposite of that. Which brings me to point #2.
2-What must always be kept in mind vis a vis Sand and Wexler, not to mention all those who uncritically cite their work, is that both are avowed anti-zionists, irrespective of how Sand splits hairs about it. Of Wexler there can be no doubt: (in my view) to drive the point home that Jews have no place or history in Palestine, he isn’t content merely with the Khazars: He also wrote a book on the “non-Jewish origins of the Sephardi Jews.” You see, since Israel is now half ashkenazi and half sephardi, it isnt enough to cite the Khazars, you also have to cite a Berber tribe that converted to Judaism and was the progenitor of the Sephardim in Spain etc. I am guessing that somehow, those Jews “relexified” from Berber to Ladino, etc. etc.
I happen to know that virulent anti-zionists already are using Sand’s book — and Wexler’s waco theories — in their quest to deligitimize Israel. What’s important to realize is that Sand’s book is not real history but history from the David Irving school, where you cherry pick the facts that support an outlandish theory, ignore all the other facts, and you end up with Churchill starting World War II, or Jews descending from Khazars and Berbers. The fact that mainstream historians and linguists think all this is a pile of garbage is, at this point irrelevant. We can only hope that a Deborah Lipstadt appears who riles Sand so much that he sues, like Irving did, and the latest smear is laid to rest once and for all.

Jonathan, you say you were laughing. You obviously didn’t notice those laughing at you, and the real Zionists who were cringing at your obnoxiousness.

It would be funny if not for the fact that it is so disgusting, that the same people who (correctly) denounce groups such as the BNP for considering all non-whites to be non-British, are such fans of an ideology which claims that Jews have no rights to the Land of Israel because they are not in their view racially descended from the Jews who once lived there.

Ah, the “real” Zionists to the rescue with flying banners, represented by the self-appointed Iain.

Iain, thanks for making it so easy to see which absurd position you represent.

And real thanks to Vildechaye for reminding us of the bone-headed “theories” of the ignorant Wexler.

Rivka: or rather, you are a historian.

Oh the ‘Real Zionists’ – which one are you Iain – Stadtler or Waldorf?

Bartok, your argument is not bad as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far at all and then it gets completely and utterly derailed. Illegal Mexican immigrants have a country from which they arrived illegally, and they are capable of returning there. It’s called Mexico. The Jewish nation’s equivalent country to which they can return is called Israel. They have no other.

Saying that history is irrelevant is a very selective argument, used by those who have an axe to grind and want to deny the historical fact of the Jews’ forced exile from their own country.

Iain’s statement that “many Israeli historians, including the mainstream ones, accept that the biggest ‘diaspora’ was a result of the Khazars, is completely and utterly untrue, and I can only wonder which revolting far-left or far-right web site he picked up that particular rubbish contention from. In fact, the entire Khazar thesis is based on nothing at all but conjecture, and there is absolutely no proof for ANY Khazar connection to Ashkenazi jews, though it is quite possible that a few Khazars did join the admixture that eventually coalesced into eastern European Jewry — possible that is, but there is no proof, genetic, linguistic, whatsoever.

I do agree with Iain however, that going to a presentation and simply shouting “liar” and “anti-semite” without producing facts or arguments to counter the arguments you oppose is counterproductive, anti-intellectual, and pathetic. Especially when the ideas being presented are so easily refuted.

I do have to agree, though, that going to meetings and shouting “liar”

Iain, it is my opinion too that Jonathan takes criticism badly. Sometimes less is more, and I do not think Jonathan understands that.

But you do not bolster your case by

“By the way, he is right that there is no book on the exile and that many Israeli historians, including the mainstream ones, accept that the biggest “diaspora” was a result of the Khazars.”

The exile is assumed in rabbinic and Talmudic literature, as it is in Christian and Islamic. The Talmud is an expression of the rabbis’ resolve that every scrap of Jewish law, lore, custom and memory be retained in the face of the catastrophic loss of temple, Jerusalem, Judea and state.

The Mishna and Talmuds are “the book”.

There are no “books” on any events in Jewish history, subsequently, for over 1500 years. That does not mean they did not take place.

And there is another book: Bellum Judaeorum. Josephus is too early to realise the loss of temple and Jerusalem is permanent, and he likely hoped for their return to Jewish soveignty. But there is no question that he perceives the loss of a Jewish state, of which Jerusalem is the capital.

Soon after Jews fall from favour. We hear no more of Hellenistic Jewish intellectuals, like Philo, whether Roman citizens or no. The destruction of the Alexandrian Jewish communities signals a decline in Hellenistic Jewish civilisation, a decline completed by the Christians. Jews no longer write Greco-Roman historiography. Hellenistic and Roman Jewish works, the provenance, in any case, of an elite, are lost. All Jews, empirewide, are punished for the rebels of Judea by collection of the temple tax. Indeed this likely plays a part in triggering the revolts in Alexandria and Cyrenaica. All Jews are thus identified as “Judeans”, and the Christians continue the policy. But now Jews are not only treated as de facto rebels, or potential rebels, against the Roman state and its gods, they are rebels against their own God, who know favours Greco-Roman gentile Christians, who inherit Jerusalem and Judea, now renamed “Palestine”, from their pagan predecessors, who acted as agents of divine wrath against Israel for rejecting or slaying Christ.

The “myth” of exile arises precisely because it is no longer possible to retain or research information about the past in detail. Except in the Talmud. It is a shorthand that most neatly encapsulates the Jewish experience of dispossession, disfavour, subjugation and displacement. Jews intermingle and intermarry, and the rabbis forge a pan-Jewish identity precisely because they fear Israel will be lost among the nations. Thereafter the tendency is less to convert new as to retain old Jews.

The assumption, indeed the necessity, that Jews are a people dispossessed of temple, city and land for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets only bolsters Jewish self-definition.

And the Christians continue the process of Jewish dispossession of the land of Israel by laws seeking to alienate or marginalise them. Yes, a sizable Jewish community remains in the land, largely in the Galil, whether many Judean refugees likely went.

Shlomo’s assertion that Romans did not exile peoples is idiotic: they certainly carried out tranfer or genocide against Dacia, the only other province, other than Judaea, to be renamed as a consequence.

Cassius Dio says 500 000 Judeans were killed during the suppression of the second Jewish revolt. Exaggeration? Possibly. But ethnic cleansing even by modern standards (and the Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian experience springs to mind).

Judaea is changed to Syria Palaestina both to likely reflect that “demographic” change and to alienate Jews from the land for ever. It was never complete, sure. But I can tell you that every ancient Christian author, even those living in Palestine speaks as though Israel has been completely dispossessed from the land, not because it necessarily reflects reality, but because it reflects things as they think they should be.

Which is why Jews have been regarded as a people dispossessed of temple, city and land, in Christendom and Islam, for most of Christian and Islamic history.

Especially Palestinian Christian and Islamic history.

I am a PhD student, and I can tell you the Khazar theory has no takers among the academics I know.

I find it rather interesting that modern Berber nationalism has, to a certain extent, crystallized around the figure of La Kahena, a Boudicca figure. Kahena, as in a feminized form of Cohen, “The Priestess.” Modern Algerian Berber nationalism, forming around a 7th-century CE Jewish woman. Perhaps Berber emphasis on linguistic (as opposed to Islamic religious) community, at least since ‘88, encourages this. Of course Moroccan Berbers are much less at odds with their state, as are Moroccan Jews. Helene Cixous has a rather cute piece about being taken for a Berber in which she remarks, “it is a non-impossibility.” The question is whether folk-memory like that is allowed to cancel the modern nation-state, apparently in either Morocco or Algeria it isn’t even enough to get you Kurdistan-style cultural pluralism. Sand is seriously arguing that even more submerged folk-memory, to which no one subscribes, is enough to invalidate the State of Israel.

Of course it has no takers, Zkharya. It’s nonsense made out of whole cloth, popularised by a novellist with no historical training or understanding (a sort of von Daniken character) and debunked by genetics.

I disagree with you (and Vildechaye) that “less is more”. Antisemitism has taken deep hold in the West, and needs to be exposed loudly and without embarassment.

Jonathan, why do you take criticism so badly? If it really is misplaced, why can you not humbly say, I’m sorry you feel that way, I beg to differ?

It looks like you and your efforts are driven by ego, and a fragile one at that. I actually agree with many here that nothing counterproductive beats everything that is.

It’s a shame because I think in other ways you are the ideal candidate for Israel advocacy. People react badly to arguments that are driven by passion rather than reason. Many anti-Zionist advocates are like that. That does not excuse you, me or anyone else.

My biggest problem was the way Marr bascially accepted the views unchallenged, even to the extenet of actaully saying “We thought this was true but it turns out it isn’t, is that correct?”

When one can read Josephus from 2000 years ago, the idea that Jews as a nation existed only in the heads of 19th century Jews is just gobsmackingly devoid of merit.

Bartok

I agree with much of what you say but your suggestion that the “blood and soil” argument is approved of by progressives and leftists only in the Middle East is wrong.

All sorts of people including leftists and progressives apply the “blood and soil” argument with regard to varius populations such as Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals.

And of course as many on the right use the “blood and soil” argument to support their cause (usually pro Israel).

Your comment that ‘Since, anyway, the “blood and soil” argument became respectable for leftist and liberals when dealing with that region, it is obvious that both groups would try to prove they were there before’ is quite strange.

Are you suggesting that neither party tried to prove they were their before until the “blood and soil” argument became respectable for leftists and liberals?

Surely it has always been the argument behind the Zionist attachment to the region.

“My biggest problem was the way Marr bascially accepted the views unchallenged”

They do that with every book and author. There is only a serious challenge when another guest is knowlegeable enough. It happened once between Clive James and Jaqueline Rose.

I did hear some of the BBC radio programme, and he was making a case for Jerusalem being effectively a small town of no significance. Which made me wonder why the Roman Governor Pilate was there 2000 years ago.

This whole business strikes me as the worst form of racism, namely the denial that your race actually exists at all, or that you have any historic connection with your homeland.

Gordon Bennet

I think that part of your argument may be as derailed as Bartoks.

Can someone who’s Great, Great, Great, great Grandfather left Mexico simply return there?

If not then the Mexican comparison is spurious.

“I did hear some of the BBC radio programme, and he was making a case for Jerusalem being effectively a small town of no significance.”

A good comparison would be to say that Jerusalem was like Makkah and Madinah today, Judea like the Hijaz.

Gordon Benett,

I didn’t say that I don’t consider history important. I was just showing the two ways according to which territorial disputes can and use to be settled elsewhere: either through the concept of historical rights, or through a recognition of the current situation on the ground.

The Arab/Palestinian claim is a typical “blood and land” claim: they own the land since (according, for instance, to the Hamas charter) they conquered it; it belongs to them, only to them, and will be theirs till the end of time. In the same way, Hungarians could claim that, in spite of demographic changes, they have owned Transylvania for most of the last 1.000 years, and the Serbs could say as much about Kosovo.

Now, this is usually considered a conservative way of seeing things, because, in the end, according to it there are “real” Brits or Germans, and then there are the newcomers, who have less rights, or no rights at all. For the right wing, Jews didn’t belong in Europe, nor do immigrants (Muslims, for instance) belong in it nowadays.

Now, from a progressive point of view, an Englishman or German whose parents are Pakistani or Turkish should be considered as British or as German as anyone else in those countries. And also, from a progressive/liberal point of view, it is basically irrelevant, in the long run, whether those parents or grandparents entered the UK or Germany legally or not.

The Arabs consider the Israeli Jews (or at least the Ashkenazi) foreigners who have no right to be there. But even if we accept that they have no historical rights to be there, we should consider them immigrants or refugees, that is, people who are normally protected or favored by liberals, progressives and leftists. Thus, even though they still have Mexico, illegal Mexican immigrants (and their US born kids) shouldn’t be deported — that’s how progressives view it everywhere, save in the case of Israel.

But, besides the right of being there just because they are there (and the majority of them was also born there), Israeli Jews have a historical right to be there too, a right at the very least as valid as the Palestinians’. Thus, one would expect both conservatives and progressives to recognize those rights of Israeli Jews, and to fight for them. But that’s not what has been happening, is it?

“Are you suggesting that neither party tried to prove they were their before until the “blood and soil” argument became respectable for leftists and liberals?

Surely it has always been the argument behind the Zionist attachment to the region.”

No. Zionists have claimed that there has been an unbroken link (physical and spititual) with the region that is now Israel that has nothing to do with the racist implications of “blood and soil”. Likewise, the law of return is not based on “blood” but on the question of Jewish law (or, rather, some versions of Jewish law).

To imply that Zionism is based on “blood and soil” is to imply that Zionism is a racist, as opposed to a political, movement properly understood.

Bartok, that’s a great post

Re your comment that:

” North Africa and the Middle East are not the Arab World. They are multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic and multireligious regions. “

you highlight the greatest change in the Middle East in recent history. Both North Africa and the Middle East are becoming increasingly ethinically and religiously homogenous following the effective expulsion of Jews from Arab countries after 1948 and the persecutions of Middle Eastern Christian communities in Turkey and Arab countries over the last 100 years.

The nature of the Middle East has changed, and the mixed, multi-cultural communities that have been a feature of its culture and history since before Roman times have been flattened by Sunni Arab or Sunni Turk nationalism.

And to be fair, to a lesser extent and on a smaller scale, Jewish nationalism, although Israel remains the most multi-ethnic and multi-religious state left in the Middle East.

The point is Sand is wrong, maliciously and mendaciously so. But Hoffman and his crew do the Zionist cause no favours with their high-decibel abuse of anyone who disagrees with them. It makes them look as though they have no faith in their own argument.

Thus, even though they still have Mexico, illegal Mexican immigrants (and their US born kids) shouldn’t be deported — that’s how progressives view it everywhere, save in the case of Israel.

That is simply untrue. I am a progressive, and yet I say that illegal immigrants (it’s more complicated in the case of their children) should be deported, because failing to do so undermines the rule of law and leads to anarchy, which is destructive to a progressive society. And this should be upheld consistently by true liberals (as distinct from the spurious and noisy and hyporcritical ‘liberals’ populating the Guardian and the BBC and their ilk throughout the West).

And to be fair, to a lesser extent and on a smaller scale, Jewish nationalism

Quite untrue. Arab nationalism, let alone Arab communities conducting their own affairs, are alive and well in Israel, which is unheard of in a society continually at war with its genocidal neighbours.

And to be fair, to a lesser extent and on a smaller scale, Jewish nationalism

Quite untrue. Arab nationalism, let alone Arab communities conducting their own affairs, are alive and well in Israel, which is unheard of in a society continually at war with its genocidal neighbours.

GB, not quite untrue, although it’s a complex picture.

Palestinian Christians suffered both because of the creation of Israel – eg: Ben Gurion’s orders to transfer the citizens of Lydda, now Lod, eg: George Habash’s family – and at the hands of Palestinian Muslims and other Arab countries.

My point is that Jewish nationalism has had a negative impact on their communities, even if most of the harm they have suffered has not been intended.

With respect to “peoplehood”, as in the Jewish people – does it matter how we got to be a people?

Even if some living today are of Turkish or Berber ancestry so what? Some of us are Ethiopian and some are Indian. We were a “mixed hoard” coming out of Egypt.

Thus the idea that Jewish people are a race is absurd and offensive, not that this matters to Nazi-type antisemites. In fact it’s like claiming Americans are a race.

People who think this should please look at President Obama or Tiger Woods, Jennifer Lopez, Joel Benjamin…are we not a people, are Americans not a nation? Does it matter if we are “native” or not? We are still Americans including the First Nations.

Claiming however that there were no Jews in Judea in ancient times and that many are related to them (in spite of it all) is so totally bogus I can’t believe this argument is taken seriously.

Shame on the racists in Europe and the Middle East or anyplace else – right or left – religious or otherwise – who are using this book for propaganda against Israel and Jews.

Gordon,

you are free to consider yourself a progressive. I call myself leftist but, though I have nothing against immigration, I think that a country’s laws must be respected and, thus, most ilegal immigrants either in the US or Europe should be sent back to their own countries (the exception, of course, being when they are real political refugees or similar things). Even so, I don’t think that, either in the US or in Europe, mainstream liberals, progressives or leftists would agree with me or you.

My point is simple: all I’m saying is that, even if they actually were illegal immigrants in the Middle East, the Ashkenazi Jews’ right to be in Israel should be defended by mainstream liberals, progressives and leftists. But, contrary to what they preach and do in Europe and the US, they actually side with those who’d like to expel the Jews from the Middle East, that is, with those who think that only Muslim Arabs have the right to be there.

Arab/Muslim nationalism and/or hegemony can be quite easily compared to such movements as the Croatian Ustashi, the Romanian Iron Guard or the Hungarian Arrow-Cross. In the same way as these, it is an extreme right-wing, xenophobic movement — and behaves thus. Why, then, is it backed by mainstream European and American liberals, progressives and leftists? Answer: because it hates and fights the Americans and the Jews, sorry, I mean the Zionists.

Where to start?
Well it seems pretty obvious that the whole “Jews are really Kazarhs” is BS (how exactly did these Kazars end up in Morocco?). It is true that the Jews as a nation didn’t exactly fit the definition of “nation” word for word (as defined back then). They didn’t have their own territory with it’s own borders; and neither did they have their own distinct language (Herzel – the visionary of the state didn’t even believe that Hebrew would amount to a full language other than buying a ticket) and culture (while there was some form of distinct culture it was largely based on religion, and even then there are differences depending on where the community came from and how much religion was observed), although they did have some basis for them. Does that mean Jews were never a real nation? Of course not! The thing is, the awakening of the idea of the Jews as a nation, ie Zionism ( be it as a part of a larger awakening of the concept of nationality in Euroupe in that period, because of persecution at the time and an array of other reasons) is what caused many Jews who defined themselves as such, to use their idealism and the basis for the culture and history (however small those flames of heritage they were) to build and nurture it(sometimes even out of scrap) and thus creating the state of Israel and the Jewish people as we are today (well, that and our stubbornness ;)).

Note: notice how I use the word “they” to describe the first Jews as in essence they are in so many ways different from today.

This of course slides to the question of what is a Jew? Since religion is such a big part of Jewish nationality. Is anyone who converts to Judaism of Jewish nationality? Are Israelites that aren’t Jewish (like what is thought to be the Dan tribe from Ethiopia) of Jewish nationality? And there’s also the matter now of Israeli identity (Israel isn’t a nation, duh, but after almost 62 years you can’t deny that there is some Israeli identity – again blurring the lines of nationality – that has developed along the side of the Jewish one). This is of course a big discussions in itself, and a very interesting one I might add, but should probably be discussed on it’s own.

oh Zekhariya how I wish I had heard that exchange between Clive James and Jacqueline Rose! Can you precis it for me? She is my particular bete noire and we have crossed swords several times, both in published letters in the LRB and in person both on and off platform. In fact, she is appearing on a platform with Sands on Thursday, together with my other bete noir Avi Shlain. I don’t think I could survive this troika event and remain sane.

Graham

‘Is there a named fallacy for deciding something is true based on choosing how and where it was represented most strongly and in the best literary style I wonder?’

yes Graham take your pick of terms; post modernism, critical theory, literary theory, cultural studies.

My only criticism of you ever Graham is that in an understandable reflex to protect the progressive and liberatory possibilities thrown up by histories of competing discourses rather than a great univocal grand narrative you shy away from the deeply reactionary impulse in a certain kind of ‘Cultural History’ that is little more than fashionable literary and textual criticism, the telling of bad stories about previous stories, as if this were history itself.

My somewhat cryptic repost in these cases is always ‘the relations of political hegemony are never purely discursive’.

Now you always seem to argue that while there is a history of events of trees falling in forests with no-one to write about them, this is not the proper subject matter of history as the analysis of the written record.

Perhaps because I was trained as an Archaeologist and Anthropologist this has never made any sense to me.

To my mind you do not stop digging through the midden heaps identifying long distance networks of trade or looking at climate change or diet or demographics or linguistic or genetic evidence, simply because a few texts written by and for an elite start to appear.

One does not stop studying extra textual events even, particularly in fact, when a torrent of endless texts cut and pasted engulfs a culture.

This argument always reminds me of the Alien character, played by David Bowie, in the film ‘the man who fell thing TV.o Earth’ who had learned about humans from watching TV, extraterrestially.

Needless to say he had a veneer of human like behaviour but often betrayed himself.

He claimed for instance to have been in the RAF but was busted when someone said to him ‘oh per ardua ad astrum heh’.

So it seems to me we do two other things in debunking Sand other than simply criticisng his text.

We debunk the substance ‘Ashkenazis as Khazars’ and the strongest arguments are perhaps the genetic evidence and the linguistic as vildechaye has ably demonstrated (though it is a little more complicated genetically and I will return to this in order to pre-empt what could be a superficially attractive criticsm, as there is in fact y DNA haplotypes in Ashkenazi levites that could have come from a Khazar source.

We also debunk Sand by showing the racialist and anti-semitic origins of the Jews as Khazar theory, in a way much beloved of cultural studies students, to the discourse of anti-semitic representations in Sands beloved 19th C.

You see the irony of Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe, perhaps in reality the overlooked point of it, is that Koestler seemed either unaware of or indifferent to the racialist and antisemitic origins of the theory.

Koestler was a secular Jewish nationalist (I resist the term Zionist as I am determined to make so called ‘anti-Zionists do a bit of political thinking).

He cared not a jot about racialist origins of Jewry indeed he was deeply hostile for obvious reasons to them.

If anything though his work is deeply flawed in many places he was as concerned to show Khazar and Jewish influence in the formation of the Kievian Ros (Varangian Viking) proto Russian state beloved of Russian nationalists.

Koestler was interested in Jews as a nation rather than as a ‘race’ and Khazaria was a documented Jewish Nation a powerful Empire that was a great power in the mediaeval Near and Middle East.

For a secular nationalist it is a great story and for those who are more interested in Jewish history and the extraordinary culture of the diaspora, rather than being obsessed by the odd Eastern European Y DNA haplotype appearing at a very low frequency among Ashkenazi men, the the Khazar Jewish state is a fascinating history.

The documented appearance of a Khazar geographical origin rabbinate in Toledo in the 12 th C is extraordinary.

THE RACIALIST ORIGINS OF ASHKENAZI AS KHAZARS NOT ISRAELITES

Well wikipedia is helpful here;

‘The theory that all or most Ashkenazi (”European”) Jews might be descended from Khazars (rather than Semitic groups in the Middle East) dates back to the racial studies of late nineteenth century Europe, and was frequently cited to assert that most modern Jews are not descended from Israelites and/or to refute Israeli claims to Palestine.

It was first publicly proposed in lecture given by the racial-theorist Ernest Renan on January 27, 1883, titled “Judaism as a Race and as Religion.”

It was repeated in articles in The Dearborn Independent in 1923 and 1925, and popularized by racial theorist Lothrop Stoddard in a 1926 article in the Forum titled “The Pedigree of Judah”, where he argued that Ashkenazi Jews were a mix of people, of which the Khazars were a primary element.’

It is worth pointing out that the ‘Dearborn Independent (also called The Ford International Weekly) was owned by Henry Ford by this time and also was the first to publish the Protocls of the elders of Zion’ in English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars

This racialist Khazarian theory as anti-semitic discourse was favoured by groups who sought to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to a state in Palestine following the Balfour declaration and during and after the creation of Israel.

Like much other Western anti-semitic propaganda apart from having become a rather cranky and discredited theory for anyone but out and out anti-semites during the 50’s and 60’s it passed rapidly into the propaganda narratives of various rejectionist Palestinian and Arab arguing against the legitimacy of European Jewry making any authentic claims to Jewish nationhood in the region.

The Ashkenazi Kazar theory belongs in the gutter of race science along with all the other 19th and early 20thC racialist theories and anyone who repeats it should be shamed by simply pointing out the clear provenance and motivation of its proponents and enthusiastic advocates.

As for Sand himself well he should try eating his texts as he might digest them more meaningfully if he did.

amie

Where is the awful Sand appearing next/?I know you are weary but I wouldn’t mind going along to point out the extreme racialist discursive origins of his theory speaking ‘not as a Jew’ you understand?

Isy -

They didn’t have their own territory with its own borders

They most certainly did; it was being illegally occupied and the majority (never 100%) were exiled. That’s the whole point: they were exiled from their territory.

and neither did they have their own distinct language … and culture

BS. Throughout history, the Jews have had a very distinctive culture and a language unique to them. Their culture was such that this language was only used in the religious sphere – that is one aspect of this distinct culture. And of course, being exiled dictated that secular affairs were conducted in the language of exile and/or a dialect thereof. Duh.

The opinion of one person – Herzl – about the potential of Hebrew to be modernised and used as in fact is used today is totally irrelevant.

Amie – seconded; I had meant to ask Z. for a summary of this event. And your bete noires are mine too, along with Caryl C.

Bartok -

you are free to consider yourself a progressive

Wow, that’s big of you. Thank you kindly. Now I’ll be able to sleep peacefully, with your gracious permission to call myself something I have been for close to half a century.

I agree with pretty much everything in the rest of your post.

Isy -

They didn’t have their own territory with its own borders

They most certainly did; it was being illegally occupied and the majority (never 100%) were exiled. That’s the whole point: they were exiled from their territory.

and neither did they have their own distinct language … and culture

BS. Throughout history, the Jews have had a very distinctive culture and a language unique to them. Their culture was such that this language was only used in the religious sphere – that is one aspect of this distinct culture. And of course, being exiled dictated that secular affairs were conducted in the language of exile and/or a dialect thereof. Duh.

The opinion of one person – Herzl – about the potential of Hebrew to be modernised and used as in fact is used today is totally irrelevant.

Amie – seconded; I had meant to ask Z. for a summary of this event. And your bete noires are mine too, along with Caryl C.

Bartok -

you are free to consider yourself a progressive

Wow, that’s big of you. Thank you kindly. Now I’ll be able to sleep peacefully, with your gracious permission to call myself something I have been for close to half a century.

I agree with pretty much everything in the rest of your post.

mettaculture: tomorrow night, at SoAS- which will be a bear pit and it will be hard put to be allowed to put anything across. But I would love you to go. Next night is the awful 3. It would be such a mitzvah if you went to one or other of them. Please let me know if you can manage either, and I will try and get myself to that one.

Professor Sand’s largest UK lecture on ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ at SOAS University

Details: The Brunei Lecture Theatre, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1

Details coming soon (e-mail for further information: shlomosandsoaslecture@verso.co.uk)

* November 12th, 2009 (19.00)

A special evening with experts Shlomo Sand and Avi Shlaim, author of Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations, in conversation at the Frontline Club.

The Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1QJ (Tel: +44 (0)20 7479 8950)

(Tickets £10/12.50 http://frontlineclub.com/events/2009/11/avi-shlaim-in-conversation-with-shlomo-sand.html)

were exiled. That’s the whole point: they were exiled from their territory.

exactly! So they didn’t HAVE a territory. Look, I’m not arguing that there was no basis what so ever for a Jewish nation, there was A culture and A language, but a lot was forgotten and changed after 2000 years, and so huge gaps were created between the different communities. you can’t deny that. What I’m simply saying is that unlike other nations, there was a lot of work to be done in building the idea of the Jewish nation. My point is simply that we didn’t exactly do “by the book”, in fact it would be wrong to determine which are a nation based on exact rules, that’s basically my point.

Shlomo Sand’s book “The Invention of the Jewish People” is a work of propaganda and does not tell the truth about Jewish history.

The books “Abraham’s Children” by Jon Entine and “Jacob’s Legacy” by David Goldstein explain why the DNA studies on Jewish populations are scientifically valid and test many hypotheses. Most of the geneticists have no political or religious agenda, simply a curiosity to check which populations are related to others. The studies have become very detailed, with ever-larger sample sizes and numbers of participating ethnic groups. For Sand to try to discredit these studies is intellectually dishonest.

Ashkenazic Jews from Europe have a large amount of Middle Eastern ancestry that can be explained by the (very valid indeed) migration of Jews from Israel to the Roman Empire and from there to Germany and the Czech lands and later to Eastern Europe. It is a fact that thousands of Israelite slaves were brought to Rome to construct the Colliseum and work in other capacities. It is also a fact that these Roman Jews became related to other Jews in Europe, by genetics, by documents, and even in a few cases by names. It is true that they intermarried with converted European women, but that did not erase their Middle Eastern essence.

The total amount of Khazar ancestry in Ashkenazic Jews appears to be around 20 percent. On the paternal side, when we look at the Y-DNA genetic types found in Ashkenazim that come from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, they add up to around 18 or 19 percent. On the maternal side, mtDNA also fails to show a majority Khazar ancestry.

But we don’t have to rely solely on genetics. Historical documents and name studies also document every stage in the migration of Jews from Israel to Russia. Alexander Beider’s brilliant research showed that the German and Czech Jews were numerically stronger than the Slavic-speaking Khazarian Jews of Belarus and Ukraine.

My book “The Jews of Khazaria, Second Edition”, explains all of this with full citations. I also have an appendix discussing the origins of other groups like Yemenite Jews and North African Jews, and showing that the conversions to Judaism did not account for their entire makeup. Almost every Jewish population in the world is partially Israelite. Details at http://www.khazaria.com/brook.html

I have some specific replies to people who have posted here.

Jonathan Hoffman wrote “Sand claims that many Jews are descended from Khazars but the genetic research finds no link.”

This is not an all-or-nothing debate. mettaculture correctly noted “it is a little more complicated genetically” than simply Ashkenazim = pure Israelites. There are small genetic links between Khazars and modern Ashkenazi Jews, in the G, Q, and R haplogroups. They just aren’t as large as the Israelite element, and that nullifies Sand’s thesis that Jews aren’t a real people.

As for your comment on Levites, a large percent of Ashkenazi Levites descend from the East European R1a1 haplogroup. That is hardly found among Sephardi Levites. You can’t explain that without acknowledging there were some people who adopted the Levite status improperly – they were likely Khazar converts.

vildechaye wrote “It ignores the fact that there isn’t a single word derived from any turkish dialect in Yiddish.”

Yes there is – yarmulke is an example, and it’s not the only one.

vildechaye wrote “there is absolutely no proof for ANY Khazar connection to Ashkenazi jews, though it is quite possible that a few Khazars did join the admixture that eventually coalesced into eastern European Jewry — possible that is, but there is no proof, genetic, linguistic, whatsoever.”

So how do you explain the origins of the East Slavic-speaking Jews who lived in Belarus before the Yiddish-speaking Jews moved there? How do you explain the G, Q, and R haplogroups that come from the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe respectively?

mettaculture wrote “The documented appearance of a Khazar geographical origin rabbinate in Toledo in the 12 th C is extraordinary.”

Converts to Judaism are required to consider themselves Jews, first and foremost. In Kievan Rus’ there were many such Khazarian Jews, students and otherwise, not just the ones who studied the Torah in Spain. They just weren’t noted in many records.

Eurosabra wrote “Kahena, as in a feminized form of Cohen”

I don’t think the North African Berber title Kahena comes from Cohen.

Isy wrote “Are Israelites that aren’t Jewish (like what is thought to be the Dan tribe from Ethiopia) of Jewish nationality?”

Samaritans are Israelites who don’t follow Rabbinical Judaism. Karaites are Israelite Judeans who have their own kind of Judaism too. They are both part of the Israelite nationality, just as most modern Jews are, and many of them are Israeli citizens. But they are not Jews for the purpose of Judaism.

mettaculture wrote “The Ashkenazi Kazar theory belongs in the gutter of race science” and Gordon Bennet wrote “It’s nonsense made out of whole cloth”.

You can’t ignore between 5 and 20 percent of probable Khazar origins in Ashkenazim with your simplistic view that something is totally wrong simply because a lot of bad people believe in it. The Khazar theory is only PARTLY wrong. You even admitted yourself “there is in fact y DNA haplotypes in Ashkenazi levites that could have come from a Khazar source.”

yes Graham take your pick of terms; post modernism, critical theory, literary theory, cultural studies.

Ah Metta it is a clever answer – but in my experience Post-Modernists and literary critics are likely to cleave to the worst kinds of writing rather than the strongest! Sand seems to say he was studying the historiography (in this case the very writing of history,not history itself, of how a people was represented by themselves and others) about the Jews and found the best writing in 19th century Germany from which he appears to have made the leap into saying therefore thats when “Jewishness” as we understand it in modern terms came into existence. I just thought it was a weird conceit.

My only criticism of you ever Graham is that in an understandable reflex to protect the progressive and liberatory possibilities thrown up by histories of competing discourses rather than a great univocal grand narrative you shy away from the deeply reactionary impulse in a certain kind of ‘Cultural History’ that is little more than fashionable literary and textual criticism, the telling of bad stories about previous stories, as if this were history itself.

Well I did rather think I’d gone beyond this (I wasn’t backing always studying the history of discourses – or at least not as the only way of approaching history, I’ll join in digging the dung heap anytime!) But I was merely trying to identify which approach Sand was taking. And I’m not averse to the odd “grand narrative” (not least because it allows a lot to be said in a few words!) Hands up though to the odd “literary critic” approach (which comes from having a first degree in English!) However, I don’t honestly think it is possible to “protect the progressive and liberatory possibilities thrown up by histories of competing discourses” mainly because such discourses are nearly always foundational and usually grounded only on the evidence of experience (I expect you have come across Joan Scott’s essay of that name? Take that as a “grand narrative” of my feelings on the subject – and also on how history survives as a subject) There is sometimes a need therefore for a historian to go beyond those competing narratives of identity and question how exactly they came into being in the first place.

I wouldn’t dream (by the way) of telling anyone what the proper subject matter of history is! Dung heaps or nations – whatever floats your boat.

I should have said clearly at the start that what piqued my interest was the historiography rather than the substance (and god help us, the political implications) of Sand’s book. There is too much expertise on the ancient world on display here for me to get involved!

Anyway, it seems to me that you have proved that the theory that all European Jews descended from Khazars is wrong and racist and that any further argument is going to be about proportions etc. That reminds me that the nazis (themselves self-appointed experts on Jewishness) sent an expedition of scientists, anthropologists and doctors (intellectuals all) into the Caucasus in 1942 in order to pigeonhole the tribes of “mountain jews” who claimed to be descendents of those who fled from the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem or captives who Nebuchadnezzer had given to the leaders of the area. They spoke a Persian dialect but wrote in hebrew characters. The job of the SS scientists was to classify these people in a way that the bully boys in Germany could understand.

What they found were a people who often purchased wives from their Muslim neighbours (and let these wives dress in a muslim manner) believed in black magic etc and celebrated local pagan festivals. The local muslim tribes kept copies of the Hebrew bible and boasted of Jewish ancestry. Despite their efforts, and all their pseudo-science (apparently Jews moved differently and dragged their feet when they walked) the ahnenherbe found it impossible to seperate the “racially valuable” from those destined to be murdered and gave up and withdrew.

Kevin Brook and others

Thank you

Kevin – I presume you are US-based. I hope when this book is launched in the US you will get to debate him.

You can’t ignore between 5 and 20 percent of probable Khazar origins in Ashkenazim

You are shifting the goalposts. Nobody has denied that East European Jews are not ‘100% racially pure’. To say that 5-20% (that’s a huge uncertainty) of Ashkenazim may (and that’s all it is) have Khazar ancestors is all very well, but is not what we are talking about. The racist ‘theory’ we are talking about is something completely different, namely that ALL East European Jews (and what about German Jews?) are 100% Khazars and have no traceable link back to the Middle Eastern Jews of antiquity. This ‘theory’ is totally without merit.

You can’t ignore between 5 and 20 percent of probable Khazar origins in Ashkenazim

You are shifting the goalposts. Nobody has denied that East European Jews are not ‘100% racially pure’. To say that 5-20% (that’s a huge uncertainty) of Ashkenazim may (and that’s all it is) have Khazar ancestors is all very well, but is not what we are talking about. The racist ‘theory’ we are talking about is something completely different, namely that ALL East European Jews (and what about German Jews?) are 100% Khazars and have no traceable link back to the Middle Eastern Jews of antiquity. This ‘theory’ is totally without merit.

Kevin Brook:

“You can’t ignore between 5 and 20 percent of probable Khazar origins in Ashkenazim with your simplistic view that something is totally wrong simply because a lot of bad people believe in it. The Khazar theory is only PARTLY wrong. You even admitted yourself “there is in fact y DNA haplotypes in Ashkenazi levites that could have come from a Khazar source.””

Thank you for your interesting comment. It seems to me that 5-20% is a very small number considering 2000 years or conversion, intermarriage, rape and hanky-panky. Have any comparable studies been done on other peoples and groups ?

The scholarly consensus is that the Khazar aristocracy converted to Judaism. And, a 1000 years or so ago, it would have taken surprisingly few to make a significant impact on the tiny Ashkenazi population.

Here are extracts from an interesting paper:

However, the proposal that R1a1 originated with a single founder event early in the Diaspora has become increasingly unlikely as research on Jewish DNA progresses. Since R1a1 is spread fairly evenly in haplotype distribution and frequency throughout the Ashkenazi populations from various countries (Germany, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Russia and the Ukraine), then the founders must have entered the community either before it expanded and spread to Eastern Europe, or merged separately into both eastern and western Ashkenazi groups. However, Nebel (2005) is forced to assert an extremely early TMRCA due to his belief that R1a1 must have originated with a single founder or very small group of founders. In order for R1a1 to reach its high frequency (12%) among the Ashkenazim from a single founder, a very early date must be proposed for the introgression of this haplogroup. Under this scenario, R1a1 entered the Jewish community when it was extremely small and in its formative stage. Gene flow from a single R1a founder at this early stage would likely have a huge impact on the expanding Ashkenazi population.

However, it appears that the most recently revised mutational dating techniques lend support to Behar’s (2003) later date when applied to Jewish R1a1 haplotypes. If we assume that R1a1 entered the Jewish community around 1300 CE, then there would need to be enough founders to leave a 12% genetic impact on the population. Given that the Ashkenazi population at that time is estimated to be approximately 25,000 persons, it would be nearly impossible for a single founder to make such a significant genetic impact (Behar et al. 2004b). Adopting this conservative estimate of 25,000 persons, approximately two to three thousand R1a1 males probably entered the Ashkenazi community between the 12th-13th centuries.

Interestingly, there are no historical accounts of any large scale conversions or Eastern European groups entering the Jewish community at this time – except the Khazars.

Additionally, given the relatively late date of introgression and the large number of founders, these males must have already been very closely related to each other, sharing the R1a1 haplotypes that are later reflected in the Levite results. Behar (2003) noted that the lack of Levite R1a1 haplotype diversity suggested that all the founding lineages were very closely related to each other if, in fact, a large number of founding lineages contributed to the Levite R1a1 gene pool. The ancient reports on the Khazars indicate that the majority of the Jewish converts were from the Khazarian royalty and ruling classes (Koestler 1976, p.15). Although speculative, it seems likely this group would have intermarried heavily amongst itself, helping to preserve the group’s elite status. Thus, it is probable that they would have already possessed a set of closely related R1a1 haplotypes which they simply passed on to their Levite descendants.

The extremely low haplotype diversity of Ashkenazi Q supports the argument of a small number of closely-related founders merging with the Ashkenazim while they still resided primarily in Western Europe, but not significantly earlier in their formation, since a longer time span would result in more haplotype diversity. It does not support the contention that Q is Israelite in origin, or that the founders merged into the Jewish population much earlier in the Diaspora. Assuming the Ashkenazi population consisted of approximately 25,000 individuals around 1200-1300 CE, then approximately 1000-1500 Q individuals became part of the Ashkenazi population at that time.

Haplogroup Q is rare in European populations as well. It occurs in low percentages in Hungary (2.6%) and much higher percentages in Siberia (Tambets et al. 2004). It can be found among populations in Norway and the Shetland Islands of Scotland where many Norwegian Vikings settled. The frequency of Haplogroup Q among Scandinavians is comparable to that found in Ashkenazim (Faux, private correspondence). It appears that Norwegians/Shetlanders and Ashkenazi Jews possess the highest percentages of haplogroup Q of any populations in Europe – a rare link between two very different populations who may share a common ancestor from Central Asia or Eastern Europe. Interestingly, Scandinavians and Shetlanders also possess high levels of haplogroup R1a1 as well, perhaps some of it originating from Central Asian sources (Faux, private correspondence).

[puts a different perspective on Oslo!]

In conclusion, it appears that some members of three very distinct populations—Scandinavian-Shetlanders, Native Americans and Ashkenazi Jews–may share common ancestors originating from the Altai regions of southern Siberia. However, the Q ancestors of the Native Americans appears to have departed from their Altai homeland much earlier than the other two groups, migrating to the New World sometime between 10,000 to 17,000 years ago, providing sufficient time for the Native Americans to develop their own unique subgroup of Q, known as Q3 (Zegura et al. 2004).

The migration of R1a and Q groups into Scandinavia is presently unknown, though Faux postulates a group from Central Asia may have moved up into Scandinavia sometime around 400 CE. Only a few hundred years later, the Khazars of southern Russia make their first appearance in the historical record. And it is to the Khazars, who undoubtedly possessed a high frequency of this haplogroup, to which the Jews most likely owe their unique Q ancestry.

http://www.jogg.info/11/coffman.htm

MTC – very good question. The flaw in Kevin Brook’s reasoning seems to be that the only explanation for non-Middle Eastern findings in Ahkenazi Jewish dna is the Khazars.

As you note, that’s manifestly untrue: a 2005 meta-study records the median (middle of the bell curve) for what has become known as paternity fraud is 3.7%. Apply that alone over 100 generations and 15-20% non-Middle Eastern looks surprisingly low.

Add in non-Khazar conversions (of which there would have been many, particularly in the Greek communities on the North coast of the Black Sea) and the fact that Ashkenazi Jews suffered terrible persecutions from time to time, including the mass rapes of the Khmelnytsky and other pogroms, and the Khazar contribution looks very, very small.

On the Levi tests, worth noting also that the legend is that the Khazar nobility (a fairly small group) all took a new last name – Levi – when they converted.

The most alarming aspect of Sand’s pustulation is that if it does turn out to be true that Jews aren’t really Jews at all, then who in the pluperfect hell are we going to blame when things go wrong??!!

This is the giant hole in the whole edifice, the theory’s most glaring weakness, and, likely, the most persausive proof of its fraudulence.

Still, as the maxim goes, if the Jews did not exist, people like Professor Sand would have to invent them.

Barry:
I expect that David Irving will now claim that no “real” Jews were killed at Auschwicz ….

If nothing else, this proves that any useless klumnik can become a professor these days.

Kevin Brook depends on the data of Almut Nebel, who conducted two tests in 2001 and 2005. Doron Behar conducted a survey in 2003. You can compare and contrast their conclusions here:

A 2001 study by Nebel et al. found Haplogroup R1a chromosomes (called Eu 19 in the paper), which are very frequent in Eastern European populations (54%-60%), at elevated frequency (12.7%) in Ashkenazi Jews. The authors hypothesized that these chromosomes could reflect low-level gene flow into Ashkenazi populations from surrounding Eastern European populations, or, alternatively, that both the Ashkenazi Jews in Haplogroup R1a, and to a greater extent all Eastern European populations in general, might have some partial Khazar ancestry.[47]

A 2003 study of the Y-chromosome by Behar et al. found that among Ashkenazi Levites, who comprise approximately 4% of Ashkenazi Jews, the prevalence of Haplogroup R1a1 was over 50%. This haplogroup is uncommon in other Jewish groups, but found in high frequencies in eastern European populations. They argued that “it is likely that the event leading to a high frequency of R1a1 NRYs within the Ashkenazi Levites involved very few, and possibly only one, founding father.” They postulated that one likely source of the gene was a “a founder(s) of non-Jewish European ancestry, whose descendents were able to assume Levite status”, and that an alternate “attractive source would be the Khazarian Kingdom, whose ruling class is thought to have converted to Judaism in the 8th or 9th century.” The concluded that “[a]lthough neither the NRY haplogroup composition of the majority of Ashkenazi Jews nor the microsatellite haplotype composition of the R1a1 haplogroup within Ashkenazi Levites is consistent with a major Khazar or other European origin, as has been speculated by some authors (Baron 1957; Dunlop 1967; Ben-Sasson 1976; Keys 1999), one cannot rule out the important contribution of a single or a few founders among contemporary Ashkenazi Levites.”[48]

A 2005 study by Nebel et al., based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, showed that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to their local neighbouring populations in Europe. However, 11.5% of male Ashkenazim were found to belong to Haplogroup R1a1 (R-M17), the dominant Y chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europeans, suggesting possible gene flow between the two groups. The authors hypothesized that “R-M17 chromosomes in Ashkenazim may represent vestiges of the mysterious Khazars”. They concluded “However, if the R-M17 chromosomes in Ashkenazi Jews do indeed represent the vestiges of the mysterious Khazars then, according to our data, this contribution was limited to either a single founder or a few closely related men, and does not exceed ~ 12% of the present-day Ashkenazim.[49]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars

Also, Kevin, you seem to write for Khazaria.com. I’ve heard rumours that is a far-right or neo-Nazi site, Russian or otherwise. Could you please confirm what it is, please, and who runs or contributes to it?

Thank you.

I am not sure that even 20% of Ashkenazi Jewish descent is Khazar.

Take a look at these quotes:

“Jews already lived in Europe a thousand years before the Khazar kingdom was formed. There are no genetic markers or indicators at all showing that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Turkic tribes. In fact, there exists considerable genetic evidence showing that European Jews are closer to Levantine and Syrian Arabs than to Central Asians”

“…why are there no Khazar surnames among Ashkenazim, or Khazar names for towns in Europe where Jews lived? And why did most Ashkenazi communities speak variations of Yiddish rather than Turkic?”

They’re from this link: http://spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=2220

It’s from Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, which I suppose is a pro-Zionist, or at least not anti-Zionist group. But the article seems to be comprehensive and well-documented.

Here’s another site with an interesting take:

http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/?p=811

Anyway, you also have the link that I gave above and the one which SteveF gave above, both of which show that the Jewish DNA is traced to the Levant, not to any Turkic peoples in Europe or Central Asia.

I am not sure that even 20% or 12% of Ashkenazi Jewish descent is Khazar.

Take a look at these quotes:

“Jews already lived in Europe a thousand years before the Khazar kingdom was formed. There are no genetic markers or indicators at all showing that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Turkic tribes. In fact, there exists considerable genetic evidence showing that European Jews are closer to Levantine and Syrian Arabs than to Central Asians”

“…why are there no Khazar surnames among Ashkenazim, or Khazar names for towns in Europe where Jews lived? And why did most Ashkenazi communities speak variations of Yiddish rather than Turkic?”

They’re from this link: http://spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=2220

It’s from Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, which I suppose is a pro-Zionist, or at least not anti-Zionist group. But the article seems to be comprehensive and well-documented.

Here’s another site with an interesting take:

http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/?p=811

On other note:
A commentator a little distance up this thread uses a link from Wikipedia. It’s never advisable to use Wikipedia as a source. It has no credibility. It’s fine to start researching by consulting a Wikipedia, just to have an idea about a subject. Also, some articles give helpful bibliographies. But it’s never a source to fully trust because it’s written and edited by anyone and everyone. There is no benchmark for accuracy.

Kevin Brooks tries to refute my statement that “there isn’t a single Yiddish word with a Turkish (Khazar) origin by stating that Yarmulkah is a turkish word. Of course, he’s waaay wrong. Here’s what I found in 5 seconds upon researching the origins of Yarmulkah:
[Yiddish, from Polish and Ukrainian yarmulka, meaning "cap".

It goes on to say that the POLISH word, jarmulka, may have a Turkish origin... "possibly from Turkish yağmurluk, rain clothing, from yağmur, rain.]”

And if you think about it, it’s more likely that the Poles, who interfaced with Turks for centuries, could pick up a polish word or two, that then became part of Yiddish. There are, after all, hundreds if not thousands of Polish words in Yiddish, as it was the dominant language surrounding the Yiddish-speaking Jews (Much the same way as so much English has permeated the Yiddish of North American yiddish speakers like me.).

Another possible origin is that it is an acronym for yarai mʾElohim, “one who is in awe of God.”

So, Mr. Brooks, No, using yarmulkah (or any other polish-derived word) as an argument for showing that Turkish words can be found in Yiddish is not convincing, nor does it support the Khazar hypothesis. Try again.

vildechaye: yarmulke does not come from yaghmurluk, but another Turkic word, yarimqapas, meaning “half cap”. Here’s a second definite Turkic word in Yiddish: loksh (noodle) comes from the Turkic word laqsha (noodle).

Jonathan: I could have had the opportunity to confront Sand when he spoke at New York University but I chose to skip it. Why would I spend time debating Sand when he ignores evidence and denigrates or marginalizes me and other real researchers? Also, the audience would have been hostile and one-sided given it was a Marxist venue.

Gordon Bennet: It’s more than “may” because you won’t find another good explanation for where the 5% of Ashkenazim who carry the Central Asian haplogroup Q-P36 got it. This is not just about R1a1, which could be Slavic. I did not shift the goalposts. I pointed out that some people deny the Khazars made any contribution in the same way as Sand denies the Israelites made any contribution, and both of these extreme positions are wrong.

tevya: I’m aware of what you said, that Greeks and other non-Khazars (Romans especially) converted to Judaism. Still, those Greeks did not contribute Q-P36 nor are they likely to have contributed the Caucasus-type haplogroup G nor the East European haplogroup R1a1. East European Slavs and Caucasian Alans (Ossetians) lived in the Khazar Kingdom. Some of these Alans are recorded to have adopted Judaism. We must consider it likely that the Slavs and Alans married Khazars. The Khazar royal family sure married Alans. You have no evidence that the Khazars “all took a new last name – Levi – when they converted.”

ALSO RE: how do you explain the origins of the East Slavic-speaking Jews who lived in Belarus before the Yiddish-speaking Jews moved there? How do you explain the G, Q, and R haplogroups that come from the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe respectively?

I am not trying to explain it. There is simply no proof it has anything to do with Khazars. That is one hypothesis, no doubt among many. So little is known about Khazaria, including how many Khazars actually converted to Judaism. So your implication that just because there were Jews (how many by the way?) in Belarus before Yiddish speakers arrived there — assuming that’s even true, but for the sake of argument let’s assume it is — automatically means they were of khazars is unsubstantiated by facts. I also should point out that I am not denying that Jews from Poland and Eastern Europe have a lot of genes that aren’t Israelite. My blue eyes and pale skin tell me that. What I am saying is that there is no conclusive proof that any of this has anything to do with the Khazars. It might, it might not. There’s no real conclusive evidence one way or the other. The Khazar hypothesis is ridiculous, and while I appreciate that Kevin Brooks is not a propagandist for this malicious theory, he still is making more of something than it really is, until real evidence can be produced that indicates otherwise. Maybe they’ll find somethin in the ruins of Itil. Who knows? Until then, it’s all speculation, including the central asian gene. There were LOTS of different tribes in central asia, not just khazars. Jews from Palestine and babylonia could have easily made their way as traders to central asia, it wasn’t that far. etc. etc etc.
And as i pointed out in the last thread, the yarmulkah bit doesn’t wash at all. If that’s your best linguistic evidence, your theory is toast. As an aside, in my Polish-Yiddish speaking home, the word yarmulkah was never used, though of course it was understood. We called it a Kappelleh, obviously a derivative of Kippah. And generally speaking, kippah was used much more in the community than yarmulkah.

Zkharya: I have referenced both Doron Behar’s study and Almut Nebel’s study, as well as others. See my reply to Gordon Bennet above. You need to address Q-P36. Khazaria.com is run by myself. I’m entirely Ashkenazic and pro-Israel and a long-time libertarian. My colleague Brian Gottesman, whose CV also appears at my site, is also Ashkenazic and pro-Israel. We have no Nazi sympathies at all. I have worked with rabbis, Jewish scientists, Jewish genealogists, and Jewish historians and have contributed articles to Jewish publications of many kinds. See my CV at http://www.khazaria.com/brookcv.html and the about page at http://www.khazaria.com/about.html

MindTheCrap: I was referring to Khazar, Slavic, and Alan contributions from the region of the Khazar kingdom. There are also West European haplogroups like R1b and so forth that are found among Jews, which add another 10-20% beyond what I said. The Middle Eastern origins add up to 60-70% on the paternal side of Ashkenazim and apparently at least half on the maternal side. Studies on Icelanders are sometimes compared to Ashkenazim because they remained genetically isolated for centuries, like Ashkenazim did for centuries (around the 14th-19th centuries). There are genetic studies for just about every ethnic and religious group we can imagine nowadays. I always find interesting data at Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog at http://dienekes.blogspot.com/

vildechaye: You don’t understand my argument. Khazarian Jews were speaking SLAVIC, not TURKIC, by the time they met up with Jews from Central Europe. It’s a fantasy to believe Khazarian words will get into Yiddish that way. It’s a straw-man argument that you construct to easily knock down. There were several centuries between the time Khazaria fell and the time the Yiddish-speaking Jews moved east to marry with other Jews. We have documents showing Jews spoke Slavic in the Ukraine and Belarus regions in that period.

Zkharya: I have referenced both Doron Behar’s study and Almut Nebel’s study, as well as others. See my reply to Gordon Bennet above. You need to address Q-P36. Khazaria.com is run by myself. I’m entirely Ashkenazic and pro-Israel and a long-time libertarian. My colleague Brian Gottesman, whose CV also appears at my site, is also Ashkenazic and pro-Israel. We have no Nazi sympathies at all. I have worked with rabbis, Jewish scientists, Jewish genealogists, and Jewish historians and have contributed articles to Jewish publications of many kinds. See my CV at http://www.khazaria.com/brookcv.html and the about page at http://www.khazaria.com/about.html

My reply to Zkharya has to be approved by the moderator before it’s posted because I included some links.

MindTheCrap: I was referring to Khazar, Slavic, and Alan contributions from the region of the Khazar kingdom. There are also West European haplogroups like R1b and so forth that are found among Jews, which add another 10-20% beyond what I said. The Middle Eastern origins add up to 60-70% on the paternal side of Ashkenazim and apparently at least half on the maternal side. Studies on Icelanders are sometimes compared to Ashkenazim because they remained genetically isolated for centuries, like Ashkenazim did for centuries (around the 14th-19th centuries). There are genetic studies for just about every ethnic and religious group we can imagine nowadays. I always find interesting data at Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog at dienekes.blogspot.com

RE: vildechaye: yarmulke does not come from yaghmurluk, but another Turkic word, yarimqapas, meaning “half cap”.

And you know this, how??? The Online Etymological Dictionary states:
from Yiddish yarmulke, from Pol. jarmulka, originally “a skullcap worn by priests,” perhaps ult. from M.L. almutia “cowl, hood.” Merriam-Webster states: “Etymology: Yiddish yarmulke, from Polish jarmułka & Ukrainian yarmulka skullcap, of Turkic origin; akin to Turkish yağmurluk rainwear. (ie. the polish/ukrainian word is of turkish origin, as i noted previously). Meanwhile, the term “yarimqapas,” which you stated as fact was the actual origin of the word, yields no references on google at all. Not one. And I don’t mean in relation to yarmulke, i mean just type in into google, and you get 0 responses. Your source for this would be appreciated. I suspect it doesn’t exist, or is entirely unverifiable.
ALSO
RE: Here’s a second definite Turkic word in Yiddish: loksh (noodle) comes from the Turkic word laqsha (noodle).
As for loksh, the Dictionary of Jewish Usage states that this comes from Slavic (Russian or Polish) origin. Merriam Webster states: Yiddish, plural of loksh “noodle”, from Russian dial. loksha, of Turkic origin; akin to Uyghur & Kazan Tatar lakca “noodles”, Chuvash läskä. [190]. So yes, the word is of Turkic “origin,” became Russian, then was adopted by Yiddish speaking Jews. I’m sure there are dozens of words like that. It’s totally disingenuous to argue that these indicate a Turkish origin to Yiddish words. In fact, these prove the influence of the Slavic Languages on Yiddish, not the Turkic.
So much for “definite.” Do you know something they don’t?
Try again.

RE: vildechaye: You don’t understand my argument. Khazarian Jews were speaking SLAVIC, not TURKIC, by the time they met up with Jews from Central Europe.

In that case, it’s you that’s putting up a straw man argument. Why even mention turkish words in the first place, if the “khazarian jews” were speaking slavic? And, if they were speaking slavic, what evidence do you have they were Khazar Jews, and not Palestinian/Babylonian/anywhere but Khazar/ Jews who settled in Kievan Rus, or other slavic speaking countries. After all, there is no identifiable “khazar” gene. As i noted earlier, central asian genes could come from anywhere. You don’t know how much of the Khazar population even converted to Judaism in the first place. It’s all conjecture that you’re dressing up as fact. I appreciate you aren’t doing it maliciously, but it’s all theoretical, and could be entirely wrong. I don’t deny it could be partially or even substantially correct by the way. It simply isn’t conclusive. As I said, maybe when they dig up Atil, we may know more. Until and if that happens, it isn’t appropriate to speak about these things as though they’re proven. And i still for the life of me can’t figure out why you even bring the Turkish language in, if you believe the Khazars were already speaking slav. It’s FAR MORE LIKELY that yiddish speaking jews took these words from their Polish, Ukrainian and Russian neighbors and incorporated it into their Yiddish tongue, just as they did with food etc. Enough already.

vildechaye: They already dug up much of Atil. Nothing specifically Jewish has been found at the site yet, but part of the city was burnt when the Rus’ conquered it. Documents tell us many of the Khazars converted to Judaism.

I brought up the Turkic words only because you claimed there were no Turkic words in Yiddish.

Not every linguistic theory is online. The linguistic references are in my book. Some word origins are demonstratable like “laqsha”, others are good guesses like “yarimqapas”. You seem eager to remind me that Jews often adopted words from their Slavic neighbors, but for some reason you don’t consider that the borrowing occasionally went in the other direction.

I realize “central asian genes could come from anywhere” but then we’ll need to determine another possible explanation for them. Perhaps Crimean Tatars who enslaved Jewish women?

Here are two sites that provide powerful arguments debunking the Khazar theory, or really, myth:

http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/

and:

http://spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=2220

And here are some brief sections from the second site (Scholars for Peace in the Middle East):

“Jews already lived in Europe a thousand years before the Khazar kingdom was formed. There are no genetic markers or indicators at all showing that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Turkic tribes. In fact, there exists considerable genetic evidence showing that European Jews are closer to Levantine and Syrian Arabs than to Central Asians.

“There are other problems. If all Ashkenazi Jews are descended from converted Khazars, why are there Cohens and Levis among them? One inherits the status of a Cohen (priest) or Levite from one’s father. Descendants of converts through the male line can never be a Cohen or a Levite.

“And why are there no Khazar surnames among Ashkenazim, or Khazar names for towns in Europe where Jews lived? And why did most Ashkenazi communities speak variations of Yiddish rather than Turkic?”

RE: I brought up the Turkic words only because you claimed there were no Turkic words in Yiddish.

And nothing you’ve indicated says otherwise. You’ve only indicated there are a lot of slavic words in Yiddish, which was already well known, and that some of those slavic words have turkish origins, which also was well known. You seem to be indicating that Jewish slavic-speaking Khazars actually influenced the Slavic language, but you don’t provide any evidence for that other than conjecture, because, of course, there isn’t any evidence. Might be true, might not, who knows, my own feeling is that it’s quite a stretch.

As it happens, my nephew is a PhD student in linguistics at one of the best linguistics programs in the world, and I’m going to ask him about the turkic/slavic/yiddish link. That being said, all you’ve shown so far is that Yiddish borrowed from Russian/Ukrainian/Polish/early slavic for words like Loksh and Yarmulke, which was already known, as were the original turkic origins of the slavic source words. And to answer your final point, it’s FAR MORE LIKELY, given the extensive interaction between slavs and turk/mongol tribes, that the contribution from turkic to slavic went in that direction, rather than from Khazar Jewish-turkic, to slavic, then back to yiddish. And that is what I’m going to put to my nephew and see what he says.

ONE LAST THING, RE: but then we’ll need to determine another possible explanation for them. Perhaps Crimean Tatars who enslaved Jewish women?

It’s it much more likely that the gene comes from Turkish/Mongol rapes and or marriages with slavic women in the 10th-13th century. After all, nobody is denying there is a strong slavic component in ashkenazi jewish genetic makeup. (As i noted earlier, my own blue eyes and pale skin are evidence of that). Couldn’t the slavs that the Yiddish jews later mixed with have included the turkish component. and wouldn’t that explain why there are central asian markers in ashkenazi jews more convincingly than the khazar hypothesis. My own feeling is the khazar jews disappeared as completely as the Khazar kingdom and so many other central asian kingdoms before and later.

Thanks for that, Kevin. I have visited Khazaria.com many times, but wondered about it, because I had heard rumours, which now turn out, happily, to be false.

I didn’t mean to imply you didn’t reference Nebel or Behar. I just wanted to provide a short summary of their own views in their own words. I read about the Q, K and other haplotypes. I posted a link to an article that addresses mtDNA, but that kept going into the spam bin, probably because I was using a false email (I didn’t realise the rules had changed).

Are you an academic, Kevin, attached to a university department?

“The Thirteenth Tribe” is the name of Koestler’s book on the Khazar hypothesis. Given how little is known about the Khazar kingdom when it flourished and what happened to its population after it faded from history, it is indeed impossible to say whether the theory can be entirely discounted. It’s possible that there were several million Jews living in this large stretch of land in the Middle Ages. They must have gone somewhere. Like the people of another vanished empire, the Hittites, they are extremely unlikely to have gone very far.

Koestler’s book is deeply loathed by many and its critics would prefer it if it was accepted that the Khazars were either absorbed into Slavic populations or that only a few of them were Jewish. The genetic evidence that Koestler-loathers quote is not even remotely conclusive and neither rules out nor establishes the validity of Koestler’s theory. Tens of millions of modern Europeans have inherited genes from Hunnish ancestors or, as is common in Mediterranean countries, from North Africa and the Levant. Europe’s Jewish and non-Jewish populations are and have been “mongrel” to a huge degree since before the time of the Roman Empire. Nations are, after all, only about shared cultures, not genes.

What is just as unsubstantiated, I think, is the belief that the large pre-1939 Jewish population of Eastern Europe can be traced to a migration eastwards of people who had arrived in more westerly parts of the Roman Empire after the Diaspora. That would make it quite a round trip. The numbers and the distances covered are incredible – beyond rational belief. Like the theory of a medieval Khazar diaspora, the theory of a Middle Eastern origin is also largely conjectural and, therefore, pointless. We just cannot know with certainty.

This is the article I tried to link to, by Ellen Levy-Coffman, which addresses other haplotypes, plus mtDNA. These are among the most interesting parts:

R1a

However, the proposal that R1a1 originated with a single founder event early in the Diaspora has become increasingly unlikely as research on Jewish DNA progresses. Since R1a1 is spread fairly evenly in haplotype distribution and frequency throughout the Ashkenazi populations from various countries (Germany, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Russia and the Ukraine), then the founders must have entered the community either before it expanded and spread to Eastern Europe, or merged separately into both eastern and western Ashkenazi groups. However, Nebel (2005) is forced to assert an extremely early TMRCA due to his belief that R1a1 must have originated with a single founder or very small group of founders. In order for R1a1 to reach its high frequency (12%) among the Ashkenazim from a single founder, a very early date must be proposed for the introgression of this haplogroup. Under this scenario, R1a1 entered the Jewish community when it was extremely small and in its formative stage. Gene flow from a single R1a founder at this early stage would likely have a huge impact on the expanding Ashkenazi population.

However, it appears that the most recently revised mutational dating techniques lend support to Behar’s (2003) later date when applied to Jewish R1a1 haplotypes. If we assume that R1a1 entered the Jewish community around 1300 CE, then there would need to be enough founders to leave a 12% genetic impact on the population. Given that the Ashkenazi population at that time is estimated to be approximately 25,000 persons, it would be nearly impossible for a single founder to make such a significant genetic impact (Behar et al. 2004b). Adopting this conservative estimate of 25,000 persons, approximately two to three thousand R1a1 males probably entered the Ashkenazi community between the 12th-13th centuries.

Haplotype Q

Interestingly, there are no historical accounts of any large scale conversions or Eastern European groups entering the Jewish community at this time – except the Khazars.

The extremely low haplotype diversity of Ashkenazi Q supports the argument of a small number of closely-related founders merging with the Ashkenazim while they still resided primarily in Western Europe, but not significantly earlier in their formation, since a longer time span would result in more haplotype diversity. It does not support the contention that Q is Israelite in origin, or that the founders merged into the Jewish population much earlier in the Diaspora. Assuming the Ashkenazi population consisted of approximately 25,000 individuals around 1200-1300 CE, then approximately 1000-1500 Q individuals became part of the Ashkenazi population at that time.

http://www.jogg.info/11/coffman.htm

Here’s a R1a distribution map, for those interested: http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:Cjy4L7hNZVAJ:www.sturgood.com/dna/pdf/R1a_sequence_distribution.pdf+R1a+m117+jewish+dna&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjBDbHF7kpvj_DQ2yuQt3NwwFl46KD2CKM1dFi_AoBYeyxuZs0cZbDUAXcxTDly9_Tjddr0IH8aZpePfUQwy3Sj7mA-_Iv-Xo00aA4CWpA7k0o50clWT0o-XYvhYdPNzPr2bbLz&sig=AFQjCNEoDTOaq6lmp4sBBTEHT2tMBJlqRQ

Am I the only one here who thinks this genetics debate is a bit irrelevant to the definition of a people?

Isy: It’s relevant because it refutes a malicious theory rooted in anti-semitism and designed to delegitimize Israel. Were it not for that, you’re right, it shouldn’t be relevant. But given that the Khazar etc. theory is being used in this way, genetics are a factual weapon to counter it.

RE: DR HEATH’s COMMENT: What is just as unsubstantiated, I think, is the belief that the large pre-1939 Jewish population of Eastern Europe can be traced to a migration eastwards of people who had arrived in more westerly parts of the Roman Empire after the Diaspora. That would make it quite a round trip. The numbers and the distances covered are incredible – beyond rational belief. Like the theory of a medieval Khazar diaspora, the theory of a Middle Eastern origin is also largely conjectural and, therefore, pointless. We just cannot know with certainty.

Excuse me, the linguistic evidence suggests otherwise. As for the “incredible distances and numbers required,” you seem to be forgetting that we’re not talking about a couple of generations here; the roman diaspora began in 70 a.d. and the large concentrations of Jews in eastern Europe formed somewhere between the 12th and 14th centuries. I think 1,000+ years is plenty of time to cover that distance and create those numbers.

As for Koestler, he was a fierce anti-communist and a sort of modern-day renaissance man, who wrote Darkness at Noon and another novel, some autobiography, history of science, and articles on genetics, euthanasia, Eastern mysticism, neurology, chess, evolution, psychology, the paranormal and more.[65] But he was not a trained historian, archeologist, geneticist or linguist, and “the Thirteenth tribe” is no more historical than Freud’s “Moses and Monotheism”, another nice and possible true theory with little to back it up (ie. Moses is a disciple of Akhnaton, and Aton the sun god is the precursor to Yahweh; if i got that a bit wrong, forgive me).

Koestler’s ideas about Jewish Khazars may have been loathed, but more importantly, they’ve been thoroughly debunked by real historians and linguists. Only hacks like Sands embrace these long-discarded theories, and then only for political anti-zionist purposes.

His ultimate major, and living, legacy is the Chair in Parapsychology at Edinburgh University.

Kevin Brook – “I realize “central asian genes could come from anywhere” but then we’ll need to determine another possible explanation for them.”

Well, yes. There are so many possible explanations it’s hard to sort them out. The most likely are conversion, intermarriage, rape and infidelity over the generations: probably sufficient explanations on their own.

You just don’t need to imagine large numbers of Khazars as well to explain the findings of the genetic studies.

And in relation to the historical record, it’s worth remembering that we’re discussing possibly the least well-known place during the least well-known period in history.

A place where one of the only consistent features was nomadic tribes of huns, goths, alans, slavs, vikings, mongols and turks marauding across the steppes. A bit of genetic variation in otherwise homogenous populations is not a surprising outcome.

It’s weak material to build a revolutionary theory of Jewish history on. And the Jews, as one of the few groups who remained widely literate during the dark ages, have relatively well-documented history to overturn.

But for more wacky theories, how about the Jewish Cossacks?

Or the Turkic-speaking Crimean Karaites, who in fact believe themselves to be the descendants of the Khazars?

vildechaye: It is certainly possible for me to accept your idea that your blue eyes and pale skin came from partial Slavic background. But the Ukrainians themselves probably have a little Khazarian origin, which means we may still be dealing with ultimately a Khazar element for Q-P36, even if it had come through Ukrainians. Ukraine’s Slavic ancestors were personally familiar with the Khazars – they paid tribute to them, they traded with them, they exchanged words back and forth.

But if not the Khazars, another large Turkic group – the Kipchaks – could be invoked to seek the root of Q-P36. But we can’t prove that either the Khazars or the Kipchaks had Q-P36 themselves. We’d need to see if the bones can be conclusively identified with a particular Turkic group and, after that, see if any DNA has been preserved. Might be impossible. Descendants of Kipchaks are known as “Kun” in Hungary. If there are living Hungarian families that definitely have a pure line of paternal descend from Kipchaks, they could be genetically tested.

But the Kipchaks themselves also could have merged with remnants of the Khazars. So ultimately we should just look at what we know, which is the Khazars converted to Judaism and married Hebraic Jews, and the Kipchaks and other Turks didn’t, and it is therefore more likely that the Khazars are responsible for Q-P36.

tevya: The Crimean Karaites are mostly descendants of the Israelites. Their conception of themselves as Khazars is an invention by one of their religious leaders. Mikhail Kizilov and Dan Shapira have written excellent studies on them. I acknowledge your other points are legitimate, but we can do better than speculate about other possibilities that have even less proof than the Khazars’ conversion to Judaism. In a realm of little evidence, the Khazar case for Q-P36 still has the most evidence. The number of Slavic rapes of Jewish women should not be exaggerated, and levels of intermarriage and infidelity in the East European Jewish community are hard to quantify or prove except for isolated cases here and there.

Zkharya: Neither Ellen Levy-Coffman nor I are professors at universities. Whereas Shlomo Sand and his similar-thinking Paul Wexler are. What does that tell you about the value of a PhD. I dislike the modern obsession with credentials.

Doctor Heath: You suggest there could have been “several million Jews” living in Khazaria. Other estimates I’ve seen suggest no more than 35,000 did, and the smallest estimates suggest only a couple thousand like maybe 4,000. If you read my book “The Jews of Khazaria, Second Edition” you’ll see not only evidence for where the Khazars went after Khazaria fell, but also evidence for Ashkenazim being direct descendants of the incredible-but-true migration of the Israelites through so many countries. vildechaye is correct when she says “1,000+ years is plenty of time to cover that distance”.

I’m not a she (blue eyes and pale skin notwithstanding). However, i”m glad you admit it’s all “could have might have”. I don’t agree that Ukrainians might not have raped that many Jewish women. I think in the Cossack revolt where upwards of 100,000 jews were slain, i suspect a lot of Jewesses were raped.

Also, if the Turkish/Khazar comes through the Ukrainian, that sort of makes my point doesn’t it.

Thank you Kevin for a most interesting debate. I will let you know what my nephew has to say on the linguistic front after the weekend.

Kevin Brook, Zkharya

The principle problem with the degree of genetic contribution from Khazars to Ashkenazim rests on the simple question ‘who the hell were the Khazars’?

This problem genetically speaking becomes critical if we are relying on male Y R1a1 haplotype as a marker for the Khazars and some kind of Turkic central Asian ancestry.

Greaco Roman sources refer to almost all steppe peoples as Scythians and later Huns.

Chinese sources refer to the earlier tribal nomadic confedererations as Xiongu (and a complex dispute arises here as to whether this is cognate with Hun) later they refer to Turkic tribes such as the Gokturk.

Now the R1a1 marker is seen as just as much a marker for the orignal Indoeuropean populations and a puroprted homeland in the Kurgan culture area, the Caucuses or central Asia.

Certainly we know there were central Asian Indo Europeans (see Tocharian mummies) that long predate Turkic populations in what is now the uighur autonomous region of China.

Histories tell us of white Huns and Black Huns.

We know that the altaic steppe tribal confederacies were a sprachbund not a shared ethnicity.

The R1a1 haplotype common in Northern and Eastern Europe (but not among souther slavs) was taken East as well as west and became a marker also found among turkic and mongaloid peoples but always in higher concentrations the further west one travels.

The best way to look at this is to compare the genetics of Modern Turks especially anatolians 9who are genetically very close to Jews along with Armenians Kurds and Levantine arabs).

Anatolians have very little turkic genetic admixture despite the massive settlements of turkic tribes in the 11thc.

The Gaugauz of moldava a Turkic speaking people similalry look eastern european genetically as do the azeris and western turkmen.

We know that the Khasars or their ruleser were of the Ashina (the celestial) clan of the Gokturk and closely related to Bolgars and Okhus turks who were part of their confederacy (along with Magyars and Slavs).

Turkic states generally collapsed from whitin so that even though the Khazars were defeated by Kievan Rus they were also overun by pechneks and oghus.

As Khazars were settled north between the black and Caspian sea (still called the Khasar see in Arabic and Persian) after their defeat tmany would have been absorbed into the successor seljuk empire.

We have yet to do any DNA testing on known Khazar graves, but I am pretty confident in predicting a pretty mixed picture reflecting their multiethnic polity.

Now as for the R1a1 being either a uniquely eatern european or central Asian gene marker it is found in fairly high frequencies in the closest genetic relatives to modern Jews Kurds (11.7%) and Levantine Arabs 9%. This gives it a higher frequeny than among many slave populations.

So work that one out.

You need to understand the concept of genetic clines and genetic drift.

Askenazi Jews or rather especially the Levites may have got their R1a1 from Kurds or Armenian Jews as easily as Khazar Jews.

Now Kevin Brooks the Q y DNA haplotype is a curiosity but I would not hang too much on the Khazar Estern European connection of this.

It is found in Yemenites, Lebanese, Kuwaitis, Algerians Saudi Arabians, Norway, Tibet, China, Turks, Central asians and in its highest frequencies in the New World.

I will concede you one interesting nugget for your Khazar low frequency contribution to the Askenazim gene pool (remembering Levites are 3& of Askenazim).

The Ashina clan from which the Khazar nobility stemmed placed their own origins in Siberia and it is in Norhtern Altaic populations that we find 32% of the Q haplotype. The only people who have a majority frequency of Q are the Samoydic speaking selkups and the yeneisan speaking (linked directly to Na Dene North American languages) who are the last descendaents of the original nomadic peoples of that area.

The Q haplotype (except for that in the Indian subcontinent which is another puzzle) seems to have arisne in north eastern siberia 17,000 -20,000 years ago.

Undoubtedly it has been brought westwards along with conquering eurasian steppes peoples but whether your Ashkenazim Q comes from Khazars or from Kurds or even yemenis is anybodies guess.

The essential point is we do not have any Khazars and the dead ones’ genetics are unlikely to illuminate us much though they may throw more light on the q haplotype.

As a non Jew and some time student of genetics what I find most extraordinary is the degree of continuity of Israelite genetic ancestry almost exclusively along the paternal line.

We find the Cohanin markers in the Lemba (50%) in the Buba clan and we find it in the Bene Israel in India. The only population that shows majority conversion to judaism rather than descent are the Ethiopian Jews.

The Bene Israel of India alone show what a pile of crap Sand is presenting.

Kevin Brook

I am also not sure of your haplotype classification. See the wiki ref cited by me above. This is a cladistic tree but it is not too clearly drawn lacking lines with forks, but its vertical orientation is a convention to show the degree of genetic difference in terms of single mutations from a putative single common ancestor Q*.

(as I say some of the aboriginal Indian subcontinent Q mutations may have an even older ancestry than the conventional Q*)

You cite Q (P36) which I believe is Q (P36.2) most of the extant old world subclades are mutations of Q1a however it is Q1b(M378) that is found in 5% of Ashkenazi Jews. (which is also found in Hazaras and Sindhis of Pakistan).

I would have to check how many point mutations it would take to arrive at Q1b (M378) but it is far easier to see its origin in a mutation from a Q1a or even its origin in Persia/Pakistan than from your several mutations away Q P36

I would have to

Kevin: “Why would I spend time debating Sand when he ignores evidence and denigrates or marginalizes me and other real researchers? Also, the audience would have been hostile and one-sided given it was a Marxist venue.”

Indeed. And that it what is so telling about Sands – his book has never – and will never – be discussed at an academic conference.

Isy

Yes. Again, nations are about shared cultures, not shared genes. As interesting as it is to conjecture about the geographical wanderings of peoples and their cultural and linguistic histories, it is borderline obsessive. Except to racists and demagogues, it is almost completely pointless.

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4872

Now Galloway is using your book, Shlomo: you must be very proud

mettaculture: Are you going to tonight’s talk?

amie they both appear to be fully booked ewch!

or rather this evening at SOAS is free but I am informed it will be heavily attended> I think I will go along early say 5.30pm and see

Some “factual” observations/queries relating to this issue. Abraham came from Ur, which is in modern day Iraq, so he was presumably arabic. The Palestinians will indeed surely be closely related to Israelis of 2000 years ago.

Semites are both Jews and Arabs (and others) so the label anti-semitic is misleading.

2000 years is a very long time in history. Research has shown that it is extremely likely that we ALL originate from a very small group of people who left Africa 50,000 years ago. What would the current Africans think if we all claimed a right to be back in Africa suddenly?

Israelis and Arabs perhaps need to learn to love and tolerate each other a little more but I believe the onus is on the Israeli people to understand that having an expansionist nation thrust upon you must be very unsettling for the Palestinians.

John Leefe
The square quotes around “factual” are a hoot!

What makes you think that anyone who “came from” what is “modern day Iraq” is “presumably arabic”?
Do you presume that Kurds are Arabs?
Is Charles Saatchi an Arab
Anish Kapoor?
Arabic, capital A, is a language.
Do you call people like me who “comes from” Scotland Gaelic?
And, how is that I can hear your posh accent so clearly?

scare quotes

“What would the current Africans think if we all claimed a right to be back in Africa suddenly?”
What gives you the right to be wherever it is you are, probably SW3 or Switzerland? It’s not as if you’re family orignated there, research has shown that it is extremely likely that you come from Africa.
So what the fuck are you doing here?

Another hoot:
“The current Africans”!!

We should ask the Sultana of Zanzibar.

John, do you consider the very small group of people who left Africa 50,000 years ago expansionists? If not, why not? If so, what are you doing in the Occupied Territories?

“Zionists have claimed that there has been an unbroken link (physical and spititual) with the region that is now Israel….”

Which is a blood and soil arguement. If the attachment of the Jewish people to that soil is not based on blood then Sands arguments would be irrelevent even if they were true and would not offend in the manner that they do.

However people on these boards are arguing that Jews are of the same blood and that that blood is from that soil.

It’s a blood and soil arguement.

“…..that has nothing to do with the racist implications of ‘blood and soil’.”

That a blood and soil arguement must be racist is your inference not my implication.

Racists do use blood and soil arguements to push there agendas but it doesn’t follow that all those who make a blood and soil arguement are racist.

It only becomes racist if it is used to deny others an attachment to the soil.

There are no doubt afew zionists who would do that but it seems to me that throughout the zionist project there hasn’t been such a denial.

“To imply that Zionism is based on ‘blood and soil’ is to imply that Zionism is a racist…”

No it isn’t.

It is to imply that Zionism is based on blood and soil. If you choose to infer that that makes it racist then that’s up to you.

“…as opposed to a political, movement properly understood.”

That zionism is a political movement doesn’t prevent it being based on blood and soil.

Mr Freddie
“people on these boards are arguing that Jews are of the same blood and that that blood is from that soil”…citation, please.

To mistype “scare quotes” once is an indication of something, but to spell argument as “arguement” so many times that I got bored counting says to me that freddie, not his real name, who says “That zionism is a political movement doesn’t prevent it being based on blood and soil” has a thing about blood and soil. I counted that phrase: ten times. So freaked out I am going to go to SOAS to witness the obvious.

Mr Freddie
“people on these boards are arguing that Jews are of the same blood and that that blood is from that soil”…citation, please.

To mistype “scare quotes” once is an indication of something, but to spell argument as “arguement” so many times that I got bored counting says to me that freddie, not his real name, who says “That zionism is a political movement doesn’t prevent it being based on blood and soil” has a thing about blood and soil. I counted that phrase: ten times. So freaked out I am going to go to SOAS to witness the obvious.

lucky I live on Tavistock Square, it’s raining and it turns out the lecture was last night. I blame the misinformation on the people on these boards who believe that Jews are of the same blood and that that blood is from that soil.

“…citation, please.”

Akus.

“To mistype “scare quotes” once is an indication of something…”

It would be indicative of a mistype (if it was a mistype).

“…but to spell argument as “arguement” so many times that I got bored counting…”

Well don’t count, and preserve the exitement.

“not his real name…”

In what way not my real name?

“…has a thing about blood and soil.”

I do. The thing I have about is that it’s the thing I was discussing.

“I blame the misinformation on the people on these boards who believe that Jews are of the same blood and that that blood is from that soil.”

Well Angus, if you feel the need to blame people it might as well be them.

http://thecst.org.uk/blog/?p=876

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b74fdfd2-cfe1-11de-a36d-00144feabdc0.html

Schama writes about Sand in FT today