Khazars, Communists, Zionists and These United States, Part 1

This is the first of a four part series published by Alan Stang in 2008. It seems we can never stop talking about Jews, so here is some commentary on the subject.

I routinely receive a flood of messages about Khazars. Every other message includes the term “Zionists” or “Zionism.” I exaggerate, but only a little. The messages say innumerable people, things and movements are “Zionist.” One starts to wonder what the word really means. If it means everything, it means nothing. There is also something called the “Jewish Conspiracy,” which is related to Zionism and is trying to conquer the world. The Khazars are an important element in this.

According to those messages, everything that goes wrong is caused by a Jew. The Jews are into everything. The theory says the problem is even worse than you may think, because, if you look long enough, you will find that malefactors who are purportedly Christians are Jews who changed their names. For instance, Roosevelt invariably is “Rosenfeld.” Rockefeller is “Rockenfelder” or some variant thereof. Again, that is the theory, usually expressed as an axiom; I have never seen any proof a professional would set in type. You never can be sure a man isn’t Jewish.

I haven’t ever said anything about all this. It is a diversion, a calculated distraction from the battle for Western civilization; but, again, it now appears to be arriving at a crescendo, maybe because of the speculation that the U.S. will attack Iran, so judicious comment could be helpful. First, who and what are the mysterious Khazars; how do they fit into all this? Every message that mentions them does so with contempt, with fear and suspicion.

Scholars have written about them for centuries. In our time, it was Arthur Koestler who brought them to general, public attention.

Koestler was a Hungarian who became a British subject. He was a Communist Party member for some years, then quit and attacked it. He was a prolific author and a Jew. Koestler and his wife were found dead together. Some observers think they were murdered.

The Khazars were a people who ruled in what is now Ukraine and southern Russia, beginning in about the eighth century, A.D. To the west was Christianity; to the south Islam. Arthur Koestler wrote a book about them, The Thirteenth Tribe: the Khazar empire and its heritage (London, Hutchinson, 1976), because to escape domination by either of those two vibrant religions, they formally converted to Judaism.

Koestler says these converts henceforth became a major percentage of the Ashkenazic Jewish population, the Jews in central and Eastern Europe, as opposed to the Sephardim, the Jews in the west. And some observers have seized upon this history to claim that today’s Jews cannot be lineal descendants of the children of Israel. According to this theory, today’s “Jews” are really Khazars.

I do not pretend to understand the reason some patriots consider this theory so important. It is tempting to say the reason is obvious “anti-semitism,” but that generic, one-size-fits-all explanation – like the Khazar story itself – is suspiciously too simple. What we can mention with authority is that Arthur Koestler himself, author of the theory, does not say all of today’s “Jews” are Khazars. Some undoubtedly are authentic children of Israel, but it is impossible at this distance to say who they are, which means that while his revelations are immensely interesting, they cannot serve as the basis of policy or even attitude.

On the other hand, if today’s “Jews” are not really Jews, if they are not lineal descendants of the Jews mentioned in scripture (I use the King James Version, published almost four hundred years ago), then there can be no “Jewish conspiracy” without men to man it. It would make more sense to talk about a “Khazar conspiracy.”

There is also the question of when the children of Israel were still the genuine children. Obviously, they were the children at the moment God adopted them. Remember, however that as soon as He did so, they went wrong. Almost from the beginning, they went a-whoring. God tells them to stay home with their own wives. Instead, we constantly find them shacked up and bedded down with strange women, and the Lord is furious.

Abraham cohabited with Hagar, an Egyptian. Joseph married Asenath, another Egyptian. Moses married Zipporah, a Midianite. David’s mother was a Moabite. His wife was a princess of Geshur. Solomon had hundreds of “strange women.” How he could stand on his feet unaided I don’t know, but an army of “polluted” infants must have flowed from those unions with Ammonite, Hittite, Zidonian and Edomite women. Ruth was another Moabitess, which means that even the earthly antecedents of Jesus Christ were not kosher. So who were the children of Israel? When were they pure enough? If the Khazar infiltration bred the children out of existence, did not the intermarriage narrated much earlier in scripture do the same? If so, Judaism would be more a matter of what you believe and less of your DNA.

Also, the Khazars were only one recent tribe among many that converted. There were also the Falasha of Abyssinia, who are black; the Chinese Jews of Kai-Feng, who look Chinese; the dark olive Yemenite Jews; and the Jewish Berber tribes of the Sahara, who look like Tuaregs. Who is Jewish? Who is not?

But now here comes the big surprise. According to Koestler, the Khazars do not deserve the opprobrium they get; on the contrary, they should be saluted. By now you certainly know that the French saved western civilization in 732, when

Charles Martel, “the Hammer,” and his Frankish knights finally defeated the invading Muslims pouring through the Pyrenees from conquered Spain.

Did you also know that at just about the same time, the Khazars were saving western civilization by defeating the Muslims pouring through the Caucasus? Had the Khazars failed, the probability is great that today you would be talking Arabic. Koestler quotes as follows Professor Douglas Dunlop of Columbia University, a leading authority on the Khazars:

“The Khazar country . . . lay across the natural line of advance of the Arabs. Within a few years of the death of Muhammad (AD 632) the armies of the Caliphate, sweeping northward through the wreckage of two empires and carrying all before them, reached the great mountain barrier of the Caucasus. . . . The wars of the Arabs and the Khazars, which lasted more than a hundred years, though little known, have thus considerable historical importance. . . . The victorious Muslims were met and held by the forces of the Khazar kingdom. . . . It can . . . scarcely be doubted that but for the existence of the Khazars . . . Byzantium, the bulwark of European civilization in the east, would have found itself outflanked by the Arabs, and the history of Christendom and Islam might well have been very different from what we know.”

In fact, in 732, the same year the French beat the Muslims in the west, the future Emperor Constantine V married a Khazar princess after a resounding victory over the Arabs, and their son became Emperor Leo IV, known as Leo the Khazar. So it is not an exaggeration to say that the Khazars saved Rome and Christianity. They do not deserve the denigration of some modern commentators. Remember that I got all this from the same source these commentators use.

Now let’s look at Zionism. This is a political movement to establish a national home for Jews, or for people who call themselves “Jews,” or for Khazars; you pick one. First, consider that Zionism and Judaism are two different things. Indeed, most Zionists are not Jews. In fact, it would not be far afield to say that only a small minority of Zionists are Jews.

What? Where did I get that? Presumably the Jews in Israel are Zionists, or they would leave. But there are only a few million Israelis. In the United States, there are scores of millions of Christians in mainline churches who are Zionists and who support Israel as staunchly as any Israeli, with funds as well as prayer. Their support emanates from prophecy, which you may or may not endorse, but it has helped Israel survive.

Second, consider that tens of thousands of Jews not only are not Zionists; they fervently oppose Zionism. They believe that Zionism is condemned by Holy Scripture. For instance, go to Brooklyn in New York City if you dare. The Williamsburg section near the bridge is teeming with Hasidic Jews. These are the men in the long black coats, the white shirts without ties, the flat, black hats, the beards and long curly sideburns they are forbidden to cut. Probably to a man, these tens of thousands of Jews strongly oppose Zionism, and they have wives.

I suppose if you are stupid you could try to build a case that these teeming Jews are “anti-semites.” My guess is that before you get back across the bridge into Manhattan and safety, you would be hit upside the head with a slab of gefilte fish or a matzo. Meanwhile, be back here next week for more about Zionism, Communism and American policy.