What Has a Map of the Khazar Empire to Do with "Palestine"?

If you visit this site, you'll observe a list of maps of Palestine.

And at the bottom you can see one of the Khazarian Empire:

Background:

In 1976, Arthur Koestler...in The Thirteenth Tribe, argued that most Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazars, a Central Asian people who ruled a large kingdom on the Black Sea and apparently converted to Judaism in the 8th century. This hypothesis has been taken up more recently by Shlomo Sand in a book called The Invention of the Jewish People. Koestler, one of the oddest and most extraordinary public intellectuals of the 20th century, wanted to weaken anti-Semitism by demonstrating that many Jews weren’t Semites at all. Sand, a self-avowed post-Zionist who teaches at Tel Aviv University, is apparently driven by the desire to prove that Ashkenazi Israelis are interlopers in the Middle East. 

An anti-Semitic canard, it has been going through yet another revival.

Al Jazeera and many other Arabs believe it as it would justify their claim of European Jews being a foreign entity as it is for Russian nationalists, a:

pretext for arguing that Jewish intrigues and dominance were to be found from the very beginning of Russian history. In this context the term “Khazars” became popular as a euphemism for the so-called “Jewish occupation regime.”

That's why you will read of pro-Palestine propagandists demanding Jews of Israel 'go back to Europe'. 

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Sand Is Throwing Sand In Our Eyes

Some people, including antisemities who visit this blog, are in love with forms of the Khazarian Principle, i.e., the Jews of today are not be identified with the Jews, if they were Jews, who populated Biblical Land of Israel. Besides comfort for racisits, this conveniently permits them to claim that antisemitism isn't hatred of Jews; the Arabs are Semites; the Arabs own the Land of Israel. Or something like that.

I received this from Shalem:

Anita Shapira, head of the Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism at Tel Aviv University, has sharply criticized fellow TAU historian Shlomo Sand’s (History) bestselling book, When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?

“Sand bases his arguments on the most esoteric and controversial interpretations” she writes, “while seeking to undermine the credibility of important scholars by dismissing their conclusions without bringing any evidence to bear…Sand would like to promote a new Israeli agenda, striving for harmony between Jews and Arabs, to be based on the remodeling of Jewish identity…but reconciliation between peoples makes necessary a mutual recognition of truth, not an artificial analysis that presents a fabricated front…What Sand is offering is this kind of artificial analysis.”

Read her words here.

Follow-up To The "Obama's Rabbi" Story

Letters: Obama’s Rabbi

Zev Chafets provided a joyful read about visiting Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago (April 5). As a regular Shabbat service attendee, I have visited a wide array of synagogues in my frequent travels. A snowy Saturday last December led me to a synagogue, where Rabbi Capers Funnye officiates. The shul was recommended to me by members of a large, mainly African-American congregation in northwest Philadelphia, Temple Beth’El.

On that cold Shabbat morning in Chicago, a gust of wind pushed the door open and a member of Funnye’s congregation warmly welcomed me with “Shabbat Shalom,” helped me off with my snow-covered coat and politely gave me a familiar Siddur. I was prepared for the four-hour service and was honored “as a visitor” at the large kiddush after services. Perhaps you thought it appropriate to title the article “Obama’s Rabbi,” but it could just as easily have been “A Welcoming Synagogue in (Obama’s) America.” Since color is a theme in your article, I should add that I am a white Jewish man with a trimmed salt-and-pepper beard.

JOEL GLAZIER
Wilmington, Del.

Capers Funnye is a knowledgeable, committed Jew and, as an Obama relative, has exceptional yichus. But he is just one of many, most of them white, who call themselves “rabbi” despite lacking the requisite training and credentials. One does not become a “physician” by serving as a medical corpsman, no matter how skilled, nor does a foreign national become a “U.S. citizen” by living in and being loyal to America. When he obtains proper ordination, just as he underwent legitimate conversion, I will be delighted to welcome him as a rabbinic colleague. Until then, I can only embrace him as a fellow Jew.

RABBI RICHARD A. BLOCK
Beachwood, Ohio

Your article on Rabbi Capers Funnye seems to gloss over the whole Black Hebrew Israelite movement. Based on your article, Funnye seems like a decent guy, but Zev Chafets doesn’t come close to explaining why the world’s Jewish community might be unwelcoming or suspicious of his movement.

Chafets briefly touches on its roots when mentioning William Saunders Crowdy and Wentworth Matthew. There are extreme Black Israelite groups that espouse a theology that is a kind of color-reversed version of the religion of white-supremacist Christian Identity groups, believing that blacks are the true Hebrews and rightful heirs to Israel and whites are evil. The neo-Nazi Tom Metzger, leader of White Aryan Resistance, has said of such black supremacist groups, “They’re the black counterpart of us.”

It seems to me that Funnye represents his own congregation. If he were to say that he represented the Black Israelite movement and its many splinter groups, then the world Jewish community should reject him and the movement.

HOLLY ROTHKOPF
New York City

I can’t dismiss the belief that many white Jews are descended not from the ancient Israelites but from the Khazars, a tribe of Turkic nomads who, according to legend, converted to Judaism in the eighth or ninth century.

Any interested reader should consult the Catholic and both the older and the newer Jewish encyclopedias on this subject. They will find documentation from even Jewish scholars to indicate the Khazar story may be more than a myth.

JAMES D. MCINTYRE
Avenel, N.J.

(Is McIntyre perhaps a myth? There's always a judeaphobe somewhere. He may be referring to this. I'll go with this: "Are all Jews around the world descended from the Khazars? Certainly not. East European Jewish ancestry originates substantially from ancient Judea, and the same is true of most other modern Jewish populations (with the exception of groups like Libyan Jews and Ethiopian Jews). But, it is rational to conclude that some Jews also have some Khazar ancestors".)

When I read (quite a few months ago) that Michelle Obama has a cousin who is a rabbi, I was pleasantly surprised. I hadn’t read much more about Rabbi Capers Funnye until the article in The New York Times Magazine.

This time it wasn’t pleasant. A friend of Louis Farrakhan? How can that be? The same Farrakhan that refers to Jews as “satanic” and whose aide used the expression “so-called Holocaust.” How does he explain this to his congregation? Perhaps the rabbi should be looking for some new friends to hang around with.

SUSAN KESSELL
New City, N.Y.