The Thirteenth Tribe The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage

Koestler, Arthur

ISBN 10 : 4871876586 ISBN 13 : 9784871876582

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

The Thirteenth Tribe is a ground breaking work of great importance, if only because it has shaped the way that people think about The Jews. It is based on the theory that European Jews, Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, are not descendants of Abraham but rather are the remnants of a tribe, the Khazars, that converted to Judaism in the Eighth Century. We know little about the Khazars, but we do know for certain that they existed and that they were Jewish. The Jews, Russians, Georgians and Armenians all wrote about the Khazars, but the Khazars left no literature, no books. This was perhaps because the Khazars existed during the Dark Ages, a period from which few books survive today. Koestler's thesis is that while the Khazars as a unified tribe may have disappeared, their descendants survived, only that they were no longer known as the Khazars. Instead, these people are now Eastern European Jews and they continue to live in the same places where the Khazars lived such as in Kiev and Odessa. The view of Arthur Koestler who himself was Jewish is that none of the mass movements of the Jewish people happened at all. Rather, the Jews stayed in exactly the same place where they have been all along because the Eastern European Jews are the Khazars. They are the same people. Just their name has been changed. Which is more logical: The Traditional Jewish view or Arthur Koestler's theory?

Biographie de l'auteur :

Arthur Koestler was born a Jew in Budapest, Hungary on 5 September 1905. Like many Jews, he did not follow the religion or believe in it. He was equally fluent in Hungarian and German. He later lived in Palestine for five years and learned Hebrew and Yiddish. He wrote more than forty books. By far the most famous book and the only one really remembered is The Thirteenth Tribe. He said that he wrote The Thirteenth Tribe because he "was convinced that if he could prove that the bulk of Eastern European Jews (the ancestors of today's Ashkenazim) were descended from the Khazars, the racial basis for anti-Semitism would be removed and anti-Semitism itself could disappear". The book however has had the opposite effect. The book has been used by opponents of Judaism argue that most Jews are not really Jews and thus have no right to the land of Israel. On the other hand, non-religious Jews have accepted it. Arthur Koestler committed suicide on 3 March 1983 in London because he was suffering with a terminal case of Parkinson's Disease.

À propos de cette édition

• ISBN 10: 4871876586
• ISBN 13: 9784871876582
• Reliure: Impression à la demande