The Thirteenth Tribe
Encyclopedia
The Thirteenth Tribe is a book by Arthur Koestler
, which advances the thesis that Ashkenazi Jews
are not descended from the historical Israelite
s of antiquity, but from Khazars
, a Turkic people
. Koestler's hypothesis is that the Khazars converted to Judaism
in the 8th century, and migrated westwards into Eastern Europe
in the 12th and 13th centuries when the Khazar Empire was collapsing.
Koestler used previous works by Abraham Poliak, Raphael Patai
and Douglas Morton Dunlop
as sources. His stated intent was to make antisemitism disappear by disproving its racial basis.
Popular reviews of the book were mixed, academic critiques of its research were generally negative, and Koestler biographers David Cesarani
and Michael Scammell
panned it. Modern genetic research does not support Koestler's thesis that Ashkenazi Jews descend primarily from Khazars.
are not descended from the historical Israelite
s of antiquity, but from Khazars
, a Turkic people
originating in and populating an empire north of and between the Black Sea
and Caspian Sea
. Koestler's hypothesis is that the Khazars converted to Judaism
in the 8th century, and migrated westwards into current Eastern Europe
(primarily Ukraine
, Poland
, Belarus
, Lithuania
, Hungary
and Germany
) in the 12th and 13th centuries when the Khazar Empire was collapsing.
At the end of the book's last chapter, Koestler summarizes its content and his intentions as follows: "In Part One of this book I have attempted to trace the history of the Khazar Empire based on the scant existing sources. In Part Two, Chapters V-VII, I have compiled the historical evidence which indicates that the bulk of Eastern Jewry — and hence of world Jewry — is of Khazar-Turkish, rather than Semitic, origin. In the last chapter I have tried to show that the evidence from anthropology concurs with history in refuting the popular belief in a Jewish race descended from the biblical tribe."
writes that Koestler's thesis is "partly based on amateur anthropology", and its scientific arguments come from The Myth of a Jewish Race (1975) by Raphael Patai
and his daughter Jennifer. It also relies on the work of earlier historians, particularly Russian-Israeli historian Abraham Poliak's Hebrew book Khazaria: Toledot mamlakhah yehudit (1951), and the History of the Jewish Khazars (1954) by Douglas Morton Dunlop
, the author who Koestler himself describes as a main source. Neil McInnes writes that Dunlop was, however, "much more tentative" in his conclusions, as were other historians of Khazars, including Peter Golden
and Moses Shulvass. Golden himself described the book as "controversial", stating it contained "sweeping claims of Khazar legacy and influence".
writes that Koestler told French biologist Pierre Debray-Ritzen 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". According to George Urban
, Koestler's desire to connect Ashkenazi Jews with Khazars was "based on a tacit belief that the intellectual brilliance of and international influence of Hungarians and Jews, especially Hungarian Jews or Jewish-Hungarians, was due to some unexplained but clearly ancient affinity between the two peoples".
, Shlomo Sand
, historian of cinema, French intellectual history, and nationalism at Tel Aviv University, writes "while the Khazars scared off the Israeli historians, not one of whom has published a single paper on the subject, Koestler's Thirteenth Tribe annoyed and provoked angry responses. Hebrew readers had no access to the book itself for many years, learning about it only through the venomous denunciations". Writing in The Wall Street Journal
, Chronicle of Higher Education
editor Evan Goldstein states "Sand suggests that those who attacked Koestler's book did so not because it lacked merit, but because the critics were cowards and ideologues. 'No one wants to go looking under stones when venomous scorpions might be lurking beneath them, waiting to attack the self-image of the existing ethnos and its territorial ambitions.'"
In the Arab world the theory espoused in Koestler's book was adopted by persons who argued that if Ashkenazi Jews are primarily Khazar and not Semitic in origin, they would have no historical claim to Israel, nor would they be the subject of the Biblical
promise of Canaan
to the Israelite
s, thus undermining the theological basis of both Jewish religious Zionists
and Christian Zionists
. The Saudi Arabian delegate to the United Nations argued that Koestler's theory "negated Israel's right to exist". Koestler did not see alleged Khazar ancestry as diminishing the claim of Jews to Israel, which he felt was based on the United Nations mandate and not on Biblical covenants or genetic inheritance. In his view, "[t]he problem of the Khazar infusion a thousand years ago... is irrelevant to modern Israel."
Koestler's book was praised by the neo-Nazi magazine The Thunderbolt as "the political bombshell of the century", and it was enthusiastically supported by followers of the Christian Identity
movement. According to Jeffery Kaplan, The Thirteenth Tribe was "Identity's primary source for the Khazar theory"; they felt Koestler's book confirmed their own beliefs regarding Jews, and sold it "through their mail order
services". Goldstein writes that "... Koestler and the Khazar theory he advanced lives on in the fever swamps of the white nationalist movement". Michael Barkun
writes that Koestler was apparently "either unaware of or oblivious to the use anti-Semites had made of the Khazar theory since its introduction at the turn of the century."
called The Thirteenth Tribe excellent, writing "Mr. Koestler's book is as readable as it is thought-provoking. Nothing could be more stimulating than the skill, elegance and erudition with which he marshals his facts and develops his theories." Reviewing the work in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
in 1991, journalist and author Grace Halsell described it as a "carefully researched book" that "refutes the idea of a Jewish 'race'."
Despite some positive reviews in the press, James A. Beverley writes "When The Thirteenth Tribe was released, the academic critique of its research was prompt, public, and generally negative", and Evan Goldstein states that it was "savaged by critics". An August 1976 review in Time magazine
described Koestler's theory as "all too facile, despite the obvious effort and time the author spent on his study", and stated that "Koestler offers a blizzard of information but not enough hard facts to support his thesis". A November 1976 review in National Review
stated that the work had "neither the value of a well-executed honest piece of scholarship nor the emotional appeal of a polemic – only the earmarks of a poorly researched and hastily written book". Koestler's analysis was described as a mixture of flawed etymologies and misinterpreted primary sources by Chimen Abramsky in 1976 and Hyam Maccoby
in 1977.
Barkun describes the book as an "eccentric work", and writes that Koestler was "unequipped with the specialist background the subject might be thought to require", but that he "nevertheless made an amateur's serious attempt to investigate and support the theory." Professor of Polish-Jewish history
Gershon D. Hundert wrote in 2006 "There is no evidence to support the theory that the ancestors of Polish Jewry were Jews who came from the Crimean Jewish kingdom of Khazaria", describing Koestler as the "best-known advocate" of the theory. In 2009, Jeffrey Goldberg
said the the book was "a combination of discredited and forgotten".
Koestler biographers have also been critical of the work. In Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind (1998), David Cesarani
states it makes "selective use of facts for a grossly polemical end" and is "risible as scholarship". In Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic (2009), Michael Scammell
writes that Koestler's theory "was almost entirely hypothetical and based on the slenderest of circumstantial evidence", and takes the book as evidence that Koestler's brain "was starting to fail him".
are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to the populations among whom they lived in Europe. However, 11.5% of male Ashkenazim were found to belong to R-M17
, the dominant Y chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europeans, suggesting possible gene flow. Referencing The Thirteenth Tribe, the study's authors note that "Some authors argue that after the fall of their kingdom in the second half of the 10th century CE, the Khazar converts were absorbed by the emerging Ashkenazi Jewish community in Eastern Europe." They conclude "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".
Writing in Science
, Michael Balter states Koestler's thesis "clash[es] with several recent studies suggesting that Jewishness, including the Ashkenazi version, has deep genetic roots." He refers to a 2010 study by geneticist Harry Ostrer
which found that Ashkenazi Jews "clustered more closely with Middle Eastern and Sephardic Jews, a finding the researchers say is inconsistent with the Khazar hypothesis" and concludes "that all three Jewish groups—Middle Eastern, Sephardic, and Ashkenazi—share genomewide genetic markers that distinguish them from other worldwide populations". Geneticist Noah Rosenberg
asserts that although recent DNA studies "do not appear to support" the Khazar hypothesis, they do not "entirely eliminate it either."
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
, which advances the thesis that Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
are not descended from the historical Israelite
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
s of antiquity, but from Khazars
Khazars
The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...
, a Turkic people
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
. Koestler's hypothesis is that the Khazars converted to Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
in the 8th century, and migrated westwards into Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
in the 12th and 13th centuries when the Khazar Empire was collapsing.
Koestler used previous works by Abraham Poliak, Raphael Patai
Raphael Patai
Raphael Patai , born Ervin György Patai, was a Hungarian-Jewish ethnographer, historian, Orientalist and anthropologist.-Family background:...
and Douglas Morton Dunlop
Douglas Morton Dunlop
Douglas Morton Dunlop was a renowned British orientalist and scholar of Islamic and Eurasian history.-Early life and education:Born in England, Dunlop studied at Bonn and Oxford under the historian Paul Eric Kahle...
as sources. His stated intent was to make antisemitism disappear by disproving its racial basis.
Popular reviews of the book were mixed, academic critiques of its research were generally negative, and Koestler biographers David Cesarani
David Cesarani
David Cesarani OBE is an English historian who specialises in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust. He has also written several biographies, notably Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind.-Early life:...
and Michael Scammell
Michael Scammell
Michael Scammell is an English author, biographer and translator of Slavic literature.-Life:He was educated at the University of Nottingham, and obtained a doctorate at Columbia University where he is currently a professor of writing....
panned it. Modern genetic research does not support Koestler's thesis that Ashkenazi Jews descend primarily from Khazars.
Contents
In the book, Koestler advances the thesis that Ashkenazi JewsAshkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
are not descended from the historical Israelite
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
s of antiquity, but from Khazars
Khazars
The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...
, a Turkic people
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
originating in and populating an empire north of and between the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
and Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
. Koestler's hypothesis is that the Khazars converted to Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
in the 8th century, and migrated westwards into current Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
(primarily Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
) in the 12th and 13th centuries when the Khazar Empire was collapsing.
At the end of the book's last chapter, Koestler summarizes its content and his intentions as follows: "In Part One of this book I have attempted to trace the history of the Khazar Empire based on the scant existing sources. In Part Two, Chapters V-VII, I have compiled the historical evidence which indicates that the bulk of Eastern Jewry — and hence of world Jewry — is of Khazar-Turkish, rather than Semitic, origin. In the last chapter I have tried to show that the evidence from anthropology concurs with history in refuting the popular belief in a Jewish race descended from the biblical tribe."
Sources
Mattias GardellMattias Gardell
Hans Bertil Mattias Gardell is a Swedish scholar of comparative religion. He is the current holder of the Nathan Söderblom Chair of Comparative Religion at Uppsala University, Sweden....
writes that Koestler's thesis is "partly based on amateur anthropology", and its scientific arguments come from The Myth of a Jewish Race (1975) by Raphael Patai
Raphael Patai
Raphael Patai , born Ervin György Patai, was a Hungarian-Jewish ethnographer, historian, Orientalist and anthropologist.-Family background:...
and his daughter Jennifer. It also relies on the work of earlier historians, particularly Russian-Israeli historian Abraham Poliak's Hebrew book Khazaria: Toledot mamlakhah yehudit (1951), and the History of the Jewish Khazars (1954) by Douglas Morton Dunlop
Douglas Morton Dunlop
Douglas Morton Dunlop was a renowned British orientalist and scholar of Islamic and Eurasian history.-Early life and education:Born in England, Dunlop studied at Bonn and Oxford under the historian Paul Eric Kahle...
, the author who Koestler himself describes as a main source. Neil McInnes writes that Dunlop was, however, "much more tentative" in his conclusions, as were other historians of Khazars, including Peter Golden
Peter Benjamin Golden
Peter Benjamin Golden is Professor of History at Rutgers University. He earned his bachelors degree from CUNY Queens College in 1963 and his M.A. and PhD in History from Columbia University in 1968 and 1970, respectively...
and Moses Shulvass. Golden himself described the book as "controversial", stating it contained "sweeping claims of Khazar legacy and influence".
Koestler's reason for writing it
Koestler biographer Michael ScammellMichael Scammell
Michael Scammell is an English author, biographer and translator of Slavic literature.-Life:He was educated at the University of Nottingham, and obtained a doctorate at Columbia University where he is currently a professor of writing....
writes that Koestler told French biologist Pierre Debray-Ritzen 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". According to George Urban
George Urban
George Robert Urban was a Hungarian writer, best known as a broadcaster for Radio Free Europe ....
, Koestler's desire to connect Ashkenazi Jews with Khazars was "based on a tacit belief that the intellectual brilliance of and international influence of Hungarians and Jews, especially Hungarian Jews or Jewish-Hungarians, was due to some unexplained but clearly ancient affinity between the two peoples".
Reception
In The Invention of the Jewish PeopleThe Invention of the Jewish People
The Invention of the Jewish People is a study of the historiography of the Jewish people by Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University. It has generated a heated controversy....
, Shlomo Sand
Shlomo Sand
Shlomo Sand is professor of history at Tel Aviv University and author of the controversial book The Invention of the Jewish People . His main areas of interest are nationalism, film as history, and French intellectual history.- Biography :Sand was born in Linz, Austria, to Polish Jewish survivors...
, historian of cinema, French intellectual history, and nationalism at Tel Aviv University, writes "while the Khazars scared off the Israeli historians, not one of whom has published a single paper on the subject, Koestler's Thirteenth Tribe annoyed and provoked angry responses. Hebrew readers had no access to the book itself for many years, learning about it only through the venomous denunciations". Writing in The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....
editor Evan Goldstein states "Sand suggests that those who attacked Koestler's book did so not because it lacked merit, but because the critics were cowards and ideologues. 'No one wants to go looking under stones when venomous scorpions might be lurking beneath them, waiting to attack the self-image of the existing ethnos and its territorial ambitions.'"
In the Arab world the theory espoused in Koestler's book was adopted by persons who argued that if Ashkenazi Jews are primarily Khazar and not Semitic in origin, they would have no historical claim to Israel, nor would they be the subject of the Biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
promise of Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
to the Israelite
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
s, thus undermining the theological basis of both Jewish religious Zionists
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...
and Christian Zionists
Christian Zionism
Christian Zionism is a belief among some Christians that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is in accordance with Biblical prophecy. It overlaps with, but is distinct from, the nineteenth century movement for the Restoration of the Jews...
. The Saudi Arabian delegate to the United Nations argued that Koestler's theory "negated Israel's right to exist". Koestler did not see alleged Khazar ancestry as diminishing the claim of Jews to Israel, which he felt was based on the United Nations mandate and not on Biblical covenants or genetic inheritance. In his view, "[t]he problem of the Khazar infusion a thousand years ago... is irrelevant to modern Israel."
Koestler's book was praised by the neo-Nazi magazine The Thunderbolt as "the political bombshell of the century", and it was enthusiastically supported by followers of the Christian Identity
Christian Identity
Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a racialized theology. Many promote a Eurocentric interpretation of Christianity.According to Chester L...
movement. According to Jeffery Kaplan, The Thirteenth Tribe was "Identity's primary source for the Khazar theory"; they felt Koestler's book confirmed their own beliefs regarding Jews, and sold it "through their mail order
Mail order
Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote method such as through a telephone call or web site. Then, the products are delivered to the customer...
services". Goldstein writes that "... Koestler and the Khazar theory he advanced lives on in the fever swamps of the white nationalist movement". Michael Barkun
Michael Barkun
Michael Barkun is professor emeritus of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, specializing in political extremism and the relationship between religion and violence...
writes that Koestler was apparently "either unaware of or oblivious to the use anti-Semites had made of the Khazar theory since its introduction at the turn of the century."
Assessment
After it was first published, Fitzroy Maclean in The New York Times Book ReviewThe New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
called The Thirteenth Tribe excellent, writing "Mr. Koestler's book is as readable as it is thought-provoking. Nothing could be more stimulating than the skill, elegance and erudition with which he marshals his facts and develops his theories." Reviewing the work in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine, published nine times per year in Washington, D.C., focuses on "news and analysis from and about the Middle East and U.S...
in 1991, journalist and author Grace Halsell described it as a "carefully researched book" that "refutes the idea of a Jewish 'race'."
Despite some positive reviews in the press, James A. Beverley writes "When The Thirteenth Tribe was released, the academic critique of its research was prompt, public, and generally negative", and Evan Goldstein states that it was "savaged by critics". An August 1976 review in Time magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
described Koestler's theory as "all too facile, despite the obvious effort and time the author spent on his study", and stated that "Koestler offers a blizzard of information but not enough hard facts to support his thesis". A November 1976 review in National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
stated that the work had "neither the value of a well-executed honest piece of scholarship nor the emotional appeal of a polemic – only the earmarks of a poorly researched and hastily written book". Koestler's analysis was described as a mixture of flawed etymologies and misinterpreted primary sources by Chimen Abramsky in 1976 and Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby was a British Jewish scholar and dramatist specializing in the study of the Jewish and Christian religious tradition. His grandfather and namesake was Rabbi Hyam Maccoby , better known as the "Kamenitzer Maggid," a passionate religious Zionist and advocate of vegetarianism and animal...
in 1977.
Barkun describes the book as an "eccentric work", and writes that Koestler was "unequipped with the specialist background the subject might be thought to require", but that he "nevertheless made an amateur's serious attempt to investigate and support the theory." Professor of Polish-Jewish history
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
Gershon D. Hundert wrote in 2006 "There is no evidence to support the theory that the ancestors of Polish Jewry were Jews who came from the Crimean Jewish kingdom of Khazaria", describing Koestler as the "best-known advocate" of the theory. In 2009, Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American journalist. He is an author and a staff writer for The Atlantic, having previously worked for The New Yorker. Goldberg writes principally on foreign affairs, with a focus on the Middle East and Africa...
said the the book was "a combination of discredited and forgotten".
Koestler biographers have also been critical of the work. In Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind (1998), David Cesarani
David Cesarani
David Cesarani OBE is an English historian who specialises in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust. He has also written several biographies, notably Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind.-Early life:...
states it makes "selective use of facts for a grossly polemical end" and is "risible as scholarship". In Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic (2009), Michael Scammell
Michael Scammell
Michael Scammell is an English author, biographer and translator of Slavic literature.-Life:He was educated at the University of Nottingham, and obtained a doctorate at Columbia University where he is currently a professor of writing....
writes that Koestler's theory "was almost entirely hypothetical and based on the slenderest of circumstantial evidence", and takes the book as evidence that Koestler's brain "was starting to fail him".
Genetic research
A 2005 study by Nebel et al., based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, showed that Ashkenazi JewsAshkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to the populations among whom they lived in Europe. However, 11.5% of male Ashkenazim were found to belong to R-M17
Haplogroup R1a (Y-DNA)
Haplogroup R1a is the phylogenetic name of a major clade of Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups. In other words, it is a way of grouping a significant part of all modern men according to a shared male-line ancestor. It is common in many parts of Eurasia and is frequently discussed in human...
, the dominant Y chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europeans, suggesting possible gene flow. Referencing The Thirteenth Tribe, the study's authors note that "Some authors argue that after the fall of their kingdom in the second half of the 10th century CE, the Khazar converts were absorbed by the emerging Ashkenazi Jewish community in Eastern Europe." They conclude "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".
Writing in Science
Science (magazine)
Science was a general science magazine published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science . It was intended to "bridge the distance between science and citizen", aimed at a technically literate audience who may not work professionally in the sciences...
, Michael Balter states Koestler's thesis "clash[es] with several recent studies suggesting that Jewishness, including the Ashkenazi version, has deep genetic roots." He refers to a 2010 study by geneticist Harry Ostrer
Harry Ostrer
Dr. Harry Ostrer is a geneticist known for his study, writings, and lectures about the origins of the Jewish people. He is a Professor of Pathology and Genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University and Director of Genetic and Genomic Testing at Montefiore Medical Center...
which found that Ashkenazi Jews "clustered more closely with Middle Eastern and Sephardic Jews, a finding the researchers say is inconsistent with the Khazar hypothesis" and concludes "that all three Jewish groups—Middle Eastern, Sephardic, and Ashkenazi—share genomewide genetic markers that distinguish them from other worldwide populations". Geneticist Noah Rosenberg
Noah Rosenberg
Noah Rosenberg is a geneticist working in evolutionary biology, human genetics, and population genetics, now Associate Professor at Stanford University...
asserts that although recent DNA studies "do not appear to support" the Khazar hypothesis, they do not "entirely eliminate it either."