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The Thirteenth Tribe (1976) is a book by Arthur Koestler. It advances the controversial thesis that North/East European Jews and their descendants, or Ashkenazim, are not descended from the Israelites of antiquity, but from a group of Khazars, a people originating in the Caucasus region (historical Khazaria) who converted to Judaism in the 8th century and were later forced to move westwards into current Eastern Europe (Russia, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, and other places). Koestler stated that part of his intent in writing the book was to defuse anti-Semitism by undermining the identification of European Jews with the Jews of the Bible, rendering anti-Semitic epithets such as "Christ killer" inapplicable. Arthur Koestler himself was a Hungarian Ashkenazi Jew by ancestry.

Koestler himself was sympathetic to Zionism on secular considerations, and 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, "The problem of the Khazar infusion a thousand years ago ... is irrelevant to modern Israel". In addition, he was apparently "either unaware of or oblivious to the use anti-Semites had made to the Khazar theory since its introduction at the turn of the century." Nevertheless, in the Arab world the Khazar theory has been adopted by anti-Zionists and anti-Semites; such proponents argue 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 God's Biblical promise of Canaan to the Israelites, thus undermining the theological basis of both Jewish religious Zionists and Christian Zionists. In the West, Koestler's thesis has also been embraced by some adherents of British Israelism and its offshoots such as the Christian Identity movement.

Criticism

Koestler's historiography has been attacked as highly questionable by many historians. It has also been pointed out that his discussion of theories about Ashkenazi descent is largely unsupported; to the extent that Koestler referred to place-names and documentary evidence his analysis has been described as a mixture of flawed etymologies and misinterpreted primary sources. Commentators have also noted that Koestler mischaracterized the sources he cited, particularly D.M. Dunlop's History of the Jewish Khazars (1954).

For example, Bernard Lewis wrote:

This theory… is supported by no evidence whatsoever. It has long since been abandoned by all serious scholars in the field, including those in Arab countries, where the Khazar theory is little used except in occasional political polemics.

Notes

1. Koestler, p. 223.
2. Barkun, Michael, Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement, UNC Press, ISBN 0807846384, pp. 144-145.
3. ^ Lewis, Bernard. Semites and Anti-Semites, W.W. Norton and Company, ISBN 0-393-31839-7, p. 48.
4. "Arab anti-Semitism might have been expected to be free from the idea of racial odium, since Jews and Arabs are both regarded by race theory as Semites, but the odium is directed, not against the Semitic race, but against the Jews as a historical group. The main idea is that the Jews, racially, are a mongrel community, most of them being not Semites, but of Khazar and European origin." Yehoshafat Harkabi, "Contemporary Arab Anti-Semitism: its Causes and Roots", in Helen Fein, The Persisting Question: Sociological Perspectives and Social Contexts of Modern Antisemitism, Walter de Gruyter, 1987, ISBN 311010170X, p. 424.
5. Plaut, Steven. "The Khazar Myth and the New Anti-Semitism", The Jewish Press, May 9, 2007
6. E.g., Abramsky, Chimen. "The Khazar Myth." Jewish Chronicle (April 9, 1976): 19; Maccoby, Hyam. "Koestler's Racism." Midstream 23 (March 1977).
7. McInnes, Neil. "Koestler and His Jewish Thesis." National Interest. Fall 1999.

v t e Khazaria
Byzantium Bulgaria Abbasids Arab–Khazar wars Kipchaks Meshchera Pax Khazarica Radhanites Rus' Volga trade route Dnieper trade route
Khazar rulers	Irbis Busir Bihar Parsbit Zachariah Bulan Obadiah Hezekiah Manasseh I Hanukkah Isaac Zebulun Manasseh II Nisi Aaron I Menahem Benjamin Aaron II Joseph David George
Other figures	Alp Iluetuer Alp Tarkhan Balgitzin Barjik Bulchan Hazer Tarkhan HLGW John of Gothia Leo IV Papatzys Pesakh Ras Tarkhan Serach Sfengus Sviatoslav Theodora Tzitzak Yitzhak ha-Sangari
Places	Atil Azaq Balanjar Bar Chersonesus Dagestan Güsliyev Golden Hills Kaffa Kavkaz Kazarki Kerch Kerem Khazaran Khumar Levedia Saltovo-Mayaki Samandar Sambalut Sambat Samiran Samosdelka Saqsin Sarkel Semikarakorsk Fortress Sudak Taman Tamatarkha
Tributaries	Abkhazians Alans Arsiyah Baranjars Barsils Bashkirs Black Klobuks Burtas Crimean Goths Cumans East Slavs Huns Juhuri Kabars Kipchaks Kumyks Kassogs Laz people Lezgins Magyars Mordvins Oghuz Onogurs Pechenegs Sabirs Sarir Uralics Volga Bulgaria
Scholars	Mikhail Artamonov Vasily Bartold D.M. Dunlop Norman Golb Peter B. Golden Lev Gumilev Alexander Harkavy Thomas S. Noonan Svetlana Pletnyova Omeljan Pritsak
Legacy	Khazar Correspondence Khazar language Khazar ancestry claims Ashkenazi Cossacks Crimean Karaites Subbotniks Jewish Cossacks Khazars in fiction Kuzari Kievan Letter Mandgelis Document Red Jews Schechter Letter
Category

• Books by Arthur Koestler
• 1976 books
• European history books
• Jewish history books
• Ashkenazi Jews topics
• Khazar studies
• Pseudohistory
• Jews and Judaism-related controversies