The Thirteenth Tribe

by Arthur Koestler

Book Overview

All original edition. Nothing added, nothing removed. This book traces the history of the ancient Khazar Empire, a major but almost forgotten power in Eastern Europe, which in the Dark Ages became... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000GSZLZA
• ISBN13: 9780394402840
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Bridger House Publishers Inc
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Interesting Read

I also found this book to be quite informative and can understand that it may touch off a few issues. The interesting thing is that people would rather debunk something because of a belief system than actually READ and take to heart what the book has to reveal. It is well referenced and gives us much information concerning the issues we are facing today, how it is and will affect the world. Historically, the information is all out there, published in various places. Arthur Koestler simply brought it all together and put it into comprehensive form. If this is why he is attacked, then it's a sad statement to the conditions we are living in today.

A thought provoking book

Unlike other reviewers I found this to be a very interesting book. Despite being labeled anti-semitic by some reviewers Arthur Koestler was himself of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and proud of it. His book quotes many sources and his thesis should not be dismissed out of hand. In itself it is of historical interest to learn of the Khazar empire that ruled for several hundred years and who were a power equal to the Byzantine empire and one that stopped the Muslim onslaught against Byzantium. I can strongly encourage others to read this book and make up their own mind. Another fascinating read regarding history which deals more with the Khazars, but also historical figures such as Sargon the Great, who established the first semitic dynasty in Mesopotamia, is a book by Laura Knight-Jadczyk called "The secret history of the world".

A thought provoking book

Unlike other reviewers I found this to be a very interesting book and it appears that some of these reviewers were more interested in debunking Arthur Koestler by labelling him anti-semitic. He was himself of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and proud of it. His book quotes many sources and his thesis should not be dismissed out of hand. In itself it is of historical interest to learn of the Khazar empire that ruled for several hundred years and who were a power equal to the Byzantine empire and one that stopped the Muslim onslaught against Byzantium. I can strongly encourage others to read this book and make up their own mind.

Still a must for anyone interested in Judaism, despite recent genetic research

This book is dated but is still a masterpiece also because the subject matter is (fortunately) presented in a popularised, non academic fashion. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in getting closer to the truth regarding the origin of the vast majority of 'Jews' in the world today. These issues are however politically sensitive and this inevitably results in controversy. The commonly available theory of the origin of the Ashkenazis, or East-European Jews, is the Renanian Theory (see e.g. Wikipedia). Namely, the Ashkenazis would descend from refugees of Crusade- and Black-Death-time persecutions of 'authentic' Jews from western Germany who sought a new life in faraway Poland. However, this theory does not hold to antropomorphic considerations, considerations of numbers of refugees and size of ensuing communities in the East and, most importantly, to a lingustic analysis of the ashkenazi Yiddish language (which points rather to a Southeast-Germany, Slavic and Turkik origin of that idiom). The standard theory also does not explain most of the peculiar customs and surnames of the Ashkenazis and their historical and economical development in continuous conflict with the populace of the host countries. Koestler, following an earlier proposal by Hugo von Kutschera (1910) - but also in accordance with Jewish Encyclopedia pre-1917 articles - rekindles the Khazar Theory of the ashkenazi origins in this book. Potential readers can follow the existent reviews to learn about the details, so it suffices to state that according to this theory the bulk of the Ashkenazis would be the descendants of a turkik tribe (the medieval Khazars) who at the end of the first millenium held an important (and little mentioned) empire in Southern Russia and converted en masse to (rabbinic) Judaism for political and commercial convenience. The empire was however ephimeral and further invasions, both from the early Russians and from newcomer turko-mongol tribes from Central Asia, swept the jewish Khazars away from history (some scholars say BECAUSE of their conversion to Judaism). But did the new converts really disappear? Koestler proposes not, that these people in fact eventually turned into the Ashkenazis of Poland-Lithuania, Hungary, the Ukraine, Russia and even of Germany and Austria. Later, these 'Jews' moved to France, England, the USA, Israel, the world over. So, are the great majority of Jews really akin to the people of the Bible? Opponents of the Khazar Theory claim the jewish Khazars disappeared from history due to the onslaught of kievian Rus' and of tribes from the East: Pechenegs, Kumans (Kipchaks) and Mongols. Strange, because cartographers of Venice Polo Family's travels to Central Asia report a 'Gazaria' and a 'Cumania' in existence around 1250 after the mongol invasions. The Pope's envoy to the mongol court, Giovanni da Piano Carpini, reported encountering a jewish tribe among the constellation of peoples associated with