History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume I (of 3)

m the east, from the Caucasus and the Caspian region, came rushing along in the same direction. We refer to the Khazars, or Kazars.[6] Forming originally a conglomerate of Finno-Turkish tribes, the w

on, the Byzantine colonies on the Black and Azov Seas, and, in particular, the flourishing region of Tauris. At the mouth of the Volga, where the mighty river joins the Caspian Sea, near the present city of Astrakhan, arose the kingdom of the

or khagans, of the Khazars, checking their unbridled energy by means of concessions and the payment of tribute. In Constantinople the illusion was fostered that the Church, and with it Byzantine diplomacy, were in the end bound to triumph over all the Khazars-by converting them to Christianity. With this purpose in

eading in Byzantium, and Judaism, which, headed by the Exilarchs and Gaons of Babylonia, was centered in the Caliphate, while its ramifications spread all over the Empire of Byzantium and its colonies on the Black Sea. The A

740, is described circumstantially in the traditions preserved am

d in his presence, but he failed to carry away any definite conviction from their arguments and mutual refutations. Thereupon the King invited first the Christian and then the Mohammedan, and questioned them separately. On asking the former which religion he thought was the better of the two, Judaism or Mohammedanism, he received the reply: Judaism, since it is the older of the two, and the basis of all religions.[7] On asking the Moh

ous adherent of Judaism. He invited-possibly from Babylonia-many Jewish sages to his country, to instruc

le number of pagans still survived. In spite of the fact that royalty and nobility professed Judaism, the principle of religious equality was never violated. The khagan had under him seven (according to another version, nine) judges: two for the followers of the Jewish religion, two each for the Christians and Mohammedans, and one for the pagans-the Slavs, the Russians, and other races. Only occasionally did the Khazar king show signs of intolerance, particularly when rumors concerning Jewish

Ibn Khordadbeh, an Arabic geographer of the ninth century, Jewish merchants, who were able to speak the principal Asiatic and European languages, "traveled from West to East and from East to West, on sea and by land." The land route led from Persia and the Caucasus "through the country of the Slavs, near the capital of the Khazars" (the mouth of the Volga), by

forcibly converted to Christianity, while hundreds of Jewish communities were devastated. The Jewish emigrants from Byzantium were naturally attracted towards a land in which Judaism was the rel

ant faith of the country since the time of the Caliph Harun ar-Rashid. Many Jews who settled among the Khazars came from all the cities of the Moslems and the lands of Rum (Byzantium), the reason be

stence of a land somewhere beyond the seas where a Jew sat on the throne, and Judaism was the religion of the state, filled Hasdai with joy. Firmly convinced that he had found the clue to the lost Jewish kingdom of which popular Jewish tradition had so much to tell, the Jewish statesman at the Moslem court felt the burning need of getting in touch with the rulers of Khazaria, and, in case the rumors should prove correct, of transferring his abode thither and devoting his powers of statesmanship to his fellow

the King of the Khazars to inform him in detail of the rise and present status of "the Jewish kingdom," being anxious to

is servants, and the tranquillity of the remnant of Israel.... Having been cast down from our former glory, and now living in exile, we are powerless to answer those who constantly say unto us: "Every nation hath its own kingdom, while you have no trace [of a kingdom] on earth." But when we received the news about our lord and soverei

professed by it. He describes how King Bulan and his princes embraced the Jewish faith after testing the various rival creeds, and how zealously it was upheld by the Kings Obadiah, Hez

lgar, Suvar, Arisu, Tzarmis, Venentit, Sever, Slaviun.[10] Each of these nations is very numerous, and all of them are tributary to me. From there the boundary turns towards Buarezm [probably Khwarism], up to Jorjan, and all the inhabitants of the sea-shore, for a distance of one month's journey, are tributary to me. To the south are found Semender, Bak-Tadlud, up to the gates of Bab al-Abw

f the Ishmaelites as far as Bagdad.... Our eyes are [turned] to God and to the wise men of Israel who preside over the academies of Jerusalem and Babylon. We are far away from Zion, but it has come to our ears that, on account of our sins, the calculations [concerning the coming of the Messiah] have become confused, so that we know nothing. May it please the Lord to act for the sake of His great Name. May the destruction of His temple, and the cutting off of the holy service, and the misf

entury, when this correspondence was brought to light by Spanish exiles who had made their way to Constantinople, than the state of mind of a Spanish dignitary or a Khazar king of the tenth century. However, th

ere speedily realized. A few years later the Slavonian tribes, who had in the meantime been united under the leadership of Russian princes, not only threw off the yoke of the Khazars, whose vassals they were, but also succeeded in invading and finally destroying their center at the mouth of the Volga. Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev

ns and Byzantines (1016). The relatives of the last khagan fled, according to tradition, to their coreligionists in Spain. The Khazar nation was scattered, and was subsequently lost among t

ruled over the Tauris region after the downfall of the Khazars, failed to uproot the ancient traditions, and as late as the twelfth century the name Khazaria meets us in contemporary documents. About the year 1175 the traveler Pethahiah of Ratisbon visited "the land of the Kedars and that of the Khazars, which are separated from each other by a sea tongue," meaning the continental part of Tauris, where the nomadic Polovtzis (Kedars) were roaming about, an