From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Fri Oct 24 2003 - 08:55:44 EDT
Iain Strachan wrote:
...................
> I'll second that. The implications that Ashkenazi Jews (apparently
> over 90% of todays Jews are Ashkenazim) are not Semites is potentially
> racially explosive. I looked into this using a Google search. The
> theory seems to have been popularised in Arthur Koestler's book "The
> thirteenth Tribe", namely that Askenazim are descended from the
> Khazars: a Turkish race who adopted Judaism in the 8th Century AD.
> The Khazars, then, are supposedly descended from Ashkenaz who was
> descended from Japeth. The Khazar theory is championed on a number of
> extremely dubious, and frankly racially offensive web-sites. The
> first place I found it described was from an organization called "Jews
> for Allah"; espousing the idea that there was absolutely no point in
> being a Jew any more because the vast majority are not Semites (ie
> descended from Shem) & that therefore the One True Religion has to be
> Islam (descended from Shem-...-Abraham-Ishmael). The other place
> where this theory is given prominence is at
> http://biblebelievers.org , a heretical cult of Christianity
> who believe that a certain William M. Bramham, the founder of the
> "Latter Rain" movement, was a prophet of God. Still another site made
> the ludicrous interpretation of Noah's prophecy of Gen 9:27 ("may
> Japeth live in the tents of Shem") referred to modern day Israel,
> because modern-day Jews are not descended from the original Israelites
> & therefore those living in the "homeland" of Israel are fakes. Still
> another site referred to modern day Jews as "Self-styled Jews", and
> another "revealed" that modern-day Judaism was nothing more than "a
> plot against Christianity". Needless to say I find all of this to be
> extremely distasteful and offensive.
>
> I also found varous claims that the Khazar theory had been rebutted,
> notably from a Christian mission to the Jews; though I am not too sure
> the argument presented there was particularly watertight. [I think
> that the name "Cohen" indicated Aaronic ancestry, because the word
> means "high priest". However, this could as much be a coincidence of
> names as Ashkenaz/Ashkenazim].
> In summary, it seems to me that it's going to be difficult to affirm
> either side of the debate by looking at web-sites, all of which are
> trying to persuade you of their own viewpoint for their own purposes.
> If anyone knows of a good objective and scholarly rebuttal of the
> Khazar theory, I'd be interested.
>
> But it seems to me that the idea that over 90% of Jews are not Semites
> is "anti-Semitism" gone mad & should therefore be abhorred.....................
A couple of other points:
1) While biological kinship has been an important aspect of Judaism, its
significance should not be overstated. While they are presented in a way that makes
them look exceptional in Joshua, the stories of Rahab & the Gibeonites in that book show
that parts of the Canaanite population were assimilated into the people of Israel, and
Ruth makes the point that David was of partially Moabite descent. A number of other
examples of intermarriage could be cited. It's only after the return from exile, when
the Jewish community around Jerusalem is a small group threatened with being submerged
by surrounding peoples, that prohibition of intermarriage & some kind of idea of ethnic
purity becomes important in Ezra & Nehemiah.
& even after that the Pharisees engaged in major missionary efforts among the
Gentiles in the Roman Empire - cf. Mt.23:15. The fundamental idea is adherence to the
covenant, not biological descent.
(I am not making this point to support the claims of Koestler et al - which I
also find dubious.)
2) "Semitic" is properly a term of philology. It designates a group of
languages including Hebrew, Aramaic, Babylonian, Arabic, & others. Similarly "Aryan" is
a term that used to be used to designate the Indo-European family of languages. While
it has been used of peoples as well (e.g., one of its variations is "Iran"), in modern
use it should have been restricted to philology. We owe it largely to 19th century
anti-Jewish ideas that came to flower in Naziism that these terms are used to designate
_racial_ groups. & thus we have the strange idea that Arabs like Yasser Arafat, who
speak a "Semitic" language & belong to a "Semitic" people can be "anti-Semitic." OTOH
Arabs can say "How can we be anti-Semitic? We're Semites?"
It's generally a hopeless task to correct botched terminology once it has become
established, but in this case it's worth a try. Popular ideas of race provide at best
only very rough ways of categorizing human beings, & can lead to absurdities. Words &
actions that are popularly called "anti-semitic" are almost always "anti-Jewish" and
should be described that way.
Of course criticism of the modern state of Israel or its policies is not
necessarily anti-Jewish (though it can be). But that's a different subject.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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