Essais historiques

GIANNI LOCCHI


THE JEWISH HEBREWS
A people lost for two thousand years

Copyright GIANNI LOCCHI
ISBN : 2-9600564-0-X
D/2005 / Giovanni Locchi




Introduction

I offer 3.000 Euro to every reader who proves for the first time that a quotation is mistaken and the logic conclusion that I infer is false.

In order to answer a semantic requirement, we will use the term 'Jew' exclusively in a religious sense, meaning a follower of the Jewish religion. The goal is to avoid the misunderstanding that a Jew is not just a believer but also, by default, the member of a given population.

The following dates are important for understanding the problem

Before Jesus Christ
587 - According to the prophet Jeremiah, 4.600 Hebrews are concerned by the deportation to Babylon.
331 - Alexander the Great founds Alexandria. Many Hebrews leave Israel, especially for Alexandria, launching the Jewish diaspora.
29 - Beginning of the Roman empire. In about 50 years the diaspora passes from a few thousands of souls to close to 3.000.0001. The Jews living in Israel are about 500.0002. During this period, the population of the Empire stagnates around 60.000.000.

After Jesus Christ
70 - First Jewish-Roman war. Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus. Rabban Johanan ben Zakkaï gets permission from Titus to take refuge in Jamnia and to found a rabbinical school there. The Jews of the diaspora are 6.000.0003.
80 - Beginning of the Christian era. The diaspora amounts to 8.000.000 Jews4.
135 - Rebellion of Bar Kokheba. Destruction of Jerusalem. Beginning of the second Jewish diaspora. Start of the drawing up of the Palestinian Talmud (Mishna + Gemara), that will occupy the editors until the beginning of the 5th century. The writing of the Babylonian Talmud will need a longer period, until the end of the century.
313 - Agreements of Milan between Constantine and Licinius. The Christian religion becomes 'religio licita'. Following the encyclopaedia Microsoft Encarta (E.M.E.), most of the Jews of Palestine convert to Christianity.
325 - Council of Nicea. Arianism is declared heretical, but without present consequences.
380 (February 28) - Theodosius promulgates an edict in Salonika imposing the Christian Trinitarian faith5. Judaism is classified by the emperor among the heretical Christian sects, next to Arianism, which is bound to eradication. Persecution of the Aryans and Jews.
500 - From the start of the century Judaism becomes the official religion of the Yemen.
638 - The Caliph Omar conquers Jerusalem. The number of Jews in the world is reduced to about 250.000.
711 - Tarik disembarks in Gibraltar, heading 7.000 men. Spain converts to Islam.
740 - The king of the Khazars, Bulan, converts to Judaism, imitated by many Khazars6.
750 - A population of 250.000 Jews appears in Spain, doubling the number of Jews in the world7.
950 (about)- Rabbi Hardai-ibn-Shaprut imposes on the Jews of Spain an organization based on the Talmudic law.
965 - The Khazars, defeated by the Russians, retire to Crimea.
1083 - The Russian prince Yaroslav, again undoes the Khazar kingdom, which disappears as independent State.
1099 - The Crusaders conquer Palestine and slaughter the Jews that are still living there.
1237 - Invasion of the Khazar region by the Golden Horde of Gengis Khan. The Jewish Khazar diaspora, about 500.000 fugitives strong, doubles the number of Jews in the world8.
1245 - The Khazars are mentioned by Plan Carpin as a people vassal to Gengis Khan, observing the Jewish religion9.
1500 - According to the article 'Statistics' of the Jewish Encyclopaedia, the Jewish number in the world rises, during the 16th century, to 1.000.000.
1650 - Poland counts 500.000 Jews10. Apparently there are no Jews in Russia11.
1700 – 600.000 Jews live in Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania.
1790 - There are 900.000 Jews in Poland and in Lithuania and 150.000 in the Austro-Hungarian empire12. The first Jews appear in Russia under the reign of Catherine II.
1793-1795 - Sharing of Poland between Russia, Prussia and Austria.
1890 – 9.000.000 out of 10.000.000 of Jews in the world live in Eastern Europe13. Russia, Germany and Austria together house 8.000.000 of adepts. Only in Russia there are more than 5.000.000 Jews; 5.189.401 have been recorded regularly in the census of 1897. Ukraine is the region that has the biggest Jewish community in the world, accounting to 2.148.059 Jews14.

It appears, from this chronology, that the Jewish people stopped existing from an ethnic point of view during the 1st century after J.C., and that the modern Jews stem from three conversion waves, that is the Yemeni in the 6th century, of the Iberians and the Khazars in the 8th century.


Part 1

The stagnation of the population

During ancient times, the demographic dynamism of the populations was practically cancelled by problems of health, and notably by infantile mortality. Excepting a situation of strong immigration, as was the case for Rome, decades, or even centuries, were necessary fora population to increase its strengths. In countries badly protected against scarcities, epidemics, wars and invasions, as the case of the world until the 17th century, mortality is, on an average of some decades, from 45 to 50 p.1000, that means very close to a birthrate arising from an unlimited natural fertility. Therefore man is, on the scale of one century, in the presence of numerically steady or very slowly increasing populations, following a saw toothed representational curve, where every hollow corresponds to a disaster. From the 17th century onwards, Europe distinguishes itself from the rest of the world, lowering considerably its mortality that, in two hundred years, passes from 45 p.1000 to between 10 and 12 p.1000, notably by a massive reduction of infantile mortality1.

The missionary activity of the Jewish priests and other authorities

The term "priests" is used in this text for the purpose of simplification, in order to understand the religious activity of some secular administrators, such as scribes and Pharisees, for the concerned period. It concerns a time during which men didn't know how distinguish between the Law of God and the law of men. There were some people pretending to solve the problems of human society by invoking a divine law, developed for, if necessary, the circumstances.
These were the same scribes and Pharisees against which Jesus exclaimed that they run 'by land and sea to make a proselyte' 2.
However, contrary to the generalized belief, the Jewish had a missionary activity. Different sources, from the New Testament and the rabbinical literature to the canons of the Council of Elvire, show the persistent interest and the conversion to Judaism of non Jews3.
To admit that there was a time during which the Jewish priests had a missionary activity, would mean to deny the existence of a Jewish progeny. Therefore many Jews refuse even to take such a possibility in consideration, reinforced in this attitude by the observation that, today, the rabbis oppose a maximum of obstacles to conversions. The consequence is that the world, as a whole, ignores the facts and the problem4.
Actually, the persons responsible for the different communities in Israel as well as the diaspora, always practised proselytism : the same word 'proselyte', which meant the 'newcomer', translating into Greek the word Hebrew "ger", originally designated the pagans converted to Judaism5. Christian Grappe recognizes that the Judaic world was quite open to the pagans; the condition of adherence to the Judaic faith was to accept circumcision and maybe because of that women were much more numerous than men6 among the converts.
The fact is that the Jewish activity of proselytism showed a striking efficiency. It suffices to think about the diaspora's numeric progression : between Republic and Empire, in less than fifty years, the diaspora passes from a few thousands of souls to close to 3.000.000. The Jews benefit from considerable advantages : they enjoy a statute of equality; their religion is lawful, its exercise guaranteed by imperial decrees. They are not compelled to practise the imperial cult and receive their part of the public distributions of wheat and oil.
According to Moshe David Herr, in 50 after J.-C., the Jews of the Roman empire were already 6.000.000 on a total population of 60.000.000. One inhabitant out of ten was therefore Jewish, an enormous percentage, that will soon become one of seven : indeed, the number of Jews was 8.000.000 toward the end of the 1st century7.
Judaism was by far the most widespread religion within the Roman empire, after the cult of 'imperial Rome', which was however obligatory. For the rest, every city and every community had its own divinities. The public divinities of the Romans were represented by city-dwellers' gods, by senators' gods, who actively participated in the life of the city, or, on a different level, to the life of the family that honoured them8.
Eight million! In a lapse of time of about hundred years the Hebrews in the world, that previously numbered between 500.000 and 750.000, could have increased until a maximum of 1.000.000. It seams impossible and absurd to imagine that the Hebrews could increase by twelve, or even fifteen, during the same period and that they would go to live abroad, whereas their religion imposed on them the moral duty to live in Israel: it is obvious that this was not about Hebrews, but merely about Jews in the religious sense, that is 'gentiles' converted to Judaism.
From the start of the Christian era, the Jews of Israel had been absorbed by a diaspora twelve to fifteen times more numerous.
The question arises then on when and how an official Judaism would be born refusing all idea of proselytism. The decisive events have been the Jewish-Roman wars. From the year 70, Jamnia, where Vespasian had established the fugitives of Jerusalem before besieging the city, became the centre of intellectual and doctrinal Judaism : a disciple of Hillel, Johanan ben Zakkai founded a school of rabbis there and organized a great council that took the place of the Sanhedrin. But this counsel, contrary to the Sanhedrin, was composed solely of Pharisee rabbis. Henceforth, the last ones alone will direct Judaism9.
After the defeat of 135, doubled by the apparent victory of Christianity in regards to conversions, the traditional Jews, guided by the Pharisees, withdrew into themselves and looked for consolation in the pride of declaring themselves a pure race, chosen by God to represent Him on Earth. Some rabbis started then, from the second half of the 2nd century, to write the Talmud, that extolled a strict observance of the Law and refused any proselytism.
However, this interpretation of the law became successful only very slowly among the different Jewish communities : in Spain it was been imposed by rabbi Hasdai Ibn Shaprut only around 950. In Egypt, in the 12nd century, there were still many Samaritans and also more Karaits, that refused the Talmudic law. By this time Rabbi Maimonides allowed proselytism again, although limited to the non Moslem. In the Kingdom of the Khazars, the Talmudic rule has never been applied.
It has been probably this effort of preservation of an identity for the Jewish people, as well as the need of setting the responsibility of the chiefs to run the collection of the taxes of the Jewish community for the government's account, that brought the rabbis to introduce at the end of the 7th century the principle of adhesion to the Judaism by mother's filiation. This principle didn't apply to the other non Talmudic Jewish communities.
But it is worthwhile to reassert that at the time of the second temple Judaism was capable of converting crowds with the same strength as Christianity, the more so that at this time it had the monopoly of monotheism.
The Encyclopaedia Judaica clearly tells that : "There is ample evidence of a widespread conversion to Judaism during the period of the second Temple, especially the latter part of the period, and the ‘word ' ger, which in biblical times meant stranger, became synonymous with a proselyte. Among the notable converts to Judaism may be mentioned the royal family of Adiabene, Flavius Clemens, the nephew of Vespasian, and Fulvia, wife of Saturnius, a Roman senator. Unique, as the only case of forced conversion in Judaism, was the mass conversion of the Edomites, by John Hyrcanus. In addition to those outstanding figures, however, it is obvious that proselytism was widespread among the ordinary people"10.

But the Jewish religious system, based on the assumption of the elected people, implies the fiction by which the proselytes must claim a progeny of the former Patriarchies. The assumed filiation is not only conceived as spiritual. It requires, albeit purely in order to keep unaltered the ritual and to forbid all reform, the adherence to a genealogical fiction. While entering into the alliance of Abraham and Moses, the convert changes ancestors11. But the Jews of the diaspora were not Hebrews, they were followers of the Jewish religion who, incidentally, were held to declare themselves grandsons of Abraham.

It is obvious to conclude that, if according to a technical point of view, the diaspora began at the end of the 4th century before J.-C. when Judea became a province of the Empire of Alexander the Great12, the real diaspora, whose effects last until now, started only later, beginning with the re-building of the temple, when, in only one century, thanks to the proselytes, the number of the Jews multiplied by up to fifteen. However, it is certain that the two Jewish groups, the Hebrews and the people of the diaspora, mixed. Therefore we must conclude that, in the beginning of the Christian era, the Hebrews didn't exist any more as a homogeneous people bound by ties of blood.

The advent of Christianity

When Jesus, Jew among Jews, started His predication, the first conversions were just a problem of individual conscience, because the primitive church appears, in its recruitment, its organization, its mind, like a Jewish sect among others13.  There were Jews who merely believed that Jesus was the Messiah14.  It was absurd, for the Jews, to believe that Jesus had founded a new church. He had simply proposed a new reading of the Bible in order to highlight a God minded to pardon15. In this context, it is not astonishing that the Christian religion has been considered for a long time as a simple Jewish sect, competing with the other missionary Jewish sects. Between it and the official orthodoxy, the major difference resulted from the fact that the Jewish-Christians gave a name to the anonymous Messiah Israel was waiting for. It was not yet enough to create a schism. One understands, in these conditions, that the Christian predication could even win some Pharisees, and that others saw it with benevolence16. True Christianity was born later, at the moment when a group of followers affirm that Jesus is God. It happened very late, at the time of the Councils of the 4th and 5th centuries17. Until then there were no social differences between the two groups, which mixed freely.

Only with the adoption of Christianity by emperor Constantine in the 4th century, did the antagonism between Christians and Jews, and the persecution of the Jews, spill into the empire18.

The evangelization of Israel

Historic data permit to conclude that there never was a mass exodus out of Palestine. The deportations undergone by Israel, during its history, and notably the most important and the most often quoted, those of 70 and 134, only concerned a minority of priests, dignitaries, political and military chiefs of Jerusalem, as at the time of the exile to Babylon. Each time the majority of the inhabitants of the capital and the totality of the inhabitants of the countryside and the small towns of Israel, not having any political influence, were regularly spared and only the soldiers were killed, on the field of battle. For instance, in 70 after J.-C., Vespasian had bestowed several months of respite to all civilians of Jerusalem to take refuge in Jamnia, the second city of the country19. Neither Vespasian nor Titus fought against the Hebrews as Jews, they merely wanted to eliminate a political foe, represented by the Jewish chiefs who fomented the revolt against Rome. In less than one century, there had been twenty-six armed uprisings of the Hebrews against Rome, all concluded by the crucifixion of the chiefs. Jesus Christ himself has been crucified as a supposed King of the Jews, title that included the negation of the Roman authority on Israel.
Clearly the Romans aimed at the temple, and nothing but the temple. Since the reign of Herod the Great,  the prosperity of the Temple of Jerusalem was assured by the yearly contribution of half a shekel given by the Jews of the diaspora20. It implied that the political powers in Jerusalem, linked to the temple, benefited from huge resources, almost as important as those of the imperial Treasure. Herod exploited this wealth to transform the city thoroughly : the temple was the biggest of all the Empire, and the royal palace in Jerusalem was larger and more beautiful than the imperial palace of Rome.
Therefore the treasure of the temple had been the reason of the first Jewish-Roman war. The religious and political chiefs, making themselves independent from Rome, could use the always growing wealth of the temple, to finance an army capable of challenging the power of Rome. The only way to prevent this risk was to destroy its first cause, meaning the Temple. But the Jewish religion remained 'religio licita' within the empire, and the Romans had no interest to impoverish and depopulate Palestine, that represented, as a border region, the imperial rampart against the Parths.
In fact, most of the Jews, traditionalist or Christian, above all the common people, that lived in Israel, remained on the spot. Later, these Hebrews would become Christians, later again, will become Moslem. The Palestinians of today are the direct descendants of these old Hebrews, as much as the Canaanites, and the Moabits, the Jebusites and the Arabs21.
In this particularly fertile land, Jesus spoke to the crowds in Aramaic, that language that, while disappearing, led to the Arabic currently spoken in Palestine. And to these people, Jesus didn't tell 'you are the elected people', statement that they would not have understood, but 'blessed are the last' and, always in Aramaic, 'Allah will be with you'. And the common people, meaning the big majority of the Hebrews, understood. Whereas they didn't understand the Jewish priests, the rabbis, and other doctors of the law, who affected speaking old Hebrew. For this the new Christian sect has been called with contempt the sect of the Ebionites22.
We lack sure statistical data, but it is certain that the breakthrough of Christianity in Israel was very important23 from the beginning.



Verus Israel

In 150 after J.-C. Justin Martyr claimed the statute of 'Verus Israel', authentic Israel, for the Christian Jews, against the traditionalist Jews. The pretext had been a debate that had taken place on the topic between the Justin apologist and rabbi Triphon in the city of Ephesus.

During the last twenty years of the 1st century, the situation of the religious beliefs within the Roman empire underwent a radical change. In practice, it became difficult to count the number of the Jews because the criterion of individualization of a Jew, according to the obligation to pay a contribution for the Temple, did not exist any longer after its destruction; and because, next to the traditionalist Jews, communities of a new kind developed : the Christian Jews. While as we saw, many Hebrews embraced the new belief, recognizing in Jesus the Messiah, even more pagans converted to Judaism just to profess Christianity .
Reading the work of Justin, we receive the impression that what separated the two communities was merely a question of food habits. However, the Christians, who continued to declare themselves Jews, had become so numerous since the beginning of the 2nd century and their belief looked so particular that the imperial administration was forced to inflict some systematic persecutions on them. For the Roman authority, it was an heretical sect in respect to the orthodox Judaism that remained the 'religio licita', and, as a heresy, it was judged a source of disorder24. The Christians still persisted to declare themselves Jews : because of their fidelity to the Bible and for the purpose of benefiting from the qualification of 'religio licita'.
Living in this sort of formless and fluctuating jumble of Jews, it appeared normal to Justin to sustain, in his debate with rabbi Tryphon, the most famous Israeli of his time according to historian Eusebyus25, that the title of 'Verus Israel' came to Christians.
The writing of the Talmud had just begun, the idea of race didn't yet exist, the residence in Israel and the progeny of the prophets didn't have any value, not even for the rabbis, as criteria of adherence to the Jewish people26. Tryphon, who knew very well that all the Jews, either traditionalist or Christian, descended from proselytes, didn't know how to object. Maybe one can impute this yielding behaviour to the fact that he was, according to Pierre Geoltrain, an extremely pleasant and pacifist person ; the fact remains that after the publication of the book 'Dialogues with Tryphon', no other Jew at that time opposed Justin. Today Paula Fredriksen, François Bodon, Emmanuelle Main wonder, and rabbi Daniel Schwartz 27 is indignant, because Tryphon didn't react and didn't try to stop the Christians from usurping the identity of the Jews. The logical explanation of the stand of Justin and the compliance of Tryphon lies just in the fact that the Jewish identity, contrary to our present conception, was nothing else but a set of rituals accomplished by a multitude of people coming from everywhere. The difference between Jews and Christians was only a question of ritual and food laws: nothing else at that time could distinguish the Jews from the Christians, certainly not a descent from the ancient Patriarchs. When Justin in 150 claimed in favour of the Christians the qualification of Verus Israel, this idea was born in a cultural setting, extended to all the Roman empire, that merely ignored the existence of a Jewish people characterized by ties of blood and by a descent from common forefathers28. It is only later, with the Talmud, and maybe for the purpose of answering Justin, that the international Judaism contrived to elaborate the fiction of the descent of the Jews who denied Jesus, from the former Israeli Patriarchs.




The Christianity religion of state

Since the edicts of Milan, in 313, we note a massive conversion of traditional Jews toward Christianity, as a consequence of the fact that Constantine 1st had legalized the new religion and at the same time had removed from the community of non Christian Jews, the special protection which it had benefited from throughout the Empire. Palestine became thus the centre of Christian pilgrimage and the Jews converted in mass, probably proud to see one of their sects, even though not the official rite, become the religion of the Empire. According to the encyclopaedia Encarta (article ‘Palestine '), it is at this time that the greater part of the population devoted itself to Christianity.

Thereafter, since Theodosius, some forced conversions took place consequent to the generalized persecutions arising from religious struggles. In conclusion the number of Jews continued to decrease. Indeed it results that about 638, year of the capitulation of Jerusalem before the Islam, the number of Jews in the world had been cut down to about 250 000, of which 50 000 still lived in Palestine. The descendants of the latter were slaughtered by the Crusaders in 1099, because they didn't accept baptism.

With the Muslims domination in Palestine, begins a new phase of conversion of the Palestinians, as much Christians, henceforth the crushing majority, as Jews. But the Muslims didn't immediately impose their religion on the Palestinians, most of which just adopted the Islamic and Arabic culture29. In 750 the situation changed, with the arrival to power of the Abbassides of Baghdad, then started a period of forced conversions to Islam that eradicated the other cults of Palestine. On this occasion, a small number of Jews, considering the few still existing in Palestine, could have exiled to Spain and the kingdom of the Khazars, the only countries susceptible to welcome them.
As a logic conclusion, the most of the Hebrews continued to live in Palestine, and at the end of six centuries of spontaneous or forced conversions, became Christians, then Muslims, and their descendants continued to live there, although mixed with other populations.


Part 2

It is obvious consequently that the present Jewish people cannot originate from the minority of merchants, politicians or soldiers exiled, controlled and persecuted, diluted in a diaspora made of proselytes and ready to turn toward Christianity. In 150 after J.-C., as evident by reading Justin Martyr, the word 'Jewish' defined all person who believed in the Bible, without consideration for any territorial and ethnic ties. so it is necessary to look elsewhere than Israel for the origin of the modern Jewish people. In fact, after the Diaspora the populations who converted massively to Judaism were, in chronological order, the Yemeni, the Iberians and the Khazars.

From missionary Jews to Karaits.

Immediately after the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, the sect of the Karaits was born in Mesopotamia, from the Hebrew 'qara', to read. However, according to Ilan Halevi, the movement already existed a long time before its formal institution. The Karaits strictly interpret the Jewish Writings and reject the Talmud and the rabbinical traditions incorporated into Judaism during the first six centuries after J.-C.. The sect still exists and numbers some 70.000 followers1.

The important activity of this sect preoccupied the Talmudic Judaism, as testified by the virulent critiques it got, by the Talmudic writers notably the two more important ones, Maimonides and Yehuda Ha-Levy. The last one dedicated his book 'The King of the Khazars' to explain the superiority of the Talmudic school in relation to the Karait one.
The problem for the Karaits consisted in the fact of not having a centralized organisation capable to represent them before public authorities: their communities used to be absorbed by the rabbinic network, that benefited from the protection of the Empire. Indeed Rome, in order to better control the minorities, such as the Jews, used politics to award the responsibility of administrating these communities to some of their reliable members, acquiring their support. The concordat of Yavneh, by which Rome had conceded to Yohanan Ben Zakkai the right to preside his 'yeshiva', didn't only imply that the rabbis took in hand the ideological control of the community, it also implied its institutional cohesion and its survival as a distinct social entity. In this respect, the behaviour of the Roman power was quite meaningful: on the day following the destruction of the temple, Yavneh became the center of the Great Rabbinate, the supreme magistracy of the dispersed Judaism, where the exchange operated with the power of the Empire2.
Starting with the 3rd century, Rome conferred the power of global representation of the Jews, including the Karaits and Samaritans, to the patriarch of Israel and in other regions of the empire to the doctors of the law, the Hakhamims and the Rabbis. Thereafter, to the total prejudice of other Jewish sects, the Talmudic party always had the favour of the Roman empire as well as of all the governments that replaced it, because the rabbis were supposed not to make proselytes, not to steal believers from other religions, nor causing disorders.

Consequently, the rabbis, chiefs of a religious minority, had to invent criteria of individualization of their faithful taxpayers. Probably at this time, since the 7th century, the rabbis invented the rule of the religious matrilinear descent, in order to insure a certain basis of jurisdictional and fiscal competence; although the religious communities did not keep birth registers for that reason3. The matrilinear criterion became very slowly a rule, applied by the different Jewish communities, at the last half of the second millennium. Finally in 1970 only, the Israeli Knesset adopted a legislation that defined a Jew as an individual born of a Jewish mother4.
In conclusion, the work of the Karait chiefs consisted only in providing followers to the Talmudic régime.

Yemen

Historically, Yemen represents, after Israel, the oldest attempt to establish a Judaic theocracy on a whole State. The Himyarites governed Yemen until 525. The Kingdom was already, for a long time, largely acquired to the Jewish religion5 : it was a Judaism out of the Talmud, or pre-Karait as I. Halevi defines it6.
At the beginning of the century, the himyarite King Dhou Nowas, proclaimed Judaism religion of the state and persecuted the Christians. These rose up and the Copts, adepts of another Christian sect, came to their help, invaded the country and broke forever the attempt of the himyarite dynasty to create a Jewish State in Yemen.


Part 3

The Visigoths

Ignatio Olague and Jean Bart examined the extent of the Arabian intervention in Spain. They demonstrated the falsity of the thesis according to which the Arabs, having invaded the Iberian peninsula, imposed Islam : no Arabic army could reach the peninsula. The classic historians, founding themselves on partial and biased documents, believed they could affirm that the Arab-Moslem civilization had been imposed on the Iberian peninsula by the strength of weapons. The reality was different1.
In 509, the Visigoths, after having conquered Spain, established their capital in Toledo and imposed their religion, a version of Christianity according to the interpretation of bishop Arius, as State religion. Spain became Aryan until 587, when king Recared abjured Arianism. However, several bishops and most of the population kept their Aryan faith.
To the death of Visigoth king Witiza in 710, Roderic was elected to success him by an assembly of nobles in Toledo, against the son of the dead, Agila (681-716), who was already associated to the throne by his father, since 708. A civil war followed. Roderick invaded Andalusia imposing his own authority. Against him, the bishop Oppas, uncle of Agila, called for help on the governor of Tingitane, a Visigoth province in the north of Morocco : 7.000 Berbers, under the command of the Moslem chief Tarik, passed the strait called, since then, Gibraltar : a battle occurred in Guadalete, close to Cadix, where Roderick was defeated. Agila went to Toledo where he was crowned under the name of Agila II and the title of King of the Visigoths. But, in the meanwhile, the Moslem governor of Maghreb, Mussa, brought 18.000 men in Spain to complete the submission of 10.000.000 Iberians. Mussa did not assume political engagements, but Agila preferred to resign, in 714, because of some dispute with the Caliph of Damascus (Encyclopaedia Wikipedia).
In total it took 25.000 men, to provoke this great mutation : from Latin, Christian (there were no more Jews in Spain) and monogamous, the peninsula switched to a polygamous, Moslem and Arab-speaking State!2 A short time later, about 250.000 Jews appeared in Spain. It seems possible that, at the time of the conversion of the country to Islam, many Visigoths preferred to convert to Judaism, because of the proximity between the Aryan and the Jewish religions3.

The spontaneous conversion of the Iberians to Islam and to Judaism

It is difficult to believe that Spain converted to Islam spontaneously and so fast. But it happened for the same motive for which the Arabs conquered the whole Middle East and the whole southern basin of the Mediterranean in such a short time (from 632, death of the Prophet, to 670, conquest of Tunisia) nearly without fighting.
Theodosius, to insure the unity of the Roman empire, had adopted the Trinitarian Christianity and had imposed the obedience of all his subjects to Rome's bishop. The peripheral regions of empire, anxious to get independence from Rome and Byzantium, had to exploit in their turn a different religion as political means. It was first Arianism, then the heretic Monophysite and Jacobite, finally Islam, all these religions being born, with many others, at the periphery of the Roman Empire. Spain, as distant from the Christianity centres as Egypt or Syria, had the same impulse to reconquer its freedom from the Empire by refusing the official religion.

The Sephardic Jews

In any case, the first Jews appearing after the conversion of Spain, must be considered newly converted natives.
The new Jews that we now discover in Spain numbering 250.000, could not have immigrated in the stride of the Muslims, because the number of the Arabs that arrived in Spain, during the fifty years that followed the victories of Tarik and Mussa, didn't reach 250.000. Besides, the Jews of Maghreb could not have populated Spain, because, to the contrary, the Jews of Europe left to form the Jewish communities of Maghreb4.
They didn't come from Palestine either, mainly for three reasons: first, in Palestine the persecution of Christians and Jews by the Moslem had not yet begun at that time, and there was no reason for a Jewish Palestinian to expatriate himself; then, in Palestine, the Jews were reduced to such a small number that they could never have contributed significantly to the formation of the Jewish community in Spain; finally, the Hebrews coming from Palestine would have kept the Talmudic law in force in their country from the start: the Jews of Spain adopted the Talmud, under the rule of the rabbi Hardai ibn Shaprut (915-970), only two centuries later. This Spanish Jewish community became immediately the most important in the world: in one decade after the battle of Guadalete, the number of Jews living on the earth doubled56.
In conclusion, today's Sephardic Jews are Iberian natives, descending either from the former proselytes of the first century of our era, or, more probably, from the Visigoths preferring to convert to Judaism rather than to Islam.


Part 4

The importance of the Khazars

The Khazars represented a very important historical component, although still unrecognised. From the 7th to the 10th century they built an immense empire, between the Black sea and the Caspian sea, up to the borders of China. At the apogee of their power, in the 9th century, their empire spread over Caucasus, Crimea and Volga, while Kiev was included in it. They formed one of the three dominant powers of the region, together with the Byzantine empire and the Moslem caliphate of Baghdad. In the beginning of the 7th century, their elective king, the Kagan, could exert his influence on the nomination of the new emperor of Byzantium, Leon 4th, nicknamed the Khazar. Toward 740 the reigning dynasty adopted Judaism. During centuries this kingdom became the wedge between the orthodox Christians and the Muslims in East Europe.
In 965, the Khazar empire succumbed to the assaults of the Russians that conquered its capital, Semander, in this year. Reduced to Crimea in 968, by Sviatoslav, prince of Kiev, the Khazar kingdom was definitely beaten by the Byzantine in 10161.
The Encyclopaedia Universalis (2002, volume 12, p.974) states that during five centuries the kingdom was covered with synagogues and welcomed the Jewish masters and travellers.

The discovery of the Khazars represents a historical event susceptible of explaining one of the mysteries of modern history, the birth of the Ashkenazi nation, that, even remote from the main Judaic homeland, suddenly revealed itself as a dominant component of the Jewish world : whatever the statistical assessments invoked, the demographic disparity explodes, starting with the 17th century, among the various Jewish communities : the Ashkenazi community of Eastern Europe is going to lean with all its weight on the whole of the Jewish world. At the end of the 19th century, when statistical means are defined, the disproportion will show in one figure only: nine Jews out of ten are by then Ashkenazim, Yiddish-speakers or children and grandchildren of Yiddish-speakers of East Europe. All the others, assimilated of the west, Sephardic of the Mediterranean, Jews of the Arabian world, Persia, India and Ethiopia, constitute only one tenth of the Jews on Earth2.


The origin of the Khazars

Two theories exist about the origin of the Khazars. The first sees them as a mixture of several populations having different origins, but especially Mongolian, like the Turks. Indeed, Khazar in Turkish means 'nomad'. From the Khazars stem the Cossack and the Hussars. The Turkish people of the Volga, the Caspian or the Crimea, whose ethnic names were Kalmouk, Kirghiz, Uzbek, Bachkir and Tartar or Tatar, and others, were Khazars according to all criteria3.

A second theory takes into account 'the Armenian history' of Moses of Chorene, assigned to the 5th century. This historian tells about the victories of the Armenians over the Khazirs, supposed to be an older denomination of Khazars, and mentions that the people of the Khazirs was already present in the zone between the Caspian Sea and Crimea at the end of the 2nd century4. But at this time, the country was inhabited by the Goths, a Germanic people : the Khazirs would be consequently a Gothic tribe, probably mixed with nomadic tribes of the steppes of the East. This Germanic population was Christian, though Aryan5, and this circumstance could promote the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism.

The conversion of the Khazars to Judaism

In the 8th century, the fact of being pagan represented already an anachronism. But the Khazar empire, although its power was comparable to that of the adjacent empires, the orthodox empire of Byzantium and the Moslem empire of Baghdad, could not have maintained its own independence while adopting Christianity or Islam, because this choice would have automatically submitted it to the authority of the Byzantine emperor, in the first case, of the caliph of Baghdad in the second one6. Therefore, king Bulan choose, in 740, to adopt the Jewish religion following the teachings of the Karaits, who were at that time pouring into Khazaria, fleeing the persecutions of the emperors of Byzantium7.

The conversion of Bulan forms the subject of the Yehuda Ha-Levi's major book, 'The king of the Khazars'. In this book, written four hundred years after the conversion of Bulan, Yehuda Ha-Levi reports that the religion of the Khazars, two hundred years after their conversion, was not the Judaism of Ibn Shaprout and of the rabbis but of Karaism, the missionary Jewish sect8. This author testifies at the same time that the conversion of the Khazars to the Karait Judaism was massive. He affirms that, when the king and his dignitaries discovered this new secret cult, they convinced the objectors and made the Khazars enter the law of the Jews, also having scientists and books come from the whole world to teach them the Law, also that the Jewish Khazars were prosperous and powerful because their army counted hundreds of thousands of soldiers9.
Since the aim of the conversion was to preserve the liberty of the kingdom against both the Christians of Kiev and Byzantium and the Moslem of Baghdad, the Khazars kings could not have allowed their subjects to become devotees of a hostile religion, becoming potential traitors through religious wars. Unfortunately, the historic texts on this Jewish State don't exist. Marek Halter suggests that the fault is due to a deliberate stance of the Communist régime under Stalin.

Survival of the Khazars

After being defeated by the Russians in 965, the Khazars lost their empire, but saved their independence and their faith in a territory corresponding to present Crimea. In 1016, they also lost their independence, but a Khazar State remained in place originally as a vassal of Byzantium, and later of the Tartars. Indeed, the Karaits of Crimea, whose Khazar origin is undoubted, didn't disappear after the downfall of the last Khazar State against a Russian-Byzantine coalition. The small Khazaria sheltered, up to the dawn of this century, the strongest of the last Karait communities10. After their defeat by the Russians, their kings converted to the Christianity; then a first group of Khazars went into exile and looked for protection in Poland and Lithuania. It was followed thereafter by a constant flux : a historic coincidence has become evidence, the disappearance of the Khazar nation in its original habitat and the simultaneous appearance in the Northwest neighbouring regions, of the biggest concentration of Jews since the beginning of the diaspora11.

The Khazar diaspora

In a lapse of time of 250 years from the beginning of the 11th century, and notably as an effect of the Mongolian invasion of 1237, five hundred thousand Khazars took to flight toward the countries of Eastern Europe. The Khazar diaspora emigrated to Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and the Balkans, where it founded the oriental Jewish community, that became the dominant majority of the Talmudic Jewish population in the world, which was, at that time, close to a million12.
The fact that the Khazar Karaits, while arriving in Poland by small groups, impoverished, resigned, desperate, accepted conversion to Talmudic Judaism, must not astonish us, because the king of Poland recognized and protected only this kind of Judaism . The concentration, conservation and multiplication of the Jews in Eastern Europe, does not come from some arithmetical or biological miracle, but from the exceptional protective conditions, as well as the autonomy and prosperity that the kingdom of Poland offered to Judaism, and to the active genealogical fiction, over an immense territory, during more than three centuries13.
How many Khazars did remain ? According to some Arabian writers, Khazar armies numbered 300.000 men, which would correspond to a population of about 2.000.000. According to Koestler, it would be an overestimation14. But one must take into account the extension of the Khazar empire, which at the top of its power, went from Poland to China, as well as its political importance, comparable to those of Byzantium and the Caliphate of Baghdad : therefore an assessment of five to six million inhabitants would seem more logical. Accepting the idea that it was a multi-ethnic and multi-religious community, and that only the chiefs, the nobles, the soldiers and their families had accepted Judaism, it is necessary to evaluate at about 2.000.000 the Jewish Khazars remaining in the territories of the former Khazar empire.

Statistics

In any case, minority or totality, they represented a certain number of Jews that, not being orthodox, were not counted by the rabbis among the Jews. But, later, their descendants nevertheless adhered to Talmudic Judaism, which represented the only way to be recognized as Jews and to benefit from the protection guaranteed by the States, thanks to the legal representation by the governments of the hospitable countries. Even today the few thousands of Karaits still living in the Ukraine and in Iraq are not recorded in the official statistics of the Jews leaving in the world.
Actually, it is not fundamental to know if all the Khazars were Jews or, as written in the Universalis Encyclopedie, a petty minority; the problem is to know the origin of the Jews that populated Eastern Europe at the end of the Middle Ages in great number. A calculation of the demographic growth of the Jews, compared to that of the whole of humanity, can enlighten us. Humanity passed from 500.000.000 souls in 1650 to 2.500.000.000 in 195015. The Jews passed from 1.000.000 in the 16th century to 16.781.000 in 194016. Taking into account the note n 1 of the Part 1, we cannot credit the Jewish people with a number exceeding 1.250.000 in 1650. So we can lead a comparison by means of an equation, on the basis that the two groups followed a similar development. Some possible demographic delays concerned the Jewish people, who were a closed society, subject to frequent persecutions. Since the beginning of the 19th century the extraordinary demographic increase of Europe during the 18th century lost its impetus to the profit of the Asian populations. The ratio is 5 for the humanity to 13 for the Jews. To find the same proportion at the end, we need 2.000.000 more Jews at this stage, that is in the 16th century. These Jews existed, they were the Khazars, and they could be only the Khazars for two reasons: first, as we saw it, they were the only Jews at that time not being counted by the rabbis; then, they appeared especially in Russia, after the integration of the Khazar countries to the provinces of the empire and notably at the time of the census of 1897: we have already seen that at the end of the 19th century, nine Jews out of ten lived in Russia and in the Germanic countries. These Jews, being or not a majority within the Khazar empire, were 2.000.000 of people who, at the time of the Tatar invasion, preferred the anguishes of a servile situation to the hazards of an emigration. But we have to add them to the 500.000 Jews of the Khazar diaspora who gave origin to the Ashkenazi community. Indeed, in all the world there were no other Jews that could be added to the number of the Talmudic Jews, in order to re-establish the proportion between Jews and the remaining humanity in demographic calculations.
This integration has a faraway origin: the permission in 800 after J.-C., given by the reformer Obadia to the wise Jews of Persia to open Talmudic schools and synagogues in the Khazar kingdom17. It continued throughout the circumstances, the wars, the annexations, the emigrations, as well as contacts and personal interests. Finally the Karaits converted to rabbinic Judaism appeared all together at the time of the census of 1897 in Russia. At this occasion the number of the Russian Jews tripled in less than 50 years, passing from 2.300.000 in 1850 to nearly 8.000.000 at the end of the century, including those that emigrated at the same period. At that moment most Karaits devoted themselves to the Talmud in order to benefit from the facilities for emigration to the USA and Argentina, implemented by the rabbinical Judaic organizations and notably by baron Maurice De Hirsch. After the conversion, all signs of their Karait past had to be erased.
But, to explain such a growth, the official doctrine resorts once more to myth: such a growth is 'the result of the devoted care of Jewish mothers'18. As a comparison we can take Italy, famous in that time for the fertility of its mothers: this country passed, during the same period, from about 20.000.000 to about 32.000.000 inhabitants. The increase of the Jews was quite 5 times stronger in comparable situation! For every Italian mother that, as a brave Catholic, gave birth to 10 or 12 children, her Jewish counterpart in Russia would have had to bear 50 or 60 sons.


The Khazars still living in Ukraine

In 1940, the Jews still represented a very relative minority in Ukraine, especially in Galicia: in Drohovic the Jews represented one half of the population, and in other centres of the area they reached percentages of 80 to 90%.
The Jews of Ukraine, who were 2.148.000 in 1897, the biggest Jewish community worldwide, were 800.000 in 1996, and 500.000 in 2.001, although Germany tried to slow down the immigration of the Ukrainian Jews19.
Yet, the Jews of Ukraine still represent today the fourth Jewish community in the world. From the moment where no traces of immigrations explain the existence of a so numerous Jewish community, we are forced to consider the Jews of Ukraine as natives. This confirms the permanence of the Khazar Jews in their former kingdom and their spontaneous conversion from the Karait to the Talmudic ritual

The Inquisition and the race

It normally happens that, after a certain period of resistance, the minorities abroad are integrated. Tthe Jewish identity of the Khazars would have probably weakened after the dissolution of the empire and would have disappeared within the countries of welcome if there had not been the Spanish Inquisition.
The Inquisition wanted to strike at the Jews, even though they were 'conversos' (coarsely named marranos). For the purpose of persecution, it was necessary to build up a race, the Jewish, in order to confer an ethnic qualification to the 'marranos' and to exceed the legal status. Such a persecution fed an insane racism, the tragic and childish obsession of blood purity, the 'limpieza de sangre', a lasting obsession, since the investigations on the ethnic origins have been suppressed in Spain only in 183520. The myth of a pure race and an errant people was born there and then, not only for the Sephardic Visigoths, but also for the Khazars Ashkenazim. For the purpose of the Inquisition, all these converts became ancient Hebrews; while they were actually Germans, Ostrogoths and Visigoths, Slavs, Iberians, Comans, Kaissaks, Kalmouk, Kirghiz, Uzbek, Bachkir, Tatar, Yemeni and other various descendants of proselytes.
It would be very instructive to read the book of Eugenio Saracini on this subject : 'Breve storia degli ebrei e dell'antisemitismo', (Short History of the Jews and the anti-semitism) 1977, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milano, prefaced by Elio Toaf, Great Rabbi of Rome). This author demonstrates that the Jewish people doesn't exist according to any point of view, neither racial, nor religious, nor cultural: it is anti-Semitism that creates the Jews and ties them up together.

Part 5

Criticism of the official theory

It seems that the theories which we have just exposed, that refute all the supernatural or romantic aspects in the appreciation of the genesis of the Jewish people, have the merit of the logic and the consistency. On the contrary, the writers following the official doctrine, appear to us to sin both by default and by excess, and expose themselves to contradictions. They ignore the phenomenon of the Jewish proselytism; they ignore the eight million of Jews living at the beginning of our era; concerning the sudden demographic increase of the Jews in the world, they dream of an inhuman fertility of the Jewish women; they ignore the Khazars and the Karaits or, if they deal with them, it is only by minimizing their importance or by deriding; they are forced to juggle with statistics. Whereas it suffices to read the historical texts with a free mind, to have a clear and logical point of view, and there are no more legends, or miraculous and gorgeously supernatural events, nor more contradictions.

Conclusions

Centres of research bound to the Judaic world tried lately, by means of genetic analyses, to demonstrate the progeny of the modern Jews from the former Hebrews, starting with the family of Cohens. Their findings do not exclude, on the contrary, that the present Jewish people is the fruit of the mass conversions of the 8th century in Spain and in the Khazaria and these researches have been abandoned.
It would be suitable that they should be resumed, and even enlarged to the actual Moslem Palestinians. If the theories exposed above are right, we will discover that if we really need to find some trace of the ancient Hebrew, we should better look to the Palestinian camp. We shall then say that if there is a lot of blood of the ancient Gothic German population still existing in modern times, this flows in the veins of the modern Jews, and if there is some drops of the blood of the ancient Hebrews still flowing somewhere in the world, it is in the veins of the present Palestinians.

We hope that, once these summarized theories will be admitted, the Palestinians will end up by recognizing the Jews of today as being the guardians of their former history and will honour them; they will also be capable of appreciating the positive side of an internationalization of Palestine.
On their side, the Israelis will properly respect the Palestinians, as their former masters of prayer and will open wide the doors to those who wish to return to their former creed, even encouraging all of them to do so.
Then, these two communities, each in the territories that the O.N.U. assigned them, will be able to coexist in a pacific manner.
Finally, the Christians will stop once and forever to pursue all these descendants of Germans, Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians, Turks, and Yemenis, for the absurd and ridiculous accusation of having crucified Jesus Christ.



Bibliography

1) Ilan Halevi. Question Juive. Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1981.
2) D.M. Dunlop. The history of the Jewish Khazars. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1954.
3) Arthur Koestler. The Thirteenth tribe; the Khazar empire and its
inheritance. Calmann-Lévy, Paris 1976.
4) Simon Szysman. The Karaism. Les Editions L'Age de l'homme,
Lausanne, 1980.
5) Ignacio Olagüe. Preface of Jean Bart. Les Arabes n'ont jamais envahi l'Espagne. Flammarion, Paris, 1969.
6) Pierre Maraval. Le christianisme de Constantin à la conquête arabe. PUF, coll. 'Nouvelle Clio', Paris, 2001
7) Marcel Simon. Les premiers chrétiens. PUF, coll. 'Que sais-je?', Paris, 1967.
8) Marcel Simon and André Benoît. Le Judaisme et le Christianisme antique. PUF, coll. 'Nouvelle Clio', Paris, 1968.
9) André Lemaire. Histoire du peuple Hébreu. PUF, coll. 'Que sais-je?', Paris, 1981.
10) Justin Martyr. Ouvres complètes. Bibliothéque Migne, Paris, 1994.
11) Salomon Dob Fritz Goitein. A Mediterranean Society. An Abridgement in One Volume. Revised and Edited by Jacob Lassner. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1999. - Translation in Italian by Giuseppe Bernardi, Ed Bompiani, 2002
12) Lorenz Rudolf. Arius Judaizans? Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1979.
13) Wieder Naphtali. The Judean scrolls and Karaism. East and West Library, London, 1962.
14) The Encyclopaedia of religions. Mircea Eliade, Editor in Chief, London, 1987.
15) Encyclopédie Microsoft Encarta, 1997, for the articles: 'Arius', 'Jews', 'Palestine', 'Khazars', 'Yemen' and 'Sociology of the Population'.
16) Enciclopédie Universalis (France), 1990.
17) Enciclopédie Universalis (France), 2002.
18) The world history of the Jewish people. The dark ages. Gen. Ed. Cecil Roth. W.H. Allen. London, 1966.
19) The World History of the Jewish people, Ed. Michael Avi-Yonah, W.H. Allen, London, 1979.
20) Encyclopaedia Judaica Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 1971.
21) D. Antonio Ballesteros y Beretta, Historia de España, Barcelona, 1943.
22) André Dessens. L'Espagne et ses populations. Complex, Brussels, 1977.
23) Jacques Attali. The Jews, the world and money. Fayard, Paris, 2002.
24) Pepe Rodriguez. Mentiras fundamentales de la Iglésia católica. Translation in Italian by C. Tognonato: 'Verità e menzogne della Chiesa cattolica', Editori riuniti, Roma 2001.
25) Nuovissima Enciclopedia Générale 'De Agostini', 1998.
26) Enciclopedia Universale Garzanti, 1995.
27) Edouard Will and Claude Orrieux. Prosélytisme Juif? Histoire d'une erreur. Belles Lettres, Paris, 1992.
28) G. Mordillat – J. Prieur. Tv. Program 'Origins of Christanity'. Arte Video. Archipel 33. Le Monde. Paris 2004 . Quoted Interviews: Pier Franco Béatrice (Università di Padova); Pierre Géoltrain (Ecole pratique des hautes études, Paris); Christian Grappe (Faculté de théologie Protestante, Strasbourg); Moshe David Herr (Hebrew University of Jerusalem); Jean-Pierre Lémonon (Université Catholique de Lyon); François Bodon (Divinity School, University of Harvard); Emmanuelle Main, (Jewish University of Jerusalem); Daniel Schwartz (Jewish University of Jerusalem).












Quotations


Introduction

1 Enciclopedie Universalis 1990 (E. Universalis). Vol.13, p.137
2 A. Lemaire. Histoire du peuple Hebreu. PUF. Que sais-je. Paris 1981, p.113.
-- World History of the Jewish people. W.H. Allen. London 1975, Vol.7, p.101
3 Origin of Christianity'. Tv. Program .by G. Mordillat
– J. Prieur. Arte Video. Archipel 33. Le Monde, Paris 2004 - Interview of Moshe David Herr in 'The Council of Jerusalem'.
4 Encyclopedie Microsoft Encarta, 1997. Juifs. 'La naissance du Christianisme'
5 P. Maraval. Le christianisme de Constantin à la conquête arabe. PUF – Nouvelle Clio – Paris 2001, p.342
6 Yehuda Ha-Levi. Il Re dei Kazari. P. Boringhieri. Torino, 1960, p.67
7 A. Dessens. L'Espagne et ses populations. Complexe. Bruxelles 1977, p.8
- Mircea Eliade. The Encyclopaedia of religions. London 1987. Vol.7, p.174
8 A. Koestler. La treizième tribu; l''Empire Khazare et son héritage. Kalman-Lévi, Paris 1976, p.173. S.W. Baron. A social and religious History of the Jews. New York, 1957. Cited by Koëstler in ibidem
9 A. Koestler. op.cit. p.163
10 J. Attali. Les Juifs, le monde et l'argent. Fayard, 2002, p.279
11 J. Attali. Op. Cit., p.323
12 J. Attali. Op. Cit., p.322
13 Encyclopaedia Judaica. Keter Publishing House Ltd. Jerusalem, 1971. Vol.5, p.1494.
Ilan Halevi. Question Juive. Editions de minuit. Paris 1981, p.108 and next.
14 Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol.15, 450.


Part 1

1 E. Universalis. Vol.17, p.721
- J-C. Grimal – J Herzlich. La population du monde. Ed. Marabout, Paris 1995
2 Evangile de Mathieu, 23,15
3 Mircea Eliade. The Encyclopaedia of religions, Vol.8, p.174
4 M. Simon – A. Benoit. Le giudaisme et le christianisme anrique. PUF – Nouvelle Clio – Paris 1968, p.267
5 O. Vallet. Petit Lexique sur les idées fausses sur les religions. Albin Michel. Paris 2002, p.114
6 'The origins of the Christanity'. Interview of Christian Grappe in 'The Council of Jerusalem'
7 E.M.E. Juifs
8 Encyclopédie des religions. Ed. Giuseppe Annoscia. Paris 2002, p.36
9 Encyclopédie Universalis 2002 (Universalis 2002). Vol.17, p.257
10 Universalis Vol. 13, p.9. Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol.8, pp.6 and 644
11 I. Halevi,.op. cit,, p.122
12 E.M.E. Juifs. La Diaspora.
13 M. Simon. Les premiers chrétiens. PUF – Que sais-je ? - Paris 1967, p.88
14 'Origin of Christanity'. Interview of P. Geoltrain in 'Jesus after Jesus'
15 'Origin of Christanity'. Interview of J-P. Lemonon in 'Jesus after Jesus'
16 M. Simon, op.cit., p,19
17 'Origin of Christanity'. Interview of P-F. Beatrice in 'Jesus after Jesus'
18 E.M.E. Juifs
19 Universalis 2002. Vol.17, p.257
20 Universalis. Vol.13, p.9. - Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol.8, pp. 6 and 644
21 I. Halevi, op. cit, p.41
22 M. Simon, op.cit., p,107
23 M. Simon, op.cit., p,107
24 'The origins of the Christanity'. Interview of F. Bodon in 'Breaking off with the Judaïsm'
25 Justin Martyr. Oeuvres complètes. Bibliothèque Migne. Paris 1994, p.100, note 4
26 'Origin of Christanity'. Interview of D. Schwarz in 'Breaking off with the Judaïsm'
- Justin Martyr, op. cit., p.113
27 'Origin of Christanity'. Sundry interviews in 'Verus Israel'.
28 Justin Martyr, speaks about Israelis implying that they no more exist. E.g. op. cit., p.278 (end)
29 E.M.E. 'Palestine'.







Part 2

1 E.M.E. 'Karaits'
2 I. Halevi, op. cit., p.69
3 S. D. Goitein, op. cit., p.140; p.232 and next; p.514
4 E.M.E. 'Juifs'
5 E.M.E. 'Yemen'
6 I. Halevi, op. cit., p.72


Part 3

1 Ignacio Olague. Les arabes n'ont jamais envahi l'Espagne. Presentation of Jean Bart. Flammarion, Paris 1969
2 I. Olague, op.cit, p.41
3 I. Olague, op.cit, p.128
4 Georg Ho/st, danish ambassadeur in Maroc. Relations sur les royaumes de Marrakech et Fez recueillies dans ces pays de 1760 à 1768. Ed. La Porta, Rabat 2002, p.99.
5 A. Dessens, op. cit., p.81 - A. Koëstler, op. cit., p.186


Part 4

1 E.M.E. 'Khazars'
2 I. Halevi, op. cit., p.111
3 I. Halevi, op. cit., p.117-118
4 D.M. Dunlop. The history of the jewish Khazars. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 1954, p.3
5 P. Maraval, op. cit., p.95
6 A. Koestler, op. cit., p.69
7 A. Koestler, op. cit., p.88
8 I. Halevi, op. cit., p.123
9 Yehuda Ha-Levi, op. cit., p.67
10 Halevi, op. cit., p.123
11 A Koestler, op. cit., p.197
12 A Koestler, op. cit., p.186
13 Halevi, op. cit., p.125
14 A Koestler, op. cit., p.185
15 E.M.E., 'Population'
16 Universalis 2002, Vol.12, p.987
17 A. Koestler, op. cit., p.86
18 Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 14, p.448
19 Troppi Ebrei dall'Ucraina in Germania'. Corriere della sera, monday 12 June, 1996
20 A. Dessens, op. cit., p.81