--- Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
>
> This seems to be strong support for the old theory
> (popularized
> by Koestler in "The Thirteenth Tribe") that the East
> European
> jewry, whose language came to be known as Yiddish,
> originally was largely
> composed of Khazarian Jewish refugees from the
> Mongol invasions.
>
Maybe, if one thinks that the EE Jews are descendents of the Khazars, which is iffy. General scholarly opinion in Russia, as far as I can tell, is that the Crimean Tatars and Karaite Jews are descendents of the Khazars (both Turkic ethnic groups), the former having converted to Islam, but that the great bulk of Russia's Jews were taken from Poland. That's what Sol says anyway. I'm wondering why they would use a German word before there were any German Jews, only Turkic Jews?!?!?!?
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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