The Schechter letter

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

The Schechter letter is a Hebrew letter by an unnamed Khazar Jew. It comes from the Genizah of Cairo and was first published in 1912 by Solomon Schechter.^[1] The manuscript is a copy. The library catalogue describes it as a copy of a letter, supposedly to Hasdai ibn Shaprut, from a Khazar Jew who describes the conversion of the Khazars.^[2] The writer speaks of Khazaria as “our land” and of Joseph as “my lord”.^[3] The text is dated to the middle of the tenth century, in the years of Joseph. It may have been written at Constantinople.^[4]

The conversion

The letter gives an account of the conversion that differs from that of the Khazar correspondence in nearly every detail. Jews came to Khazaria early, from Armenia, and mixed with the Khazars. The Khazars then had no kings, only generals chosen for war. A Jew became general.^[5] The kings of the Greeks and of the Arabs sent envoys to the princes of Khazaria with words against the Jewish faith. The great prince, a Jew, asked for wise men of the three faiths, and the disputation that followed ended in dissension. The princes of Khazaria then pointed to a cave in the valley of Tizul, where lay books of the law of Moses, and the wise men of Israel explained them. The great prince was renamed Sabriel and made king.^[6] The people of the land chose a wise man as judge, and they called him in the language of Khazaria Kagan.^[7]

This last point makes the khaganate a creation of the conversion. That has been called demonstrably wrong, because khagans of the Khazars existed long before. Justinian II met one.^[8] The letter therefore preserves a second founding tradition that competes with the tale of Bulan, and it has no confirmation from outside.^[2]

The war with the Rus and Byzantium

The letter also reports a war. Romanos, the Byzantine emperor, urged the Rus prince HLGW to attack Tamatarkha.^[9] When the Khazar general Pesach learned of it, he marched against the cities of Romanos and took three of them. He then marched against Cherson, which the letter writes as Shorsun.^[10] Pesach later fought HLGW and defeated him. HLGW was forced to attack Constantinople, and afterwards he fled to Persia.^[11] The attack on Constantinople is identified as the Rus campaign of 941.^[12] HLGW is identified as Helgu, that is, Oleg.^[13]

According to the letter, Byzantium worked to turn the neighbours of the Khazars against them. This has been connected with the anti-Jewish policy of the emperor Romanos Lekapenos.^[14] Constantine Zuckerman starts from a difficulty. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, Oleg had been dead for almost thirty years in 941, so Zuckerman redates the reigns of Oleg and Igor and places the Khazar conversion after 861.^[15]

Reliability

Another judgement is that the letter contains historical fact but also much that is false. It values the letter for what it says about the wars with the Alans, the Rus and Cherson, and asks for care in using it.^[16] Kokovtsov derived the letter from the Sefer Josippon. That derivation has been rejected.^[17] A study of 2013 finds the letter of little reliability, because its names and motifs resemble the traditions of the lost tribes.^[18]

For the Khazar side the letter is one of the few texts that exist. It is anonymous, and its date and place are open. It does show that more than one story of the Khazar beginnings was told in the tenth century.

References

^ Dunlop 1954, p. 156
^ a b The Schechter letter
^ The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 216–219
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 156–157
^ The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 213
^ The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 214–216
^ The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 215–216
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 159
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 162, 166
^ The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 217–218
^ The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 218–219
^ Schechter 1912, p. 196–197
^ Schechter 1912, p. 196
^ Golden 1992, p. 243
^ Zuckerman 1995, p. 237
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 161–166
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 162–163
^ Stampfer 2013

Literature

Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Constantin Zuckerman, On the Date of the Khazars’ Conversion to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings of the Rus Oleg and Igor (1995)
Sh. Stampfer, Did the Khazars Convert to Judaism? (2013)
Golb; Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century (1982)
Solomon Schechter, An Unknown Khazar Document (1912)