Kipling Hedley <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> Approximately 90% of people in the world today who call themselves
> Jews are actually Khazars, or as they like to be known, Ashkenazi
> Jews. They are from a country called Khazaria, which occupied the
> land between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, now predominantly
> Georgia.
Actually, without going farther astray from the list's intended subject
matter, I'd like to point out that this thesis, a favorite of racialist
authors of the early twentieth century, has long since been decisively
disproven by DNA testing.
That the theory -- with all that it would imply about the legitimacy of
a Jewish return to Israel -- still finds adherents in the absence of
evidence, and in the face of conclusive counter-evidence, should tell us
something about the cultural currents which informed Mr. Kipling's
own views on the subject, including in "Burden".
I'm also surprised that "The Treasure and the Law" in _Puck of Pook's
Hill_ hasn't come up in the conversation...
--
Jim Wise
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