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Landau, Maximilian : BEITRÄGE ZUM CHAZARENPROBLEM

Breslau, S. Münz,, 1938

1st edition, original wrappers, 8vo. 46 pages, in German. Title translates to: “Contributions to the Khazar Problem. ” Holocaust-era Jewish imprint from Germany defending the theory that the majority of Ashkenazi Jews descended from the Khazar kingdom rather than from the ancient Middle-Eastern Israelites. Significant in the context of Nazi-Germany because of the use by Antisemites of the Khazar theory to label modern European Jews as “fakes”. “It is historically attested that for some 150 years Judaism was the official religion of the Khazars, a nation occupying the region between the Don and the Caspian; its chief monument in Jewish literature is the correspondence between the Spanish diplomat Hasdai ibn Shaprut and the Khazar sovereign Joseph. Grätz in his Geschichte der Juden (vol. V) gives an epitome of these documents, without questioning their genuineness; that, however, has been frequently disputed, and the purpose of this pamphlet is to rebut the arguments adduced in favor of their being forgeries of a later period. One of these is based on the Messianic hopes expressed by Hasdai, but Herr Landau is able to show that such were commonly harboured by Hasdai’s contemporaries. He is further able to produce a number of parallels to the phraseology of the letter from the writings of Menahem b. Saruk, who acted as Hasdai’s secretary. In the second part of his pamphlet he defends against Kokovcoc the authenticity of a document published by Schechter from the Geniza- collection in Cambridge, ostensibly of the tenth century, and which Herr Landau holds to have been addressed to Hasdai, and indeed to have been the source of the knowledge displayed in his letter about the affairs of the Khazars. ” (the abstract, Margoliouth) . SUBJECT(S) : Khazars. OCLC: 1067283. Slight creasing on cover, else Very Good Condition. (HOLO2-140-9)

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