[gothic-l] Re: EE Jews descend from Goths

[Tim O'Neill]

l_labkovsky at hotmail.com wrote:
>
> --- In gothic-l at y..., Tim O'Neill <scatha at b...> wrote:
> > l_labkovsky at h... wrote:
> > >
> > >  Some Ostrogoths who lived in what is now Ukraine in the 3rd and
> 4th
> > > centuries intermixed with Sarmats who were Iranians
> >
> > Very true.
> >
> > > ... and the offspring
> > > became what is now East European Jews.
> >
> > Evidence?  Koestler's theory regarding the Khazars is
> > generally regarded as incorrect BTW.

> > There were all of the sudden millions of Jews in Eastern Europe in
> the Middle Ages and medieval German Jews only numbered under 20,000
> at most. Such a huge number of East European Jews can only be
> explained by a mass conversion of some local tribes, in this case
> Sarmato-Ostrogoths.

There was no 'sudden' rise in the numbers of Jews in Eastern
Europe - they had been moving from the Diaspora into Europe,
including Eastern Europe, since Roman times.  There was a
major movement of Jewish people out of Syria after the two
Jewish Wars in the first and second centuries and this
migration was further stimulated by the rise of Islam, the
shrinking of the Byzantine Empire and increasing oppression
by Christians in both Western Christendom and the Eastern
Empire.

> > > These offspring spoke the
> > > dominant German(Yiddish) language ...
> >
> > It's already been pointed out that Yiddish is derived from
> > OHG.

Sorry - that should be MHG.

>You have evidence of Yiddish prior to the MHG period?
> > Do you also have any evidence of East Germanic forms in
> > what is a West Germanic language?

> > Nobody knows for sure where Yiddish comes from and German is German
> is German!

Both of these assertions are completely untrue.  Yiddish
is definitely a West Germanic dialect drived from MHG and
German is certainly *not* 'German is German'.  The
differences between East Germanic (eg Gothic) and West
Germanic (eg MHG) are quite distinct.  As others have
demonstrated to you at some length, Yiddish is quite
distinct from Gothic and clearly derived from MHG.  There
is no doubt about this at all.

> Professor A.Poliak compared the language of the Crimean
> Goths with Yiddish and it was very similar,

Only as similar as any Germanic language is to any other
Germanic language.  This doesn't mean that Crimean Gothic
is the origin of Yiddish, as any Germanic linguist will
tell you.  And as several people here have demonstrated.

> read The Thirteenth Tribe
> by A.Koestler.

I have.  Looking at its index I can see that the words
'Goths', 'Ostrogoths', 'Crimean Goths' and 'Sarmatians'
are not even mentioned.  None of the mentions of the
Crimea make any mention of Goths, Sarmatians or Gotho-
Sarmatians converting to Judaism.  One of his mentions
of Yiddish cites Mieses' analysis of the German origins
of Yiddish and agrees with the conclusion that the
Germanic elements in this language come from 'the
Alpine regions of Austria and Bavaria' - ie from the
West Germanic MHG dialects spoken in those regions in
the Middle Ages, not from the East Germanic Gothic
spoken in the Crimea or anywhere else in the east.
(Koestler, p.154)

So Koestler doesn't seem to agree with your theory either.

> > > and looked like the East European
> > > Jews of today.
> >
> > You have evidence of what these Gotho-Sarmatians looked
> > like.

> > If you mate a German with an Iranian you'll get a "Jewish" face,
> try it yourself with your friends, haha.

As I suspected - no evidence at all, just more assertions.
And what exactly is a 'Jewish face'?

> > > In the Middle Ages these "Mulatoes" were convinced by
> > > the visiting Jewish rabbis that they(Mulatoes) were really Jews
> > > from Germany.
> >
> > Again, evidence?

Again, none cited I see.

> > > The itinerant rabbis did the same trick with Khazars by
> > > convincing Khazars to convert to Judaism.
> >
> > So the Khazars were 'tricked' into converting to Judaism?
> > Yes, the Khazar king Bulan had consulted with a rabbi before
> converting to Judaism. It's a known fact that medieval rabbis where
> actively converting pagans in Eastern Europe to Judaism. The more
> Jews there are the more work is there for rabbis, and that goes for
> all clerics. Even Russians almost became Jews because Prince Vladimir
> had invited a rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Muslim cleric before
> finally deciding for Christianity, but it was a close call.

I can't see any 'trickery' here, just a considered move by
the Kagan to adopt a monotheistic faith respected by both
dominant forms of Christianity and by Islam without aligning
himself with any of these powerful blocs.  A smart move
which helped the Khazar kingdom for survive for some time in
a turbulent time.

> > > These "Mulatoes" were quite unsophisticated and they
> > > believed the rabbis and became ardent Jews.
> >
> > Evidence for any of this?  Documentary sources supporting
> > these ideas for example?

> > And what proof do you have that German Jews ever came to Eastern
> Europe? Even though the Polish king invited German Jews to Poland no
> one ever saw these Jews actually arrive.

Apart from the amateur (and discredited) theory by the
novelist Arthur Koestler, all historians accept that the
influx of Jews into eastern Europe was from Western Europe
and the Byzantine Empire.  And none say anything about a
Gotho-Sarmatian Jewish element, because there is no evidence
for any such thing.

> > > So there you go.
> >
> > So there we have a series of assertions and no evidence
> > supporting any of them.  I'd be interested to see your
> > evidence for these claims.

And, yet again, you given no evidence - just assertions.
The only authority you've referred to is the novelist
Koestler, and even he doesn't seem to agree with you.

It seems that this theory is without any solid foundation
at all.

Tim O'Neill

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