Heinrich Graetz - History of the Jews, Vol. 3 (of 6)

In subsequent times, however, the Chazars had but a vague knowledge of the motive which induced their forefathers to embrace Judaism. One of their later Chagans gives the following account of their conversion: The king Bulan conceived a horror of the foul idolatry of his ancestors, and prohibited its exercise within his dominions, without, however, adopting any other form of religion. He was encouraged by a dream in his endeavors to discover the proper manner of worshiping God. Having gained a great victory over the Arabs, and conquered the Armenian fortress of Ardebil, Bulan determined to adopt the Jewish religion openly. The Caliph and the Byzantine emperor desired, however, to induce the king of the Chazars to embrace their respective religions, and with this intention sent to Bulan deputations with letters and valuable presents, and men well versed in religious matters. The king thereupon arranged for a religious discussion to take place before him between a Byzantine ecclesiastic, a Mahometan sage, and a learned Jew. The champions of the three religions disputed the whole question, however, without being able to convince one another or the king of the superior excellence of their respective religions as compared with the other two. But as Bulan had remarked that the representatives of the religion of Christ and of Islam both referred to Judaism as the foundation and point of departure of their faiths, he declared to the ambassadors of the Caliph and the Emperor that, as he had heard from the opponents of Judaism themselves an impartial avowal of the excellence of that religion, he would carry out his intention of professing Judaism as his religion. He thereupon immediately offered himself for circumcision. The Jewish sage who was the means of obtaining Bulan's conversion is supposed to have been Isaac Sanjari or Sinjari.

It is possible that the circumstances under which the Chazars embraced Judaism have been embellished by legend, but the fact itself is too definitely proved on all sides to allow any doubt as to its reality. Besides Bulan, the nobles of his kingdom, numbering nearly four thousand, adopted the Jewish religion. Little by little it made its way among the people, so that most of the inhabitants of the towns of the Chazar kingdom were Jews; the army, however, was composed of Mahometan mercenaries. At first the Judaism of the Chazars must have been rather superficial, and could have had but little influence on their mind and manners. A successor of Bulan, who bore the Hebrew name of Obadiah, was the first to make serious efforts to further the Jewish religion. He invited Jewish sages to settle in his dominions, rewarded them royally, founded synagogues and schools, caused instruction to be given to himself and his people in the Bible and the Talmud, and introduced a divine service modeled on that of the ancient communities. So great was the influence which Judaism exercised on the character of this uncivilized race, that while the Chazars that remained heathens, without a twinge of conscience sold their children as slaves, those of them that had become Jews abandoned this barbarous custom. After Obadiah came a long series of Jewish Chagans, for according to a fundamental law of the state only Jewish rulers were permitted to ascend the throne. Neither Obadiah nor his successors showed any intolerance towards the non-Jewish population of the country; on the contrary, the non-Jews were placed on a footing of complete equality with the other inhabitants. There was a supreme court of justice, composed of seven judges, of whom two were Jews for the Jewish population, two Mahometans and two Christians for those who were of these religions, and one heathen for the Russians and Bulgarians. For some time the Jews of other countries had no knowledge of the conversion of this powerful kingdom to Judaism, and when at last a vague rumor to this effect reached them, they were of opinion that Chazaria was peopled by the remnant of the former ten tribes. The legend runs thus: Far, far beyond the gloomy mountains, beyond the Cimmerian darkness of the Caucasus, there live true worshipers of God, holy men, descendants of Abraham, of the tribes of Simeon and the half-tribe of Manasseh, who are so powerful that five-and-twenty nations pay them tribute.

At about this time – in the second half of the eighth century – the Jews of Europe also emerged a little from the darkness which had covered them for centuries. Favored by the rulers, or at least neither ill-treated nor persecuted by them, they raised themselves to a certain degree of culture. Charlemagne, the founder of the empire of the Franks, to whom Europe owes its regeneration and partial emancipation from barbarism, also contributed to the spiritual and social advancement of the Jews in France and Germany. By the creation of the German-Frankish empire – which extended from the ocean to the further side of the Elbe, and from the Mediterranean to the North Sea – Charlemagne transferred the focus of history to Western Europe, whereas hitherto it had been at Constantinople, on the borderland between Eastern Europe and Asia. Although Charlemagne was a protector of the Church, and helped to found the supremacy of the papacy, and Hadrian, the contemporary Pope, was anything but friendly to the Jews, and repeatedly exhorted the Spanish bishops to prevent the Christians from associating with Jews and heathens (Arabs), Charlemagne was too far-seeing to share the prejudices of the clergy with respect to the Jews. In opposition to all the precepts of the Church and decisions of the councils, the first Frankish emperor favored the Jews of his empire, and turned to account the knowledge of a learned man of this race, who journeyed to Syria for him, and brought back to France the products of the East. While other monarchs punished the Jews for purchasing Church vessels or taking them as pledges from the clergy or the servants of the Church, Charlemagne adopted the opposite course; he inflicted heavy punishment on the sacrilegious ecclesiastics, and absolved the Jews from all penalties.

The Jews were at this period the principal representatives of the commerce of the world. While the nobles devoted themselves to the business of war, the commoners to trades, and the peasants and serfs to agriculture, the Jews, who were not liable to be called upon to perform military service, and possessed no feudal lands, turned their attention to the exportation and importation of goods and slaves, so that the favor extended to them by Charlemagne was, to a certain extent, a privilege accorded to a commercial company. They experienced only the restraint put upon all merchants in the corn and wine trade; the Emperor considered it dishonest to make a profit on the necessaries of life. This somewhat materialistic value set upon the Jews marks, however, great progress from the narrow-mindedness of the Merovingian monarchs, the Gunthrams and the Dagoberts, who saw nothing in the Jews but murderers of God. But Charlemagne also manifested deep interest in the spiritual advancement of the Jewish inhabitants of his empire. In the same way as he had cared for the education of the Germans and the French by inviting learned men from Italy, so also he earnestly desired to place a higher culture within the reach of the German and the French Jews. With this intention he removed a learned family, consisting of Kalonymos, his son Moses, and his nephew, from Lucca to Mayence (787), hoping besides to make the Jews independent of the academies of the Levant.

Charlemagne's embassy to the powerful Caliph Haroun Alrashid, to which was attached a Jew named Isaac, is familiar to every student of history (797). Although at first probably Isaac accompanied the two nobles, Landfried and Sigismund, only in the character of interpreter, he was nevertheless admitted into Charlemagne's diplomatic secrets. Thus, when the two principal ambassadors died on the journey, the Caliph's reply and the valuable presents which he had forwarded, fell into Isaac's sole charge, and he was received in solemn audience by the Emperor at Aix. The Emperor is also said to have requested the Caliph, through his embassy, to send him from Babylonia a learned Jew for his country, and Haroun is reported to have sent him a man answering his requirements. This man was a certain Machir, whom Charlemagne placed at the head of the Jewish congregation of Narbonne. Machir, who, like Kalonymos of Lucca, became the ancestor of a learned posterity, founded a Talmudical school at Narbonne.