Pesakh (general)


Pesach or Pesakh was a Khazar Jewish general mentioned in the Schechter Letter.
Pesach was military commander of the region around the Kerch Strait who defeated the armies of the Rus' prince, most likely Oleg the Wise, around the year 941 in the Taman Peninsula.

Linguistic discussion

Dunlop argued that the term should be read as "the Beg" or "Ebe-shad".

Critical assessment of the letter

The letter associates Pesach with the term with the phrase or ", who is Pesach the ". This has given rise to two interpretations:
  1. That represents the Khazar military title baliqchi, which is only attested to by the Greek accounts of Theophanes the Confessor - thus affording the reading "Pesach, he baliqchi"
  2. That represents a personal name, perhaps the Turkic Boluščï, indicating that "Pesach" was merely the general's nickname, or at the very least was not his name at birth - thus affording the reading "Boluščï, he is Pesach".
Assuming does represent the title of baliqchi, it might indicate that Pesach commanded ships or a port, instead of soldiers on the ground, as baliqchi is thought to roughly translate to "Fisherman" in the Khazar language; leading scholars to hypothesize that the office was actually a naval rank within the Khazar military.
The term is similarly obscure. Dunlop reads, haMeyuqqar, meaning "the Honored", while Schechter proposed "the Reverer," or emending to המיחד "the Uniter". David Kahane proposed the alternate reading השומר "the Guardian". Golb and Pritsak write that "the word is clearly spelled, not... recognition that there is no yod in the word at all makes unnecessary further speculation about the meaning of the reading ; but the term in itself also makes no sense as it stands. That it is a Hebrew word, however, would seem to be indicated by the initial consonant he signifying the definite article. is not a known Hebrew root, but may be cogently emended based on the fact that the previous line of the text states that “the Commander, the chief of the armed troops"... the evidently corrupt המקר,, is with facility emended back to הפקיד,.”