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Pesach orPesakh (Hebrew:פסחpsḥ) was aKhazarJewish general mentioned in theSchechter Letter.

Pesach was military commander of the region around theKerch Strait who defeated the armies of theRus' princehglw (Hebrew:הלגו‎), most likelyOleg the Wise, around the year 941 in theTaman Peninsula.

Dunlop argued that the termpsḥ should be read as "theBeg" or "Ebe-shad".^[1]

The letter associates Pesach with the termbwlšṣy (Hebrew:בולשצי‎) with the phraseבולשצי הוא פסח המקר‎ or "bwlšṣy, who is Pesach themqr". This has given rise to two interpretations:

1. Thatbwlšṣy represents the Khazar military titlebaliqchi, which is only attested to by the Greek accounts ofTheophanes the Confessor - thus affording the reading "Pesach, he (who is the)baliqchi"
2. Thatbwlšṣy represents a personal name, perhaps the TurkicBoluščï, 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 (who is called) Pesach".

Assumingbwlšṣy does represent the title ofbaliqchi, it might indicate that Pesach commanded ships or a port, instead of soldiers on the ground, asbaliqchi is thought to roughly translate to "Fisherman" (or, in alternate translation "Fish-Lord") in the Khazar language; leading scholars to hypothesize that the office was actually anaval rank within the Khazar military.

The termhmqr ("themqr") is similarly obscure. Dunlop readshmyqr,haMeyuqqar, meaning "the Honored",^[1] while Schechter proposed "the Reverer," or emending toהמיחדhmyḥd "the Uniter".^[2]David Kahane proposed the alternate readingהשומרhšmr "the Guardian".^[3] Golb and Pritsak write that "the word is clearly spelledhmqr, nothmyqr... recognition that there is noyod in the word at all makes unnecessary further speculation about the meaning of the readinghmyqr; but the termhmqr 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.mqr 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 (הפקיד,haPaqid), the chief of the armed troops" . . . the evidently corruptהמקר,hmqr, is with facility emended back toהפקיד,hpqyd.”^[4]

• Kevin Alan Brook.The Jews of Khazaria. 3rd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2018.ISBN 978-1-5381-0342-5
• Dunlop, Douglas M.The History of the Jewish Khazars, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954.
• Golb, Norman and Omeljan Pritsak.Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982.
• Zuckerman, Constantine. "On the Date of the Khazar’s Conversion to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings of the RusOleg andIgor."Revue des Etudes Byzantines 53 (1995): 237–270.

• Khazar generals
• 10th-century Jews

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