In The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand, historian of cinema, French intellectual history, and nationalism at Tel Aviv University, writes "while the Khazars scared off the Israeli historians, not one of whom has published a single paper on the subject, Koestler's Thirteenth Tribe annoyed and provoked angry responses. Hebrew readers had no access to the book itself for many years, learning about it only through the venomous denunciations".Sand, Shlomo. The Invention of the Jewish People, Verso Books, 2009, p. 238. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education editor Evan Goldstein states "Sand suggests that those who attacked Koestler's book did so not because it lacked merit, but because the critics were cowards and ideologues. 'No one wants to go looking under stones when venomous scorpions might be lurking beneath them, waiting to attack the self-image of the existing ethnos and its territorial ambitions.'"Goldstein, Evan R. "Where Do Jews Come From?", The Wall Street Journal, 29 October 2009.
