by the neo-Nazi magazine The Thunderbolt as "the political bombshell of the century", and it was enthusiastically supported by followers of the Christian Identity movement. According to Jeffery Kaplan, The Thirteenth Tribe was "Identity's primary source for the Khazar theory"; they felt Koestler's book confirmed their own beliefs regarding Jews, and sold it "through their mail order services". Goldstein writes that "Koestler and the Khazar theory he advanced lives on in the fever swamps of the white nationalist movement". Michael Barkun writes that Koestler was apparently "either unaware of or oblivious to the use anti-Semites had made of the Khazar theory since its introduction at the turn of the century." Assessment After it was first published, Fitzroy Maclean in The New York Times Book Review called The Thirteenth Tribe excellent, writing "Mr. Koestler's book is as readable as it is thought-provoking. Nothing could be more stimulating than the skill, elegance and erudition with which he marshals his facts and develops his theories." Reviewing the work in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in 1991, journalist and author Grace Halsell described it as a "carefully researched book" that "refutes the idea of a Jewish 'race'." Despite some positive reviews in the press, James A. Beverley writes "When The Thirteenth Tribe was released, the academic critique of its research was prompt, public, and generally negative", and Evan Goldstein states that it was "savaged by critics". An August 1976 review in Time magazine described Koestler's theory as "all too facile, despite the obvious effort and time the author spent on his study", and stated that "Koestler offers a blizzard of information but not enough hard facts to support his thesis". A November 1976 review in National Review stated that the work had "neither the value of a well-executed honest piece of scholarship nor the emotional appeal of a polemic – only the earmarks of a poorly researched and hastily written book". Koestler's analysis was described as a mixture of flawed etymologies and misinterpreted primary sources by Chimen Abramsky in 1976 and Hyam Maccoby in 1977. Barkun describes the book as an "eccentric work", and writes that Koestler was "unequipped with the specialist background the subject might be thought to require", but that he "nevertheless made an amateur's serious attempt to investigate and support the theory." Professor of Polish-Jewish history Gershon D. Hundert wrote in 2006 "There is no evidence to support the