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Crimean Karaites or simply Karaites (Crimean Karaim language: Кърымкъарайлар, Qrımqaraylar, singular къарай, qaray; Trakai dialect: karajlar, singular karaj; ; ; ), also known more broadly as Eastern European Karaites, are a traditionally Turkic languages Jews ethnoreligious group native to Crimea. Nowadays, most Karaim in Eastern Europe speak the dominant local language of their respective regions.
The Karaite religion, known in Eastern Europe as Karaism, split from mainstream Rabbinical Judaism in the 19th and 20th centuries, though differences date back to the 12th century. They have lived alongside Krymchaks. Most Karaites in the region do not consider themselves to be Jews, associating the ethnonym with Rabbinical Jews alone, but rather consider themselves to be descendants of the Khazars, Jewish schisms, or other Turkic peoples.
Research into the origins of the Karaites indicates they are of ethnic Jewish origin and are genetically closely related to other Jewish diaspora groups. Some researchers believe they originated in Constantinople and later settled in the Byzantine Principality of Theodoro.
A closely related group, the Slavic Karaites, were formally accepted into the Karaite ethnoreligious community of Crimea after the deposition of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917. They are descendants of ethnic Russian Subbotniks. However, most Slavs claiming to be Karaites in Eastern Europe are not members of the Karaite ethnoreligious community, and are not accepted as legitimate Karaites.
In 19th century Crimea, Karaites began to distinguish themselves from other Jewish groups, sending envoys to the czars to plead for exemptions from harsh anti-Jewish legislation. These entreaties were successful, in large part due to the tsars' wariness of the Talmud, and in 1863 Karaites were granted the same rights as their Christian and Tatar neighbors. Exempted from the Pale of Settlement, later they were considered non-Jews by Nazis. This left the community untouched by the Holocaust, unlike other Turkic-speaking Jews, like the Krymchaks Jews that were almost wiped out.
Miller says that Crimean Karaites did not start claiming a distinct identity apart from the Jewish people before the 19th century, and that such leaders as Avraham Firkovich and Sima Babovich encouraged this position to avoid the strong antisemitism of the period.Miller, Philip. Karaite Separatism in 19th Century Russia, pp xv–xvi, 3, 47
From the time of the Golden Horde onward, Karaites were present in many towns and villages throughout Crimea and around the Black Sea. During the period of the Crimean Khanate, they had major communities in the towns of Çufut Qale, Sudak, Kefe, and Bakhchysarai.
The Lithuanian Karaites also settled in lands of modern Belarus and Ukraine, which were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Karaite communities emerged in Halych and Kukeziv (near Lviv) in Galicia, as well as in Lutsk and Derazhne in Volhynia. Jews (Rabbinites and Karaites) in Lithuanian territory were granted a measure of autonomy under Michel Ezofovich Senior's Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland – A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era – by Magda Teter management. The Trakai Karaim refused to comply, citing differences in faith. Later all Jews, including Karaites,"He-Avar" ("Хе-Авар") Magazine, Petrograd, No. 1, 1918 were placed under the authority of the Rabbinic Judaism "Council of Four Lands" (Vaad)Jacob Mann, "Karaica", Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, no. 11, Philadelphia, 1935; Jurgita Šiaučiūnaitė – Verbickienė, Žydai Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės visuomenėje: sambūvio aspektai, Vilnius, 2009; Idem, Ką rado Trakuose Žiliberas de Lanua, arba kas yra Trakų žydai, in Lietuvos istorijos studijos, no. 7, 1999. and "Council of the Land of Lithuania" taxation (1580–1646). The Yiddish-speaking Rabbinites considered the Turkic-speaking Karaites to be apostasy, and kept them in a subordinate and depressed position. The Karaites resented this treatment. In 1646, the Karaites obtained the expulsion of the Rabbinites from Trakai. Despite such tensions, in 1680, Rabbinite community leaders defended the Karaites of Shaty near Trakai against an accusation of blood libel. Representatives of both groups signed an agreement in 1714 to respect the mutual privileges and resolve disputes without involving the Gentile administration.
According to Crimean Karaite tradition, which developed in the 20th century interwar period Poland Кизилов М. Ильяш Караимович и Тимофей Хмельницкий: кровная месть, которой не было, (М. Kizilov. Ilyash Karaimovich and Timofey Khmelnitsky: the blood feud that never took place) Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in publication Фальсификация исторических источников и конструирование этнократических мифов ."Начиная приблизительно с межвоенного периода и вплоть до наших дней, караимские националисты стараются представить мирное караимское население Восточной Европы в роли "неустрашимых и храбрых воителей", что едва ли одобрили их богобоязненные исторические предки, которые были преимущественно торговцами и ремесленниками". their forefathers were mainly farmers and members of the community who served in the military forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as in the Crimean Khanate. But according to the historical documents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the chief occupation of the Crimean Karaites was Loan. Древние привилегии литовско-волынских караимов, извлеченные из актов замка Луцкого 1791 г"Но вникнув в смысл привилегии Витольда замечаем, что в древние времена тамошние Караимы более всего занимались заимодавством; да, и по сие время зажиточные люди этого общества не оставляют этого прибыльного промысла; и отдавая свои капиталы в рост, в обеспечение их берут у своих должников в арендное содержание мельницы, корчмы, а чаще всего ссудят под заклад движимого имущества". They were granted special privileges, including exemption from the military service. Древние привилегии литовско-волынских караимов, извлеченные из актов замка Луцкого 1791 г"В следствие того они били челом его Королевской милости, что издавна еще при Великом Князе Витольде и при Сигизмунде и при отце нашем Короле Казимире его милости, жиды Троцкие (i.e Karaite Jews) никогда на войну не хаживали и не посылали". In the Crimean Khanate, the Karaites were repressed like other Jews, with prohibitions on behavior extended to riding horses.P. S. Pallas Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die Südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs (1799–1801)
Some famous Karaim scholars in Lithuania included Isaac b. Abraham of Troki (1543–1598), Joseph ben Mordecai Malinovski, Zera ben Nathan of Trakai, Salomon ben Aharon of Trakai, Ezra ben Nissan (died in 1666) and Josiah ben Judah (died after 1658). Some of the Karaim became quite wealthy.
During the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Karaim suffered severely during the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and the wars between Russia and the Commonwealth in the years 1654–1667. The many towns plundered and burnt included Derazhne and Trakai, where only 30 families were left in 1680. The destruction of the Karaite community in Derazhne in 1649 is described in a poem (both in Hebrew and Karaim) by a leader of the congregation, Hazzan Joseph ben Yeshuah HaMashbir. Catholic missionaries worked to convert the local Karaim to Christianity, but were largely unsuccessful.
Ultimately, the Tsarist government officially recognized the Karaim as being innocent of the Jewish deicide. So they were exempt from many of the harsh restrictions placed on other Jews. They were, in essence, placed on equal legal footing with Crimean Tatars. The related Krymchaks community, which was of similar ethnolinguistic background but which practiced rabbinical Judaism, continued to suffer under Tsarist anti-Jewish laws.
Solomon Krym (1864–1936), a Crimean Karaite agronomist, was elected in 1906 to the First Duma (1906–1907) as a Kadet (National Democratic Party). On November 16, 1918 he became the Prime Minister of a short-lived Crimean Russian liberal, anti-separatist and anti-Soviet government also supported by the German army.
Since the incorporation of Crimea into the Russian Empire the main center of the Qarays is the city of Yevpatoria. Their status under Russian imperial rule bore beneficial fruits for the Karaites decades later.
This ruling set the tone for how the Nazis dealt with the Karaite community in Eastern Europe. At the same time, the Nazis had serious reservations about the Karaites. SS Obergruppenfuhrer Gottlob Berger wrote on November 24, 1944:
"Their Mosaic religion is unwelcome. However, on grounds of race, language and religious dogma... Discrimination against the Karaites is unacceptable, in consideration of their racial kinsmen Berger. However, so as not to infringe the unified anti-Jewish orientation of the nations led by Germany, it is suggested that this small group be given the opportunity of a separate existence (for example, as a closed construction or labor battalion)..."
Despite having exempt status, groups of Karaites were massacred in the early phases of the war. German soldiers who came across Karaites in the Soviet Union during the invasion of Operation Barbarossa, unaware of their legal status under German law, attacked them; 200 were killed at Babi Yar alone. German allies such as Vichy France began to require the Karaites to register as Jews, but eventually granted them non-Jewish status after getting orders by Berlin.Semi passim.
When interrogated, Ashkenazi Jews rabbis in Crimea told the Germans that Karaites were not Jews, in an effort to spare the Karaite community the fate of their Rabbanites neighbors.Blady 2000 pp. 125–126. Many Karaites risked their lives to hide Jews, and in some cases claimed that Jews were members of their community. The Nazis impressed many Karaites into .Green passim.
According to some sources, Nazi racial theory asserted that the Karaites of Crimea were actually Crimean Goths who had adopted the Crimean Tatar language and their own distinct form of Judaism.Wixman 1984 p. 94.
In Vilnius and Trakai, the Nazis forced Karaite Hakham Seraya Shapshal to produce a list of the members of the community. Though he did his best, not every Karaite was saved by Shapshal's list.
Assimilation and emigration greatly reduced the ranks of the Karaite community. A few thousand Karaites remain in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland and Russia. Nowadays, the largest communities exist in Israel and the United States; however, these communities are almost entirely Egyptian in origin and ethnically and liturgically distinct from Crimean Karaites. There is also a community of fewer than 100 Karaites in Turkey.
In the 1990s, about 500 Crimean Karaites, mainly from Ukraine, emigrated to Israel under the Law of Return.Mikhail Kizilov. The Karaites of Galicia: An Ethnoreligious Minority Among the Ashkenazim, the Turks, and the Slavs, 1772—1945 (Studia Judaeoslavica, 2009)] 340 The Israeli Chief Rabbinate has ruled that Karaites are Jews under Jewish law.ביע אומר חלק ח, אבן העזר סימן י"ב; מכתב שפורסם אצל: מיכאל קורינאלדי, המעמד האישי של הקראים, ירושלים תשמ"ד, עמ' 139; הובא גם אצל: בני לאו, 'על משמרתי אעמודה להחזיר עטרה ליושנה', בתוך: מרדכי בר-און (עורך), אתגר הריבונות, Иерусалим 1999, 226
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According to Karaite tradition, all the Eastern European Karaite communities were derived from those in the Crimea, but some modern historians doubt the Crimean origin of Lithuanian Karaites.Ahiezer, G. and Shapira, D. 2001.'Karaites in Lithuania and in Volhynia-Galicia until the Eighteenth Century' Hebrew. Peamin 89: 19–60 Nevertheless, the name "Crimean Karaites" is used for the Turkic-speaking Karaites community supposed to have originated in Crimea, distinguishing it from the historically Aramaic language, Hebrew, and Arabic language-speaking Karaites of the Middle East.
Within living memory, the community was many times larger than it is today. The 1979 census in the USSR showed 3,300 Karaim. Lithuanian Karaim Culture Community was founded in 1988. According to the Lithuanian Karaim website the Statistics Department of Lithuania carried out an ethno-statistic research entitled "Karaim in Lithuania" in 1997. It was decided to question all adult Karaim and mixed families, where one of the members is a Karaim. During the survey, for the beginning of 1997, there were 257 people of Karaim ethnicity, 32 of whom were children under 16. A similar survey was done in 2021, in honour of the 625th anniversary of Karaite settlement in Lithuania. This coincided with the 2021 national census.
In 2011, 423 individuals identified as Karaims in the Lithuanian census. By 2021, this had dropped to 192, a decline of around 55 percent in a single decade.
Outside Crimea, Karaites historically settled in Galicia, particularly in Halych and Lutsk. However, there is only one Karaite left in Halych today, and the kenesa was shut down in 1959 and eventually demolished. The Galician community had its own dialect of Karaim. The largest contemporary Karaite community is in Kyiv; smaller ones exist in other cities, including Kharkiv, which has a functioning kenesa, although the community numbers only about two dozen. In the 2010 census, 481 Ukrainians identified as Karaites outside of Crimea. In 2021, the Ukrainian government unveiled a bill planned to grant Crimean Karaites and other minority groups official 'Indigenous' status.
The Crimean Karaites' emancipation in the Russian Empire caused cultural assimilation followed by secularization. This process continued in the USSR when most of the were closed. In 1928 secular Karaim philologist Seraya Shapshal was elected as Hacham of Polish and Lithuanian Karaim. Being a strong adopter of Russian orientalist V. Grigorjev's theory about the Khazars origin of the Crimean Karaites, Shapshal developed the Karaim's religion and "historical dejudaization" doctrine.Roman Freund, Karaites and Dejudaization (Acta Universitas Stockholmiensis. 1991. – №30).
In the mid 1930s, he began to create a theory describing the Altai Mountains-Turkic peoples origin of the Karaim and the pagan roots of Karaite religious teaching (worship of sacred oaks, polytheism, led by the god Tengri, the Sacrifice). Shapshal's doctrine is still a topic of critical research and public debate.
He made a number of other changes aimed at the Karaim's Turkification and at erasing the Karaite Judaism elements of their culture and language.М. Кизилов, Новые материалы к биографии Шапшала// Материалы девятой международной конференции по иудаике (2002), с. 255—273.E.g compare the Trakai kenassa gate in 1932 [10] and today Trakai Kenesa.JPG He issued an order canceling the teaching of Hebrew in Karaite schools and replaced the names of the Jewish holidays and months with Turkic equivalents (see the table below).
According to Shapshal, Crimean Karaites were pagans who adopted the law of Moses, but continued to adhere to their ancient Turkic peoples beliefs. In addition, he claimed that the Karaites had revered Jesus and Mohammed as prophets for centuries. In the Post-Soviet period, Shapshal's theory was further developed in modern Karaylar publications (e.g. "Crimean legends") and was officially adopted by the Crimean Karaim Association "Krymkaraylar" (Ассоциация крымских караимов “Крымкарайлар”) as the only correct view of the Karaim's past in 2000."Попытки приписать крымским караимам чуждые этнос и религию, смешение этнических крымских караимов с караимами по религии, искажение истории — оскорбляют национальные чувства и создают предпосылки для национальных и религиозных конфликтов." ("Attempts to attribute the Crimean Karaites alien ethnicity and religion, mixing ethnic Crimean Karaites with the Karaites on religion, the distortion of history – offend the national feelings and create the conditions for national and religious conflicts") Караи (крымские караимы). История, культура, святыни (in Russian). — Симферополь, 2000.
The ideology of de-Judaization, pan-Turkism and the revival of Tengrism is imbued with the works of the contemporary leaders of the Karaites in Crimea. At the same time, some part of the people retained Jewish customs, several Karaite congregations have registered.
| Pesach | Hag ha-Matzah (Unleavened bread festival) | Tymbyl Chydžy | Unleavened bread ("Tymbyl") festival |
| Omer | Sefira (Counting of the Omer) | ||
| San Bašy | Counting Beginning | ||
| Jarty San | Counting Middle | ||
| Shavuot | Hag Shavuot ( Feast of Weeks) | Aftalar Chydžy | Feast of Weeks |
| The 9th of Tammuz Fast | Tzom Hareviyi (4th month fast) | Burunhu Oruč | First Fast |
| The 7th of Av Fast | Tzom Hahamishi (5th month fast) | Ortančy Oruč | Middle Fast |
| The 10th of Av Fast | Nedava (sacrifice) | Korban | Sacrifice |
| Rosh HaShana | Yom Teru'ah (The blowing of Shofar day) | Byrhy Kiuniu | Horns Day |
| Yom Kippur | literally "The Day of Atonement" | Bošatlych Kiuniu | The Day of Atonement |
| Fast of Gedalia | Tzom Hashviyi (7th month fast) | Omitted | |
| Sukkot | literally "Tabernacles". The other name: "Hag Ha Asif" ("Harvest festival") | Alačych Chydžy or Oraq Toyu | Tabernacles festival or Harvest festival |
| Tenth of Tevet fast | Tzom Haasiri (10th month fast) | Oruč | Fast |
| Purim | "Lots". | Kynyš | Hamantash. |
| Was not considered a holiday | Jyl Bašy | The beginning of the Year |
Haplogroups G2a-P15, J1-M267, J2-M172 together make up more than half of the Karaites' gene pool. Next come haplogroups R1a-M198, C3, E1b, T and L.Агджоян Анастасия Торосовна. "Генофонд коренных Крыма по маркерам Y-хромосомы, мтДНК и полногеномных панелей аутосомных SNP"
Ceremony dishes, cooked for religious holidays and weddings are:
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