Crimean Karaites

Showcase of the Crimean Karaites traditional lifestyle in Trakai, Lithuania

According to Karaite tradition,[21] Grand Duke Vytautas of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania relocated one branch of the Crimean Karaites to Lithuania ordering to build them a town, called today Trakai. There they continued to speak their own language. This legend originally referring to 1218 as the date of relocation contradicts the fact that the Lithuanian dialect of the Karaim language differs significantly from the Crimean one.[22] The Lithuanian Karaites settled primarily in Vilnius and Trakai, as well as in Biržai, Pasvalys, Naujamiestis and Upytė – smaller settlements throughout Lithuania proper.

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.[23][24][25] Jews (Rabbinites and Karaites) in Lithuanian territory were granted a measure of autonomy under Michel Ezofovich Senior's[26] management. The Trakai Karaim refused to comply, citing differences in faith. Later all Jews, including Karaites,[27] were placed under the authority of the Rabbinite "Council of Four Lands" (Vaad)[28] and "Council of the Land of Lithuania" taxation (1580–1646). The Yiddish-speaking Rabbinites considered the Turkic-speaking Karaites to be apostates, 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 Poland[29] 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,[30] 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 But according to the historical documents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the chief occupation of the Crimean Karaites was money lending.[31] They were granted special privileges, including exemption from the military service.[32] In the Crimean Khanate, the Karaites were repressed like other Jews, with prohibitions on behavior extended to riding horses.[33]

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 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.[34] Catholic missionaries worked to convert the local Karaim to Christianity, but were largely unsuccessful.

Karaim kenesa in Trakai (modern day Lithuania).

19th century leaders of the Karaim, such as Sima Babovich and Avraham Firkovich, were driving forces behind a concerted effort to alter the status of the Karaite community in eyes of the Russian legal system. Firkovich in particular was adamant in his attempts to connect the Karaim with the Khazars, and has been accused of forging documents and inscriptions to back up his claims.[35]

Ultimately, the Tsarist government officially recognized the Karaim as being innocent of the death of Jesus. 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 Krymchak 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.[36]

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.

In 1934, the heads of the Karaite community in Berlin asked the Nazi authorities to exempt Karaites from the anti-Semitic regulations based on their legal status as Russians in Russia. The Reich Agency for the Investigation of Families determined that, from the standpoint of German law, the Karaites were not to be considered Jews. The letter from the Reichsstelle für Sippenforschung (de) officially ruled:

The Karaite sect should not be considered a Jewish religious community within the meaning of paragraph 2, point 2 of the First Regulation to the Reich Citizenship Law. However, it cannot be established that Karaites in their entirety are of blood-related stock, for the racial categorization of an individual cannot be determined without … his personal ancestry and racial biological characteristics

— [37]

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 was here referring to the Crimean Tatars]. 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 Russia 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.[38]

When interrogated, Ashkenazi rabbis in Crimea told the Germans that Karaites were not Jews, in an effort to spare the Karaite community the fate of their Rabbanite neighbors.[39] 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 labor battalions.[40]

According to some sources, Nazi racial theory asserted that the Karaites of Crimea were actually Crimean Goths who'd adopted the Crimean Tatar language and their own distinct form of Judaism.[41]

Karaim cemetery in Warsaw, established in 1890.

Karaim cemetery in Trakai.

Karaim cemetery in Bakhchisaray Crimea.

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.

After the Soviet recapture of Crimea from Nazi forces in 1944, the Soviet authorities counted 6,357 remaining Karaites. Karaites were not subject to mass deportation, unlike the Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Armenians and others the Soviet authorities alleged had collaborated during the Nazi German occupation. Some individual Karaites were deported.

Assimilation and emigration greatly reduced the ranks of the Karaite community. A few thousand Karaites remain in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and Poland. Nowadays, the largest communities exist in Israel and the United States. They are also in Turkey.[42]

In the 1990s, about 500 Crimean Karaites, mainly from Ukraine, emigrated to Israel under the Law of Return.[43] The Israeli Chief Rabbinate has ruled that Karaites are Jews under Jewish law.[44]

Kenesa in Vilnius

The local Karaim communities still exist in Lithuania (where they live mostly in Panevėžys and Trakai regions) and Poland. 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.

Karaim is a Kypchak Turkic language being closely related to Crimean Tatar, Armeno-Kipchak etc. Among the many different influences exerted on Karaim, those of Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian were the first to change the outlook of the Karaim lexicon. Later, due to considerable Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian influence, many Slavic and Baltic words entered the language of Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Russian Karaim. Hebrew remained in use for liturgical purposes. Following the Ottoman occupation of Crimea, Turkish was used for business and government purposes among Karaim living on the Crimean peninsula. Three different dialects developed: the Trakai dialect, used in Trakai and Vilnius (Lithuania), the Lutsk or Halych dialect spoken in Lutsk (until World War II), and Halych, and the Crimean dialect. The last forms the Eastern group, while Trakai and Halych Karaim belong to the Western group. Currently only small minority of Karaim can speak the Karaim language (72 Crimean dialect speakers,[1] 118 Trakai dialect speakers, and about 20 Halych dialect speakers).

Kybyn

The most famous Crimean Karaite food is Kybyn (Russian: Кибина pl. Кибины, Karaim: kybyn pl. kybynlar, Lithuanian: Kibinai). Kybynlar are half moon shaped pies of leavened dough with a stuffing of chopped beef or mutton, baked in dutch oven or baking sheet. Other meals common for Crimean Karaites and Tatars are Chiburekki, Pelmeni, Shishlik (These are most often made from mutton).[65]

Ceremony dishes, cooked for religious holidays and weddings are:

• Tymbyl is Pesach round cakes flat of unleavened[66] dough, knead with cream and butter or butter and eggs, reflected in the modern name of this festival (Tymbyl Chydžy[67]),
• Qatlama is Shavuot (Aftalar Chydžy[67]) cottage cheese pie, which seven layers symbolizing seven weeks after Pesach, four layers of yeast dough, three of pot cheese,
• Wedding pies are Kiyovliuk (on the part of the groom) and Kelin'lik (on the part of the bride).