Karaites

Karaites or Caraites , Jewish schismatic sect, reputedly founded (8th cent.) in Persia by Anan ben David and originally known as Ananites. Its adherents were called Karaites after the 9th cent. The Karaites attacked the Talmudic interpretation of the Bible, rejecting the oral law and interpreting the Bible literally, and they developed their own commentaries, which were in many respects more rigorous and ascetic than the Talmudic interpretations. In the 10th cent. they produced a splendid literature in both Arabic and Hebrew. The sect declined after the 12th cent., but remnants are still extant, notably in the Crimea and Israel.

Bibliography: See Karaite Anthology (ed. and tr. by L. Nemoy, 1952), Z. Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium: The Formative Years, 970-1100 (1957, repr. 1968); P. Birnbaum, ed., Karaite Studies (1971).

Karaites (from Heb., ‘readers’, i.e. of scripture). Jewish sect basing itself on scripture, not subsequent interpretation. The name ‘Karaite’ was not used until 9th cent. CE. The sect is usually thought to have been founded by the ascetic Anan b. David in the 8th cent., when his younger brother Hananiah was elected exilarch. Their basic doctrine was that the Bible is the only source of law, and that scholars must study scripture for themselves and interpret it according to their own consciences. From the 12th cent., however, a process of systematization began under such scholars as Judah b. Elijah Hadassi (who summarized Karaite theology in his Eshkol ha-Kofer), Aaron b. Joseph ha-Rofe (who was an eminent biblical exegete and wrote Sefer-Mivhar, the classic Karaite commentary), and the codifier, Aaron b. Elijah the Younger, whose Gan Eden earned him the title of ‘the Karaite Maimonides’. They were perceived as Jews by their gentile rulers, and were in general subject to the same edicts. During the Second World War, the German government pronounced that the Karaites were not Jews and they were thus spared the horrors of the Holocaust. In Israel, they have their own bet din and they are not permitted either by halakhah or by their own laws to intermarry with the rest of the population.

Karaite member of a Jewish sect which bases its tenets on literal interpretation of the scriptures. XVIII. f. Heb. k^erā'îm scripturalists, f. Kārâ read; see -ITE.