LUZKI (Lucki), ABRAHAM BEN JOSEPH SOLOMON (Aben Yashar)

LUZKI (Lucki), ABRAHAM BEN JOSEPH SOLOMON (Aben Yashar ) (1792–1855), Karaite scholar and poet in Crimea. He was born in *Lutsk (Luck) and moved as a child with his father Joseph Solomon b. Moses *Luzki in 1803 to Yevpatoriya, where the latter was shofet. He was subsequently sent to Constantinople, where he entered the service of a Karaite merchant Shabbatai Kvitzo for 13 years and married his daughter. Luzki devoted much time to the study of Talmud and rabbinic literature with Rabbanite teachers and acquired extensive knowledge of languages – Spanish, Greek, and Italian – before returning to Yevpatoriya. When in 1827 his father succeeded in obtaining exemption of the Karaites from military service, Luzki composed a poem in honor of Czar Nicholas i. In 1835 he was elected ḥakham of Yevpatoriya, but declined the office. In 1844 he founded a study house in Yevpatoriya and taught there until 1853. Some of his disciples, such as Yehuda Savuskan, Avraham Yefet, and Elijah *Kazaz, became well-known public figures of the Karaite communities in the Crimea. He died in the course of a visit in Ekaterinoslav.

His published works include Iggeret Zug ve-Nifrad (Yevpatoriya, 1833, reprint Ramleh, 1978), a decision concerning marriage law, mitigating former more severe Karaite rulings; liturgical poems, of which eight are included in the Karaite prayer book (Vienna ed. (1854), 168ff.); Shoshannim Edut le-Yosef, a collection of poems, lamentations, sermons, and obituaries (Ashdod, 2005); Mishlei Musar, a translation of fables into Karaite language (Yevpatoriya, n.d.) and a translation of Joseph *Ha-Efrati's drama, Melukhat Sha'ul ("The Reign of Saul") from Hebrew into Karaite language. There remain in the Inst. of Oriental Studies of St. Petersburg and in the National Russian Library a large number of mss which comprises his correspondence, list of books, and mss in his own library, comments on some treatises, and so on.

bibliography:

E. Deinard, Masa Krim (1878), 72; Fuerst, Karaeertum, 3 (1869), 138; Mann, Texts, 2 (1935), 472 n. 10, 474 n. 11, 501.

[Jakob Naphtali Hertz Simchon]