Turkish Jews or Jewish Turks? About the Karaites


Turkish Jews or Jewish Turks?

Anyone who has ever heard of Turkish Jews might think of the Sephardic community in Turkey or Sabetay Sevi, who became Messiah in the 17th century and lived in Smyrna (now Izmir). At that time, many of his followers had to convert officially to Islam for self-protection (“Dönmeler”, dt .: The Converted) and lived their Jewish identity only in secret. However, there is another Jewish-Turkish group that left its mark on Turkish cities, the Karaites.

A synagogue in Istanbul

Some historians suspect behind the Karaeans the Khazars, a Turkic people who converted to Judaism in the ninth century.

She is known to few, which may also be due to the vanishingly small number of her followers. They see themselves as a Jewish religious community and practice religious practices, some of which are very different from the customs of other Jewish currents. The origins of the Karaites give room for much interpretation and until today there are different readings that explain why a Turkic people are Jewish.

Some historians suspect behind the Karaeans the Khazars, a Turkic people who converted to Judaism in the ninth century. Others see them as the descendants of the Crimean Karaites, in the early Middle Ages – about 8-10. Century – lived on the Black Sea. Their first mention can be found in the 13th century in a work by the Karaite Aaron ben Joseph. Today the main settlements of the Karaites are Lithuania and Poland and – due to the Aliyah – also Israel.

Aliyah to Israel

Alijah is the Hebrew term for “ascension” and refers to the immigration of individual Jews or Jewish communities to Eretz Israel (“The Land of Israel”). Initially used as a term for the pilgrimage of believing Jews to Jerusalem, the advent of the Zionist movement gave it the meaning of “return.” With the rise of anti-Semitic tendencies and economic difficulties, many Karaites have emigrated to Israel. More than half of the world’s 45,000 Kareans now live in Israel.

Karaim: Turkic, but somehow Hebrew.

The Karaites speak Karaim, a Turkic language. Karaim Turkish (“Karay Türkçesi”) is more akin to Tatar, also a Turkic language, than to Turkish Turk. The few remaining speakers use the Karaimische only during church services, in everyday life it has lost its validity and in 2014 was spoken only by 81 people worldwide.

The Menorah is one of the most important religious symbols of Judaism

Controversy over the “Karaim Judaism”

While Orthodox Jewish schools usually see the Karaite version of Judaism as a deviation from the Orthodox faith and call the Karaites a “Jewish sect,” they again assume that they are the only religious stream in contemporary Judaism that is practicing true Judaism. In Israel, the Karaites are accepted as Jews, but declared non-religious.

The criticism of Orthodox Jews is directed primarily at the deviation in the performance of many rituals. Unlike Orthodox Jews, the Karaites do not call their places of worship a synagogue, but instead Kenesa. They do not sit during the services, but stand; they also do their prayers to the south, not to the east; the direction of prayer prescribed by Orthodox Jews. In addition, they show numerous deviations from the Jewish calendar.

Karaian Synagogue, Hasköy, Istanbul, Credits: Donnyhoca – Own Work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?cur >

Karaites in the Ottoman Empire

In the 15th century, the Sultan Mehmed II brought many Karaites to Istanbul. Since they were considered the “people of the book“, they were not persecuted in the Ottoman Empire and their communities were able to develop relatively freely for a time. Even today, there is a Karaish Kenesa in Istanbul’s Hasköy district. Unfortunately, there are currently no official official statistics on religious or ethnic minorities in Turkey, so it is not known how many Karaites still live in Turkey today.

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