Karaite

This paper is a critical edition of Jehoszafat Kapłanowski’s (a Trakai-born Karaim-speaking Odessan) two letters written in Hebrew script that were sent in 1868 to Lutsk. The critical apparatus that accompanies the transcription and translation includes commentaries on each linguistic peculiarity or irregularity. The study is augmented by a glossary and facsimile, as well as brief historical comments on some of the persons mentioned in the text.

The article deals with Saadia's approach to the Golden Calf story. Saadia believed Aaron wanted to test the people and see which people would worship the Calf so that he could later kill them, similarily to what Jehu did (2Kgs 10). The article discusses the reception of Saadia's idea in Judeo Arabic ans Samaritan literature. In: Jewish Biblical Exegesis from Islamic Lands: The Medieval Period, eds. Meira Polliack and Athalia Brenner Idan, Atlanta 2019, pp. 121-128

What do Jews think scripture is? How do Jews view the anthology they variously call Tanakh, Miqra or “the Bible? Until now, no book has surveyed the answers Jews through the ages have given to these questions. This is the more surprising, since one would think that the conception of the Book among the People of the Book would be a topic of interest. The way Jews construct scripture, after all, is one way Jews construct themselves. The purpose of this anthology is to fill this gap. The seventeen essays in this collection explore how various figures, movements, or texts conceptualize scripture. Issues they address include:
- Ways in which the Tanakh is and is not thought to be authoritative
- The  relationship between Tanakh and tradition (in rabbinic parlance: between the Oral and Written Torahs)
- The question of who has the authority to interpret scripture
- The special status of the Bible’s language, or the ways its use of language differs from that of other texts
- The relationship of scripture to God and/or heavenly intermediaries
- The place of the Tanakh in the life of Jewish communities"

The article introduces a newly identified fragment of Kitāb al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-ʿadl du Qāḍī ʿAbd Al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī (d. 415/1025) from the (Second) Shapira Collection of the British Library. Together with MS St. Petersburg, Russian National Library, Firk. Arab. 105, ff. 14–92 [see https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=2036195&journal_code=MID&download=yes] the fragment covers vol. 13 of the Karaite recension of the Mughnī (Nukat al-Mughnī) which corresponds to the missing vols. 18 and 19 (K. al-Waʿd wa-l-waʿīd & K. al-Asmāʾ wa-l-aḥkām) of the Yemenite recension.

The problem of origin and existence of Karaites was investigated in the article with a focus on the interwar period. The main theories of the origin of this ethnoreligious community were given and analyzed and also presented the author’s understanding of Karaite ethnogenesis appealing to the context of Galicia.

Over the centuries Karaite communities have undergone constant socio-cultural transformations under the influence of cultures and religions among which they lived. However, Karaites managed to consistently adhere to their own biblical ethos presenting its religious tradition as a real, unaltered or supplemented orthodox form of Jewish civilization. The purpose of the research is to find out who Karaites are, when and under what conditions they came to Galicia; how Karaites managed to preserve their identity and separateness for many centuries; to learn the peculiarities of the public governance of Galician Karaite religious community during the 1920s and 1930s, their traditions and practices of network communication and institutional management within Galicia and interwar Poland in general.

Research methods. While writing the scientific article the research dialectical principle of learning and evaluating objects and phenomena in their historical development (the principle of historism) was used. To verify involved information a comparative method was used, content-analysis and discourse-analysis were performed. In the process of combining and reconciling archival materials and historiographical information the method of complex analysis was applied.

The source basis of the research is the materials of the journal «Myśl karaimska» — a leading intellectual platform where humanitarians presented their Karaims studios — historical, ethnographic, linguistic, religious, anthropological and cultural studies as well as chronicles of the most important events from life of the Karaite communities in interwar Poland, including Galicia. Due to the fact that this journal has not been available to Ukrainian researchers for many decades most of the information contained in its pages has not previously been used in major studies which determines relevance and novelty of this research. After all it allowed a new look at the old research questions as well as to identify new research tasks.

Keywords: Karaites, Karaism, Myśl karaimska, Galicia, interwar period, Gaham, Karaite religious union.

The present contribution offers an analysis of the first Jewish Arabic text ever discovered in the undertext of a Sinaitic palimpsest: a previously unknown Karaite Arabic translation of Genesis and Exodus (undertext of Sinai gr. 930). Translated directly from Hebrew, the newly discovered Arabic version is written in Arabic script (the handwriting seems to date to the tenth or early eleventh century) and displays numerous similarities to known Karaite translations: by Yefet ben ʿEli (fl. 960–1003), Yeshuʿah ben Yehudah (fl. 1030-1070), and others. Both the translation and the manuscript seem to be of North African (or, possibly, Egyptian) origin or, alternatively, to have been produced by a North African or Egyptian expatriate living elsewhere (e.g., in Jerusalem). This old Jewish parchment manuscript may have been put on sale – with its writing already scraped and the leaves separated – and the Monastery of Mount Sinai or a Christian dealer acting on its behalf may have purchased it in either Egypt or Jerusalem with the aim of reusing the old parchment for its own needs.

This monograph presents the contents of a Crimean Karaim manuscript of Samuel, son of
rabbi Kohen in the second half of the nineteenth century, namely in 1876 with short fragments
copied in 1875 and 1879. The manuscripts of this type are a unique source of knowledge of
the languages used by Crimean Karaims in the nineteenth century, that is Crimean Karaim
and Crimean Turkish. The majority of the linguistic material from that period is either not yet
published or difficult to obtain. Furthermore, the manuscripts provide us with information on
popular literature of the Crimean Karaims. Hitherto published Crimean Karaim manuscripts,
that is the first edition of a mejuma published by Radloff (1888, 1896) and contemporary
critical editions of Joseph Qılcı’s mejuma prepared by Aqtay (2009) and Qatıq’s mejuma by
Çulha (2010), contain folklore texts such as tales, songs and proverbs. The novelty of our
study lies in the fact that the core of the manuscript I present consists of new literary material,
namely a translation of a Hebrew drama entitled Melukhat Sha’ul into Turkic, which
heretofore has not been examined.
My thesis comprises a short outline of the religion, history, language and literature of
the Crimean Karaims. It is followed by a chapter dedicated to the description of the
manuscript along with the characteristics of the translation of the drama Melukhat Sha’ul and
a chapter in which I present a linguistic analysis of the language of the drama. These
introductory chapters precede the main part of the dissertation which consists of the
transcription of the translated drama with a translation into English.

This article draws the attention of historians of scriptural exegesis to the relevance of uṣūl al-fiqh — both as a literary genre and as a discipline of the religious sciences — to an understanding of the semiotic foundations and the hermeneutic discourse of scriptural commentaries (uṣūl al-tafsīr) in mediaeval Judaism and Islam. What are the means through which meaning is produced, what are the conditions to be met for the possibility of their understanding? We find the most systematic and exhaustive discussions on these and related questions not in the commentaries themselves but in compositions on uṣūl al-fiqh.

Title: Studies in Eshkol Hakofer of Judah Hadassi
Submitted by: Moshe Firrouz
Dissertation Advisor: Prof. Daniel J. Lasker

The subject of the present study is Eshkol Hakofer (i.e., Cluster of Henna), a book of commandments authored by the Karaite scholar Judah ben Elijah Hadassi, in Byzantium beginning in 1148 CE. Hadassi declares that his work is based on the books of earlier scholars, sometimes named, sometimes not. From a simple reading of Eshkol Hakofer, one immediately sees that the work is based on a very extensive array of sources and books, Karaite, Rabbanite, and Muslim.
The work is composed as a series of acrostics, going through the alphabet in ascending and descending order about four hundred times. Its style is characterized by rhyme, word-play, and copious quotation or paraphrase of biblical verses.
The target audience of the work is not easy to determine. Often one gets the impression that the intended audience is one that is well-versed in the subject-matter and in the sources quoted. At other times it seems that the author aims at a popular audience. He occasionally addresses explicitly Karaites, occasionally Rabbanites, and sometimes both.
The starting point of the present study is an attempt to map the Karaite books and writings preceding Eshkol Hakofer, with an eye to revealing the literary sources that served and influenced Judah Hadassi in writing his book. This, in turn, makes it possible to characterize his stances and determinations, both halakhic and theological.
Chapter One is devoted to a description of the literary background of Eshkol Hakofer, that is to a description of the books that were in the library at Hadassi's disposal. This chapter serves as the basis for the following chapters, in which it is attempted to gauge the degree to which Hadassi was bound to the preceding literature and alternatively to which he could innovate.
To ascertain Hadassi's distinctiveness three subject areas have been chosen –– theology, polemic, and halakha. These areas very nearly (though not completely) encompass the community life of the Karaites in general and particularly in Byzantium.
Chapter Two, which serves as an introduction to Chapter Three, sets out the conception of the structure of the world as it appears in Eshkol Hakofer. It addresses the philosophical and theological background by setting forth the fundamentals of the world views of the Kalam and of Aristotelian science which served Hadassi in presenting his views.
Chapter Three treats theodicy, that is, the problem of apparently injustice in the world as against the all-just God. After surveying the solutions offered by Muslim, Karaite, and Rabbanite scholars, Hadassi's theological innovations are identified and possible reasons for them suggested.
Chapter Four addresses Karaite-Christian polemic on four planes –– halakhic, interpretative, theological and historical. In the explicit polemic against Christianity there is a hidden agenda –– an anti-Rabbanite polemic. The polemic against Christianity is subtle and operates on two levels. On the one hand, Hadassi attacks the new, namely, Pauline Christianity; on the other hand, he avoids striking at Christian fundamentals such as the figure of Jesus and the early Christians. He repeatedly uses this polemic en passant to attack the Rabbanites. He thus creates a sort of "faith barrier", to ward off from his community the challenges coming from Rabbanism and Christianity.
Chapter Five treats the subject of mourning, and how rituals associated with mourning affected Hadassi's thought on the proper mode of life in general. In particular two central practices of "Mourners of Zion", prohibitions of eating meat and of drinking wine, are examined, and Hadassi is shown coping with the waning interest of his Byzantium community, far from the Land of Israel, in these mourning practices.
Chapter Six treats religious worship after the Temple destruction –– prayer and its customs. Whereas chapter Five addressed the effect Mourning for Zion had on daily life, especially in the matter of prohibitions on consumption, this chapter addresses the matter of substitutes for the Temple. Previous views on the subject, often contrary, are surveyed and serve as the background to a study of Hadassi's complex use of his sources in determining his halakha.
Characteristic of the subjects chosen to examine in Hadassi's writing –– theodicy, polemic, mourning, and worship –– is that these are not clearly biblically based, as are, for instance, festivals, ritual purity, and kashrut, where the development of Karaite halakha is relatively straightforward. On the former issues, however, Karaite religious leaders had to create their positions and practices on these matters from scratch. These issues, then, serve as excellent test-cases for the study of Hadassi's halakhic thought.
A central conclusion of the present study is that Hadassi labored to preserve the doctrines of the "Mourners of Zion", the scholars of the Karaite center in Jerusalem during Karaism's "Golden Age", while nevertheless adapting them to his community in Byzantium. Hadassi, I argue, knew that on his shoulders rested a heavy burden –– the future of the Karaite community in Byzantium. Hence the multiple times Hadassi addresses his readers with admonitions about the importance of the Torah and the observance of its commandments. In most of the subjects examined in the present study Hadassi is found to be conservative and even strict. Hadassi tried, and succeeded, to write a book which would include all the material needed for the young, nascent Karaite community in Byzantium, a book which would be the religious anchor serving the following generations of scholars who would not have access to the literature of the "Mourners of Zion".

In this article two manuscripts are compared: the oldest known Western Karaim and the oldest known Eastern Karaim translation of Biblical texts — both found by the present author. These texts are juxtaposed with the Eupatorian printed edition of the Tanakh from 1841 the language of which is a subject of discussion.

In Turkish:
Çalışmamızda, birisi Batı Karaycası öbürü Doğu (Kırım) Karaycası olmak üzere iki tane Tanah çevirisi karşılaştırmaktadır. Her ikisi de bilinen en eski Tanah çevirileridir. Ayrıca, 17. ve 18. yüzyıllarda istinsah edilen bu nüshalar 1841'de Gözlevede basılan Tanah çevirisiyle karşılaştırılmaktadır.

This volume offers the first comprehensive study on the history of
Middle Western Karaim dialects. The author provides a systematic
description of sound changes dating from the 17th–19th-centuries and
reconstructs their absolute- and relative chronologies. In addition, the
main morphological peculiarities are presented in juxtaposition to
Modern Western Karaim data.

The textual basis for this historical-linguistic investigation is a critical
edition of pre-1800 Western Karaim interpretations of Hebrew religious
songs called piyyutim (149 texts altogether). The reason behind this
choice is that some of these texts are among the oldest known Western
Karaim texts in general, and that until now no study has brought the
Karaim translation tradition in this genre closer to the reader.

7 ‫המערכת‬ ‫דבר‬ ‫גאון?‬ ‫סעדיה‬ ‫רב‬ ‫לשיטת‬ ‫המלאכים‬ ‫על‬ ‫נעלה‬ ‫האדם‬ ‫האם‬ 9 ‫בשיר‬ ‫נביה‬ ‫למערב‬ ‫מזרח‬ ‫בין‬ -‫אגרסיבית‬ ‫גיה‬ ‫למַ‬ ‫כמקרה-מבחן‬ ‫אדם‬ ‫של‬ ‫בגופו‬ ‫שד‬ ‫הכנסת‬ 55 ‫עמי‬ ‫תן‬ ‫ואלון‬ ‫סופר‬ ‫גל‬ ‫אלקרקסאני‬ ‫יעקוב‬ ‫מאת‬ ‫בראשית'‬ ‫'תפסיר‬ ‫העשירית:‬ ‫במאה‬ ‫המקרא‬ ‫ופרשנות‬ ‫מדע‬ 67 ‫סקליר‬ ‫דוד‬ ‫למקרא‬ ‫לנינגרד‬ ‫יד‬ ‫כתב‬ ‫סופר‬ ‫של‬ ‫ישראליים‬ ‫הארץ‬ ‫הסידורים‬ 89 ‫פרידמן‬ ‫עקיבא‬ ‫מרדכי‬ ‫עטו‬ ‫פרי‬ ‫ותשובה‬ ‫הרמב"ם‬ ‫של‬ ‫תשובות‬ ‫רשימת‬ 167 ‫אשור‬ ‫ואמיר‬ ‫פרידמן‬ ‫עקיבא‬ ‫מרדכי‬ ‫מוערת‬ ‫מהדורה‬ ‫ט-י):‬ ‫ב'‬ ‫(מלכים‬ ‫יהוא‬ ‫לסיפור‬ ‫הקראי‬ ‫לי‬ ‫עֵ‬ ‫בן‬ ‫יפת‬ ‫של‬ ‫פירושו‬ 195 ‫סטרשינסקי‬ ‫ויצחק‬ ‫פריש‬ ‫עמוס‬ ‫שלוסברג,‬ ‫אליעזר‬ ‫ספרים‬ ‫ביקורת‬ ‫הביניים‬ ‫ימי‬ ‫בתחילת‬ ‫ערביים‬ ‫מרפא‬ ‫חומרי‬ 265 ‫הרשקוביץ‬ ‫אבו‬ ‫קרן‬

For many years, Karaite exegesis was relatively unknown to numerous Biblical scholars. This situation has been changing with an increasing access to source materials. As a result, more and more Karaite exegetical treasures representing the trends of Karaite Judaism have come to the fore. Among them, there is the Commentary on the Book of Hosea by Yefet ben Eli, one of the most significant representatives of Karaism in the tenth century. This Karaite exegete exhibits a remarkable knowledge of Hebrew etymology, which enables him to provide unique answers to the interpretative problems in the Masoretic Text. His apologetic concern for prospective Muslim readers of his commentary is also noteworthy. Although, in general, Karaism sought to concentrate on the literal sense of Scripture, Yefet ben Eli does not shy away from recourses to rabbinic oral tradition. Nevertheless, his exegetical contribution remains unique, as clearly demonstrated by the selected examples from his Commentary.

This article is an attempt to establish the time-frame and relative chronology of the š > s and ö, ü > e, i changes that occurred in south-western Karaim. The sample material used for the present article comes from Halych Karaim handwritten prayer books dating back approximately to the second half of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century, and are written in the Karaim semi-cursive variant of the Hebrew script. The final conclusion of the article is that both changes occurred in the final decades of the 18th century.

Hazar İmparatorluğu döneminde Bizans Karaileri tarafından gerçekleştirilen misyonerlik
çalışmaları sonucunda Musevilikle tanışan Hazar Türkleri, devletlerinin yıkılışının
ardından Orta Avrupa’ya yayılmışlar ya da Kırım yarımadasında kalmışlardır. Hazar
Türk Museviliği’nin devamı olan Karaylar varlıklarını günümüzde Litvanya, Polonya,
Kırım yarımadasında sürdürmektedirler. Tarihleri dinsel olarak Yahudilerle birlikte aynı
çerçeve içinde gelişmesine karşın; benimsedikleri mezhep nedeniyle Yahudilerden
kendilerini ayırma eğilimleri ve Türk kimliğini öne çıkarma konusundaki çabaları, Karay
ibadet evinin simgesel içeriğinde de okunmaktadır. Trakai kentinde bulunan kenesa
üzerinde görülebileceği üzere Yahudilikten farklılaşma çabaları öncelikli olarak
sinagoglarda kullanılan simgelerin yadsınmasına yol açmış ve Karay kimlik bilincine
uygun olacak simgelerle donatılmıştır.

The present article is a continuation of a description of manuscript III-73, which
contains the earliest known Western Karaim Torah translation (from 1720) along
with the North-Western Karaim translation of four books of Ketuvim – more precisely,
the translation of the Book of Ruth, the Book of Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes and the Book
of Esther. The linguistic peculiarities of the Torah were presented in Németh (2014b).
This paper, in turn, contains a linguistic description of the Haphtarah – in particular
a critical edition of the Book of Ruth and its comparison (in the critical apparatus)
with the Book of Ruth as printed in the Eupatorian Tanach in 1841. Importantly,
the two parts of manuscript III-73, i.e. the Torah and the Haphtarah, as tentatively
notified in Németh (2014b), are very much different from a linguistic point of view,
and for this reason they are presented separately. Finally, observations that stem from
a comparison between the manuscript fragment edited here and the Eupatorian
print will be presented in the third part of this series of articles, since they primarily
concern the Eupatorian print rather than manuscript III-73.

Most of the inhabitants of Lithuania and those interested in the history of the East European Karaites (Karaims) still remember the 600 year anniversary of the arrival of the Tatars and Karaites to Lithuania celebrated in 1997, just a few years ago. However, it seems that while being attracted by the general solemn atmosphere of the event, many of the historians and representatives of the local population forgot about the fact that very soon there would be a possibility to celebrate another anniversary: 200 years of the academic debates related to the problem of the arrival of the Karaites to Lithuania in the Middle Ages.  Indeed, even nowadays not much is known about the beginnings of the Karaite settlement in Lithuania: neither the exact date is available, nor precise information concerning the character of migration and a number of emigrants. The author of this article once again would like to draw attention to the importance of this problem which is so essential for the history of the East European Karaites.

In this article an early Bible translation into north-western Karaim is described. The man-uscript, written in Hebrew script (in its Karaim semi-cursive variant), dates back to 1720 what makes it the oldest western Karaim Bible translation to be hitherto critically analysed. The manuscript was copied in Kukizów by Simcha ben Chananiel (died in the 1720s). The language of the manuscript reveals archaic features, among others the consonant harmony being in the process of emerging.

In early February 2012 Professor Andrzej Zaborski (Cracow) handed the author of this paper a handwritten copy of Ananiasz Zajączkowski’s “Sufiksy imienne i czasownikowe w języku zachodniokaraimskim” [i.e. “Nominal and Verbal Suffixes in Western Karaim”] that he had found in one of the cabinets located in his former office in Jagiellonian University’s Collegium Paderevianum. The manuscript must have been stored there for decades; at least since 1964, i.e. the year the building was erected. At present, the manuscript is in the private hands of Emilia Zajączkowska-Łopatto, Ananiasz Zajączkowski’s daughter. In this paper, a description of the manuscript is provided together with an analysis of the differences between this handwritten copy of “Sufiksy...” and its published version (in 1932).

This short review-article contains a number of observations regarding the new Crimean Karaim–English dictionary authored by Aqtay and Jankowski (2015) and the state of Crimean Karaim lexicography, as well as remarks on the discussion of the position of Crimean Karaim in the classification of Turkic languages.

This volume consists of an edition, translated into English and with an extensive introduction, of the Arabic translation and commentary on the book of Esther by one of the preeminent litterateurs of the Karaite “Golden Age” (10th–11th centuries), Yefet ben ‘Eli ha-Levi. Yefet’s text represents the first completely extant, devoted commentary on Esther and, consequently, provides fascinating insight into the history and development of exegetical thought on this book, both among the Karaites as well as the Rabbanites. Various facets of Yefet’s exegesis which we explore in our introduction … read moreinclude his rationalistic method, compilatory tendency, relationship to the doctrines of the Islamic Mu‘tazila, and his influence both by and upon other Jewish exegetes (Karaite and Rabbanite). We also assess Yefet’s Arabic translation technique and include a survey of all extant Karaite commentaries on Esther, both in Arabic as well as Hebrew.

Poznański is rightlyc onsidered ap ioneer in the study of the history and literature of the Jews in the medieval Islamicate world. The present article situates his writingsa gainst the background of his general worldview and attempts to evaluate the place of Islam in his work. Poznański was am an of action, not at heoretician. His scholarlywritings constitute apurelypositivistic attempt to reconstruct,a sw hollya sp ossible, the Jewishp ast in the Islamicate world, barely disclosing anyi deological stance. In order to understand his special interest in medieval Jewish culture under Islam,his personal biographyand his scholarly fields of interestw ill be considered and ac areful examination undertaken of the rare disclosures of ideologyi nh is scholarlyw ritingsa nd personal letters.

Mikhail Kizilov, “The History of the Karaite Book Printing and the Fate of the Library Karay Bitikligi.” In Knigi karaimov Kryma. Katalog vystavki iz fondov Rossiiskoi gosudarstvennoi biblioteki. Edited by Konstantin Burmistrov. Moscow: RGB, 2016, 65-75. (in Russian and English)

This paper discusses three topics related to a Crimean Karaim translation of the
Hebrew drama entitled Melukhat Sha’ul. The translation was made in the first
half of the nineteenth century, approximately in the 1840s, by a Karaim scholar
named Abraham ben Yashar Lutski. The first part of this article is devoted to the
characteristics of relations between the Karaims and the Rabbanites at the turn of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the context of their literary activity. It
is followed by a short description of the plot of the drama and its connections and
deviations from the biblical events presented in The First Book of Samuel. The third
part of the article analyzes the influence of Hebrew on the language of the Crimean
Karaim translation of Melukhat Sha’ul. Moreover, attention is drawn to the manner
in which Hebrew vocabulary related to magic was translated into Turkic. For the
purpose of this paper magical terms, which are present in the Hebrew drama, are
compared with their counterparts in the Turkic translation.
Keywords
Crimean Karaim, Melukhat Sha’ul, Hebrew drama, Abraham Lutski, Ha-Efrati

This article aims to discuss the characteristics of the written language used by the
Crimean Karaites, which was preserved in handwritten books called mejumas. The
study will be performed on the basis of the heretofore examined mejumas, namely
those published by Aqtay (2009), Çulha (2010a) and the unpublished doctoral thesis
written by Smętek (2012).

Late Imperial Russia’s multifaceted presence in Persia retains many fascinating life-stories of its actors, who often exerted crucial influence on the course of the history of Russian-Iranian relations of the time. Drawing on international scholarship about the Russian-Iranian relationships at the turn of the twentieth century, but mostly on documents from Russian and Georgian archives and the diaries of his contemporaries as well as his own private notes, this article examines the activities of Seraia Shapshal (1873-1961), focusing on his embeddedness both in the Qajar court and in Late Imperial Russia’s policy towards Iran during the period 1900 to 1908. The paper for the first time in Iranian studies sheds light in sufficient detail upon how Shapshal found himself in Persia and what enabled him to reach the highest levels of power at the Qajar court. In so doing, it also identifies his leading role in the June 1908 anti-constitution coup.

I I UDK 323.15(474.5)(=5 12.145)(091) Ti 152 Specialus ,,Lietuvos istorijos studij 4 " leidinys (t. 11) Special issue of the scientific journal ,,Lietuvos istorijos studijos" (vol. 11) Periodinis rnokslo leidinys ,,Lietuvos istorijos studijos" yra referuojarnas tarptautinêje duomenii bazéje ABCCLIO Articles appearing in the journal ,,Lietuvos istorijos studijos" are abstracted and indexed in HISTORICAL ABSTRACTS and AMERICA HISTORY AND LIFE (ABC-CLIO) Leidinj sudaré: TAMARA BAIRAAUSKAITE GALINA MIK1NIENI Moksliné redaktoré: TAMARA BAiRAAUSKAITE Kalbos redaktorés: GRA2JNA INDRIIUNIENE AURELIJA JUKAITE BIRU IF SINOCKINA Straipsniq recenzentai: Prol habil. dr. SERGEJUS TEMC1NAS Dr. RYSARD GAIDIS Leidin apsvarste ir kaip moksliniq straipsniq rinkinj rekomendavo spaudai Vilnians universiteto Istorijos fakulteto taryba (2014 m. baland'io 29 d., protokolas Nr. 2) Knygos leidim parémé Lietuvos mokslo taryba Nacionaliné lituanistikos plctros 2009-2015 met4 programa Ketvirta priemoniq grupé (Lituanistikos darbq leidyba) Sklaidos projekto ,,Tiurki istorija ir kultüra Lietuvoje" Nr.

The present article presents an analysis of a Lutsk Karaim literary work, namely Sergiusz Rudkowski’s Dostłar, which was published in two parts in 1931 and 1939. The two charac-ters of the drama use colloquial language and therefore the work appears to be until now the only source of knowledge on Lutsk Karaim in its spoken form. The linguistic peculiari-ties of the drama are compared with other non-literary sources that reflect everyday lan-guage used at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The present study has been carried out in order to determine whether the language of the drama was caricatured by the au-thor, and thus exaggerated to some extent, or whether it reflects the factual command of Karaim during that period. In the final analysis, it is safe to say that the drama’s language should be treated as a reliable source of knowledge. It is important to note that it contains linguistic elements (swearwords, abusive words, Hebrew elements, &c.) that are absent from all other colloquial linguistic materials.

This article is an attempt to establish the time-frame and relative chronology of the evolu-tion of consonant harmony in north-western Karaim. The sample material used for the present article comes from a Karaim handwritten Bible translation dating back to 1720 (the oldest analysed Western Karaim Bible translation), copied in Kukizów by Simcha ben Chananiel and written in the Karaim semi-cursive variant of the Hebrew script. Addition-ally, in the present article an attempt is made to describe step by step how the harmony shift operated.

This article presents the results of academic research conducted by a group of scholars in the years 2012–2016 on Karaim manuscripts owned by Polish individuals. The research was financed by the National Science Centre (Poland) (research project nr.: 2011/03/D/HS2/00618). The article provides a concise yet exhaustive description of the privately owned printed and handwritten materials and presents a great deal of hitherto unknown scientific data. The materials stored in private archives open up new perspectives on Karaim studies. They will undoubtedly serve as an important starting point for future research – primarily for historians and linguists, but also for those conducting  literary, cultural, and religious studies.

Te'uda: The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies Research Series, Vol. 29,  pp. 177-192. YAD MOSHE Studies in the History of the Jews in Muslim Countries
in Memory of Moshe Gil. Editors Elinoar Bareket, Yoram Erder, Meira Polliack. 2018.

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