Karaite Judaism

Karaite Judaism or Karaism (Hebrew meaning: "Readers of the Hebrew Scriptures") is a Jewish movement characterized by the recognition of the Tanakh alone as its supreme legal authority in Halakha (Jewish religious law) and theology.

It is distinct from mainstream Rabbinic Judaism, which considers the Oral Torah, the legal decisions of the Sanhedrin as codified in the Talmud, and subsequent works to be authoritative interpretations of the Torah.

Karaites maintain that all of the divine commandments handed down to Moses by God were recorded in the written Torah, without additional Oral Law or explanation.

As a result, Karaite Jews do not accept as binding the written collections of the oral tradition in the Mishnah or Talmud.When interpreting the Tanakh, Karaites strive to adhere to the plain or most obvious meaning ("peshat") of the text; this is not necessarily the literal meaning, but rather the meaning that would have been naturally understood by the ancient Israelites when the books of the Tanakh were first written.

In contrast, Rabbinic Judaism relies on the legal rulings of the Sanhedrin as they are codified in the Mishnah, Talmud, and other sources to indicate the authentic meaning of the Torah.

Karaite Judaism holds every interpretation of the Tanakh to the same scrutiny regardless of its source, and teaches that it is the personal responsibility of every individual Jew to study the Torah, and ultimately decide for themselves its correct meaning.

Therefore, Karaites may consider arguments made in the Talmud and other works without exalting them above other viewpoints.According to Rabbi Avraham ben David, in his Sefer HaQabbalah, the Karaite movement crystallized in Baghdad in the Gaonic period (circa 7th–9th centuries CE), under the Abbasid Caliphate in what is present-day Iraq.

This is the view universally accepted among Rabbinic Jews.

However, the claim has been made that Karaites were already living in Egypt in the first half of the 7th century, the evidence consisting of a legal document that the Karaite community in Egypt had in its possession until the end of the 19th century, which was said to be stamped by the palm of 'Amr ibn al-'As, the first Islamic governor of Egypt, in which he ordered the leaders of the Rabbanite community not to interfere in the way of life of the Karaites nor with the way they celebrate their holidays.

This document was reported to be dated 20 AH (641 CE).

Historians have argued over whether Karaism has a direct connection to anti-Rabbinic sects and views, such as those of the Sadducees, dating back to the end of the Second Temple period (70 CE), or whether Karaism represents a novel emergence of similar views.

Karaites have always maintained that, while there are some similarities to the Sadducees, there are also differences, and that the ancestors of the Karaites were another group called Benei Ṣedeq during the Second Temple period.

Karaites were at one time a significant proportion of the Jewish population.

Today there is a range of estimates from about 30,000 Karaites with about 25,000 of those in Israel to only 7,000 in Israel though one estimate has had as many as 50,000 Karaites worldwide, over 40,000 of whom have made aliyah (emigrated to Israel) from Arab countries such as Egypt and Iraq.

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