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2 Between the and the : 1900–1918

2.1 A Short Survey of the General State of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite Community on the Verge of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Before beginning an analysis of the twentieth-century history of the Karaite communities in - it is necessary to provide a short overview of the state of the community as it was on the verge of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Before the beginning of the First World War, practically all Polish-Lithuanian Karaites (apart from the community of Halicz) were subjects of the . They lived in several communities that, in many respects, differed from each other. In 1897, i.e. a short while before the beginning of the twentieth century, there were 1,383 Karaites living in western provinces of the Russian Empire (mostly in the Wilno, Kowno, Vitebsk and Volhynian guberniias). The largest communities lived in Troki (377), Poniewież and its vicinity (181), and Wilno (155). Some scattered communities lived in Lifland, Kurland, and a few other guberniias.120 Adding the 167 Karaites living in Halicz in 1900,121 one arrives at an approximate number of 1,550 Karaites living in the Russian parts of Poland-Lithuania and in on the verge of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.122 This number represented a bit more than ten percent of the whole Karaite population of the Russian Empire – only a drop in comparison with millions Rabbanites living in and Austria at the same time. The Polish-Lithuanian Karaite communities were divided into two main groups: northern communities (those of Troki, Wilno, Poniewież, Nowe Miasto, and smaller villages) and southern ones (those of Łuck and Halicz). Several dispersed small communities concentrated in and around Poniewież and Nowie Miasto seemed to be less Russified and Polonized and sustained more contacts with the Lithuanians than all other communities. The largest, the community of Troki, was under Russian,

120 This is according to Dmitrii Prokhorov, “Statistika karaimskogo naseleniia Rossiiskoi imperii v kontse XVIII – nachale XX veka,” Materialy po Arkheologii, Istorii i Etnografii Tavriki 17 (2011): 665. One should bear in mind that statistical data sometimes seems utterly unrealistic. Thus, for example, the total number of 168 Karaites living in Warsaw guberniia (with only 21 of them living in Warsaw itself) does not seems to correspond to real state of affairs: it does not seem possible that there could be more than 30-40 Karaites living in this area in this time. 121 Janusz, Karaici, 52. 122 This numerical estimates are given on the basis of Veniamin Sinani, “K statistike karaimov (po perepisi 1897 g.),” KZh 1 (1911): 30-31, 36 and Iulii Gessen, “Statistika,” EE 9, 297-298.

© 2015 Mikhail Kizilov This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. A Short Survey of the General State of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite Community 35

Belorussian and Polish cultural influences.123 Its members were perhaps more traditionally-oriented than those of the neighbouring community of Wilno. The Wilno community, which was located in the fairly large capital city, was the richest, most Russified, and most secular of all Polish-Lithuanian Karaite communities. An important role in the life of the southern Karaite communities (those of Łuck and Halicz) was their cultural contacts with the local population that consisted mostly of Rabbanite , Poles, Ruthenians (), and . The strong impact of the Rabbanite religious tradition was clearly visible in the style of decorating their houses of and tombstones, which were greatly different from those of the northern Karaites. The Łuck community was the least numerous because of mass emigration of the local Karaites to . Nevertheless, it was comparatively well-to-do and educated. The community of Halicz, the only East European Karaite community living in the Austrian Empire, was separated from its Polish-Lithuanian and Crimean counterparts. It can be noted that due to this cultural isolation, the Halicz Karaites (in contrast to most other communities) managed to preserve their traditional Karaite conservatism. In addition to the Austrian cultural and linguistical influence, the life of the community was also strongly affected by contacts with local Rabbanites (perhaps much stronger than in any other community), Ruthenians (Ukrainians), and Poles. The traditional structure of any given Karaite community in at the end of nineteenth–beginning of the twentieth centuries looked as follows: As we shall see, most positions within the Karaite communities in Europe (except for the office of the ḥazzan and ḥakham) had practically the same meaning and function as those of the Rabbanite Jews. In addition to traditional Jewish terminology referring to spiritual and administrative positions within the community, the Karaites frequently also used Karaim and Tatar equivalents of Hebrew terms in colloquial speech. In Hebrew, the community itself was called qehilah and in the dzymat/dżymat124. The duties of the head of the community were fulfilled by the ḥazzan. The position of the ḥazzan in Karaite communities roughly corresponds to the office of the in Talmudic qehilot. In Rabbanite communities, however, the ḥazzan was only a cantor in a . The Karaite ḥazzan was not only the religious head of the qehilah, but also the main authority in legal and administrative matters. He normally also possessed the titles of rosh ha-qahal (Heb. “head of the community”), ha- (“the leader,” usually recognised by the state authorities), av

123 It is hard to estimate whose cultural influence was stronger at that moment; apparently that of the Russian culture. Tadeusz Kowalski mentioned that it had been usually quite difficult for him to distinguish from which of the – Russian, Polish, or Belorussian – originate Slavic loanwords in the Troki of Karaim. In his opinion, one could see in both material culture and language many borrowings from their Belorussian neighbours (Tadeusz Kowalski, Karaimische Texte im Dialekt von Troki. Texty Karaimskie w narzeczu Trockiem (Kraków, 1929), lxxv). 124 From Arab. jema’at; cf. . cemaat. 36 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

beit din (“head of the religious court”), and shofeṭ (normally the same as “judge”; but here, rather, in the sense of Pol. wójt or Heb. shtadlan – mediator or lobbyist, the head of the community responsible for representing the community to non-Karaite authorities).125 In Karaite communities which were larger than 200 , there were usually two ḥazzanim: senior and junior (ḥazzan ha-gadol126/ha-qaṭan in Hebrew). In nineteenth-century Halicz these ḥazzanim were called ḥazzan ha-rosh (head ḥazzan) and ḥazzan ha-mishneh (deputy ḥazzan).127 Some documents also refer to the office of the mitḥazzen (ḥazzan in training).128 In Karaite and Rabbanite communities in medieval and early modern times the term ḥakham (sage, wise man) was generally an honorary title, especially for elder members of the community distinguished for their religious knowledge.129 After 1839, however, the Russian Karaites started using the term ḥakham to denote the highest Karaite authority in Eastern Europe. After 1839 Karaite ḥakhamim were seldom authors of theological treatises, poets, and exegetes. They usually were wealthy and/ or politically and administratively influential individuals known not only within the community, but also without. Their main task was not only to settle important matters within the community, but also to represent the Karaite community to the world and lobby its interests politically, administratively, financially and ideologically. Simcha Babovich (Babowicz), who was appointed as the first East European “administrative” ḥakham in 1839, was in fact a wealthy and influential Crimean merchant, but hardly knowledgeable in religious matters.130 In the 1850s, because of numerous ideological and financial controversies between the southern and western Karaite communities living in imperial Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites elected their own ḥakham. Thus, from this period on, there were two ḥakhamim in Eastern Europe: the and Taurida ḥakham (under whose jurisdiction were the Karaites of Crimea, Russia, and ), and the Troki ḥakham ( and Lithuania). One of the foci of this study, Seraja Szapszał, was elected the Taurida and Odessa ḥakham in 1915 and Troki ḥakham in 1927. In 1928, in the context of his dejudaization (Turkicization) reforms, he replaced the Hebrew term ḥakham with the pseudo-Turkic ḥakhan which was invented most likely by Szapszał himself (see more in 4.3.2).

125 E.g. the ḥazzan Abraham Leonowicz, who was presented in one of the later MSS as ha-ḥazzan ve-ha-shofeṭ ve-av beit din… ha-rosh ve-ha-nagid (Bernhard Munkácsi, “Karäisch-tatarische Hymnen aus Polen,” Keleti Szemle 10:3 (1909): 187, ft. 2). 126 In the twentieth century ḥazzan ha-gadol was usually called ułłu ḥazzan (lit. “great ḥazzan”) in Karaim. 127 See “Taqqanot Even Reshef li-qehal ha-Qara

It appears that the Galician Karaites, members of the only East European Karaite community that did not live in Russia, remained rather independent from the authority of both the Taurida and Troki ḥakhamim. This is why we have only a few Galician cases in the archives of the Karaite boards of administration of these regions.131 The independence of the Galicians from Crimea and Troki also might explain why until 1918 the term ḥakham apparently did not carry any additional administrative or political meanings in Halicz. Furthermore, it also continued to be interchangeable with the term ḥazzan. Financial matters of the Karaite (and Rabbanite) communities were usually administered by the gabbai (“treasurer,” originally a charity collector). The teacher (Heb. melammed; GVKar. iwretiwci; TrKar. üwriatüwciu) was responsible for the education of children, whereas the duties of the beadle/custodian (Heb. shammash) involved the upkeep of the synagogue (). The ochuwcu/ochuwciu combined the duties of ba>al qeriah (lit. “master of reading”) with those of a shammash. Each Karaite community normally had its own shoḥeṭ (“ slaughterer”) and a mohel (“circumciser”).132 In some cases, however, we may assume that the ḥazzan could fulfil the duties of a ritual slaughterer and circumciser as well.133 On the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites saw themselves as faithful followers of the Karaite religious tradition which they understood as the only true and pure type of , “unshackled by the trammels of the ”.134 One should notice that in some secluded communities there were probably certain deviations from the traditional Karaite rigor, but their influence undoubtedly was not too strong.135 The main language of their liturgical services remained leshon ha-qodesh, i.e. Hebrew. Many of the Karaites of this period were still well-versed in Hebrew and could speak and write in this language. However, because of the decline of the knowledge of Hebrew, there were increasing instances of the introduction of liturgical elements in leshon Qedar, i.e. the .

131 See the catalogues of GAARK F. 241 (documents of the Taurida and Odessa Karaite spiritual consistory); MS LMAB F. 301 (documents of the Lithuanian Karaite community). 132 H. Wachsmann, “Halitsch, die Stadt der Karäer,” Der Israelit 78:4 (1937): 13; Fahn, “Ha-Qara

Moreover, it was this Turkic leshon Qedar (Karaim) that was the main language of every day use of all Polish-Lithuanian Karaite communities. Practically every Karaite living in Poland-Lithuania was bilingual: in addition to Karaim, most of the Karaites could also speak at least one the non-Karaim vernacular (Polish, Russian, Belorussian, Lithuanian, Ruthenian/Ukrainian,136 or even ) of their more numerous ethnic neighbours. Some of the most talented and well-educated Karaites, who had a native command of a couple of other vernaculars in addition to Karaim, could have even been tertio or quatro-linguial.137 Some Karaites also successfully learned foreign languages which were taught at public schools of that time (usually German or French). On the other hand, there were also opposite cases, when local Karaites could master only Karaim or could not read or write at all.138 Was there anything specifically unique in the outer appearance of the Polish- Lithuanian Karaites before the First World War? Most of the travel reports testify that in terms of dress, one could hardly tell a Karaite from other inhabitants of the place; the Karaites wore almost the same European dresses as all other inhabitants.139 However, the distinctive dark Oriental faces and the males’ long beards immediately attracted any visitor’s attention. Some travellers found Karaites to be similar in terms of their physical appearance to the Jews, some to the Armenians or Oriental peoples

136 The term “Ruthenian” or “Ukrainian” is as problematic as anything what concerns the history of the development of the linguistic phenomenon which at present moment is called “the ” – the term which has more from the realm of politics than from the field of socio-linguistics. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries (and, in some sources even at the beginning of the twentieth century!) the spoken by the inhabitants of today’s Ukraine were usually referred to, both on the everyday and official level, as “Prosta” or “Rus’ka mova”, in the nineteenth century Russian documents as “Malorosskoe narechie.” Furthermore, the local Galician dialects were quite different from the standard Poltava type of Ukrainian which is considered to be the classical variety of this language (see also Michael Moser, “Die Entwicklung der ukrainischen Sprache,” in Ukraine. Geographie. Ethnische Struktur. Geschichte, ed. Peter Jordan et al. (Wien, 2001), 483-496, esp. 488). 137 Jan Grzegorzewski praised the local Karaites’ knowledge of Slavic vernaculars in 1903: “Sie sind im allgemeinem des Polnischen und Ruthenischen (Kleinrussischen) vollkommen mächtig und drücken sich in beiden Sprachen mit größerer Korrektheit aus als die dortigen Juden” (Grzegorzewski, “Ein türk-tatarischer Dialekt in Galizien,“ 2). D.F. (Fahn?) mentioned that the Halicz Karaites could easily speak Polish, Ruthenian (“po-rusinski”), and Yiddish in addition to the excellent command of “Old-Biblical” (“drevne-bibleiskii” i.e. Hebrew) (D.F. [Reuven Fahn?], “Pis’ iz Galitsii,” KZh 2 (1911): 73-74). A very good (but not too exceptional!) example of such linguistic endowments was Janina L’vovna Eszwowicz of Halicz who had a native command of Karaim, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish, and knew some basics of German and Hebrew which she had studied in her childhood. 138 A few of the community documents at my disposal testify that even in the interwar period some Karaites were illiterate: instead of signatures some members of the community left their finger prints underneath the document (e.g. MS LMAB F. 301, no. 10, fol. 226v). 139 The small difference was perhaps their traditional headgear: some male Karaites (especially elder generation) while out on the street still wore their krymka (a cap similar to a Turkish Fez) (see Ruben Fahn, “Aus dem Leben der Karaiten,” Ost und West 2 (1912): 141). A Short Survey of the General State of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite Community 39

in general. Practically all travellers, however, agreed that the Karaites differed strikingly from their Rabbanite neighbours both in speech and manners.140 The same caveat applies with regard to their dwellings. Karaite houses were usually regular wooden or brick houses similar to the dwellings of their Christian neighbours.141 Their professions were also fairly similar to those of the local Slavic population. A very specific Karaite profession in Troki was cucumber growing, in Wilno – tobacco industry, in Halicz it was working on the railroad. It seems worthwhile thinking about how a Polish-Lithunian Karaite, at the beginning of the twentieth century, would answer the questions “Which nationality do you belong to? What is your ?” While thinking about the problem of ethnic consciousness, religious and historical views of the Karaites of that period, one should take into account the following considerations. First, perhaps not every Karaite would answer such straightforward questions. Still, it seems that such questions had often been asked. Usually a visitor, being puzzled by the seemingly Jewish character of their religion and appearance, was willing to ask even more “awkward” question with regard to the nationality or ethnic origins of the Karaites. Many sources of that time testify that in such an instance a Karaite would face a difficult problem. To answer “we are Karaites” would mean explaining obscuria per obscuria; moreover, the term “Karaites” was at that time used to designate a religious tradition (confession), but not an ethnicity. To say “we are Jewish” would not be true because the Karaites officially were excluded from the Jewish legislation and received full rights of the citizens of the Russian Empire as early as 1863.142 To say “we are Israelites” (some Karaites of that time indeed had some sort of “Israelite” identity) would, again, be rather unclear a statement. Facing the problem of defining the Karaites’ ethnic and religious identity, R. Firkowicz, a Karaite from Łuck, suggested inventing a new ethnic name – Krymliane (“Crimeans”) – which would later serve as a term for designation of his people.143 Thus, it is clear from contemporary sources that on the verge of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Karaites had problems with clearly defining both their ethnic and religious affiliations. It seems that at that time the Karaites considered themselves to be different from the Rabbanite Jews in both religious and ethnic terms, while at the same time defining themselves as the “true Israelites” and genuine

140 Smólski, “U Karaimów w Haliczu,” Naokoło Świata 34 (1903): 538. 141 Janusz, Karaici, 75-76. The Karaite houses in Troki are said to be different from those of their Slavic neighbours. The former tended to have three windows on the frontal side while the latter only two (Stepan Pushyk, “Karaїms’kyi poet Zakhar’ia Samuїlovych Abrahamovych,” in Karaїmy Halycha, 122). Szemaja Firkowicz, with reference to the information provided by community elders, stated that the Karaites installed three windows in their houses as an imitation of the Troki castle with its three side windows overlooking the Karaite quarter of Troki (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 249v). 142 See V.D. Smirnov, foreword to Sbornik starinnykh gramot, xxviii-xxix. 143 R. F-cz [R. Firkowicz], “Neotlozhnyi vopros,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 14. 40 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

followers of the .144 Most of them, however, undoubtedly understood their connection to others bnei Yisra

144 E.g. Fahn, “Aus dem Leben der Karaiten,” Ost und West 2 (1912): 137. This seems to be a continuation of traditional Karaite views of Mordecai ben Kukizów, Simcha Łucki, Abraham Firkowicz and other early East European Karaite authors. In addition to the term Qara

prince Vitold, whereas the Karaites of Halicz stated that they had been invited by the prince Daniel of Galicia. Although these picturesque legends are not corroborated by historical sources, evidence confirms that the Karaites indeed arrived in Poland- Lithuania at the time of Vitold.147 This brief introduction provides a general idea of the state of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community around 1900. A study of each separate Karaite community is preceded by a brief survey of its history prior to 1900.

Illustration 1: Karaite , financial and religious leaders at the first national Karaite Assembly of 1910 (source: periodical Karaimskaia Zhizn’ 1 (1911)).

2.2 Halicz

2.2.1 Outline of the History of the Community Prior to 1900

Contrary to the traditional Karaite settlement claims to origins going back to the mid- thirteenth century, earliest written documents containining the term Judaeis caraimis date from the sixteenth century. Evidently, the Halicz community was established in the early sixteenth century by Karaite emigrants from Lwów.148 In 1627 there were 24

147 See Kizilov, Karaites of Galicia, 30-40. 148 Ibid., 40-43. 42 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

Karaite houses (i.e. more than a hundred souls); the Karaite population of Halicz was apparently more numerous than that of the Rabbanite community. In 1765 there were 99 Karaites, compared with 283 Rabbanites;149 in 1900 there were only 167 Karaites living in Halicz and the local Rabbanite community was much more numerous than that of the Karaites.150 In contrast to the Galician Rabbanite Jews, who started to receive predominantly Germanic family names, the Karaite surnames were Polonised derivatives of traditional Hebrew names. It is quite interesting to notice that the Karaites, in contrast to the local Ashkenazic Jews, received Polonised (and not Germanic) surnames. This linguistic preference may be explained by the fact that they did not use Yiddish (a Germanic language in itself), but Polish and Ruthenian. Thus, at the end of the eighteenth century each Karaite received a surname from his/her father’s name – a family name usually transmitted to the later generations. Most typical were such surnames as Nowachowicz (from “Nowach” – a Karaite form of Heb. “Noaḥ”), Eszwowicz (from “Eszwa/Yeshu>ah”), Leonowicz (from “Levi/Leon”), Zarachowicz, Ickowicz, Mordkowicz, S(z)ulimowicz, Abrahamowicz, et alia – all of them, perhaps without a single exception, derivatives of Hebrew names with the Polish ending “– icz.” Surprisingly, some of the family names reflected not the Polish, but the Polish- Yiddish pronunciation of the Hebrew names (e.g. Icko instead of Polish “Izaak,” Mordko instead of “Mordechaj,” Szulim instead of “Szałom” etc.).151 According to official reports from the end of the eighteenth century, most Galician Karaites were engaged in agriculture and in the carting trade (Fuhrwesen).152 Some Karaites owned their own lands, some rented them from other land-owners or directly from the city administration.153 According to the census of 1857, of forty Karaite families, five were actively engaged in agriculture, whereas 25 families lived from Grund- und Hausbesitz (land and home ownership).154 It is very likely, however, that in

149 Bałaban, “Karaici w Polsce,” 20. According to the data found by me in AGAD, there were 16 Karaite households compared with 36 Rabbanite ones in 1765 and 19 Karaite households in Halicz in 1767. List of the Karaite households contains also the names of the Karaite owners (AGAD Lustracje dz. XVIII, no 56: Lustracja Ziemi Halickiej, fol. 1; ibid., no 62: Lustracja Starostwa Halickiego, fol. 15). 150 Janusz, Karaici w Polsce, 52. 151 Grzegorzewski, “Türk-tatarischer Dialekt,” 48; cf. Fahn “Le-qorot,” 48, ft. 1. Reuven Fahn found a few atypical Galician Karaite surnames in the Pinqas ha-nifṭarim from Halicz: Shtenpel (1647; undoubtedly, a corruption of German Stempel), Hufafa (1732; a corruption of Niebaba?), and Malinowski (1749; a Troki surname) (ibid., 47, 48, ft. 1). Especially interesting is the reference to Samuel Sṭenpel b. Abraham ha-Shofeṭ which dates back to the period immediately preceding Chmielnicki’s massacres of 1648. 152 Josef Karniel, Die Toleranzpolitik Kaiser Josephs II. (Gerlingen 1985), 291. 153 Michael Stöger, Darstellung der gesetzlichen Verfassung der galizischen Judenschaft, vol. 1 (Lemberg-Przemyśl, 1833), 104. 154 Johann Vinzenz Goehlert, “Die Karaiten und Mennoniten in Galizien,” Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historische Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften 38 (1861): 602. Halicz 43

addition to owning their land and house property these 25 families were also engaged in agriculture. The Karaites who lived next to the Dniester river soon started to occupy various positions related to river transport. The Eszwowicz family leased a ferry from Halicz to the other side of the Dniester. At the beginning of the nineteenth century this position was occupied by the Nowachowicze, a Karaite family from Kukizów.155 In the mid-nineteenth century the local Karaites were rafting corn and timber down to Odessa in return for salt, tobacco, and southern fruits.156 The Halicz Karaites also carried on a salt trade with and other parts of Ukraine.157 From the second half of the nineteenth century, some Karaites, who had apparently managed to receive a proper secular education, were working as lawyers and scribes at Galician courts of justice. Some travelled as far as Kraków, Lwów and Stanisławów for their education; some worked not only in Halicz, but also in such adjacent towns as Buczacz, Bursztyn,158 Brzeżany and Kołomyja.159 At the end of the nineteenth century, according to Reuven Fahn, most of the Karaites, in contrast to the rest of the local Jews, were still actively engaged in agriculture, and possessed their own land, horses, cattle, sheep, and fowl. More than half worked as carpenters and waggoners, two as blacksmiths; five worked as meat traders, two as shoemakers, and two as tailors.160

2.2.2 General State of the Community

In the nineteenth century practical all local ḥazzanim161 were from the Leonowicz family: Abraham Leonowicz (1810–1851), Józef Leonowicz (1851–1866), Zerach Leonowicz (1884–1894), Simcha Leonowicz (1894–1900).162 The beginning of the twentieth century overlapped with the death of Simcha Leonowicz and ascension to the ḥazzan’s office of the representative of another family, Szałom Nowachowicz, who fulfilled the duties of the ḥazzan from 1900 to 1922.

155 Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 13, ft.31. 156 Janusz, Karaici, 69. 157 Gerson Wolf, “Karaiten in Halicz,” Die Neuzeit 23:10 (9 1883): 95; NLR F. 946, Evr. II A, no. 1631, fol. 2v. 158 E.g. Mordkowicz had been working as a deputy to the public prosecutor in Bursztyn before 1896 (see the list of community members from 1896 in AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-6, no. 16). 159 Fahn, “Le-qorot,” 50, 56; Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovyshche, 29, 47, 51; Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 539-540; Fahn, “Ha-Qara

The earliest report about the state of the community in the twentieth century was left by the Viennese journalist of the Polish origin, Grzegorz Smólski, who visited Halicz in 1903. The specific purpose of his trip was to compose a report on the life of the local Karaite community. The traveller expressed disbelief and even suspicion on the part of the local Karaites when he informed them that he had undertaken a long trip from Vienna to Halicz in order to write a newspaper report about the Karaites.163 He was warned several times that he “should not write anything bad about us [Karaites]. We do not do anything bad to anybody. The Jews, however, blacken us whenever they only can.”164 Smólski found the Karaite street (Pol. “ulica Karaimska”) to be too rural, without any traces of town life, such as pavement or sidewalks. The journalist visited several Karaite families and filed a description of the inner and external appearance of their houses.165 Most of the Karaites whom he met during his visit to the community could speak quite correct Polish, with pure pronunciation and “without Jewishness” (Pol. bez żydowienia), and clear and pure Ruthenian.166 Rachel Eszwowicz even sang him several folk-songs in Ruthenian and in Polish.167 At the time of his visit the duties of the teacher of religion (GVKar. iwretiwci) were fulfilled by Józef Leonowicz.168 Smólski’s general impression from his visit to the Karaites was a very positive one: the Halicz Karaites seemed to be loyal citizens of the Austrian empire. One of them spoke with veneration of “our lord most enlightened and merciful [Austrian] king-emperor.”169 An interesting report about the state of the Karaite community of Halicz in the 1910s and 1920s was left by Bohdan Janusz, author of a book and a number of articles dedicated to the history of the Halicz Karaites.170 His main observation was that in spite of the fact that the Karaites undoubtedly represented a highly idiosyncratic ethnic group, many of their ethnographic customs and traditions were similar to those of their Rabbanite or Christian neighbours. Thus, when speaking about the wooden

163 G. Smólski, “U Karaimów w Haliczu,” Naokoło Świata 34 (1903): 539. 164 Ibid., 539; ibid., Naokoło Świata 36 (1903): 564. 165 Ibid., Naokoło Świata 34 (1903): 538-539. 166 Ibid., 538. Pol. po rusku, i.e. in the Ruthenian. 167 Ibid., Naokoło Świata 36 (1903): 565. 168 Ibid., Naokoło Świata 34 (1903): 539. 169 Ibid. 170 Bohdan Janusz, “‘Ostatni z Mohikanow’ galicyjskich,” Świat 16 (1912): 8-9; idem, “Karaici i cmentarzysko ich,” Ziemia 2 (1911): 3-7. idem, Karaici; idem, “ karaicka w Haliczu,” Na ziemi naszej 5 (1911): 5; idem, “Z dziejów Karaitów galicyjskich,” Gazeta Kościelna 31 (1911): 383; idem, “Nieznany lud w Galicji,” Gazeta Ludowa 6 (1912): 10. The author, being a journalist and not a historian or Orientalist undoubtedly made a number of mistakes when analysing Karaite history. His observances and conclusions made on the basis of his personal acquaintance with the Karaites and their architectural monuments, however, are very important and valuable. Especially interesting are numerous pictures taking by him during his visit to Halicz and Kukizow (see Janusz, Karaici, 35, 41, 25, 19, 15, 9). Halicz 45

houses of the local Karaites he mentions their similarity to those of the local (Poles and Ruthenians). On the other hand, Karaite religion, houses of prayer and cemeteries reminded him those of the local Rabbanites.171 Quite a negative picture of the state of the community was depicted by Majer Bałaban: “There is practically no intelligentsia among the Karaites... intelligent youth convert to . Karaite Street in Halicz presents a grim and dark view; elderly Karaites produce impression of obedient and sorrowful people.” He also noted that young generation does not follow religious rules, and studies in lycea in Stanisławów and Brzeżany.172 One Karaite author, similarly, wrote that the Halicz community “is writhing in helpless convulsions of death-agony whilst being detached from the Karaite metropolis.”173 In 1913, i.e. a short while before the beginning of the First World War, a terrible disaster worsened the community’s state of poverty. A new and terrible conflagration ruined most of the wooden Karaite houses and seriously damaged their synagogue- kenesa. According to the estimates of the members of the community, of 18 Karaite houses only 4 remained intact.174 Two Karaite periodicals of the time reacted to this deplorable event and published an appeal to help the impoverished Karaite community.175 The East European Karaite community actively answered this plea: practically every new issue of Karaimskaia Zhizn’ and Karaimskoe Slovo published the lists of those who financially supported the impoverished Halicz community.176 And then, after the devastating fire, there came the war. According to Zarach Zarachowicz, who personally witnessed some of the drastic events of this time, in August 1914 most of the Karaite men living in the town were recruited into the Austrian army. Then Halicz was captured by the Russian army. Paradoxically, during this time the town was often visited by Russian Karaites serving in the ’s army; these Karaites also attended services in the local Karaite synagogue. Of interest is also the fact that at that time there were many Muslim Cherkessian soldiers among the Russians. As with other Muslims, the Cherkessians were not allowed to consume pork. This is why local Karaite women, who also did not consume pork, were hired to prepare proper “clean” food for the Cherkessians.177 When the Russian forces had

171 Janusz, Karaici, 75-76. 172 Majer Bałaban, “V Galitsii karaimy,” in Evreiskaia entsiklopediia 9, 291. Bałaban’s report seems to be too negative. He apparently borrowed his information about the Halicz community from Fahn’s book. 173 L...., “Odin gakham dla vsekh karaimov,” KS 9-10 (1914): 2. 174 For the precise list of houses, their owners and estimation of the suffered during the war, see AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 20-21, 26. 175 See KS 6 (1914): 15; “Karaimy g. Galicha,” KS 9-10 (1914): 24. 176 “Sbor v polzu pogorel’tsev g. Galich,” KS 7-8 (1914): 20-22; “Dobrovol’noe pozhertvovanie,” KS 7-8 (1914): 23-24; “Dobrovol’noe pozhertvovanie,” KS 9-10 (1914): 24. 177 Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 14. 46 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

been withdrawn, they were followed by cholera.178 After the re-capture of Halicz by the Austrians (July 1915), the population of the town was evacuated because of the epidemic. It was in this period after the Karaite inhabitants had abandoned their dwellings, that the Austrian soldiers sacked the synagogue and dismantled many of the houses in order to make ditches and encampments. According to Zarachowicz only one Karaite house remained intact, mostly because of its half-decayed condition. In 1918, all Karaite soldiers safely returned back home. In 1919-1920, however, the situation was worsened by a subsequent epidemic of typhus and the invasion of Petlura’s army. Zarach Zarachowicz estimated that about 25% of Karaite population of Halicz died during the events of 1915-1920 and sorrowfully added: “the amount of numerous new tombs in the [Halicz] Karaite cemetery is equal to the amount of hope that was in those who would never return to us...” 179

2.2.3 Historical Monuments a) The Quarter on Karaite Street The Karaite quarter of the town was located along Karaite Street – one of the longest streets in Halicz, along the Dniester river in the called Zaparkanie (Pol. “beyond the fence”) – since the sixteenth century. The first reference to Karaite Street occurs in the census of 1767, where the existence of the two is mentioned – that of the Rabbanites on Wał Miejski (Pol. “town wall”), and a Karaite synagogue on Karaimska ulica (Pol. “Karaite street”).180 According to the memoirs of Zarach Zarachowicz, the atmosphere of this street differed drastically from that of other parts of Halicz: it was very clean and tidy; only Karaim was spoken there; and one could often hear the sounds of Karaite .181 Grzegorz Smólski (1903) found Karaite Street to be too rural, without any traces of town life.182 Samuel Mordkowicz told Smólski that the original name of the street was Złota ulica (Pol. “Golden Street”).183 According to most sources and my personal observations, the Karaite houses were not particularly different from those of their Slavic neighbours. They were usually built of wood; only some of the twentieth-

178 According to Janina Eszwowicz, cholera took the lives of 17 Karaites (Janina Eszwowicz, “Halyts’ka karaїms’ka v XX st.” in Karaїmy Halycha, 4). 179 Zarach Zarachowicz, “Listy z Halicza,” MK 1 (1924): 27-28. For more statistical data on the Halicz Karaite community, see Z.Z. [Zarach Zarachowicz], “Ze statystyki Karaimów w Haliczu,” MK 1 (1924): 32-33. It follows from this statistics that 44 individuals died during 1915-1920; this indeed seems to be around a quarter of the community. 180 AGAD Lustracje dz. XVIII, no. 62, fol. 15. 181 Zarachowicz, “Listy z Halicza,” 26. 182 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 538-539. 183 Ibid., 546. Halicz 47

century Karaite houses were built of stone. They were one storey high, usually with an attic and a basement. The entrance was situated at the side of the house; mezuzot (door-post ) were sometimes affixed to the door-posts.184 A few families usually shared each house; at the beginning of the twentieth century some Karaite landlords rented their houses to non-Karaites.185 Some Karaites also lived in the village of Załukiew, located a few hundred metres from the Karaite quarter of Halicz. In fact, there was no strict border between these two adjacent settlements: in spite of the fact that the synagogue was situated in Halicz, the cemetery was in Załukiew; the Karaites living in Załukiew were often registered as Karaites of Halicz; the well-to-do Karaites owned houses in Halicz and land in Załukiew, etc. A section of Załukiew where the Karaite houses stood is still called by the local Ukrainian population “Karaite corner” (Ukr. Karaїms’kyi kut).186 According to Ivan Yurchenko, there was also a “Karaite corner” (i.e. land owned by the Karaites) near the Karaite epidemic cemetery in Halicz, whereas the quarter adjacent to Karaite Street was referred to in Ukrainian as “Arslanivka” – after the famous ḥazzan Abraham Leonowicz.187 Furthermore, in the interwar period those Karaite families who had been working on the railway station lived beyond the Dniester, on the road leading to the railway station.188

b) “Kensa/Kenesa” – the Karaite Synagogue In general, the concentration of Jewish quarters around their synagogues may be noted in the social as well as in the material life of the Jews of Europe and the countries of the East. The Karaite synagogue of Halicz was also located in the centre of the Karaite quarter, in the middle of Karaite Street. From the end of the nineteenth–beginning of the twentieth century (and especially after 1911) East European Karaites practically stopped calling their houses of prayer “synagogues” and began applying the Karaim term kenesa/kienesa/kenese instead (for more information on the origin and meaning of the term, see 2.7). It seems that in Galicia the term kenesa was usually abridged to a shortened version kensa. Grzegorz Smólski has recorded that as early as 1903

184 It is important to remember that it was only in Galicia and Volhynia that the Karaites sometimes used mezuzot. 185 At the beginning of the twentieth century some Karaite landlords were renting rooms to Rabbanite Jews (Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 523, 538). For a detailed description of the houses, see also Janusz, Karaici, 75-76. 186 I received this information from one of the inhabitants of the village during the meeting of the “Davnii ” Historical Reserve (Halicz, 25 Apr. 2005). 187 Private communication (Halicz, Apr. 2005). In the Turkic languages arslan means “lion” – an apparent reference to the ḥazzan’s surname, which was associated with Polish lew (lion). 188 AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-4, no. 122:2, subfolder 2, fol. 26. 48 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

the Karaites Halicz called their house of prayer kensa.189 In 1906 Jan Grzegorzewski wrote down a most interesting text in Galician Karaim where this term is mentioned three times, also in the shortened form: kensa-nyn (Gen.; “of the kensa”); kensa-da (Loc., “in the kensa”); kensa-ga (Dat. “to the kensa”).190 In the present work, the more literary variant of this term, kenesa, will be used.191

Illustration 2: Karaite community of Halicz before the First World War: a) view of Karaite Street; b) interior of the kenesa (a Karaite prayer house). Source: a postcard (the 1910s).

189 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 546. 190 Jan Grzegorzewski, “Caraimica. Język Łach-karaitów. Narzecze południowe (łucko-halickie),” RO 1:2 (1916-18): 273-274. 191 Cf. KRPS, 304; Karaj sez-bitigi, 41. Halicz 49

Unlike in Crimea, where the local Jewish population built their houses of prayer from stone, the early Karaite and Rabbanite synagogues of Poland and Lithuania were usually made of wood, as were the earliest Karaite synagogues in Halicz and Kukizów. In spite of the fact that the oldest reference to the existence of a wooden Karaite synagogue in Halicz dates back to 1767,192 we may assume that this specific building was erected approximately in the sixteenth century. In 1830 it was destroyed by a severe conflagration. Construction of the new stone synagogue was finished in 1836. It was erected on the site of the old Halicz synagogue, in a style similar to that of the nineteenth-century Crimean and south Ukrainian Karaite and Rabbanite synagogues.193 Unfortunately, in 1913, a short while before , the synagogue again suffered heavy damage from a new conflagration.194 Thanks to financial support from other Karaite communities,195 the Karaites soon managed to repair the building. The aron ha-qodesh (Ark of the Torah) of the renovated synagogue was made on 2 July 1914 in Stanisławów by a local carver.196 Regrettably, after this renovation the synagogue did not remain intact. During World War I, Russian and Austrian soldiers sacked the synagogue so that, according to eyewitness testimony, “only the walls of the shrine remained.”197 This is the reason that any information toward a reconstruction of its former inner and outer appearance must rely upon only a few pre-war photos and reports by travellers. The architectural style and decoration of the Karaite synagogues of Halicz and Kukizów were highly similar to those of the Rabbanite houses of prayer of this area. There were two entrances to the building – one for men and the other for women. Women were supposed to pray in a separate gallery called >ezrat nashim in Hebrew.198 According to Grzegorz Smólski, the building looked rather insignificant from the outside, but its interior decoration was quite impressive:

The walls had rows of painted tablets with Hebrew inscriptions, covered with silk curtains (parochet) made of various fabrics, among them brocades with gold embroideries. Two seven-branched candelabra stand before the altar, hechał,199 and two bronze

192 AGAD Lustracje dz. XVIII, no. 62, fol. 15. The document says: “Szkoł Dwie Zydowska y Karaimska Z dzrewa budowane” (Pol. “two synagogues, a Jewish and a Karaite one, built of wood”). 193 Its height was 6.55 m, width – 6.70 m, and length – 11.50 m (AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-6, no. 16). 194 According to the information published in KS, “the upper part” (i.e., perhaps, the roof and women’s gallery) was burned down (KS 6 (1914): 15). 195 Zarachowicz, “Listy z Halicza,” 27. 196 Viktor (David) Tiriiaki, “Sokhranenie religioznykh traditsii karaimov Galicha na rubezhe XX-XXI vv.,” in Karaїmy Halycha, 82. Most likely, this master was a Rabbanite. 197 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 18-19. 198 This is according to the ground plan of the synagogue reconstructed by Ivan Yurchenko (unpublished). 199 A corruption of the Heb. heikhal (palace). 50 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

candlesticks hang from above. The altar consists of two beautifully decorated plaques with inscriptions.200

The interior decoration of the building also made a strong impression upon Reuven Fahn, who described its ceiling, which bore the twelve signs of the Zodiac and passages from the books of the Prophets. Its walls bore quotations from the Torah and the prayer “Yehi Raṣon”.201 All the aforementioned Hebrew inscriptions and Biblical passages were painted by young Yeshua-Joseph Mordkowicz, future ḥazzan of the community.202 D.F. (Reuven Fahn?) reported seeing a quotation from Isaiah on the entrance to the building and, according to his own assertion, a thirteenth-century Torah scroll inside.203 Bohdan Janusz, who described in detail the synagogue’s external appearance, mentioned that on the inside, the walls of the building were covered by brocade curtains (Pol. makaty) with Hebrew inscriptions and ornamented embroidery in silk and gold.204 On feast days the floor of the synagogue was covered with carpets.205 The Karaites also had a special flag with the inscription degel maḥaneh yeshurun (Heb. “the ’s camp”), which on special occasions was placed to the right of the dukhan (pulpit for a preacher). Furthermore, the flag was often carried at the head of ceremonial processions which took place outside the synagogue walls.206 At the end of the nineteenth century, there were as many as 23 Torah scrolls kept in the Karaite synagogue of Halicz.207

c) Cemetery The cemetery (GVKar. zeret208) of the Halicz Karaites, today consisting of about two hundred monuments, is situated on the bank of the Dniester river, in the territory

200 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 546. 201 Fahn, “Aus dem Leben,” 135-136; idem, “Ha-Qara

of the village of Załukiew (Ukr. Zalukva).209 There are a few factors which make this cemetery very different from most other Karaite cemeteries in Eastern Europe: the grounds reflect a harmonizing of specific features of the East European Karaite funeral traditions alongside the strong influence of the traditions of the surrounding Rabbanites. In accordance with Karaite religious customs, the front parts of the tombstones in Halicz face south. According to a general Jewish tradition, the worshipper should turn his face towards while praying.210 In conformity with this principle, the aron ha-qodesh (Ark of the Torah) of a synagogue and the front part of a gravestone should be oriented in the direction of Jerusalem. There is, however, a considerable difference between the East European Karaite and the Rabbanite interpretations of the geographic location of this holy city: according to the Karaite tradition, Jerusalem is located in the south, whereas in the early modern Ashkenazic tradition it is in the east.211 This is why the Karaite synagogue of Halicz and the front parts of the gravestones in the local cemetery faced south, whereas the Torah repositories of the Rabbanite synagogues were normally oriented to the east. Moreover, eulogies were used in the epitaphs on the tombstones of the Halicz Karaite cemetery; these are quite rare for Ashkenazic inscriptions, but typical of the Karaite cemeteries in Crimea.212 The local Karaites also used a combination of the letters “yod-hey” and “yod-vav” to indicate the numbers 15 and 16, and also the letters “yod-hey” as an abbreviation for the name of . This was usually avoided by the Rabbanite Jews because of the prohibition against printing or speaking the full name of God.213 Furthermore, one tombstone inscription was composed in the local dialect of the Karaim language, while several other inscriptions had short formulas written in Karaim.214 The architectural design of the memorial stones and the style of the epitaphs, however, clearly show the strong influence of Rabbanite tradition upon the funeral practices of the local Karaites. On the tombstones of this cemetery one can see lengthy

209 A twenty-minute walk from the Halicz Karaite quarter across a stone bridge over the Dniester and a highly precarious wobbly wooden bridge suspended over the Łukiew river (Ukr. Lukva). 210 I Kings 8:44; Daniel 6:10. 211 The Karaites in the Near East had a different understanding of this principle. For a discussion see Percy Selvin Goldberg, Karaite Liturgy and Its Relation to Synagogue (Manchester, 1957), 30-32. It seems that in Łuck the Karaite synagogue and, possibly, the graves in the local cemetery were oriented east, not south (Józef Smoliński, “Karaimi i bożnica ich w Łucku,” Ziemia 3 (1912): 39). It seems that the principle of facing the east was brought by the forefathers of the Ashkenazim from . This is attested to by the fact that the earliest Rabbanite synagogues in Europe also faced south, as did those of the Karaites (I am indebted to Prof. Dan Shapira for this and many other comments regarding the contents of this chapter). 212 Michael Nosonovsky, Hebrew Epitaphs and Inscriptions from Ukraine and Former (Washington, 2006), 169. 213 Ibid. 214 Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovyshche, 13, 183. 52 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

Hebrew eulogies and blessings, depictions of animals, trees of life and flowers, Stars of David, hands of kohanim in priestly blessing, broken candles, shelves with books, menorot, Crowns of the Torah and of the Good Name.215 All these symbols, which are so typical of the Rabbanite cemeteries of the area, are highly unusual for the ascetic Karaite necropolises in Eastern Europe, which are, as a rule, devoid of any symbolic depictions and ornamentation. Today, the Karaite cemetery of Halicz is the only Karaite cemetery in Eastern Europe with such ornate and sophisticated decorations; two other cemeteries of similar architectural style, those of Łuck and Kukizów,216 were entirely destroyed during the Soviet era. This striking typological similarity between the Rabbanite and Karaite gravestones in Galicia may be explained only by the close contacts between the two communities and the Karaites’ hiring of Rabbanite carvers and morticians to perform funeral .217 This similarity is evident not only in tombstone carvings and reliefs but also in other examples of Karaite art, such as illuminated manuscripts, ornaments, drawings, embossings, and needle work. In spite of the fact that the Karaite community existed in Halicz at least from the sixteenth century, the majority of the extant tombstone monuments belong to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twentieth century, especially during the Soviet period, traditional Hebrew epitaphs were replaced with inscriptions in Polish, Ukrainian, and Karaim,218 in Cyrillic and characters. Most of the epitaphs, however, were written in Hebrew. Anyone interested in making use of the tombstone inscriptions from this cemetery will encounter a very serious methodological problem: how sincere and objective were the epitaphs and to what extent might they be used for historical research? Unfortunately, it seems that most of the tombstone inscriptions were made according to certain stereotypical conventions, and the texts of the epitaphs often tend to be

215 Some of these symbols originate in the Mishna Avot 4:13 which is not recognized by the Karaites as a sacred text (Nosonovsky, Hebrew Epitaphs, 169). 216 Unfortunately, we possess virtually no data on the Karaite cemetery of Łuck (it was completely destroyed in the 1970s and was not documented). Nevertheless, the similarity of the cultural, linguistic and religious traditions of the Galician and Volhynian community strongly suggests that the architectural style of the Karaite cemetery in Łuck was similar to that of Halicz. 217 Cf. the similarity between the Karaite tombstones from Halicz and those of the Podolian and Galician Rabbanites in Nosonovsky, Hebrew Epitaphs, esp. 141-154; Boris Khaimovich, “Reznoi dekor evreiskikh nadgrobii Ukrainy,” in Istoriia evreev na Ukraine i v Belorussii, ed. Valerii Dymshitz (St. Petersburg, 1994), 83-106; Zinovii Chechik, Matsevy (Tula, 2005). Ivan Yurchenko found tombs with identifying marks of local carvers who were not members of the Karaite community (Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovyshche, 15, figs. 3-5). During our visit to the Halicz Ashkenazic cemetery (8 May 2002), Ivan Yurchenko showed me a tomb which was excavated by him in 2001. The decoration of this monument was an exact copy of one of the tombstones in the local Karaite cemetery. It seems that both monuments were made by the same carver, who was, undoubtedly, of Rabbanite origin. 218 See the only comparatively lengthy inscription in Karaim in Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovyshche, 182-183, no. 193. Halicz 53

rather repetitive. They usually consist of a few parts: an introduction (expressing sorrow at the death of a member of the community), a middle part (numerating the deeds and positive qualities of the deceased), and conclusion (containing date of the death and the name of the person who sponsored the erection of the tombstone monument). Moreover, the epitaphs often tend to be excessively positive in their evaluation of the personal and moral qualities of the deceased: most men are referred to as “educated, enlightened, influential, and venerable,” whereas most women – as “chaste, pious, and virtuous.”219 It seems that the style of the Galician Karaite epitaphs, which was influenced by the Galician Ashkenazic tradition, was especially flowery and imprecise. The Karaite tombstone inscriptions in Troki seem to be much more succinct,220 whereas Crimean ones are more individually designed, often with a number of precise historical details. Having said this, it is worthwhile mentioning that some of the Galician tombstone texts, nevertheless, provide readers with important historical information which is often not found in any other source. They also contain information on the structure of the local Karaite community, the professions of its members, their families, duration of life, and many other important details. Until the recent publication of the full catalogue of the local cemetery,221 Reuven Fahn contributed the only serious study of the cemetery. His study is highly important because of the fact that Fahn visited the cemetery before the two world wars. This is how he was able to document the texts of the tombstone inscriptions which are no longer extant. According to Fahn, the earliest tombstone inscription of the cemetery, that of the ḥazzan Joseph ben Samuel ha-Mashbir, dates back to 1700.222 Therefore, we may assume that the earlier sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cemetery was located in a different place, or, alternatively, that the tombstones from this period did not survive to the time of Fahn’s visit to the cemetery. Unfortunately, the cemetery was partly destroyed in the course of the two world wars – accounting for the disappearace of early eighteenth-century tombs, including that of Joseph ha-Mashbir. Today, the oldest tombstones in this place date back to the mid-eighteenth century.223 In addition to this larger cemetery in Załukiew, there was also a small epidemic burial ground in Halicz, on the slope of the Castle hill not far from Karaite Street. It was used as a burial place for those members of the community who died of cholera

219 For more information on the conventions in Hebrew tombstone inscriptions in Eastern Europe, see Mikhail Nosonovskii, Hebrew Epigraphic Monuments from Eastern Europe (Boston, 2002); idem, “‘Zaviazannye v uzle zhizni’: k poetike evreiskikh epitafii,” in his “He, Who Separates Between the Holy and Secular”: Hebrew, Yiddish, Sacred and Secular in the Traditional (New York, 2005), 271-298. 220 Golda Akhiezer, Ilya Dvorkin, “Ktovot ha-maṣevot mi-batei ha->almin be-Liṭa,” Pe>amim 98-99 (2004): 225-260. 221 Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovyshche. 222 Fahn, “Le-qorot,” 40-41. 223 Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovyshche, 12, 66-67, 219; nos. 20, 60. 54 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

from 1915 to 1917, during the First World War. Karaites were still visiting this cemetery in the 1930s and 1940s.224 Unfortunately, today not a single tombstone stands in this cemetery.225

2.2.4 Legends and Proverbs

The Halicz Karaites normally claimed that their cultural life and folklore were based exclusively on the and did not contain anything outside of Biblical motifs and plots. This is why, for example, Samuel Mordkowicz and Rachel Eszwowicz of Halicz answered Grzegorz Smólski’s questions regarding Karaite folkore by saying that all their folktales, legends, and songs were related to Bible stories.226 Nevertheless, in Halicz, as in all other Karaite communities of the world, proverbs, songs, riddles, sayings, anecdotes, and folktales of an exclusively secular character had been in circulation among the local Karaites. Unfortunately, in contrast to the comparatively well-documented folklore of Crimean227 and Troki Karaites,228 only a few examples of Halicz Karaite folklore were recorded by scholars, primarily by Jan Grzegorzewski and Reuven Fahn. Most examples of this local folklore represent a typical mixture of Galician Karaite traditions with elements of Turkic, Slavic, and Biblical motifs. Jan Grzegorzewski’s archival materials contain several proverbs, sayings and riddles in Halicz Karaim. Some of them seem to be unique to the Karaites; some represented Karaim translations of Polish proverbs; and others were based on Biblical topoi.229 Two more Halicz Karaite proverbs were recorded by Grzegorz Smólski in 1903. One of them was a Karaim translation of the well-known Polish proverb, “Kto rano

224 This is according to Janina Eszwowicz, Ada Zarachowicz, and L. Shugurova (Eszwowicz) (Halicz). There were seventeen Karaites who died of cholera in this period; some of them were buried in the epidemic cemetery, some in Załukiew (Ivan Yurchenko, Natalya Yurchenko, “Epidemichne kladovyshche karaїms’koї hromady Halycha,” in Zberezhennia ta vykorystannia kul’turnoї spadshchyny Ukrаїny: problemy ta perspektyvy (Halych, 2004), 183, ft. 7). 225 Ibid., 180. 226 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 546, 564. 227 See legends of Crimean Karaites in Franz Dombrovski [Dąbrowski], “Krymsko-karaimskie predaniia,” Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti 39 (1853): 153-155; Legendy i predaniia karaev (krymskikh karaimov-tiurkov), ed. Iu.A. Polkanov (Simferopol, 1995; regrettably, the original versions of many Karaite legends published in this book were seriously corrupted by its editor, Iu.A. Polkanov, an apologist for the Turkic origin of the Karaites); Legendy i predaniia krymskikh karaimov, ed. Victor (David) Tiriiaki (Eupatoria, 2002). 228 The folklore of the Troki Karaites represented a mixture of Karaite, Turkic, Slavic, and some Lithuanian elements. For further publications which focus on the literature and folklore of the Troki Karaites, see the Bibliography under “Kowalski, Tadeusz”. 229 Kowalski, “Materjały karaimskie,” 24-25. Halicz 55

wstaje, temu pan Bóg daje” (God helps the one who wakes up early).230 An absolutely unique collection of a few dozen original Karaite proverbs was collected by Aleksander Mardkowicz in Łuck and Halicz in the 1920s-1930s. It is difficult now to tell which of them came from Halicz and which from Łuck. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that most of them were used by the Karaites both in Volhynia and in Galicia.231 One of them, undoubtedly originating in Halicz, was devoted to the role played by the seventeenth- century community leader, Joseph ben Samuel ha-Mashbir. The proverbs provided by Mardkowicz touched upon such varied aspects of Karaite life as religion, everyday life, work, humour, nature, life and death, women and children, joy and mourning, etc. It is extremely interesting that even such fruits of folk fantasy as proverbs contained enormous amounts of Hebrew loanwords. Does this mean that the authors of proverbs were educated Karaites, perhaps even ḥazzanim? Traditionally, folk proverbs of this genre do not contain sophisticated phraseology and foreign loanwords. Taking into account the fact that Mardkowicz’s publication is perhaps the only collection of genuine and unmodified Karaite proverbs, it is certainly worthwhile reproducing some of them here. Many proverbs were dedicated to the attitude towards religion. Some of them criticized a hypocritical attitude to religious duties: “On the festive day [moedde] the kenesa is noisy, while on weekdays – it is a desert [midbar].”232 Others reflected a perception of religion as the most important part of human life: “The without duties [micwasyz] is like a crown without a head.”233 Especially interesting were the proverbs reflecting ethnic stereotypes and prejudices about other peoples. Many of them were dedicated to the Poles and the Ashkenazic Jews (with some derision, the latter were called rabban/rabbanłar in these proverbs). One proverb was dedicated to several peoples and social classes at the same time and also contained an appraisal of the Karaites’ high moral qualities: “A Pole [esaw] carries coins;234 a [kisi235] – lard [ṭame<];236 a Rabbanite – garlic; a Karaite – blessings [berachot].”237 One proverb characterized the Poles’ cruelty with regard to the Karaites: “A Pole shed blood for the inheritance; Karaite blood was spillt for a Pole.”238 Another reflected Poland’s annexation by the Russian Empire in the course of the Partitions of Poland: “A Russian embraced a Pole, but his hands were iron.”239 One proverb reflected uneasy historical circumstances of Karaite life in Eastern

230 GVKar. “Kim erte turad, anar Tenri berlet” (Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 546). 231 [Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Kart da kartajmahan sezłer,” KA 8 (1935): 2-7. 232 “Moedde kenesada cu[w]łu, ałajik kinde – midbar.” 233 “Din micwasyz – tadz bassyz.” 234 Literally “has in his belt.” 235 I suggest that here these word may have been used to indicate a Ukrainian/Ruthenian peasant. 236 A Hebrew loanword originally meaning “ritually impure.” 237 “Esawda belibawynda kyzyłłar, kiside – tame, rabbanda – sarymsak, karajda – berachot.” 238 “Esaw tekti kanyn mereśligi icin, karajnyn kany tegildi esaw icin.” 239 “Urus esawny kuctu, da kołu anyn temirlidi.” 56 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

Poland, Tatar raids and Haidamak pogroms: “Those without crosses – burnt, those with crosses – killed.”240 Especially important are proverbs about the Rabbanite Jews. One of them reflects the Rabbanites’ religious hypocrisy and unscrupulousness in trade: “A Rabbanite in a ṭallit gives you a full measure, without a ṭallit [cheats you] with trembling hands” [here in the sense of “cheats you while weighing your purchase”].241 The other, also related to trade, takes some cultural unpacking: “A Rabbanite is looking for a rooster on a market, while a Karaite – for a horse’s tail [or loin].”242 These proverbs are quite important in understanding the Karaites’ attitudes towards life, religion, and other peoples. Jan Grzegorzewski also documented examples of such types of folklore as wedding songs and anecdotes.243 In addition to songs, sayings, and proverbs, the local Karaites undoubtedly possessed a number of folktales, legends, and oral traditions of a historical and fantastic character. Several of them, composed in the Karaim language, were recorded by Jan Grzegorzewski. Three of them which were published in his early article and, in fact, represent Karaim adaptation of Polish folktaless and so, in my opinion, they can hardly be considered genuine examples of Karaite folklore.244 Only two other folktaless, about a son of a rich man in search of a bride, which were narrated to Grzegorzewski by Abraham ben Joseph Leonowicz, seem to be original examples of local Karaite folklore.245 Sources have preserved several Karaite folktales which reflect the historical circumstances of Karaite life in Galicia. As has been mentioned above, in the late eighteenth and into the early twentieth century, East European Karaites developed a mythologeme about their arrival in Poland and Lithuania during the reign of prince Vitold of Lithuania and/or Daniel of Galicia. While the origin of this mythologeme seems to have been motivated by various political and ideological agendas, there is no doubt that later ideas about the arrival of the Karaites started to be enshrouded by the mist of popular fantasy. One such legend was published by Reuven Fahn in Hebrew

240 Mardkowicz added in brackets the words kedar (i.e. a “, Bedouin” or, here, a “Tatar”) and hajdamak (“Haidamak”). 241 “Tałette rabban ełcejd’ tołu, tałetsiz titrejd kołu.” 242 “Rabban panairde choros izdejd’, karaj – atnyn kujruhun.” This slightly sarcastic proverb may have reflected the food preferences of each of these peoples: the Rabbanites favoured fowl, while the Karaites apparently preferred horse meat. 243 AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-6, nos. 16-17. 244 See the folktales “Elim ta miśkin” (Death and a poor man) and “Elim” (Death) (Grzegorzewski, “Türk-tatarischer Dialekt,” 68-69, 74-77). See the original of these tales in Hebrew characters in AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-6, Jan Grzegorzewski, no.17. 245 See the tale which starts with the words “Chodza bijde bir birłej uwłu” and “Edi ezine bir chodza adam, edi anda bir uwłu.” These two tales and some of Grzegorzewski’s other materials, which, according to Kowalski, did not have any particular academic value (cf. Kowalski, “Materjały karaimskie,” 25-26), ended up in Tadeusz Kowalski’s personal archive (e.g. AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-4, no. 122:2/2, fols. 5, 17). Halicz 57

under the title Benei segulah (Heb. “Chosen Ones”). It existed in two variants and was narrated to Fahn in Halicz by his Karaite and Rabbanite informants. Taking into account the oral character of the legend, one may assume that the Karaite version was told to Fahn by the Karaites in Polish while that of the Rabbanites – in Yiddish. The Karaite version dated the settlement of the Karaites in Halicz to the thirteenth century and connected this event with the war between the “King of Halicz” (Heb. melekh Haliṣ; i.e., most likely, Daniel of Galicia) and the Tatar Batu. According to the legend, the King of Halicz knew about the existence of the unusual and interesting people in the realm of the Tatar khan. This people was not Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or pagan. The King of Halicz asked the Khan to send him several representatives of this unique people, and promised to give them land and settle them in his country. The Khan consented to this – and this is how the Karaites were settled in Halicz.246 The local Rabbanites, in turn, popularized a derogatory version of the legend about the origin of the Karaite settlement in Halicz. According to this legend, the Tatar Khan (i.e. Batu) presented a pair of Karaites to the King of the Halicz principality in exchange for a pair of thoroughbred Galician dogs. Since then, according to the legend, the local Rabbanites called the Karaites meḥir kelev (Heb. “dog’s price”).247 The Karaites also had an alternative version of their settlement in Halicz which connected this event with the political activity of another important ruler, the Lithuanian Prince Vitold. At the very beginning of the twentieth century, Samuel Mordkowicz told Grzegorz Smólski a legend about the arrival of the Karaites during Vitold’s time. According to this legend, around six or seven hundred years ago Vitold was passing through Crimea when he heard Karaite children studying the of Isaiah in the midrasz (a religious school). The prince liked “the academic tone” of their praying, entered the school, and took the Karaites to Lithuania and Poland. He settled about of 80 their families in Lwów, Kukizów, and Halicz. Surprisingly, Mordkowicz added that this event happened 658 years ago (ca. 1245/1246), i.e. during the reign of Daniel of Galicia, even though he himself did not mention Daniel’s name at all and insisted that it was Vitold who had resettled Karaites in Galicia.248

246 Fahn, “Ha-Qaraal pi nusaḥ ha-Qaraal pi nusaḥ ha-Yehudim,” in KRF, 260-261; cf. Yiddish translation in Z. Shohet, “Di Karaimen fun Galitsye: haynt un amolige tsayten,” Der Forverts (06.07.1930), . 2, p. 2. Zygmunt Abrahamowicz (a Galician Karaite himself) correctly mentioned that this legend was based, most likely, on a corrupt interpretation of the Polish word “Karait” (a Karaite). When understood as a Turkic expression (kara it), it could be translated as a “black dog” (Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 14). Cf. also the letter of Aleksander Mardkowicz to Professor W. A. Unkrig (Berlin). Mardkowicz insisted that the term “Karait” should not be used because of its pejorative meaning (Adler, “Krim-Karäer,” 105, ft. 2). 248 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 546. 58 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

Samuel Mordkowicz briefly recounted to Grzegorz Smólski another short legend related to the Karaites’ glorious past. According to this legend, Karaite Street in Halicz had been originally called Złota ulica (Pol. “Golden Street”) because of the fact that in long-forgotten prosperous times, beautiful and rich Karaite women were dressed all in gold.249 This legend undoubtedly reflects the traditional image of the past as the “Golden age” of prosperity and success. Another story related to the “Golden age” mentioned that in the first years after the re-settlement, when Halicz was a capital town of Ruthenia, the Karaite community was much more numerous. The supposedly took many local Karaites and Christians in the course of their slave raids – and as a result the Karaite community was reduced to only a hundred souls.250 This tale reflects the devastating Tatar raids in Galicia in late medieval and early modern times. It seems to have historical veracity, save for the fact that Halicz ceased to be a capital in the early fourteenth century, i.e. before the arrival of the Karaites. Another legend is related to a later event of the history of the Karaites in Galicia and Volhynia. It was published by Fahn in Hebrew, but one may assume that there existed also a Karaim version of this folktale. This story tells about the persecution of the Karaites by some unnamed enemy, most likely Haidamak (or Cossack) pogromists. According to the legend, the pogromists entered the city and began killing inhabitants of the Karaite quarter. Several pious young Karaite women tried to hide from the enemy on the Korolówka hill (located in the vicinity of Halicz, not far from the Dniester river). Seeing that the enemy was approaching their shelter, the maidens, having no other option, decided to find salvation in the waters of the Dniester.251 Leonowicz mentioned that as many as 27 girls drowned during that event.252 This story is very similar to the tale about the Haidamak massacre of the Karaite community of Derażna (Volhynia), which was recorded by Zarach Zarachowicz from the words of the Łuck Karaite, Mrs. Rudkowska. According to this legend, in 1768 the Karaite population of Derażno, Kotów, and Cumań had to hide in a forest out of fear of the approaching troops of the Haidamak leader, Ivan Gonta. After they saw the enemy approaching, nine (or twelve) Karaite women began to pray, put on their wedding dresses, and threw themselves from the hill of Horyń

249 Ibid. 250 This story was told by Joseph b. Abraham Leonowicz in his letter to M. Tenenbaum (Moses Tenenbaum, “Le-qorot ba>alei Miqra<,” Ha-Nesher 4:16 (15 Apr. 1864): 63). 251 See the tale “Ha-nahar ha-yashan” [The old river] in Fahn, Me-aggadot, 12-14; idem, “Das alte Flußbett,” in Fahn, Legenden der Karaiten, 3-8. 252 Tenenbaum, “Le-qorot ba>alei Miqra<,” 63. The Karaites who drowned “in the river Korolówka” (sic) were mentioned also in the “Memorial book” by Aaron Łucki in the early nineteenth century (Mikhail Nosonovskii, Volodimir Shabarovskii (Shabarovs’kyi), “Karaimskaia XVI-XVIII vv. v Derazhnom na Volyni,” Vestnik EUM 9 (2004): 33). Halicz 59

into the Styr river.253 The existence of a Galician variant of the legend suggests that ca. 1768 Haidamak pogromists went as far as Halicz, where they persecuted local Karaites as well. According to Zygmunt Abrahamowicz, however, this legend is a reference to Chmielnicki’s massacres of the Karaites.254 Fahn also recorded a highly interesting Karaite legend about three pious Halicz Karaite merchants who were far away from home, in the Ukrainian town of Rozdol, when Isaac, one of them, died of cholera. Being forbidden by the to conduct funerals by themselves and having no possibility of transferring Isaac back to Halicz, the Karaites had to ask the local Rabbanite morticians to do it. The local Rabbi agreed to allow the rite to be performed in the Rabbanite cemetery provided that the Karaite be interred... beyond the cemetery fence.255 There is no doubt that Halicz Karaite folklore must have been much richer and more varied and impressive than is shown in this subchapter. Unfortunately, contemporary ethnographers and linguists did not attempt to collect systematically all the folklore material that was available to them in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The local Karaites, on the other hand, did not have their own collector of folklore, like Abraham Szyszman in Troki or Toviya Levi-Babovich in Crimea,256 to record their oral legacy. Now, when the Halicz community has almost disappeared, it is impossible to reconstruct the local folklore in its entirety – and the examples of Galician Karaite folklore analysed in this subchapter seem to be the only material available to us today. Nevertheless, even these meagre examples allow one to reconstruct a vivid world of folk fantasy, colourful legends, and popular wisdom of the local Karaites. Thus, the folklore of the Karaites is an interesting addendum to our knowledge of the folklore of the Galician population, Jewish and Christian alike.

2.2.5 Personalia a) Nowachowicz Family Shalom (Szałom/Sałom) Nowachowicz (26.01.1849–9.06.1922), son of Yosef and Sara, was the community ḥazzan from 1900 to 1922. He was characterized by Bohdan Janusz

253 AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-4, no. 122:2/2, fols. 6, 16; cf. Kowalski, “Materjały karaimskie,” 25-26. It starts with “Deraźniada, kajsy tabułady Wołyńda, edi kart zamanłarda ułłu karaimskij kahał. Andahy karajłar edłer barły, ułtururediłer har biri ez jiwłerinde i kiriedler rastłykba i tenrinin korkuwuba.” A literary version of this folktale was published by Sergjusz Rudkowski in Polish as Krwawe echo Humania na Wołyniu (Rzeź kotowska). Podanie (Łuck, 1932). 254 Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 11. 255 Ruben Fahn, Legenden der Karaiten (Wien-Warschau-New-York, 1921), 14-20. 256 See the manuscript collection of Karaite legends collected by Abraham Szyszman in the first half of the twentieth century (Abraham Szyszman, Legendy i predaniia karaimov, 1932-1944: MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1531). A critical edition of this collection is being prepared for publication by Mikhail Kizilov. 60 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

as “a man of great wisdom and good pedagogue.”257 During the visit of Grzegorz Smólski to Halicz in 1903 Nowachowicz was away. His colleague, Samuel Eszwowicz, characterized hims as “enlightened and educated man.” According to other data collected by the journalist, Nowachowicz was born in Kukizów, but received his education in ḥazzanim (Heb. “religious college for ḥazzanim”) in Eupatoria in Crimea. He was perhaps the first Galician ḥazzan to receive his in Crimea.258 In 1913 and 1914, after the conflagration, Nowachowicz managed to organize financial help from Russia and partially restored the damaged synagogue and Karaite houses. He was also the leader of the community during the catastrophic period of World War I, the cholera epidemic, Petlura’s invasion and the revolutionary events in Ukraine from 1917 to 1920. In 1922, shortly before his death, Nowachowicz resigned from the duties of ḥazzan and appointed Izaak Abrahamowicz as his successor (for more information on the interwar Halicz ḥazzanim see 3.2.2). Of great interest is Nowachowicz’s tomb with the depiction of cohen’s priestly blessing typical of Ashkenazic tombs. The inscription with veneration mentions that va-shem lo bein hakhme Torah (Heb. “his living memory is among the sages of the Torah”).259 His son, Zachariasz Nowachowicz (5.03.1883–25.03.1960) stayed in Halicz and dedicated himself to community matters. He became well-known patron and mecenas of the community in interwar period. Nowachowicz also became a friend, host, and guide of the famous Polish Orientalist Tadeusz Kowalski (1889–1948) during the visits of the latter to Halicz in 1925 and 1937.260 His cousin, Józef Nowachowicz, took part in Polish patriotic movement, and during the First World War became member of one of Polish armed organizations. Later he converted to Christianity and left Halicz.

b) Samuel Mordkowicz Samuel Mordkowicz, another educated leader of the community at the beginning of the twentieth century, guided Grzegorz Smólski during the latter’s visit to Halicz in 1903. It was Mordkowicz that provided Smólski with most important data about the state of the community, translated him some of Karaite prayers and proverbs from Karaim to Polish, and told him the legend about the origins of the Karaite settlement in Halicz. At that moment Samuel Mordkowicz fulfilled the duties of the community shammash. Smólski characterized him as “man in his forties, with thick black hair and beard, of exclusively Semitic appearance, having, however, nothing in common

257 Janusz, Karaici, 101. See also the picture published in the same book, pict. 3, between pages 1 6 -1 7. 258 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 547, 539. It seems that many of Halicz religious authorities received their education in Crimea. 259 Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovysche, 46-47, nr42. 260 Anna Sulimowicz, “Znaczenie Halickich Karaimów dla rozwoju Polskiej turkologii,” Karaїmy Halycha, 41. Halicz 61

with the Polish Jew-Chasid neither in his speech, nor in his demeanours.”261 Smólski also had a chance to talk to Samuel’s wife Ester (Esther) and the daughter Judyta (Judith).262 From 1923 to 1924 Mordkowicz for a short period of time fulfilled the duties of the ḥazzan, but then was replaced by Izaak Abrahamowicz. Of interest is the fact that being learned in the and religion, Samuel Mordkowicz “did not have normal education in the .”263 At the beginning of the twentieth century such a situation was rather frequent among the Polish Karaites who often had much better command of the Ruthenian, Karaim, or Hebrew language than that of Polish.

c) The Eszwowicz Family Grzegorz Smólski (1903) was highly impressed by his visit to the family of Samuel and Rachel Eszwowicz (“Eszłowicz” according to Smólski’s spelling). Smólski described Samuel as a hospitable person with a good command of Polish, “a man of strong constitution of body, with features much less less Semitic [than S. Mordkowicz].” According to Smólski, his wife, Rachel, looked exactly as would any average woman of Eastern Galicia. At the request of her husband and the journalist, Rachel sang them several folk-songs in Polish and Ruthenian/Ukrainian which were popular also among their Christian neighbours. Much more interesting was the journalist’s impression of young Leon (Levi) Eszwowicz, Samuel’s and Rachel’s son. Smólski described him as “a beautiful sixteen-year-old, dark-haired boy with eyes glittering and black as coal, with a very intelligent face.” The sixteen-year-old boy was preparing a kind of book of the Karaim language in Polish and Karaim. Smólski had written down some examples of Karaim words with the Polish translation and urged young boy to continue his attempts and to compose this kind of whole textbook.264 According to some reports, Leon Eszwowicz studied in the Karaite religious college in Eupatoria later.265 Subsequently, in the 1920s and 1930s, Leon Eszwowicz worked as a

261 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 538. You may also compare the traveller’s description with Mardkowicz’s photo, where the latter is holding the flag with the depiction of magen david in his hands in ibid., 483. 262 Ibid., 539. 263 This is according to Józef Eszwowicz (AAN MWRiOP no. 1461, fol. 111). 264 In September 2002 I have found a manuscript with the textbook of this type among the Yurchenko MSS. This manuscript represented a regular school copybook containing a short textbook (ten lessons) of the Hebrew language, together with exercises, Bible quotations, small dictionary, and grammatical explanations in Polish, German, Hebrew, and Karaim. It seems that its author was Nowach Szulimowicz, the author of a few articles for MK, who is also mentioned by Tadeusz Kowalski as one of the persons who helped him in collecting his Karaim materials; the copybook was given as a present to Leon Szulimowicz. 265 Eszwowicz, “Halyts’ka karaїms’ka hromada,” 7. 62 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

teacher of the Karaim language and religion in Halicz. In 1934, during the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Eliahu Kazas, Eszwowicz delivered to the audience a paper on the activity of this Karaite enlightener.266

d) Zachariah Isaac (Zacharjasz Izaak) ben Samuel Abrahamowicz (9.03.1878–6.05.1903) In spite of the fact that practically every Halicz ḥazzan from the second half of the seventeenth century on composed poetry in Karaim, to date, only several examples of poetry in the Galician dialect of the Karaim language have been published or analysed.267 Many more remain in manuscript form.268 At the beginning of the twentieth century, Galician Karaite produced perhaps the most famous secular Karaite poet in Eastern Europe, Zachariah Isaac ben Samuel Abrahamowicz (1878–1903). Some of his Karaim poems had a sentimental lyrical character quite similar to those composed by Polish or Russian poets of that time. Others showed the highly interesting and complex ethnic and cultural identity of this poet. Abrahamowicz often emphasized his Karaite ethnic origin and affiliation with the Karaite community of Eastern Europe. One such poem, “Karaj edim, karaj barmen” (“I was Karaite, Karaite I remain”), became the unofficial hymn of the Galician (and later, of the whole East European) Karaite community.269 Another poem, “Hanuz Karajłar eksiłmed’” (“The Karaites are not yet extinct”) expressed Abrahamowicz’s hopes for the future unification and renaissance of the Karaite communities.270 Abrahamowicz expresses his religious Judeo-Karaite identity in some verses. Poems of this type are full of references to Karaite religious practices and Biblical topoi, and contain numerous Hebrew loanwords.271 Because of the fact that his poems were published after the poet’s death, during Szapszał’s dejudaization campaign of the 1930s, it seems that at least one of Abrahamowicz’s “Judeo-Karaite” poems was slightly modified by Karaite publishers. The title of the poem “Tachanun le-jom ha-kippurim” (Hymn to

266 Dzymatynda Halicnin,” KA 7 (1934): 25. 267 Grzegorzewski, “Türk-tatarischer Dialekt;” idem, “Caraimica;” Munkácsi, “Karäisch-tatarische Hymnen.” 268 E.g. NLR F. 946, Evr. II A, no. 8; AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-4, no. 122:2, fols. 228-229v; MS LMAB F. 305, no. 220, fols. 9v-11r. 269 [Zacharjasz Abrahamowicz], “Zecharja Abrahamowicznin tiziwleri,” KA 2 (1931): 25. See more about Abrahamowicz in Nowach Szulimowicz, “Ku obchodowi 20-lecia zgonu b.p. Z. Abrahamowicza,” MK 1 (1924): 16-17; Sergjusz Rudkowski, “Korutkan dżuwaherłer,” KA 2 (1931): 19-20; Achad Haam, “Zecharja Jicchak Abrahamowicz,” KA 2 (1931): 21-23. 270 “Zecharja Abrahamowicznin,” 24-25. 271 See esp. “Tenrim, ki biźnin atałarymyzny…” (My Lord, who [crowned] our fathers…); “Ułusum, Jisraeł” (Israel, my people); “Ciwre, Ciwre” (Around, around); “Tenrim, senin ułanłaryn…” (My Lord, your children…) ([Abrahamowicz] “Zecharja Abrahamowicznin,” 25-28). Halicz 63

the holiday of Yom Kippur) was transformed into “Tachanun ułłu king’e272” (Hymn to the great day).273 While writing his poems in Karaim, Abrahamowicz often took inspiration from well-known Polish songs.274 It is even more interesting that in addition to his literary activity in Karaim, Abrahamowicz composed poems in the languages of his ethnic neighbours, that is, in Polish and Ruthenian. His Polish poems show Abrahamowicz’s positive attitude to Poland and Polish literature, while his poetry in Ruthenian (esp. “Do Ukraїny” – “To Ukraine”) is evidence of his patriotic feelings about Ukraine and Galicia.275 Thus, this talented poet, who died so young, felt a very unusual mixed identity that combined pride in his Judeo-Karaite heritage with a reverent respect for traditional Jewish values, the Turkic Karaim language, Polish history and Ukraine’s historical fate. This peculiar mixture of differing identities is reflected in the life and world-views of numerous Karaite intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In spite of the fact that other twentieth-century Karaite intellectuals from Halicz continued writing and composing poetry in Karaim, none of them could reach Abrahamowicz’s literary level.

272 This how it is in the original publication in KA. In fact, it should be kin’ge (Dat. “to the day”). 273 Compare the published version (“Zecharja Abrahamowicznin,” 28) with the original manuscript (AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-4, no. 122:2, fol. 84; it is worthwhile mentioning that this seems to be Abrahamowicz’s only extant autograph). 274 Cf. his “Hanuz karajłar eksiłmed” (The Karaites are not extinct yet) and the Polish hymn “Jeszcze Polska ne zginęła”; “Ułłu titinbe” (With heavy smoke) and “Z dymem pożarów” (see “Zecharja Abrahamowicznin,” 24-29. 275 See the excerpts from his non-Karaim poems in Samuel Ickowicz, “Zacharia” (the Yurchenko MSS). This work, written in Gdańsk-Oliwa in 1963 in the Halicz Karaim dialect, represents Ickowicz’s poetic and prose commentaries to Abrahamowicz’s verses written in Polish and Ruthenian. Some of the verses in Ruthenian differ considerably from those published by Stepan Pushyk in his “Karaїms’kyi poet.” 64 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

Illustration 3: The sample of Karaite handwriting: poem Kisenc (“Longing”) by Zacharjasz Izaak ben Samuel Abrahamowicz (Karaim in Hebrew characters). Source: Jan Grzegorzewski, “Ein türk- tatarischer Dialekt in Galizien,” 1903.

2.2.6 Relations with Rabbanite Neighbours

There are a few Jewish residents in Karaite houses; this produces a somewhat strange impression when taking into account the notoriously hostile relations between the Karaites and the Jews.

The Polish journalist Grzegorz Smólski (1903)276 It is very difficult to characterize the complex nature of the relations between the Karaite and Rabbanite Jews, which have been formed by representatives of these two different trends in Judaism over the course of more than a thousand years,

276 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 523. Halicz 65

from the emergence of the Karaite movement in the mid-eighth century until today. These relations, which have fluctuated between such polarised feelings as brotherly friendship and bitter animosity, were determined by an understanding of their mutual adherence to a single religious entity on the one hand, and by a hostile attitude towards their brethren’s “heretical” interpretation of religious law, on the other. Traditionally, since the early period of their proximity, the Karaite community of Halicz had been in constant contact with the local Rabbanite community. Relations between these two communities were in many respects much closer and friendlier than in many other regions where Karaites and Rabbanites lived next to each other. On the other hand, paradoxically, these relation were often much more bitter and hostile than in some other places. Traces of both polarities may be found in many documents and sources of the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. As has been mentioned, in 1774 the Karaites of Galicia received special legal status, which – positively for them – differentiated them from the rest of the Austrian Jews. This distinctive, benevolent treatment of the Karaites on the part of the Austrian administration considerably deepened the already existing antagonism between the two communities. Some sources provide readers with the Karaite perspective on the reason for the hostility between the Karaites and Rabbanites. Grzegorz Smólski (1903) asked a local Karaite to explain to him the cause of this hostility. The latter informed the traveller: “The [Rabbanite] Jews blacken us wherever they can… The Jews cannot forgive us our religion. They know that even though we are few in number, the time will come when the whole world will be Karaite.”277 Another Karaite source, questioned by Smólski, added more information on the subject:

– We [the Karaites] are of the Mosaic faith; although we do not recognise the Talmud, we scrupulously fulfil God’s commandments. We say: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” This is why, whilst seeing in everyone, even in our enemy, our neighbour, we do not hate anyone, and, consequently, [do not hate] the [Rabbanite] Jews either. If the Jews do not like us, it is their problem, not ours. – Why do the Jews hate the Karaites? – I asked. – Mainly because of the fact that our religion, as they say, allegedly called forth Christ. They say that Christians descended from the Karaites. Furthermore, they do not like us because the Talmud means nothing to us…278

It may be clearly seen from this dialogue that the Karaites put all the blame on the Rabbanites, and suggested that the source of the latter’s aggression lay in the

277 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 539. Cf. in other place: “Jewish books… show us [the Karaites] black as chimney-sweeps” (ibid., 564). 278 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 523. 66 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

specificity of Karaite religious doctrine, which, on the one hand, did not recognize the authority of the Talmud, and supported early Christianity, on the other. Hostile relations between the Halicz Karaites and Rabbanites are also evident in the controversy concerning the historical origins of the Karaite settlement in the town. During the end of the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century, the Karaites boasted to the Rabbanites about their early arrival in Halicz, where, in their view, they were settled much earlier than the Ashkenazim.279 The Rabbanites, in turn, popularized a derogatory legend according to which the local Talmudic Jews called the Karaites meḥir kelev (Heb. “dog’s price”).280 Fahn also records that the Rabbanites used two other derogatory terms to denote the Karaites: qal-daq and Ṣadoq.281 Qal-daq was apparently a pun on the guttural phonetics of the Karaim language, whereas Ṣadoq was an allusion to the Karaites’ alleged “Sadducean” origin. Furthermore, according to Fahn, the Rabbanites called Karaite children sheqeṣ/shiqṣah, i.e. “ritually unclean/goyish”.282 In return, the Karaites called them kijik/kijikta which means in Karaim “savage, ignoramus, barbarian.”283 Jan Grzegorzewski mentioned that at the beginning of the twentieth century, local Rabbanites used to interrupt Karaite religious ceremonies which took place outside the synagogue, antagonize them, and mock their liturgy. He himself witnessed how Rabbanite boys entered the Karaite procession and began to mock their singing and bellow like cows. At some point, the Rabbanites’ disturbance of Karaite ceremonial processions became so intrusive and annoying that the Karaites were forced to stop leaving the synagogue and were forced to remain itside its walls.284 ***

As often happens with neighbours, in spite of the aforementioned conflicts, quarrels, and general animosity, sometimes relations between the two communities were comparatively peaceful. Indeed, the Rabbanite and Karaite quarters of Halicz and Kukizów were located next to each other. The same applies to most of the East European Karaite and Rabbanite cemeteries, which were also often situated in the same vicinity. At the time of Grzegorz Smólski’s visit to Halicz (1903), the Rabbanites owned a few houses on Karaite Street. Moreover, some Rabbanites rented rooms in houses belonging to Karaite landlords.285 The local Karaites even borrowed from

279 Fahn, “Ha-Qaraal pi nusaḥ ha-Qaraal pi nusaḥ ha-Yehudim,” 260-261. 281 Fahn, “Me-ḥayyei,” 194. 282 Ibid. 283 Ibid; Grzegorzewski, “Türk-tatarischer Dialekt,” 47; cf. KRPS, 318. 284 Jan Grzegorzewski, drafts entitled “Rytuały, obrządy i zwyczaje” (AN PAN, K III-6, no. 16). 285 Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 523, 539. Halicz 67

the Rabbanites the tradition of hanging at the entrance to their house.286 D.F. (i.e. Reuven Fahn?) mentions that the local Karaites and Rabbanites had rather peaceful relations, but without any tendency toward rapprochement. He also accused the Rabbanites of undermining all attempts to establish contacts between the two communities.287 Majer Bałaban mentions that Karaite youths attended Rabbanite religious schools, but skipped those lessons that were related to Talmudic practices.288 The scholar did not indicate his source of information; other sources inform us that Karaite boys attended Polish public schools. Close cultural links between the Galician Karaites and Rabbanites can also be clearly seen in the Ashkenazic style of Karaite tombs and in the interior and exterior architectural design of the Karaite synagogue/kenesa of Halicz. Moreover, by the second half of the nineteenth century, the Karaites adopted many Rabbanite practices, such as wearing a ṭallit qaṭan and earlocks. Some later reports attest that the Karaites used to hire not only Rabbanite morticians (until 1848), but also Rabbanite mohalim (circumcisers).289 Archival sources show that it was usually the Rabbanites to whom the Karaites turned for monetary help when they were in financial straits. Given that the majority of the trade in Galicia was in the hands of the Rabbanites, the Karaites were inevitably forced to have frequent commercial contacts with them as well. In spite of the fact that the Galician Karaites were supposed to have their own shoḥeṭ (slaughterer), some of them used to buy kosher (ritually clean) meat from the Rabbanite slaughterers, although Karaites were charged more money than Rabbanite customers. At some point, one of the slaughterers, who considered the Karaites to be goyyim (non-Jews, ), apparently decided that it was allowed to sell ṭrefah (ritually unclean) meat to the Karaites. The local Rabbi, Joseph Reich, who was informed about this, took a Karaite-friendly stand and prohibited the sale of ritually unclean meat to the Karaites.290 In fact, the difference between Karaite and Rabbanite animal slaughter is not very marked: according to both traditions, animals

286 Fahn, “Aus dem Leben der Karaiten,” Ost und West 1 (1912): 69. Mezuza is a piece of parchment containing two small fragments from the Torah, which is rolled up, put into container and then attached to the door-post. Hanging of mezuzot is purely Rabbanite tradition practically alien to the Karaites. Janina Eszwowicz, a head of the present-day Halicz Karaite community, also informed me that local Karaite hanged mezuzot to their houses (private communication, June, 2003); the mezuza which had been for years hanging at the entrance to her house is at present exhibited in MKIK. In Israel today on the door posts of Karaite flats one can often see a small version of the and not a mezuzah on parchment with biblical passages. 287 D.F., “Pis’mo,” 74-75. 288 Majer Bałaban, “V Galicii karaimy,” EK 9, 291. In nineteenth-century , Karaite pupils attended the schools of the “Alliance Israélite” (Danon, “Karaites in European ,” 359). 289 Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13. It is known that in sixteenth-century Constantinople, some Karaites had their children circumcised by Rabbanite mohalim, probably submitting even to the peri>ah operation (Danon, “Karaites in European Turkey,” 335). 290 Fahn, “Ha-Qara

are slaughtered ritually at the neck, but different blessings are said and different signs of the animal’s health and suitability for consumption are checked.291 This attempt to sell ritually unclean meat to the Karaites seems to be analogous to the Rabbanite practice of selling ritually unacceptable Torah scrolls to them. A few Rabbanite sources reported that the East European Karaites, who were much poorer than their Talmudic brethren, used to purchase from the latter so-called pasul (invalid) Torah scrolls and prayer-books.292 These were certainly much cheaper than proper Torah scrolls, but religious standards prohibited their use for spiritual purposes. According to Wachsmann, the Galician Karaites sometimes bought such “invalid” Torah scrolls from their Rabbanite neighbours.293 These two cases show that on the every-day level, the Rabbanites indeed often perceived the Karaites as goyyim who could be satisfied even with ritually unclean objects. In the opposite direction, while considering the Karaites equal to non-Jews from a religious standpoint, the Rabbanites often did not want to use their religious objects, which they considered halakhically invalid.

***

To sum up, the fairly small Halicz community was the only East European Karaite qehilah living outside the Russian Empire, in Austro-Hungarian state. As a result, the community did not recognize the authority either of the Troki or Taurida and Odessa ḥakhamim, although they sometimes did ask both for assistance in some complicated legal or financial issues. The community possessed a nineteenth-century synagogue- kenesa and cemetery whose appearance and style was highly similar to those of the local Rabbanites. Because of its belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Empire territorially, the Halicz community was frequently visited by the local scholars and men of letters (e.g. J. Grzegorzewski, G. Smólski, and R. Fahn) who scrupulously documented its unique folklore, linguistic and epigraphic legacy. Although at this moment of its existence the small and provincial Halicz community did not have any important intellectual leader, the local poet Zachariasz Abrahamowicz composed a beautiful and expressive verse “Karaj edim, karaj barmen” (GVKar. “I was Karaite, Karaite I remain”) which later became the unofficial hymn of the whole East European Karaite community.

291 Daniel J. Lasker, “,” The Encyclopedia of Judaism 4:1 (Leiden-Boston, 2003), 1813. 292 Friedrich Albrecht Augusti, Gründliche Nachrichten von denen Karaïten: ihren Ursprung, Glaubenslehren, Sitten und Kirchen-Gebräuchen (Erfurt, 1752), 22. 293 Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13. Łuck 69

2.3 Łuck

2.3.1 Short Survey of the History Before 1900

The first reference to the existence of the Karaite community in Łuck dates back to 1506. However, it seems that the Karaites appeared there about a century earlier, already during Vitold’s reign, at the beginning of the fifteenth century.294 The Karaite community, as well as that of the Rabbanites, heavily suffered during the Chmielnicki (Khmel’nyts’kyi) massacres of 1648. From the end of the eighteenth century onwards many of the local Karaite intellectuals started emigrating with their families to Crimea and other parts of the Russian empire which were more advantageous from commercial standpoint. This is why by the beginning of the twentieth century the local qehilah had become one of the smallest Karaite communities in Eastern Europe. In 1787 there were 141 Karaite living in Łuck and neighbouring villages. No demographic growth had been recorded by the beginning of the twentieth century: in 1911 there were about 150 Karaites living in the town.295 The chronicle of the Łuck community demonstrates that some local Karaites were studying in lyceums and served in the local administration.296 After the end of the First World War the community became more than two times smaller. It is interesting that most of the Łuck Karaites (perhaps, more than in any other community) had Slavic or Slavicized surnames: Bogaty, Bubon, Greczny, Gogol, Gołub, Kaliski (i.e. “from Kalisz”), Kukuryczkin, Rudkowski, Twierdochlieb and other. There also were several surnames indicating that their owners most likely emigrated to Łuck from the Lithuanian communities: Firkowicz, Bezekowicz, Nowicki, Kapłanowski, Pilecki and Szpakowski. There also were some surnames which belonged to the emigrants from Halicz: Abrahamowicz, Leonowicz, Mardkowicz, and Eszwowicz.297 Karaite Street (Pol. ulica Karaimska), along which the Karaite quarter of the town together with the Karaite synagogue-kenesa was located, was adjacent to the Rabbanite quarter of Łuck and its famous defensive synagogue. This fact, when combined with numerous cultural and religious borrowings of the local community from the Rabbanites, tells us much about contacts between these two communities. There were two Karaite cemeteries in Łuck. The old one, dating back most likely to medieval times, was located in the town centre and functioned approximately until the mid-nineteenth century. It was located next to that of the local Rabbanites.

294 One Łuck Karaite author referred to 1508 as to the year of the Karaite settlement in Łuck, without evidence, however, to this claim (Sergjusz Rudkowski, Tutuwłanmahy Karajłarnyn Łuckada (sahync) (Osiedlenie Karaimów w Łucku. Podanie) (Łuck, 1933)). 295 Bałaban, “Karaici,” 89; Sergjusz Rudkowski mentioned that there were 77 men and 74 women in Łuck in 1911 (Sergjusz Rudkowski, “Kart Łucka,” KA 9 (1936): 15). 296 Sabakh 1 (1914): 45. 297 See Anna Sulimowicz, “Nazwiska karaimskie z Łucka,” Awazymyz 2 (3) (1999): 12-13. 70 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

At the beginning of the twentieth century the cemetery had already been in the private possession of a non-Karaite family; its territory was soon built up while the tombstones were destroyed and/or disappeared.298 In 1861 the Karaites purchased a piece of land from the local land-owner and arranged there a new cemetery. In 1958 the cemetery was completely destroyed.299 Thus, all Karaite tombstones from Łuck were lost forever; scholars did not manage either record or photograph any of them.

2.3.2 General State of the Community from 1900 to 1918

One of the earliest reports on the general state of the community in this period dates back to 1912 and belongs to the Polish journalist Józef Smoliński. Unfortunately, the journalist dedicated most of his time to a rather tedious repetition of the generally- known data on the history of the Karaite movement; only several pages of his report contain precious bits of his first-hand impressions from the contacts with local Karaites. Photographs taken by the journalist during his stay in Łuck are also highly important.300 The journalist estimated the number of the Karaite inhabitants at about a hundred souls (six or seven families within the town and about 20 families in adjacent villages). He characterized the local Karaite community as follows:

Their family life is governed by simplicity and righteousness of their customs; this matches the modesty, cleanliness, and order of their houses. Even in the poorest house you would not find dirtiness and neglect typical of the Rabbanite Jews. They give little care to their health and visit the physician only in the last minute […] At present the Karaites of Łuck are rather poor; they are engaged mostly in the petty trade and meat-trade; educated ones occupy official posts in the administration; they have earlier cultivated the soil, produced starch, had hunting grounds and taverns.301

Smoliński observes that the community was so poor that could not afford hiring or educating a ḥazzan. Thus, according to the journalist the functions of the

298 Z. Szpakowski to S. Szapszał, Łuck, 8.03.1938, Polish (LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 220r). 299 On the history of the cemetery, see Shabarovs’kyi, Karaїmy, 108-112. 300 Józef Smoliński, “Karaimi i bożnica ich w Łucku,” Ziemia 3:3 (1912):38-40; Ziemia 3:4 (1912): 51- 53; Ziemia 3:5 (1912): 68-70; Ziemia 3:6 (1912): 84-86; Ziemia 3:7 (1912): 99-100; Ziemia 3:8 (1912):116-119. Numerous mistakes and delusions of Smoliński with regard to the history of the Karaites prompted Samuel Poznański to write a critical article (Poznański, “Kilka uwag,” 304-307). Poznański’s critique, in its turn, was refuted by Smoliński (Józef Smoliński, “Jeszcze raz w sprawie Karaimów (Odpowiedź p. Poznańskiemu),” Ziemia 3:22 (1912): 353). Here, as well as in Zajączkowski-Bałaban polemics, both sides were sometimes right, sometimes wrong. However, competence of Poznański, an expert in the field of medieval Karaism, was certainly much higher than that of Smoliński. 301 Smoliński, “Karaimi,” 100, 119. Łuck 71

community ḥazzan were fulfilled by Firkowicz, the community szamesz (i.e. beadle- shammash).302 This Firkowicz, whose first name was not mentioned by Smoliński, should be identified with Abram Isaakovich (Avraham ben Isaac-Nisan) Firkowicz (1847–1914) whose necrology was published in the Łuck Karaite periodical “Sabbakh” in 1914. From 1877 to 1879 and from 1906 to 1914 Firkowicz acted as the ḥazzan and as the shammash in between. The necrology stated that “the deceased served to the honour of his dzhemaat [i.e. community], paying no regard to his own health and spare-time; kenessa was his offspring to which he dedicated his , tenderness, and care. With the death of A.I. Firkowicz the Łuck dzhemaat enters a new phase of trials because it shall not find anybody to take his place, and having been left without sufficient means to sustain a ḥazzan, the dzhemaat literally submits itself to the mercy of fate...”303 Smoliński mentioned the bilingualism of the members of the community who could master both Polish and Karaim. The journalist also noted the supplanting of the Hebrew language by Karaim (which he called “the Tatar-Turkic jargon”) as the language of liturgy. Smoliński explained it by “the lack of scholars” knowledgeable in Hebrew. According to Smoliński, in terms of their the local Karaites preserved their “Asiatic type” and Asian-Mongol features. The photographs of the local Karaites published by him, however, can hardly corroborate this statement.304 A bad economic situation forced many of the local Karaites to emigrate to Crimea, Kiev and Odessa. According to A. Mardkowicz, “Odessa drained from Łuck a half of the increase of the male population.”305 Smoliński also noticed dangerous demographic situation of the Karaites, many of whom have never got married. Perhaps, it was this impossibility of finding Karaites brides within this small community that forced two leading Łuck Karaite intellectuals, Aleksander Mardkowicz and Sergiusz Rudkowski, married to non-Karaite wives. About half of the remaining members of the community left Łuck during the First World War. 306 The following succession of ḥazzanim served the community from 1900 to 1918: Zecharja ben Ananiyah Rojecki (1879–1902), Abraham Nowicki (1904–1905), Abraham Firkowicz (1906–1914), and Jaakow Leonowicz (1914–1917).307 From 1917,

302 Smoliński, “Karaimi,” 118. 303 Sabakh 1 (1914): 45. Archives preserved a few letters written by Firkowicz in Russian ca. 1910-1911 (MS LMAB F. 301, no. 332, fols. 2, 22). Firkowicz mentions that he had been working for the community for 36 years without any salary. 304 See the pictures of several Karaites individuals published by him in Smoliński, “Karaimi,” 117. Especially this must be said with the regard to the photographs of the shammash A.I. Firkowicz and unnamed kaznodzieja-darszan (Pol. and Heb. “preacher”): ibid., 70, 85. 305 A. Mardkowicz to S. Szapszał, 1928, Russian (LMAB F. 143, no. 466, fol. 1v). 306 A. Mardkowicz to S. Szapszał, 1928, Russian (LMAB F. 143, no. 466, fol. 2r). 307 “Ribbiłer, kajsyłar hazzanłyk ettiłer Łuckada basłap burunhu jaryhymdan XIX izjiłnyn,” KA 5 (1932): 16. 72 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

the community was without a ḥazzan. The office remained unoccupied until the arrival of young Rafael (Rafał) Abkowicz in 1929; from 1917 to 1929 celebrations of most important feasts/commemoration days were led by ḥazzanim hired from Halicz of Troki.308

2.3.3 “Kenas, Kineza, Kanza” – a Local House of Prayer

As well as in all other East European Karaite communities, the community of Łuck also had its own synagogue, which had been called by some authors kenesa already before 1911. The building of the Łuck synagogue-kenesa was constructed of wood, in the style quite typical of the nineteenth-century wooden Rabbanite synagogues of Volhynia. Especially interesting are its internal nineteenth-century decorations which were unfortunately altered by the restoration of 1908. Furthermore, in contrast to all other Karaite synagogues in the world (!), aron ha-qodesh of the Łuck Karaite synagogue was oriented to the east and not to the south. Smoliński called the local Karaites’ prayer house by the Polish terms bożnica, synagoga or karaimska synagoga, and by the Karaim terms Kenas/Kineza/Kanza (all these forms are colloquial variants of the term kenesa/kenasa). The journalist’s description of the building is essential in reconstructing the outer and inner design of the synagogue-kenesa.309 This description, when compared with numerous photos and cross-section of the building made by Smoliński, gives us a unique opportunity to recapture the external and internal appearance of this monument which unfortunately has not survived. According to Smoliński, in 1908 this wooden synagogue had been dismantled, and a new one was built. Thus, his description and photos reflect the state of the synagogue before 1908:

Synagogue [Pol. bożnica] has a four-corner shape, with span roof, covered with shingles. A spacious outer entrance hall with a separate single-pitch roof has the same walls as the synagogue, vertically panelled with wooden boards. Inner furnishing of this shrine with its lavish decorations in sort of Oriental style, reminds present-day Jewish houses of prayer.310

308 See “Memorjał” for the Volhynian wojewoda in AAN MWRiOP no. 1466, fol. 145. 309 See also Anna Sulimowicz, “Kenesa karaimska w Łucku w świetle dokumentów z archiwum gminy,” in OLDK, 273-282. 310 Smoliński, “Karaimi,” 117-118. Łuck 73

Then the journalist continues to describe the Ark of the Torah,311 brocade curtains (“Parochet”), silver pointer for reading holy books, crowns of the Torah, the elevation for the ḥazzan (called by Smoliński “Bim” instead of correct Heb. bimah), and “babiniec”, i.e. women gallery (Heb. ezrat nashim).312 Even more interesting and useful are the plan and cross-section of the “bożnicy Karaimów w Łucku” placed by the author at the beginning of his report. It shows that the inner furnishing of the Karaite synagogue in Łuck indeed was very similar to that of their Rabbanite neighbours. First of all, in contrast to Crimean and Oriental Karaite synagogues where floors were covered only by carpets and believers prayed standing, sitting or kneeling on the floor, there were benches in the Łuck Karaite synagogue. Second, Smoliński indicates that the aron ha-qodesh of the synagogue was directed to the east and not to the south as in all other Karaites synagogues. Eastern orientation of the altar part is typical for the Rabbanite synagogues of Ashkenaz and Sefarad.313 This particular feature, which is not to be found in any other East European Karaite community, also shows importance of cultural contacts between the Łuck Karaites and Rabbanites. Smoliński also describes numerous ornaments which decorated the Łuck synagogue; especially interesting is his remark about “the Russian inscription in

311 This part of the synagogue-kenesa was erroneously called by Smoliński pechał, i.e. a corruption of the Hebrew heikhal (“palace;” by this term the Karaites normally called the holy part of their synagogues where the Ark of the Torah was standing). This corruption was quite funny for the Polish ear (Pol. pech means “misfortune”). 312 Ibid., 117-118. 313 Ibid., 39. This eastern orientation of the synagogue, together with the eastern orientation of the tomb of Abraham Firkowicz and his wife Hanna (the only tombs in the Jehosaphath valley near Chufut- Kale whose front parts face east), allow us to highly cautiously suggest that most likely the front parts of the tombs of the Karaite cemetery in Łuck also faced east. There were two Karaite cemeteries in Łuck, the old and the new, the latter containing tombs from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The older cemetery was destroyed already in the 1930s. As a result members of the community had to gather remaining bones and bury them in the territory of the new cemetery (Łuck Karaite Szpakowski to S. Szapszał (8.03.1938, Polish) (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 220)). The new cemetery was destroyed after WWII. 74 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

which the community thanks the emperor Nikolai I for the deliverance of the Karaite ḥazzanim from the military draft.”314 One noteable description of the kenesa was left by perhaps the most famous Karaite author of the interwar period, Aleksander Mardkowicz. His memoirs, which depict us the serene life of the community at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, contain description of the kenesa and liturgical services which he attended as a small boy. Especially interesting is his description of the babiniec, i.e. women gallery, which was situated close to the entrance, on the second floor of the building:

There were times, during the festivities [moed kinłerde], the babiniec was as crowded and noisy as a bee-hive. Karaite women, local and coming from forty adjacent villages, gathered together and discussed the latest news. Here quarrels began and old disputes were resolved. Here was the struggle for the place where this or that [woman] had to be standing. Channa-tete did not want to stay close to Siona-tete woman whom she could not stand. The wife of the gevir Mosie was not supposed to be standing at the back, behind the women who were poorer than she. It happened sometimes that the echo of these disputes sounded far beyond the borders of the Karaite Street.315

Such was the situation at the end of the nineteenth century. Later, at the beginning of the twentieth, Karaite women changed their priorities. From this period on women preferred staying at the entrance to the kenesa during the prayer, close to the windows. Mardkowicz also mentions the presence of the large bronze skarbonka (GVKar. cedaka chaznasy), i.e. box for collecting alms, standing close to the entrance.316

314 Smoliński, “Karaimi,” 117-118. The journalist was wrong when he said that the community had expressed its gratitude for the deliverance of the ḥazzanim from the service in the army; not only the ḥazzanim, but the whole Karaite community was exempted from the obligatory service in the Russian army in 1827. It seems that Smoliński’s photo is the only source which documented this inscription. It reads as follows: “С[виде]тельствуетъ Сей столбъ [слово]мъ Божiем вовѣкъ быть […] Израиля Сонму Караимовъ слово монаршее объ освобожде[нiи…] отъ рекрутской повинности […] все августейшаго Государя Императора Николая Самодержца все россiйскаго и пр. во вѣкъ и Повеление” (Smolinski, “Karaimi,” 68; there are several additional words and phrases written nearby which cannot be deciphered from the photo). This interesting inscription was left as the token of gratitude to the Russian Tsar Nikolai I who in 1827 exempted the Karaites from the obligatory military service in the Russian army. Exact reasons and circumstances of the event are described in the Joseph Łucki’s “Iggeret teshu’at Yisra

Even more interesting is the fact that part of the babiniec had been used as a genizah, i.e. the place for keeping worn-out sacred books and scrolls (and all sorts of other documents as well). In medieval and early modern times genizot fulfilled functions of improvised archives and thus became real treasure houses of most valuable Jewish documents. Mardkowicz ecstatically describes the content of the Łuck genizah:

My Creator, how many of them [of the documents] were there! [...] Having put my hand into the middle of this white and thick carpet, I took out greenish and bluish little leaves, I found there separate folios from large books [ułłu seferłer], hymns [zemerłer] written in beautiful script, letters delivered to the local community from other communities, documents in Russian and Polish, accompanied by red and black seals.317

In the turmoil of the First World War the Łuck kenesa, as a place of potentially expensive objects and furniture, attracted marauders who considerably damaged the building. This is why when Mardkowicz returned to Łuck because of the beginning of the revolution in Russia, he discovered, to his great dismay, that the floor of the babiniec had rotted through and only few documents survived.318 A Polish official who was sent to Łuck after the end of the war mentions that the Karaite “” (he uses here the Polish word świątynia) was “considerably devastated by the Jews [?!] and Austrian army.”319 In later reports only the Austrian army is blamed for sacking the Karaite synagogue while participation of the Rabbanites in this act is not mentioned.320 The leaders of the Łuck community complained to the Volhynian wojewoda in their memorandum:

The Karaite temple was damaged and completely devastated by the occupants. Everything that was valuable in it: old pająki321 from Gdańsk, crystal chandeliers, bronze, silver decorations of Torah scrolls, very rare editions of the Bible – everything that had been gathered in the temple since time immemorial was sacked just in a couple of days, packed and most likely taken to Austria.322

317 Ibid., 3-4. 318 Mardkowicz published bits of the survived documents in his article (Al–Mar, “Sahyncyna Babinecnin,” 6–13). Now one may only regret that this unique genizah of Łuck, which could undoubtedly provide us hundreds most interesting community documents, was destroyed. It is also somewhat strange that Abraham Firkowicz, who himself was a member of the Łuck community, did not empty the contents. It is possible that this genizah was made already after the last visit of Firkowicz to Łuck in 1871. 319 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 118-119. The reference to the Jews as the marauders who sacked the Karaite house of prayer can be explained perhaps only by the anti-Semitic biases of this official. 320 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 134. 321 Pająk (Pol. “spider”) is a kind of chandelier typical of the Karaite synagogue of that time. 322 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 142. 76 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

According to Aleksander Mardkowicz, two Karaite women were witnesses of how Austrian soldiers packed their booty on military carts and took it away.323 The kenese was restored in the 1920s in a rather simplistic style without ornaments and inscriptions in Hebrew and Russian which had been decorating its walls and ceiling before the war. A. Mardkowicz suggested placing the depictions of of the Jews from and Solomon’s Temple above the two windows near aron ha-qodesh. His suggestions were not accepted by the ḥazzan.324 The precious contents of the genizah located in the women gallery, which could provide us with indispensable information about the state of the community in the earlier centuries, were also completely lost.

2.3.4 Publishing Activity: Periodical “Sabakh” (GVKar. “Morning”)

In 1914, i.e. a short while before the beginning of the war, the local Karaites, being most probably inspired by the example of their Moscow and Wilno brethren, decided to publish their own periodical, entitled Sabakh. Despite its Karaim title, Sabakh (Kar. “morning”), this periodical, as well Moscow Karaimskaia Zhizn’ and Wilno Karaimskoe Slovo, was published in Russian. Unfortunately, the war put an end to its existence, and only one issue of the periodical appeared. Its title page announces that the periodical was edited by Emiliia Iosifovna Rudkovskaia. Nevertheless, it seems that her relative, Sergiusz Rudkowski (or Sergei Rudkovskii, 1873–1944), the author prolific in Russian, Karaim and Polish, was the actual editor.325 It seems that Rudkowski initially intended to publish the periodical in the Karaim language: the gubernator of Volhynia mentioned in his letter to the head of the Central Government of Printing in St. Petersburg that there was nobody in Łuck able to understand the “Turko-” of the periodical. In his other letter the gubernator stated that there were no printers in Łuck able to print texts in the “Tatar, Karaim and Arabic [!?] languages.”326 Eventually, the periodical was published in Russian. The periodical was rather thin (46 pages), consisting of three polemical articles, dedicated to the urgent issues of the East European Karaite community, three short stories, and a chronicle. Despite its small volume, Sabakh is highly interesting for students of Karaite history and identity. The sharp and uncompromised character of its polemical articles can be perhaps explained by the absence of the influence

323 Aleksander Mardkowicz, Synowie zakonu (Kilka słów o Karaimach) (Łuck, 1930), 19. 324 LMAB F. 143, no. 465, fol. 6v. 325 For more information about this author, see 3.3.4. Cf. also the letter of the gubernator of Volhynia who stated that Emiliia Rudkowska was not the real editor of Sabakh (Shabarovs’kyi, Karaїmy, 126). 326 Shabarovs’kyi, Karaїmy, 126. Łuck 77

of Karaite authorities who could censor the contents of the periodical. One article, written by the ḥazzan T.S. Levi-Babovich, was dedicated to the organization of a type of… Olympic Games in the territory of Çufut Kale in Crimea. These Karaite Olympic Games, in the author’s opinion, could have served as the point of unification of the East European Karaite communities.327 Another Karaite author, S. Rudkowski, dedicated his article to the existing antagonism between the Troki and Crimean Karaite community. There Rudkowski uses, as he says, the “sorrowful story of Łuck dzhemaat,” as a pitiful example of the vanishing Karaite community. In his article Rudkowski insisted that the fate of his community should not be repeated by all other East European Karaite communities.328 Very revealing of a larger perspective (although only indirectly pertinent to the history of the Łuck Karaite community) is an article by an author who concealed his name under the initials “R. F-cz” (undoubtedly, R. Firkowicz, apparently a member of the Łuck community). The article was dedicated to the problem which the author considered the most urgent for the shaping of the ethnic self-identity of the East European Karaites. Such was, in his opinion, the necessity of full, final and complete separation of the Karaites from the Rabbanite Jews. The author says:

The Karaites and the Jews – are not the same, but completely separate, independent and considerably different from each other entities [....] If our history is not a myth, if, according to the sources, our distressful people absorbed during its wanderings by the way of assimilation about 90% of the Mongol blood and [features of] other non-Semitic races, it means that we, a people without its own proper name, professing a Karaite faith, in any case are not Semites, but newly formed racial organism [....] We should thank Jewry for using their name, and dress ourselves in our personal proper name which would mark the border between us and them [....] In our everyday life, in the language, in our specific physical and moral appearance – we are not Jews.329

It is highly significant that as early as 1914, i.e. before the election of Szapszał to the office of the Taurida and Odessa ḥakham, ideas about the alleged Turko- Mongol origin of the East European Karaites had already had zealous proponents such as this Firkowicz. He mentioned that “every Karaite had to blush with pain in his heart when being asked about his nationality.” Clearly understanding that the term “Karaites” had strictly confessional (religious) meaning, Firkowicz suggested inventing a new ethnonym which would later serve as a term for designation of his people. He suggested that the Karaites should call themselves... “Krymliane” (Russ. “Crimeans”).330

327 T.S. Levi [Levi-Babovich], “Olimpiiskie igry na vysotakh Chufut-Kale,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 1-7. 328 S.Z. Rudkovskii [Sergijusz Rudkowski], “K vyboram Gakham-bashi,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 7-11. 329 R. F-ch [R. Firkowicz], “Neotlozhnyi vopros,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 14. 330 Ibid. 78 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

The periodical also contained short stories. A story signed by the penname “S. R-kii” (i.e. undoubtedly, “Sergei Rudkovskii”) is perhaps the most interesting of the three published in the periodical.331 Its main character, Crimean Karaitess Arzu, leaves her native Bakhchisaray (Bahçesaray) without the permission of relatives. She travels away with the Łuck Karaite Esav Bugovskii to the “endless Volhynian woods”. The novel is written in expressive ironic style. Its heroes speak a mixture of Crimean Tatar and corrupted Russian – the sort of the language spoken by many Crimean Karaite elders of that time.332 After the beginning of the war Rudkowski had to leave Łuck together with the evacuating Russians. This is why only one issue of the periodical appeared in print and was never resumed.333

***

Although officially belonging to the jurisdiction of the Troki ḥakham, at the beginning of the twentieth century the Łuck Karaite community appeared to be highly Russified and Crimea-oriented. This was demonstrated, for example, by the fact that the only issue of the Łuck Karaite periodical “Sabakh” was published in Russian. The community did not possess either ancient cemetery or prayer house, although its wooden synagogue-kenesa, similar to the local Rabbanite synagogues, attracted interest of some visitors to the town. Members of the local community, including its intellectual leader, Sergei/Sergiusz Rudkowski, seem to be much more secularized and emancipated than those of the conservative Halicz qehilah. Although the Karaim dialect spoken by the Łuck Karaites was almost identical to that of their Halicz counterparts,334 the contacts between the two communities were not particularly strong because of the existence of the state border between them.

331 The other two are Sergei Rudkovskii [Sergijusz Rudkowski], “Vsiakomu svoe vremia,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 15-18; Kseniia Abkovich [Abkowicz], “Vstrecha,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 18-21. 332 S. R-kii [Sergijusz Rudkowski], “Malen’kii karaimskii roman,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 21-44. 333 N. Yablonovs’ka’s statement that two issues of the periodical appeared in print seems to be wrong (N. Yablonovs’ka, “Karaїms’ka presa pochatku XX stolittia” (www.turkolog.narod.ru)). 334 M. Németh prefers calling the local variety of Karaim “the Łuck subdialect of Łuck-Halicz Karaim” (Michał Németh, “North-Western and Eastern Karaim Features in a Manuscript Found in Łuck,” Studies on the Turkic World. A Festschrift for Professor St. Stachowski on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, ed. E. Mańczak-Wohlfeld and B. Podolak (Kraków, 2010), 75). Troki 79

2.4 Troki

2.4.1 Short Survey of the History Before 1900

The community of Troki335 was most probably the oldest and the largest Karaite community in Poland-Lithuania. Unfortunately, most scholars (including the author of these lines) followed Jacob Mann’s conclusion regarding the fact that the earliest reference to the existence of the Karaite community in Troki is the ketubbah (marriage contract) of 1400.336 My own examination of the ketubbah in question,337 however, revealed that the early date of this document and the reference to Vitold’s name had been inserted there by a later hand, most likely by Abraham Firkowicz himself. This ketubbah dates back to a much later period, most likely to the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries – which is still quite an early date for a document of this type. Thus, we are still at a loss with regard to the exact time of the arrival of the Karaites in Lithuania – and can only assume that it happened during Vitold’s reign (1392-1430). The earliest solid evidence of the Karaite presence in Lithuania is a copy of a letter from the Troki Karaite community to Constantinople from 1483/4).338 It appears from this letter that by 1483/4 the Karaite community had already been well-established in Troki. In addition to the Karaite community there also was a Rabbanite qehilah in the town.339 In 1646, however, in order to avoid the competition with the growing in number Rabbanites, the local Karaites send petition to the Polish government and asked to remove the Rabbanite population from the town. From that moment on until the Russian annexation of Poland-Lithuania, the Rabbanites were banned to trade and acquire property in the town.340 In 1804, about the time of the introduction of the and forced emigration of the Jewish population from villages to towns and cities, the Rabbanites again started moving to Troki. The Karaites, with the reference to the centuries-old edicts of the Polish kings, again sent petitions to the Troki municipal administration. As a consequence the Rabbanites were again forced

335 On the general history of Troki, see Władysław Zahorski, Troki i Zamek Trocki (Wilno, 1902); Algirdas Baliulis, Stanislovas Mikulionis, and Algimantas Miškinis, Trakų miestas ir pilys: istorija ir architektūra (, 1991) (on the Karaite community see esp. pp. 43-49, 77-81, 109-116, 137-149, 208- 210, 222-224). 336 Mann, Texts, 558. 337 NLR F. 946, Evr. I, Doc. II, no. 1 (3). 338 NLR F. 946, Evr. I Doc. II, no. 37-39. 339 In spite of the fact that the existence of the Rabbanite community in Troki leaves no doubts, present-day Karaite authors and many biased scholars and journalists often state that the Rabbanites appeared in the town only in the nineteenth century (on the existence of the Rabbanite community in the town, see Bałaban, “Karaici,” 59-60). 340 Bałaban, “Karaici,” 60-61. 80 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

to move out of the town. In 1862, however, the Rabbanites were allowed to return to Troki.341 Evidently, the Rabbanite newcomers took most of the trade in their hands so that many of the local Karaites were forced to leave the town in search for better life. There are, however, large discrepancies in the statistical data on the amount of the community. According to Iulii Gessen, there were only 172 Karaites living in the town in the 1830s.342 This number however does not seem to be true. According to the official data of 1860 there were 593 Karaites (298 men, 295 women) in the whole of the Vilenskaia guberniia (i.e. including Troki, Wilno, and the adjacent villages; ca. 400-500 from these 593 Karaites could belong to the Troki community).343 Juljan Talko-Hryncewicz supplies exaggerated number of 760 individuals in the community in 1863.344 The data supplied by Bałaban, who counted 610 Karaites in 1879, also seem to be exaggerated; the official census of 1897 speaks of only 377 individuals.345 Such discrepancy in statistical data may be explained by the remark of Jerzy Tochtermann who mentioned that the Karaites had often been included into and enumerated together with Tatar and Rabbanite inhabitants of Troki (with the former on the basis of their linguististic similarity, and with the latter – because of their Jewish religion).346 To sum up, we may suggest that at the end of the nineteenth century the population of the community could have hardly exceeded 400-500 Karaites.

2.4.2 General State of the Community from 1900 to 1918

In contrast to the community of Łuck, whose members were mostly civil workers and intelligentsia, the Troki Karaite community was very agricultural and even its highest religious authorities-ḥazzanim, in addition to their religious duties, often cultivated the soil. According to the memories of Helena Pilecka (Bezekowicz) Troki was divided into several districts starting from the entrance from Wilno side: Rogatka, Śródmieście, Karaimszczyzna, and Za Mostem. The Karaites mostly lived in the

341 For details see Iulii Gessen, “Bor’ba karaimov g. Trok s evreiami,” Evreiskaia starina 4:3 (1910): 569-579. 342 Gessen, “Bor’ba karaimov g. Trok,” 575. 343 “O naselenii Vilenskoi gubernii v 1860 godu,” in Pamiatnaia knizhka Vilenskoi gubernii na 1861 god, pt. 2 (Wilno, 1861), 73. 344 Juljan Talko-Hryncewicz, Z przeżytych dni (1850-1908) (Warsaw, 1930), 207. The author does not supply the source of his information, but we may suggest that it was hearsay or oral information of his Karaite informants. 345 I.e. 11.6% of the whole population of Troki (Bałaban, “Karaici,” 65; Sinani, “K statistike,” 30-31, 36). 346 Jan Jerzy Tochtermann, Troki. Zarys antropogeograficzny (Wilno, 1935), 14. Troki 81

northern part of the town, in the so-called Karaimszczyzna (Pol. “Karaite quarter”).347 At the beginning of the twentieth century the community had been compactly living along the Wielka Kowieńska Street,348 in the northern part of Troki, where they also had their agricultural plantations. The Rabbanite Jews had been living mostly in the central part of the town, whereas Christian population was living in the central and in the southern part. Multicultural atmosphere of everyday life in Troki was described in a short story by Michał Zajączkowski. The author recalls how he and other little Karaites greeted their neighbours in Karaim, Polish, Russian, Hebrew, and Yiddish depending on neighbours’ ethnicity.349 We do not seem to have too much data on the ethnic identity of the local Karaites before the First World War. An interesting insight into this problem may be provided by the testimony of the Finnish traveller Maila Talvio who visited Troki in 1894, i.e. a short while before the beginning of the twentieth century. The traveller reached Troki in a wooden carriage whose driver turned out to be a Karaite. Later, when the traveller visited the house of the driver, driver’s wife told him:

Think not that we are Jews. Many people think that that is what we are. We are Karaims, we live according to the pure law of Moses, we do not make ourselves guilty of the same gross iniquities as – the Jews.350

The traveller also noticed that the Karaite family which she visited fluently spoke both Russian and Polish. The fact that she does not mention either their command of Karaim, or of Hebrew demonstrates that the acquaintance of Maila Talvio with the community was more than superficial – a result of several hours only spent in the town.351 Tapani Harviainen, who published an English translation of the Karaite- related fragment from Talvio’s travel diary, interpreted it as a direct proof of non- Jewish and non-Semitic identity of the local Karaite community.352 In our opinion, however, one should take into account the fact that here the word “Jews” was used rather in the sense of “Rabbanite Jews.” When seeing a foreign “external” observer, and being aware of the danger of being enlisted among other Jewish inhabitants of Russian Empire, the Karaites would immediately inform such a visitor about the difference between the Karaites and Rabbanite Jews. The claim “We are not Jews”

347 Helena Pilecka (Bezekowicz), “Troki, Karaimszczyzna i moje ciocie,” Awazymyz 1 (5) (2001): 7. 348 On 5.09.1938 Wielka Kowieńska Street was renamed into Karaimska ulica (Pol. “Karaite Street;” see S.F. [Szemaja Firkowicz?], “Ulica Karaimska,” MK 12 (1939): 150). During Soviet times it became M. Melnikaitės Street; in the 1990s it again became “Karaite street” (Lith. Karaimų gatvė). 349 Michał Zajączkowski, “Sąsiad,” Awazymyz 1 (4) (2000): 8. 350 See Maila Talvio, “II. Two Towns in Western Russia, II: Troki,” transl. Michael Cox, 101-103, in Liisi Huhtala, and Tapani Harviainen, “Maila Talvio, a Finnish Authoress Visits the Karaims in Lithuania in 1894,” StOr 82 (Helsinki, 1997): 99-109. 351 See Talvio, “II. Two Towns in Western Russia, II: Troki,” 101-103. 352 Tapani Harviainen, “III. Karaims,” in ibid., 104. 82 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

should be understood here rather as “We are not [Rabbanite] Jews.” Statements of the local Karaites, which were expressed by them in Karaimskoe Slovo or Karaimskaia Zhizn’ and intended for the “internal” Karaite use, reveal a different picture. There the local Karaites often told about their “Israelite” self-identification and considered themselves part of the larger Jewish civilization (see 2.5.3).

2.4.3 Personalia a) Karaite ḥakham and Lecturer of Polish: Romuald (Romi

353 From 1868 to 1898 the duties of the Troki ḥakham had been fulfilled by Isaac Boaz (Bogusław) ben Zakhariah Kaplanovskii/Kapłanowski (1814 – d. Troki 12.07.1898). His gravestone with epitaphs in Hebrew and Russian is still standing in the nineteenth-century part of the Troki Karaite cemetery (as seen by M. Kizilov in April 2003). 354 His tombstone inscription, which was composed evidently after 1928, was published in Hersch, “Les langues des inscriptions,” 283-284. 355 See more about him in Seraja Szapszał, “Ś.p. hachan [sic for ḥakham] Romuald Kobecki (Z powodu 25-lecia jego zgonu),” MK 11 (1936): 80-84. Troki 83

Kobecki was eventually elected ḥakham of the community; at the time of his election he was 79.356 In contrast to Pinachas Malecki, who was an important Karaite exegete and translator, Kobecki appears to be a secular person known more for his pro-Polish sympathies than by his achievements as a religious authority. In 1903 the house of the ḥakham was visited by Talko-Hryncewicz. Kobecki made a highly-positive impression upon the anthropologist:

In the evening Pan Kobecki invited me for a cup of tea. In his study there laid a copy of the in Turkish, in the liturgical language of the Karaites,357 right close to Sienkiewicz’s “With Fire and Sword”. We sat together with an old man until the late evening... He clearly remembered his grandfather, a citizen of Troki, who had worn a kontusz, and lived in the old house where Kobecki was born and grew up.358

The ḥakham died in Troki in 1911 at the age of 88.359 The Polish epitaph on his gravestone, erected in the Troki cemetery already during the Szapszał’s times, calls him in Szapszał’s manner, i.e. ḥachan and not ḥakham. However, the Hebrew epitaph provides us the full Hebrew name of the ḥakham (i.e. Romi

b) Isaac Boaz ben Nisan (Bogusław) Firkowicz (1865–1915) and the Lost Karaite Archive Isaac Boaz ben Nisan Firkowicz (a.k.a. Bogusław Firkowicz, b. Troki, 17.06.1865 – d. Sep. 1915, Ostrov).361 In spite of the fact that he was born in Troki, Isaac Boaz Firkowicz received his education in Ermeni Bazar (Armianskii Bazar or Armiansk) in Crimea where he studied under the guidance of Zachariah Kharchenko (Charczenko). In 1892, being quite a young man, he published a Russian translation of Hebrew

356 Talko-Hryncewicz, Z przeżytych dni, 207-208. 357 Apparently, one of the translations of the TaNaKh into Karaim. 358 Talko-Hryncewicz, Z przeżytych dni, 207-208. The scholar continued exchanging letters with Kobecki even during his stay in . 359 Some Karaite sources inform that the Troki ḥakham’s office had been already vacant since 1910 (Zacharjasz Nowachowicz, “Witaj, Pasterzu!” MK 1:4-5 (1928): 1; “J.E.H. Seraja Bej Szapszał,” MK 1:4-5 (1928): 6). 360 As seen by M. Kizilov in April, 2003. Romuald Kobecki’s son, Józef Kobecki (1861-1917), worked as an engineer in Kiev and died during the revolution. 361 For more information on Isaac Boaz (Bogusław) Firkowicz, see “Z powodu 10-tej rocznicy zgonu,” MK 1:3 (1926): 17-18; Włodzimierz Zajączkowski, “Firkowicz Bogusław,” PSB 6 (1948): 473-474. 84 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

prayers collected by Abraham Firkowicz.362 This book, which became the first collection of Karaite prayers translated into Russian, was used, instead of the Karaites, mainly by the Subbotniki – Russian converts to the non-Talmudic, Karaite type of Judaism.363 While the attitude of the Karaite authorities towards the Subbotniki was rather ambivalent, Russian authorities usually treated them as dangerous sectarian renegades and apostates. Therefore, official publication of the prayerbook in Russian, which was intended specifically for the Subbotniki’ use, was interpreted by the Russian authorities as a challenge to their position with regard to the Subbotniki. As a consequence, a large part of this prayer-book was destroyed.364 Nevertheless, the position of Isaac Boaz Firkowicz in the society remained unmarred, despite his involvement in the prayerbook challenge. In 1901 he was appointed ḥazzan ha-qaṭan in Troki, and in 1905 – ḥazzan ha-gadol. In 1909, together with Jehuda Bezekowicz, Firkowicz published another collection of prayers, this time in Hebrew.365 This collection was entitled Tehillot Yisra

362 Poriadok molitv dlia karaimov, sostavlennyi vkratse Gakhamom i Glavnym uchitelem karaimov Avraamom Samoilovichem Firkovichem, transl. I.B.N. Firkovich, 2 vols. (Tsaritsyn, 1892-1896; 2nd ed. in 1 vol., Tsaritsyn, 1901). 363 Subbotniki (Sabbatarians) were Russian (zhidovstvuiushchie), i.e., Russian converts to Judaism. Some converts, who were called “ghery” (gerim, Ghers), identified themselves with Rabbanite Judaism. Other Subbotniki, the so-called russkie karaimy or karaimity, did not recognize the authority of the Talmud and from the beginning of the nineteenth century started professing a type of Judaism somewhat similar to that of the Karaites. The attitude in official Karaite circles with regard to these “Russian Karaites” was rather negative. In 1917, however, the Karaite National Assembly in Eupatoria, headed by the reformer Seraja Szapszał, allowed marriages between the Russian Karaites- Subbotniki and the ethnic Karaites. After this, there were a few cases of mixed marriages between the Karaites and Subbotniki. Although they were racially non-Jews, many Subbotniki were executed by the Nazis during WWII. The Subbotniki lived mostly in the and ’ regions, the northern , and Crimea. Some still live there today. For more information, see “O russkikh- karaimakh,” KZh 2 (1911): 81-82); Oleg Belyi, “Iz istorii etnicheskikh i konfessionaln’nykh kontaktov vostochnoevropeiskikh karaimov i subbotnikov (“russkikh karaimov”) v XIX – nachale XX vv.,” in Kultur’no-tsivilizatsionnyi dialog i puti garmonizatsii mezhetnichnykh mezhkonfessional’nykh otnoshenii v Krymu, ed. A.I. Aibabin (Simferopol, 2008), 222-268; Alexander L’vov, Sokha i Piatiknizhie (St. Petersburg, 2011); Mikhail Kizilov, “Rukopisnye dvevniki Ch.Ch.Stewena: neizvestnyi istochnik po istorii Kavkaza, Kryma i Yuzhnoi Rossii (s prilozheniem o subbotnikakh g. Aleksandrova, karaimakh, frankistakh i rossiiskom imperatore Aleksandre I),” Istoricheskoe nasledie Kryma 25 (2009): 140-151. 364 For details, see Alexander L’vov, “Delo o karaimskikh molitvennikakh,” Paralleli 4-5 (2004): 48-72. 365 Tehilot Yisra

of the large collection of Karaite documents and objects. In 1912 he had published in Wilno the Karaite calendar embracing the years from 1913 to 1918.366 In 1914, after the beginning of the First World War, Russian authorities evacuated most members of the Troki community Karaite to Russia together with their archive containing old Karaite documents, charters and privileges. Numerous expensive material objects such as Torah scrolls, brocade curtains, chandeliers, lamps, and suchlike also were taken away to evacuation. Isaac Boaz Firkowicz, who went with other members of the community to Russia, apparently was supposed to take care of this unique collection of Karaite documents and objects. Unfortunately, while being in the town of Ostrov in the vicinity of Pskov, Firkowicz suddenly died from an apoplectic stroke and the collection evidently remained unattended. As a consequence, when members of the Troki community returned after the end of the war to their home town, only some documents and objects found their way back to Troki.367 The fate of the rest of the collection remains a mystery. One highly curious archival document, a written request of the Karaite Semen Apollonovich Mashkevich (Maszkiewicz) to Soviet administration in Smolensk, mentions that even in 1926 there still were some Karaite archival documents in the possession of the local Soviet authorities. Maszkiewicz says that he had written his petition at the request of the Troki Karaites.368 It appears, however, that these documents were not returned to the community. Even more interesting is a testimony by Professor Bruno Adler who stated that in the 1920s numerous precious materials objects from Troki (Torah scrolls, brocade curtains, lamps, etc.), which had been evacuated from Lithuania during the First World War, ended up in a small town in Belorussia. At some point these objects were noticed by a certain “Herr Palaes aus Minsk” (according to Adler, he was “an outstanding expert in Jewish ethnography”) who delivered them to a certain Belorussian museum in Minsk.369 The later destiny of this collection remains unknown. Thus, it is quite probable that some objects and manuscript documents are still somewhere in Russian or Belorussian museums and archives.

c) Ḥazzanim Ananii Iefremovich Dubiński (d. 1913) and Zachariasz Mickiewicz (1842–1926) From 1903 to 1913 the duties of the junior ḥazzan in Troki were fulfilled by Ananiia Iefremovich Dubiński (b. ca. 1857 – d. Troki 6.01.1913; from 1899 to 1903 ḥazzan and teacher of Hebrew in Kherson). According to some data, in 1911 Dubiński carried out

366 Luḥot le-qviot roshei ḥodashim, ed. Isaac Boaz Firkowicz and Pinachas Malecki (Wilno, 1912). 367 The documents that were returned after the war were first kept in a special bookcase in the Troki Karaite synagogue; they were subsequently transferred to LMAB (see MS LMAB F. 301). 368 MS LMAB F. 301, no. 10, fol. 242. 369 Adler, “Krim-Karäer,” 128. 86 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

archaeological works on the Karaite cemetery in Troki which led to the discovery of the tomb of the famous Karaite physician, Ezra ben Nisan ha-Rofe of Troki (1595– 1666). Dubiński also left an unpublished collection of religious poetry and exegetical works.370 In his stead, another interesting Karaite figure, Z. Mickiewicz, was elected.371 Zachariah ben Micha

370 See the text of his tombstone inscription in Hersch, “Les langues des inscriptions,” 280; P. [Owadjusz or Mikhail Pilecki?], “Pamiati A.I. Dubinskogo,” KS 1 (1913), 11-13. In case something indeed happened to the tomb of Ezra ha-Rofe after 1854, when it was examined by Firkowicz, so that it was discovered only with the help of Dubiński’s excavations, the tomb (now standing in the very centre of the cemetery), seemed to be re-installed in its present-day place by Dubiński’s expedition. Alternatively, if we accept that it had been standing on the very same place since Firkowicz’s times, we should think that there was no need for archaeological efforts to “discover” the large and massive tomb standing in the very centre of this burial ground. For more information on Ezra ben Nisan, see Mikhail Kizilov, “Ezra ben Nisan ha-Rofe of Troki (1595-1666) – A Karaite Physician in Legend and History,” Leipziger Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur 1 (2003): 83-103; idem, “Karaite Joseph Ezra Dubitskii and King John III Sobieski: On Jewish Physicians, Christianity, and a Fifteenth-Century Illuminated Manuscript from Windsor Castle,” East European Jewish Affairs 38:1 (2008): 45-64. 371 “Vybory mladshego gazzana,” KS 1 (1916): 16. 372 For the detailed analysis of his literary activity, see Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, LXXVI-LXXVII, 281-283. 373 Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, 281, ft. 2. 374 Jan Krywko, O ogórku Trockim (Wilno, 1926), 7-8, 19. 375 Aleksandra Szpakowska, “ Zachariasz Mickiewicz,” Awazymyz 1 (2009). Wilno 87

members revoked Mickiewicz’s position as ułłu ḥazzan and ḥakham as of 10.03.1922. Young Szemaja Firkowicz was elected in his stead.376 In 1925 J. Charczenko published Mickiewicz’s memoirs about his school years in the Troki Karaite midrasz where he had been once severely physically punished for studying Russian without the ḥazzan’s permission.377 T. Kowalski posthumously published Mickiewicz’s translation of the book of Job into Troki Karaim.378 From 1919 to 1920 the functions of the Troki ḥazzan were also fulfilled by another young Karaite, Rafael Abkowicz.

***

The largest Karaite community in Poland and Lithuania at the beginning of the twentieth century – that of Troki – was also the traditional centre of the local qehilot, the residence of the Troki ḥakham. The oldest Karaite cemetery in Lithuania, with the earliest tombstone monuments from the beginning of the sixteenth century, was also located in Troki. Although most of its members were farmers, the local community demonstrated a noteable number of learned men and high level of preservation of religious traditions. Among its intellectual leaders were important exegetes and translators of the Bible: Z. Mickiewicz, I. Firkowicz, P. Malecki and others.

2.5 Wilno

2.5.1 Short Survey of the History Before 1900

The first data on the existence of the Karaite community in Wilno date back to the eighteenth century, i.e. to the period after the plague epidemic of 1710. In the nineteenth century, when Wilno became the capital of the Vilenskaia guberniia, the growing Wilno Karaite community became one of the most well-to-do, Europeanized and educated Karaite communities in Eastern Europe. According to the census of 1897 there were 155 Karaites in Wilno.379

376 Sz. Firkowicz to S. Szapszał (1927, Russian) (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 264, fols. 4r-9v). 377 [Zachariasz Mickiewicz], “On jednak będąc miłosierny? (Ze wspomnień starca sędziwego Z. M.) [recorded J. Charczenko],” MK 1:2 (1925): 29-32. 378 Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, 1-38. 379 Sinani, “K statistike,” 30-31, 36. 88 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

2.5.2 Rav Pinachas Malecki and the General State of the Community from 1900 to 1918

The small Karaite community of Wilno did not evoke much interest on the part of tourists, journalists, and scholars at the beginning of the twentieth century. In contrast to their counterparts in other towns of Rzeczpospolita, the local Karaites had neither ancient cemetery nor synagogue and precious manuscripts. This is why most of data about the community life can be found in the Karaite press and sources. The Wilno Karaite community consisted mostly of well-educated, Europeanized and Russified individuals. Many of the Wilno Karaites were successful merchants and owners of factories and shops with, perhaps, the most famous being the tobacco company “Szyszman and Duruncha” (Шишман и Дурунча). The company was founded in Wilno in 1865; in 1913 and 1914 the company traded in “Tiul’pan” (Russ. “tulip”) cigarettes.380 Another, less important, tobacco shop was owned by I.M. Kozyrowicz.381 Some local Karaites served in the city administration or were army officers. In 1902, “under the pressure of hostile elements of the local [i.e. Troki] Karaite community,”382 Pinachas383 ben Aharon (Finees/Felix Aaronovich) Malecki (1854– Wilno, 1928), from 1892 the senior ḥazzan and ḥakham of the Troki community, moved to Wilno. It is very likely that the opposition against Malecki in Troki was headed by Achiezer Zajączkowski’s (1855-1930) family.384 It appears that he started fulfilling the duties of the ḥazzan of the Wilno community from that moment. In 1911 the Karaites received a place for the construction of the kenesa in the Wilno district of Zwierzynieć, Grodzka Street 6. Although officially the kenesa’s architect was Russian Mikhail Prozorov (1860-1914),385 it was Malecki who elaborated the whole conceptual design and outlook of the building.386 He opened a new Karaite cemetery in 1914

380 See the advertising of the aforementioned tobacco company on the pages of KS in 1913-1914. 381 Ibid. 382 O.P. [Owadjusz Pilecki?], “F.A. Malecki,” KS 5 (1913): 9-12. 383 Sic for the Rabbanite Pinchas. The full name of Malecki runs as follows: Pinaḥas ben Aḥaron ben Avraham ha-shoṭer ben David ha-gabbai ben Simḥah Maleṣki. 384 Szymon Szyszman hinted that Ananiasz Zajączkowski and members of his family (i.e., evidently, his father, Achiezer) were on very hostile terms with Malecki (Szymon Szyszman, Przywódca duchowy Karaimów czy marnotrawca ich dziejowego dorobku kulturalnego? (Chicago, 1966), 14 [offprint from Ameryka-Echo 39-40]). 385 E.K., “Kienesa Karaimska w Wilnie,” MK 1 (1924): 23. 386 See small bilingual Russian-Hebrew leaflet containing prayers recited on the occasion of foundation of the kenesa: Pinachas ben Aharon Malecki, Seder ha-berakhah le-yom ha-naḥat even pinah le-binyan beit ha-kenesset le-edat ha- Qara

in the vicinity of Wilno so that the local Karaites did not have to perform burials in Troki.387 Traditionally-educated Malecki was very important exegete, author of liturgical poetry, and editor of many prayerbooks in Hebrew, Karaim and Russian.388 His command of Hebrew was so excellent that in 1907 he was appointed censor of the literature in Hebrew in the Vilenskii Komitet po delam pechati (Wilno Committee for Printing Affairs).389 His main achievement was having edited the four-volume Karaite published in Wilno from 1891 to 1892. Conceivably, this siddur became the most standard prayerbook used by further generations of the Karaites both inside and outside Eastern Europe. This siddur was edited, corrected and prepared for publication largely by Pinachas Malecki; it was published by Jacob ben Joseph Szyszman in the press of the Rabbanite printer Judah Leib ben Eliezer Lipman (in Russian a.k.a. Л.Л. Мац; his printing house was located on Kvasnoi pereulok in Wilno).390 Malecki’s Karaim was so elaborate and scholarly that Tadeusz Kowalski published a section of his introduction in Karaim as “Ein Muster der gelehrten Prosa.”391 Kowalski, who personally knew Ribbi Pinachas, testified that in addition to the Troki dialect of Karaim, Malecki also spoke Crimean Tatar and Osmanlı.392 Although an expert in Hebrew, Malecki nevertheless wanted all members of the Karaite community – including those who could understand only Karaim and Russian – to understand the meaning of the Scripture and prayers. This is the reason that most of his scholarly activity was directed towards publication of translations from Hebrew into Karaim and Russian. He published his first collection of translations of various piyyuṭim and seliḥot into Troki Karaim in 1890.393 Ten years later, his Karaim translation of the haggada appeared.394 In 1910 Malecki published even more interesting

387 Szemaja-bień-Awraham [Szemaja Firkowicz], “Jarych sahyncz abajły üriatiuwczugia P. Maleckigia (1854-1928),” MK 2:1 (1929): 47. 388 For an analysis of his manuscript and printed translations of the Bible into Karaim, see Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, LXXVII-LXVIII, 285-286, 289-290. 389 O.P., “F.A. Malecki,” 9-12. 390 Siddur tefillot ke- ha-Qara

collection of prayers under the Hebrew title Qol Ya>akov (Jacob’s ).395 This was perhaps the first collection of Karaite prayers for the entire liturgical year, complete with detailed notes and instructions about the prayers, religion, holidays and fast days – all in Russian. This shift to the visibly signified the growing importance of Russian as the main language of the Karaites in Eastern Europe. Because of its Russian texts Qol Ya>akov was also actively used by the .396 In 1914 Malecki left Wilno after the beginning of the war and returned there only in 1923.397 For some reason in the early 1920s there was another conflict between Malecki and the members of the Wilno community; this led to the dissolution of the recently organized Temporary Spiritual Consistory (Pol. Tymczasowy Zarząd Duchowny) which was supposed to take care of the Karaite religious and administrative matters in Wilno region.398 In 1927, i.e. a year before his death, Malecki published one more collection of prayers.399 Being a conservative and deeply religious person, Malecki was against Szapszał as a candidate for the office of ḥakham of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in 1 9 2 7. 400 By this time he also completed a translation of the Pentateuch and hafṭarot into Troki Karaim. The Karaite newspaper “Sahyszymyz” published in 1927 an appeal to sponsor the publication of these translations.401 This appeal, however, remained unanswered and the current whereabouts of Malecki’s manuscript translations remain unknown.

2.5.3 Publishing Activity: Periodical “Karaimskoe Slovo”

Wilno, which was the centre of Jewish printing in Eastern Europe, also became the centre of Karaite publishing activity. In contrast to Crimea, where the Karaites founded their own printing office, the Wilno Karaites printed their books in Rabbanite printing houses. As an example, it was in Wilno in 1872 in the printing press of Finn

395 Pinachas ben Aharon Malecki, Qol Yaakov/Glas Iakova, 2 vols. (Wilno, 1910). 396 In 2001 I met with a Moscow student, Victoria Dokuchaeva, whose Subbotnik grandmother had used this prayerbook for her personal devotions. The copy of this book is still held by in the family of this student, as a family treasure, although its members do not have any idea about the religious traditions of the Subbotniki. 397 [Firkowicz], “Jarych sahyncz abajły üriatiuwczugia,” 47. 398 The Yurchenko MSS Doc. 25. Sz. Firkowicz to Z. Zarachowicz (19.11.1923), fol. 1r (Russian with Polish, Hebrew, and Karaim insertions). On fol. 1v Firkowicz complains also about the animosity between the Wilno and the Troki communities. 399 Pinachas ben Aharon Malecki, Berakhot le-sheva shabatot ha-sefira: ke-minhag ha-Qara

and Rosenkranz that Abraham Firkowicz published his famous Avne Zikkaron.402 It was also in Wilno in the 1890s–1920s that Pinachas Malecki published his collections of prayers in Russian, Hebrew, and Karaim (see above). Thus, it is no wonder that it was in Wilno that the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites decided to publish a periodical in Russian, entitled “Karaimskoe Slovo” (Russ. “A Karaite Word”). Within less than two years (1913–1914), twelve issues of the periodical appeared. The periodical was published in the press of the Ialovtser brothers, who were Rabbanites. Its editor-publisher was the otherwise-unknown A.I. Szpakowski. However, it seems that the actual editor and the originator of its conceptual design was Ovadiia Il’ich Piletskii (Owadjusz Pilecki).403 Among those who contributed to the periodical were not only Polish-Lithuanian, but also Crimean Karaites. In addtion to “Karaimskoe Slovo”, two other Karaite periodicals printed before the First World War (“Karaimskaia Zhizn’” and “Sabakh”) were also published in Russian. This choice can be explained by two most important factors: first, the use of Russian showed the loyalty of the Karaites to the Russian government; second, before the First World War, Russian was understood by the majority of the Karaite population in Eastern Europe and, certainly, by all educated Karaites.404 Although most of the contributions were published in Russian, some verses were published in Troki Karaim in Cyrillic characters. Many of the articles preserved elements of the former Judeo-Karaite identity of their authors. One can find references to the of Israel as the Karaites’ alleged ancestors, discussions of the Firkowicz’s theories of the ancient Judaic origins of the Karaites,405 frequent references to the Torah, “Old-biblical language,”406

402 Firkowicz, Avne Zikkaron. 403 KS 11-12 (1914): 1. Ovadiia Il’ich Piletskii (a.k.a Owadjusz or Ovadia ben Eliahu Pilecki; 1884 – Wilno, 1930) edited KS from 1913 to 1914; in 1927 he published newspaper Sahyszymyz. For more information about his biography, see Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Owadja Pilecki,” KA 1 (1931): 23-24. In 1921 he published a short Karaite calendar for five years in Russian (Karaimskii kalendar’ na piat’ let ot 5682 po 5686 god, ed. O.I. Pilecki (Wilno, 1921)). 404 One should perhaps mention that the Russian used in the periodical often contained mistakes and misprints; many articles were written in awkward style and faulty grammar. 405 E.g. E.E. Troitskii, “Karaimy. Istoricheskii ocherk,” KS 6 (1914): 3-8; ibid., KS 7-8 (1914): 2-8. 406 Russ. “drevne-bibleiskii yazyk.” This term was a euphemism invented by the Karaites to designate . In general, despite the fact that the periodical tried to preserve traditional Judeo- Karaite values, one seldom finds on the pages of “Karaimskoe Slovo” the word “Jew” or “Jewish” (Russ. evrei or evreiskii). These terms were used by the Karaites only with regard to the Rabbanites, and usually in a rather negative context. One of Crimean Karaite authors, Abraham ben Jacob Kokkei, in 1902, in his primer of the Hebrew language (!), did not use the word “Hebrew” (“ivrit”) a single time! Instead, he used the euphemism lashon toratenu ha-qedoshah (Heb. “the language of our Holy Torah”) (Tapani Harviainen, “Three Hebrew Primers, the Pronunciation of Hebrew among the Karaims in Crimea, and Shewa,” in Built on Solid Rock. Studies in Honour of Professor Ebbe Egede Knudsen, ed. Elie Wardini (Oslo, 1997), 103). It is of interest that at the end of the nineteenth century some Russian Karaites used the Russian term karaimskii iazyk… to designate Hebrew (and not the Turkic Karaim language!) They did so, perhaps, in order to emphasize the fact that they were the only true followers of the Torah whose national (karaimskii) language was the language of the . 92 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

Jerusalem407 and other traditional Judeo-Karaite values.408 One can even find Stars of David used as a decorative element in some of the articles.409 Karaite authors often published their contributions under Hebrew pennames such as Dover-Emet, Middor- El-Dur, and Ben-Ammo. Much space was dedicated to the most significant problem of Karaism in Eastern Europe, namely, the election of a new Troki and Eupatoria ḥakhamim whose offices remained unoccupied from 1911.410 Much attention was also devoted to the demographic situation of the Karaites in Eastern Europe. One cannot help noticing that most of the articles dedicated to this problem carried a quite pessimistic and sorrowful character and predicted the fast disappearance of the Karaites as an ethnic entity. In addition to the aforementioned polemical and historical articles, novels, poems, advertisements, and a chronicle of events also were published on the pages of “Karaimskoe Slovo”. One may notice that the periodical, as is mentioned on the introductory page of the first issue,411 was far from being ideologically and politically censored. Sometimes it presented a mixture of absolutely polar-opposite opinions and views. Thus, for example, in spite of the general traditionally “Biblical” atmosphere of the periodical, one of its authors, Abraham Szyszman, openly expressed his views about the possibility of the ethnic amalgamation of the medieval Karaites with the Khazars.412

407 E.g. pictures from Jerusalem and its vicinity (“Vid zdaniia v Ierusalime, gde nahoditsia grobnitsa tsaria Davida i semi izrail’skikh tsarei posle nego,” KS 7-8 (1914): frontal page and p. 2; “Mestnost’ v Ierusalime, gde nekogda zhili izrail’tiane,” KS 9-10 (1914): frontal page and p. 4); cf. R., “Son karaima,” KS 7-8 (1914): 15-16. 408 One Karaite author in his letter to KS suggested teaching the following subjects in school: 1) Law of the Torah; 2) History of the Bible; 3) ; 4) Objectives of the Karaite faith (S. E., “Pis’mo v redaktsiiu,” KS 7-8 (1914): 24). This S.E. is apparently Saadiah Semenovich El’iashevich/Eljaszewicz who published other works of pedagogical character (e.g. [Saadiah Semenovich El’iashevich/ Eljaszewicz], Priroda i zhizn’, pt. 1 (Moscow, 1894). Equally symptomatic is the novel by M.S. Sinani which contains contemplations on the necessity of following religious traditions. The hero of the novel, Emmanuil Moiseevich Firkowicz, leaves the building of the kenesa on the Paskha (Pesaḥ) and goes back home where, to his bitter sorrow, nobody remembers how to celebrate the holiday (M.S. Sinani, “Prostil,” KS 9-10 (1914): 4-10). 409 E.g. KS 1 (1913): 6; ibid., 2 (1913): 20; KS 5 (1913): 4; KS 7-8 (1913): 16; KS 9-10 (1913): 4. At that time this traditional Jewish symbol, in the context of the frequent and drastic Jewish pogroms, became rather non-welcomed in the Karaite circles. Nevertheless, as can be seen even in the case of KS, magen David still continued to be used by the Karaites even in the 1910s (and later as well). 410 “K vyboram tavricheskogo gakhama,” KS 2 (1913): 1-2; “K vyboram gakhama,” KS 2 (1913): 16- 20; E.E. Troitskii, “Kakoi gakham nuzhen karaimskomu narodu?”, KS 5 (1913?): 1-2; “K karaimskomu obshchestvu,” KS 5 (1913?): 3-4; T-ii [E.E. Troitskii?], “K vyboram tavricheskogo gakhama,” KS 7-8 (1914): 1-2; R., “Son karaima,” KS 7-8 (1914): 11-16; “K vyboram gakhama,” KS 9-10 (1914): 15-16; Mladokaraim, “Svetloe,” KS 11-12 (1914): 7-9; “Otkaz A.I. Kryma ot gakhamstva,” KS 11-12 (1914): 25. 411 “K karaimskomu obshchestvu,” KS 1 (1913): 1. 412 Abraham Szyszman, “Istoricheskaia zametka,” KS 5 (1913): 13. On Avraham Szyszman, the author of several articles, and a collector of the Karaite folklore, see 3.5.4. The Role of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the All-Karaite Events of the 1910s 93

Most other authors, however, despite their mentioning the fact that the medieval Khazars had been converted to the Karaite faith (Russ. “Karaimism”), still considered descendants of the ancient Israelites to be the Karaites’ only forebearers.413 Thus, it seems that only a few local Karaites could have been influenced by the ideas about the Khazar origins of East European Karaites. Most still shared Firkowicz’s and earlier Karaite authors’ theories about the ancient Israelite origin of the Karaites. It appears that in March-April 1914 “Karaimskoe Slovo” started experiencing certain financial problems.414 The situation worsened in May-June 1914 when its main editor, O. Pilecki, left Wilno and thus stopped editing the periodical.415 The issue dated May-June 1914 was destined to be the last issue of the periodical. The First World War and later the put an end to the existence of this interesting literary enterprise.

2.6 The Role of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the All-Karaite Events of the 1910s

The 1910s were marked with several all-Karaite events which eventually defined and determined the running of Karaite history in the whole of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites, who constituted only about ten percent of Russia’s Karaite population, played a minimal role in all these events. Nevertheless, it is still important to examine their reaction to the changes introduced by their Russian brethren and to analyze their exact role in these events. The first national Karaite Assembly of 1910 was undoubtedly one of the most important events in the life of the Karaites in the twentieth century. On the agenda of the Assembly (which took place from 1.11 to 9.11.1910) the following items were discussed: 1. changes of some articles in the statute of the Taurida and Odessa Karaite Religious Consistory; 2. changes of the traditional rituals (marriage laws, travel during the holidays, kindling a light on a ) “in accordance with the spirit of the present time;” 3. organization of proper religious and moral education for Karaite youth; 4. measures for maintenance of the Karaite shrines – the town of Çufut Kale and the Karaite synagogue in Jerusalem; 5. amount of financial contributions necessary to maintain TOKDP and finance other needs of the Karaite community;

413 E.E. Troitskii, “Karaimy. Istoricheskii ocherk,” KS 7-8 (1914): 6; idem, “-Kale,” KS 9-10 (1914): 1-3; M.I. Firkowicz, “Poezdka v Mangup,” KS 7-8 (1914): 10. 414 See KS 9-10 (1914): second page of the cover of the periodical. 415 KS 11-12 (1914): 2. 94 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

6. request to the government to grant the Karaites additional rights (the right to be elected as jurymen and assizes, official permission to teach the Karaim language and religion in schools); 7. transformation of Aleksandrovskoe karaimskoe dukhovnoe uchilishche (Alexander’s Karaite spiritual college) into a progymnasium.416

The assembly accepted the following radical reforms: 1) a husband was allowed to marry his sister-in-law after the death of his wife; 2) two brothers were allowed to marry two sisters; 3) allowing the kindling of candles before the beginning of the Sabbath; 4) travel was allowed during the festive days (except for the Sabbath and Yom Kippur).417 In spite of the officially-announced status of the assembly as the first “national” all-Karaite event, in fact, the assembly gathered the representatives of the Karaites mostly living in Crimea and other “Russian” parts of the Russian Empire. Only one member of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite communities – Isaac Boaz (Bogusław) ben Nisan Firkowicz – was invited to take part in the work of the assembly. One Karaite author, who preferred not to indicate his name (it seems that he was from Poland- Lithuania), left quite a critical evaluation of the work of the assembly on the pages of Karaimskaia Zhizn’. He rebuked its president, Samuel Panpulov, for his decision to make the Assembly closed to journalists, and for not publishing materials from the Assembly afterwards.418 Equally critical with regard to the work of the Assembly was the Łuck Karaite Sergiusz (Sergei) Rudkowski, who, in the darkest colours, depicted the stuffy atmosphere of the “First All-Russian Karaite Assembly”.419 Rudkowski, who as a journalist was not even allowed to be present during the sessions of the assembly of 1910, provided interesting data on the antagonism between Crimean and Lithuanian Karaite communities, and on the position of the Łuck community with regard to this antagonism. Rudkowski claimed that “‘Crimea’ and ‘Lithuania’ are carrying out a harsh and senseless fight for the leadership... this is why these [ḥakham’s] elections, in fact, are nothing new, but an old, known way of our brotherly rivalry on the ground

416 Aleksandrovskoe karaimskoe dukhovnoe uchilishche (Александровское караимское духовное училище) was a religious college in Eupatoria so named after the miraculous delivery of the Russian Tsar Alexander III from a train-wreck at Borki in 1888. Opened on 21.02.1895, it served mainly to train Karaite hazzanim (whence its Hebrew name – beit midrash hazzanim), and to provide vocational and religious education for Karaite youth. It was closed soon after the Russian revolution of 1917. Its building, which was erected in 1913, survives to this day (for more information, see BK, 674-677). 417 “Pervyi natsional’nyi karaimskii s’’ezd v Evpatorii,” KZh 1 (1911): 70-86. 418 “Eshche o pervom natsionalnom s’’ezde,” KZh 2 (1911): 59-63. 419 S.Z. Rudkovskii [Sergjusz Rudkowski], “V Yevpatoriiu i obratno,” KS 3-4 (1913): 5-9. The Role of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the All-Karaite Events of the 1910s 95

of general greed.”420 He asked the Troki Karaites “to liquidate their [i.e. Troki] Spiritual Consistory, which had been transformed, by some evil fate, into a fortified castle.” In his opinion, the Troki community had to forsake its separatist tendency and join, both in cultural and administrative sense, its larger and more influential Crimean brother.421 Other materials published in the Łuck Karaite periodical “Sabakh” in 1914 demonstrate that despite their official belonging to the Troki ḥakham’s diocese, the Łuck Karaites were quite indifferent with regard to the Troki community and felt much closer to Crimean Karaites.422 Two important-yet-tragic events befell the East European Karaite community, soon after the end of the Assembly. In 1911 the East European Karaites lost their two religious and administrative heads: the Troki ḥakham Romuald Kobecki and Taurida and Odessa ḥakham Samuel Panpulov.423 The years of bezgakham’e (Russ. “lack of ḥakhamim, ḥakhamlessness” – the term used by one contemporary Karaite author to denote the absence of the ḥakhamim after 1911) that followed these two deplorable events to a great extent determined the election of the secular leader Seraja Szapszał to the office of the Taurida ḥakham in 1915. While reading the articles published on the pages of three Karaite periodicals published before the First World War (Karaimskaia Zhizn’, Karaimskoe Slovo, and Sabakh) one may notice that from 1912 onwards, the challenging need for the election of new ḥakhamim became one of the most important issues for East European Karaism. Polish-Lithuanian Karaite authors also actively contributed to the polemics related to this problem.424 Their articles provide important data regarding the circumstances that led to the election of Seraja Szapszał to the ḥakham’s office. In these articles, most of which have highly polemical and bitter

420 The fact that in addition to brotherly love and friendship, there were sometimes tensions between Crimean and Polish Karaites is also supported by a letter from Yulia Kovshanly, a Crimean Karaite who lived in interwar Berlin. She mentioned that Ananiasz Zajączkowski – a Troki Karaite himself – once accused Crimean Karaites of being too Jewish; she vigorously objected (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 394, fol. 2r). 421 S.Z. Rudkovskii [Sergjusz Rudkowski], “K vyboram Gakham-bashi,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 7-11. This article, written in ironic Russian, also reflects upon the conflict that started in the mid-nineteenth century when Polish-Lithuanian community separated itself from Crimean hakhamat to establish its own Spiritual Consistory. 422 “K vyboram Gakhama,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 45. 423 Samuil Moiseevich/Shemu’el ben Mosheh Panpulov (Eupatoria, 1831 – Eupatoria, 1911; sometimes spelled as Pampulov) Crimean from 1880 to 1911 (for more information, see BK, 211). 424 S.Z. Rudkovskii [Sergjusz Rudkowski], “K vyboram Gakham-bashi,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 7-11; “K vyboram tavricheskogo gakhama,” KS 2 (1913): 1-2; “K vyboram gakhama,” KS 2 (1913): 16-20; E.E. Troitskii, “Kakoi gakham nuzhen karaimskomu narodu?”, KS 5 (1913?): 1-2; “K karaimskomu obshchestvu,” KS 5 (1913?): 3-4; T-ii [Troitskii?], “K vyboram tavricheskogo;” R., “Son karaima,” KS 7-8 (1914): 11-16; “K vyboram gakhama,” KS 9-10 (1914): 15-16; Mladokaraim, “Svetloe,” KS 11-12 (1914): 7-9; “Otkaz A.Y. Kryma ot gakhamstva,” KS 11-12 (1914): 25; L...., “Odin gakham dla vsekh karaimov,” KS 9-10 (1914): 1-3. 96 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

character, one can clearly see within the Karaite society of the 1910s the discrepancy of opinions with regard to the figure of Szapszał. On the one hand, one may find there high testimonials praising Szapszał, and most bitter and dark representations of this figure, on the other. The article which suggested election of only one ḥakham for the whole of Eastern Europe instead of two is especially significant.425 In 1927 S. Szapszał, who remained the Taurida and Odessa ḥakham even after his emigration from Crimea in 1919/1920, was also elected the Troki ḥakham. This means that after 1927 he indeed became sort of a unified ḥakham both for the Russian and Polish- Lithuanian communities. The debates of 1914 concerning the election of new ḥakhamim were disrupted by the beginning of the First World War. The Troki Karaites, headed by Isaac Boaz (Bogusław) Firkowicz who had been temporarily fulfilling duties of the Troki ḥakham, were evacuated into Russia’s hinterland. Many Karaites took part in military activities as the Russian army soldiers; the Halicz Karaites were recruited into the Austrian army. It is highly symptomatic that it was at this very moment (1915) that Seraja Szapszał finally managed to overcome the resistance of his opponents and agreed to become the Taurida and Odessa ḥakham. Subsequently, as we demonstrate in Chapter 4, Szapszał reformed the Karaite religious tradition and forged a new self-identification for the community.

2.7 Beginnings of Dejudaization: Kenesa/Kenasa – an Official Name for a Karaite Synagogue

Today East European Karaites usually use the term kenesa to denote their houses of prayer. In Russian it is used usually in its indeclinable form, with the stress on the last syllable – кенасá/kenasá. In scholarly Russian literature, this term would decline according to the cases of nouns in Russian grammar, with the double “s” and with the stress placed on the one before the last syllable (кенáсса/kenássa). There is a certain incorrect tendency among some scholars to present the term kenesa and its derivatives as a late phenomenon that appeared only after the reform of 1910/1911.426 In fact, this term definitively predates 1911 and dates back to much earlier times. Practically all East European Karaite sources written in Hebrew in the early modern times and in the nineteenth century used the traditional Hebrew term beit ha-knesset (translated into English as “synagogue”) to designate Karaite houses of prayer. Nevertheless, East European Karaites often used the term kenesa/kenasa (sing.; pl. kenesalar/kenasalar) as a colloquial substitute for the official and literary beit ha-knesset. The word kenesa

425 L...., “Odin gakham.” 426 A.G. Gertsen and Y.M. Mogarichev, Krepost’ dragotsennostei. Chufut-Kale. Kyrk-Or (Simferopol, 1993), 96. Beginnings of Dejudaization: Kenesa/Kenasa – an Official Name for a Karaite Synagogue 97

and its more literary equivalent kenasa were borrowed by the Turkic languages of the East European Karaites (Tatar in Crimea, and Karaim in Poland-Lithuania) from Arabic. Arabic, in its turn, borrowed it from .427 Essentially, this term goes back to the k-n-s in the sense of “to assemble, to gather together”. Thus, kenasa/kenesa/kanista – including its derivatives and variants – means essentially “the place for gathering”, i.e. practically the same as beit ha-knesset. To my knowledge, the earliest written usage of the term kenesa for the designation of a Karaite house of prayer is to be found in the poems in the Galician variant of the Karaim language by the seventeenth-century Volhynian Karaite poet Joseph ben Yeshuah.428 To give another early example, the term kienesa can also be found in the Karaim translation of the travel diary of Benjamin ben to Palestine; although the travel diary dates back to 1785, the Karaim translation is from the beginning of the nineteenth century.429 In the document of 1894 the Troki Karaite prayer house is called at the same time kenesa and sinagoga; the documents from 1907–1908 also contained these two terms to designate Karaite houses of prayer.430 Duvan’s cathecism from 1890 also concurrently employs both terms.431 Rabbanite fairy tales included in the nineteenth- century Crimean Karaite mecuma (collection of folklore) also employ the term kenesa (кäнäса) to designate a Jewish house of prayer.432 All these sources show that the term kenesa was in common use among the East European Karaites well before the reform of 1911. When, at the end of the eighteenth century, most East European Karaites (apart from the Halicz and Kukizów communities) became citizens of the Russian Empire, in addition to the terms beit ha-knesset and kenesa/kenasa, they used the term “synagogue” (Russ. синагога; Pol. synagoga) as the direct translation of the Hebrew beit ha-knesset. To give one example out of many, in 1898 ḥakham Samuel Panpulov called the Karaite houses of prayer “nashi sinagogi” (Russ. “our synagogues”).433 At the end of the nineteenth century, apparently after the wave of the pogroms of the 1880s, when the synagogues had often been attacked by the pogromists, there appeared an

427 Kizilov, Karaites of Galicia, 182; cf. Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, 216. 428 The poet notes that weren ettiłer kahałłarny da kenesałarny (GVKar. “the communities and the kenesalar were destroyed) ([Joseph ben Yeshuah], “II. Tarłyhyndan gałutnun,” KA 2 (4) (1932): 20). In another poem he refers to the prayer houses of Jerusalem as to aziz kenesałary (GVKar. “holy kenesałar;” [Joseph ben Yeshuah], “I. Bijłer biji, nek cydajsen…” ibid., 19). 429 Ananiasz Zajączkowski, “Opis podróży do Ziemi Świętej,” MK 2:3-4 (1931): 33, 37. 430 MS LMAB F. 301, no. 295, fol. 14; ibid., no. 326. 431 Yakov Veniaminovich Duvan, Katikhizis: osnovy karaimskogo zakona (St. Petersburg, 1890), 71, 99, 106. 432 Vasilii Radlov [Wilhelm Radloff], Obraztsy narodnoi literatury severnykh tiurkskikh plemen, t. 7: Narechiia krymskogo poluostrova/Proben der Volkslitteratur der nördlichen türkischen Stämme, vol. 7: Die Mundarten der Krym (St. Petersburg, 1896), 361, 367-368. 433 TOKDP to the Troki Karaite Spiritual Consistory, no. 659, Eupatoria, 2.09.1898, Russian (MS LMAB F. 301, no. 302, fol. 28r). 98 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

idea among the East European Karaites of replacing the term synagogue with the word kenesa/kenasa. This idea should be considered one of the rare and highly interesting pre-Szapszał manifestations of the Karaite dejudaization tendencies, motivated, first of all, by the wish to avoid the undesirable Jewish connotation connected to the term “synagogue”. The first attempts to officially replace the term “synagogue” date back to the 1890s. The idea of the replacement originated, somewhat surprisingly, not in Crimea but in Troki. In 1892 the Troki ḥakham (apparently, Isaac Boaz (Bogusław) ben Zakhariah Kaplanovskii/Kapłanowski), who evidently felt that this was the high time for the Karaites to get completely disassociated from the Rabbanites, sent to the Tsar Alexander III a petition. In it he asked not to place the Karaites on the same legal footing as the Rabbinic Jews and not to include them into official statistic as “Jews”. Nota bene, he mentioned that during the pogroms of 1881 the Karaites did not suffer because “the Russian people do not consider the Karaites to be Jews and do not recognize that they are enemies of mankind as Jews.”434 In 1892/1893 the Troki ḥakham sent another plea to the Ministry of the Interior, asking permission to call the Karaite prayer houses by the Biblical term kenesa, rather than synagogue.435 It is also of interest here that the Troki Karaite authorities contacted the Tsar and Ministry of Interior not through the mediation of TOKDP (Taurida and Odessa Karaite Spiritual Consistory), but independently and directly – without even informing TOKDP of their actions. This shows once again that relations between the two ḥakhamat’s at the time were not particularly friendly. The reaction of Crimean Karaite authorities was mildly negative. They replied that although they were in general agreement with the idea of the Troki ḥakham about the replacement of the term “synagogue,” they found this problem too insignificant, in view of the fact that the legal distinction between Rabbanites and Karaites had already been determined by the Russian monarch a long time ago. TOKDP also used a philological argument against the replacement. In their opinion, “kenesa is not a biblical term, as Mr. Troki ḥakham says; it is not found anywhere in the books of the Old Testament, and came into existence after the destruction of the and is applied in exactly the same way, without distinction, both to the Karaite and houses”.436 Crimean Karaite authorities were certainly incorrect here. The term kenesa has not been usually applied to the Rabbanite synagogues, only to

434 Russ. “русский народ не считает караимов евреями и не признает их врагами человечества, как евреев” (Yulii Gessen, “Pravovoe polozhenie karaimov v Rossii,” EE 9, 295). To our knowledge, the original of this plea did not survive. 435 The letter of the Minister of Interior to TOKDP, 28.05.1893, Russian (GAARK F. 241, op. 1, no. 572, fol. 1). According to Y. Gessen, the Karaites asked to replace the term караимская синагога with караимский собор (Gessen, “Pravovoe polozhenie,” 295). 436 The letter of TOKDP to the Minister of Interior, no. 387, 14.06.1893, Russian (GAARK F. 241, op. 1, no. 572, fols. 2-3). Beginnings of Dejudaization: Kenesa/Kenasa – an Official Name for a Karaite Synagogue 99

those of the Karaites; apparently, they confused it here with the Hebrew term beit ha-knesset which was indeed applied both to Karaite and Rabbanite synagogues. In spite of this, the Troki ḥakhamim continued their attempts to replace the term “synagogue.” On 7.08.1898 the Troki Karaite Spiritual Consistory (this time headed apparently by Pinachas Malecki) sent another official letter to the Taurida and Odessa Consistory with the same suggestion of replacing the term “synagogue” with the term kenesa. The reaction of Crimean authorities this time was exactly the same: they again mentioned the fact that they find this problem too insignificant to worry the monarch.437 Thus, on this occasion this radical reform was, again, rejected. However, at the same time, ḥakham Panpulov suggested a different, equally-radical reform. In his opinion, the terms ḥakham, ḥazzan, and shammash should have been substituted by other terms.438 This time it was the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites’ turn to reject a proposal. The Łuck ḥazzan Zachariah Rojecki definitely was against it and said that he “[did] not see any grounds for changing the title of Gakham, Gazzan and Shammash”.439 It seems that Poniewież and Troki ḥazzanim also did not accept this suggestion. It took about a dozen years for TODKP to change their opinion on the terms synagogue and kenesa. In 1911, Samuel Panpulov (this time, it appears, at his own initiative) sent a petition to the Ministry of Internal Affairs seeking their permission to “rename the Karaite synagogue in the kennasa [sic].”440 At the same time, the acting Troki ḥakham Isaac Boaz Firkowicz – in response to the formal request of the Department of Religious Affairs of Foreign Confessions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs – reported that the term “kennasa, being derived from the ancient biblical- language root of the verb kanos (to assemble), can be used instead of the term synagogue.”441 From that point, with the permission of the Russian government, the Karaites started officially referring to their synagogue by the term kenesa, and its derivatives. In spite of the implementation of this radical reform, one can still find the term synagogue used by East European Karaites in the 1910s; later, the use of the word almost completely ceased by them because of its obvious Jewish connotation. On the pages of the Karaite press before the First World War one can find such varied spelling of the term kenesa as Kenes, kennasa, kenassa, kenasa, kienesa, kieniesa, kensa and

437 TOKDP to the Troki Karaite Spiritual Consistory, nr 659, Eupatoria, 2.09.1898, Russian (LMAB F. 301, no. 302, fol. 28r). 438 Ḥakham Panpulov to Troki Consistory, 2.09.1898, Russian (MS LMAB F. 301, no. 302, fol. 28r). 439 LMAB F. 301, no. 302, fol. 34. 440 “O naimenovanii ‘kennasa’,” KZh 1 (1911): 109. 441 Ibid. 100 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

more.442 In Hebrew, nevertheless, Karaite houses of prayer continued to be called beit ha-knesset. The importance of this dejudaization reform should not be underestimated: for the first time in their history, the East European Karaites rejected a traditional Hebrew term and replaced it with a different one – without a Jewish connotation. This reform should be viewed as the precursor of later Szapszał’s reforms which were aimed at the replacement of traditional Hebrew terms by Turkic, or invented, ones. It does not appear to be a coincidence that in the same 1911 – the year of the decision on the ban on the term “synagogue” – the Taurida and Odessa Karaite Consistory accepted another radical regulation. According to this regulation there was a prohibition on mixed marriages between Karaites and other ethnic and religious groups (be it with Jews, Slavs or other ethnicities). This decision was directed primarily against mixed marriages of the Karaites and Rabbanite Jews (for more details, see below).

2.8 The Problem of Mixed Marriages and Conversion from Karaism to Rabbanite Judaism (and Vice Versa)

The position of the Rabbanite authorities concerning intermarriage with Karaites and acceptance of Karaites in the Rabbanite community was not unanimous.443 Written documents attest that in medieval Byzantium, and especially in Egypt, cases of intermarriage between Karaites and Rabbanites were considered a normal legal practice. Early Karaite halakhah also permitted marriages with Rabbanites.444 The spouses of such mixed families were allowed to retain their religious views, providing that they would not offend each other’s feelings. Members of such families, nevertheless, had to overcome numerous problems caused by the discrepancy in the Karaite and Rabbanite religious calendars.445 After the beginning of the thirteenth century, however, one cannot find mixed betrothal and marriage contracts. This change came from such an authoritative Rabbanite scholar as Rambam (a.k.a. / Moses ben Maimon; 1138–1204), who argued that the Karaite bill of divorce was

442 KZh 1 (1911): 73, 85, 92, 103, 109, 119. Of interest to note that the Krymchaki Jews (a.k.a. Qrymchaks/ Qırımçaqlar – a small Rabbanite community of Crimea’s Turkic-speaking Jews) also followed the same pattern of dejudaization as the East European Karaites: present day Krymchaki authors call their synagogues with the substitute kaal (Russ. къаал), itself a derivative from Hebrew qahal. 443 Numerous cases of the Karaites’ conversion to Christianity will not be discussed here. 444 Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, “Early Karaite Family Law,” in KJ, 277-278. 445 Mann, Texts, 171-175, 177-180; S.D. Goitein, “A Maghrebi Living in Cairo Implores His Karaite Wife to Return to Him,” JQR 73:2 (1982): 138-145. For a discussion regarding the problems which mixed Karaite-Rabbanite couples faced in medieval Egypt, see Rustow, “Karaites Real and Imagined,” 43- 48. The scholar discussed there a most unusual case of a Rabbanite couple from Toledo which had converted to Karaism in 1057 – but then rejoined the Rabbanite community. The Problem of Mixed Marriages and Conversion 101

invalid – and opened the possibility of illegitimacy of the prospective offspring.446 Maimonides, his ideological campaign against Karaism notwithstanding, was of the opinion that one should sustain friendly relations with the Karaites, and that every effort should be made to return them to Talmudic Judaism.447 It is unclear what the procedure of “return” to entailed, but apparently it included the oral recognition of the authority of the and the Talmud. In the sixteenth century, a few European and Egyptian rabbis discussed the question of permitting intermarriage of Rabbanites with Karaites, and the “return” of the latter to the Rabbanite fold. While the position of the Turkish rabbis Solomon Cohen of Salonica (ca. 1516-1595) and Elijah Mizrahi (ca. 1450–1526) remains unclear,448 some of their contemporaries (e.g. David Abu Ibn Zimra and Jacob Castro) were inclined to permit them. Nevertheless, several other rabbis (Solomon Gavison, Bezalel Ashkenazi, Joseph Caro, Samson of Sens, and Moses Mitrani) forbade such marriages.449 The final word in the discussion, it seems, was pronounced by Rabbi Moses Isserles, who categorically banned mixed Rabbanite–Karaite marriages in his glosses to the Shulḥan Arukh.450 In one of his studies, the twentieth-century Rabbanite scholar, Zvi Cahn, published a Hebrew text which was, in his opinion, an excerpt from the Responsa of the aforementioned Elijah Mizrahi. According to this excerpt, a Karaite desirous of conversion to Rabbanism was supposed first to convert to another religion (be it Christianity or ), and only then would he be allowed to embrace Rabbinic Judaism on the same legal footing as non-Jews.451 According to Cahn, this regulation was later included in Joseph Caro’s Shulḥan Arukh, the sixteenth-century code of Rabbinic Judaism which was accepted in most Jewish communities in Europe and other parts of the world.452 However, according to Alfred Eidlisz, the text published by Cahn is not to be found either in any editions of Mizrahi’s Responsa or in the Shulḥan Arukh. Furthermore, Alfred Eidlisz suggested that, for some unknown reason, Cahn had falsified this text.453 Whatever the case may be, according to Johann Rittangel, in

446 Olszowy-Schlanger, “Early Karaite Family Law,” 278. 447 Schur, Karaite Encyclopedia, 191-192. 448 Elijah b. Abraham (Re’em) Mizraḥi was a Turkish rabbi and mathematician. An enemy of the Karaites in his youth, he became friendlier towards them in his old age. Some students of his biography state that he completely rejected on halakhic grounds the permissibility of intermarriage between Karaites and Rabbanites (Jacob Habermann, “Mizrahi, Elijah,” EJ 12, 182-184), while others are of the opinion that he was inclined to permit them (Danon, “Karaites in European Turkey,” 318-321). 449 Ibid., 321, 334-336. 450 Daniel J. Lasker, “Karaite Leadership in Times of Crisis,” in Jewish Religious Leadership: Image and Reality, vol. 1, ed. (New York, 2004), 222. 451 See his Responsum no. 28 reproduced in Zvi Cahn, The Rise of the Karaite Sect (New York, 1937), 118. 452 Ibid. 453 Alfred Eidlisz, private communication of 18 May 2007. 102 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

seventeenth-century Lithuania the Rabbanites were more willing to accept a Muslim or a heathen into their community than a Karaite.454 Ebenezer Henderson (1821) mentioned that “if they [the Rabbanites of Łuck] saw a Christian in danger of being drowned, it would be their duty to make a bridge of a Karaite in order to rescue him.... they will not receive a Karaite into their communion until he has previously made a profession of the Mohammedan or Christian faith.”455 The quotation shows that even if Cahn’s citation is not genuine, there indeed was a rule among the Rabbanite authorities that Karaites should not be converted into Rabbanite Judaism directly from Karaism. The existence of such a regulation is also corroborated by the case of Zarach and Jacob-Joseph Leonowicz (see below). Needless to say, such a rigorist and intolerant attitude, so different from medieval Rabbinic legislation, could not promote integration of the Karaites into the Rabbanite community and vice versa. The sources are normally rather silent concerning the cases of conversion to a different religion. This meagre information concerning the question of conversion in both Karaite and Rabbanite sources may be explained first of all by the unwillingness of both communities to recognize that such apostasies took place at all. We do not know too much about the attitude of the Karaite authorities to this problem before 1911. One may assume that there were certainly cases of intermarriage and acceptance of Rabbanites in Karaite communities, and of Karaites in Rabbanite ones. An individual accepted into a new community, however, most likely tried to forget about his or her past, and would hardly transmit information about it to his posterity. It is known that the famous medieval Karaite poet, Moses ben Abraham Dar‘ī, converted to Karaism from Rabbanite Judaism.456 On the other hand, important fourteenth-century Rabbanite Crimean thinker, Abraham Kırımi, was most likely a Karaite convert to Rabbanism.457 According to the eighteenth-century author Friedrich Augusti (himself a baptised Jew), there were some cases of Rabbanites converting to Karaism. Moreover, these converts, because of their conspicuous erudition, could become leaders in the Karaite community! At the same time, however, Augusti claimed that he was not aware of a single case of a Karaite’s conversion to Rabbinic Judaism.458

454 The Library, the Hartlib Papers, Letter of Cyprian Kinner to Samuel Hartlib, Aug. 1648: 1/33, fols. 63A-63B (a copy of Rittangel’s letter in German). We may assume that Rittangel, with his anti-Talmudic agenda, may have slightly exaggerated the Rabbanite animosity towards the Karaites. I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Jacky Hodgson, the Head of Special Collections of the University of Sheffield Library, for sending me a copy of Rittangel’s report. I am preparing this most interesting account for publication. 455 Henderson, Researches, 323-324. 456 Leon J. Weinberger, Jewish Poet in Muslim Egypt: Moses Dar‘ī’s Hebrew Collection (Leiden, 2000), 7 (English introduction). 457 For more information on Abraham Kırımi, see Kizilov, Krymskaia Iudeia, 229-230. 458 Augusti, Gründliche Nachrichten, 58-59. The Problem of Mixed Marriages and Conversion 103

Karaite Samuel, the main protagonist of Reuven Fahn’s story “Ha-mityahed” (The convert to Judaism), also sought permission from the local rabbis to convert to Rabbanite Judaism. In response, he received a letter suggesting that he convert to Christianity first.459 It seems that Fahn based this story on Leonowicz’s case. Zarach Leonowicz’s relative, Jacob-Joseph Leonowicz,460 was also deeply interested in the Talmud and wanted to marry a Rabbanite woman. Again, as in the previous case, the rabbis suggested that he convert to Christianity, and only then would he be accepted into the Rabbanite community. This case, which is known to us from Karaite sources, seems to be more trustworthy.461 The sources are equally reticent about the opposite case when Talmudic Jews were desirous to convert to Karaism.462 According to Szapszał, in the period between 1837 and 1930 only four non-Karaites (unclear whether these were Rabbanite Jews or not) were officially registered in official Karaite community records as Karaites, all of them when they were still babies in arms.463 It seems however that there much more cases of attempts on the part of the Rabbanites to register as Karaites; furthermore, some Rabbanites were able to register as “Karaites” without informing Karaite authorities about that. Many cases of this kind can be explained only by a desire to avoid double taxation, and not by any interest whatsoever in Karaite religious doctrine.464 Three more cases of similar financially-motivated interest on the part of the Russian Rabbanites in being registered as Karaites in Halicz in the nineteenth century were recorded by Jan Grzegorzewski. In spite of the fact that these cases sound slightly anecdotal, they appear to have been based on actual facts.465 About 1910, eight Warsaw Rabbanites, who did not manage to enter the local university because of the

459 Fahn, “Me-ḥayyei,” 161-166. 460 He lived from the second half of the nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century; shoḥeṭ (slaughterer) in Halicz in the 1890s; junior ḥazzan in Halicz before the war, and senior ḥazzan in Łuck from 1914 to 1917. He was perhaps the same person as the copyist of Abraham Leonowicz’s chronicle in 1871, whose name was Jacob-Joseph ben Samuel-Yeshua (NLR F. 946, op. 1, no. 898). Concerning him, see also Fahn, “Ha-Qara

existence of a law regulating the percentage of Jews entering institutions of higher education, expressed their desire to embrace the Karaite religion. The Troki ḥazzan Izaak Firkowicz, however, refused to accept them.466 It was quite a surprise to me that Veniamin Blum (1861–1919), the founder of the Veniamin Blum School of Art in Riga, is often referred to in sources and scholarship as a “Karaite who converted to Russian Orthodoxy.”467 Nevertheless, this artist could not possibly be Karaite since his name clearly indicates Blum’s Ashkenazic origin. He was apparently an Odessa Rabbanite who at some point decided to get register as Karaite in order to avoid the Russian Jewish legislation which was oppressive for the Rabbanites; later he made his third conversion – and opted for Orthodox Christianity. It seems that the absence of the large Karaite community in Latvian lands (Russian Kurliandskaia guberniia) forced the local Karaite into closer contact with the local Rabbanites. In Dvinsk (Dinaburg/Daugavpils) there was a Karaite tobacco shop on Peterbugskaia Street. Its owner was Mark Efremovich (Mordecai ben Ephraim) Turshu. Because of the fact that there was no Karaite mohel in Dvinsk in 1911, Turshu had to ask the Rabbanite merchant, Ovsei Yudelevich Yudensohn (Овсей Юделевич Юденсон), to circumcise his son, who received the name of Nikolai (!) after the ceremony. The same year Turshu sent a letter to Troki where he stated that the aforementioned Rabbanite merchant made the circumcision in accordance with the Karaite tradition (Russ. “po karaimskomu obriadu”).468 It is unclear what was the reaction of the Troki Karaite Spiritual Consistory to this paradoxical situation when the allegedly Karaite circumcision was done by a Rabbanite. We also know of a few cases of conscious conversion to Karaism in Eastern Europe which were based more on religious and ideological principles than on pecuniary motive. An article by Z. Shohet (based, most likely, on some unidentified publication by Reuven Fahn) tell the story of the Halicz Rabbanite, Zanvel Dubiner, a son of the the local shoḥeṭ. Zanvel forsook his Rabbanite wife and young child, converted to Karaism, and married a daughter of the Karaite ḥakham ca. 1905.469 This matter caused a loud scandal in Halicz: Zanvel’s father lost his job, while Zanvel himself relocated to his new wife’s Karaite relatives in . The end of the story was very tragic. Zanvel’s first wife and baby died, and he himself left his Karaite wife.470 The whole story sounds highly interesting, but not entirely trustworthy. Two more Russian Rabbanites also tried to register as Karaites in 1908, although one does not know what reasons prompted them to do so. In 1908, Abram Goldfus, a Jew living in Pskov (Russia), asked Ministry of Religious Affairs for permission to

466 “Otkaz neofitam,” KZh 1 (1911): 128. 467 Valters Ščerbinskis, Ienācēji no tālienes (Riga, 1998), 24. 468 LMAB F. 301, no. 332, fol. 64r. 469 In 1905 the office of the Halicz Karaite ḥazzan was occupied by Shalom b. Joseph Nowachowicz. 470 Shohet, “Karaimen,” 3. The Problem of Mixed Marriages and Conversion 105

convert to the “Karaite faith” (Russ. v karaimskuiu veru) from Rabbinic Judaism. The Ministry transferred his enquiry to the Karaite Consistory in Troki. The outcome of the enquiry, however, was not known.471 In 1908 Karaite architect-artist Mikhail, son of Hayim Dubinskii (Dubiński?), asked the Troki Karaite Consistory to give him a Karaite certificate. He claimed that in spite of the fact that his father’s name had been “Khaim” (Хаим), the Karaite pronunciation of this name was “Gaim” (Гаим), which is equal to “Chariton” (Харитон). At the same time, the Troki Consistory received an enquiry from the Ministry of Military Affairs of Russia concerning ethnic origins of Yakov, son of Hayim Dubinskii. The Ministry asked whether the Karaite parents of Yakov were indeed Karaites or Talmudic converts and, in case they were indeed Jewish converts, whether cases of such conversions were numerous.472 We may cautiously suggest that this Hayim Dubinski was indeed originally Rabbanite since the name “Hayim” was widespread mostly among Rabbanites, while the surname Dubinskii/Dubiński was common among Karaites, Rabbanites, and Slavs alike. In spite of the fact that the Karaite press rather denied it, undoubtedly, in the first half of the twentieth century there also were cases of the acceptance of the non- Karaite neophytes to the Karaite community. One such case was registered in Halicz in 1907. Surprisingly, the was a British citizen, Florence Pauline Voltaire- Pererova (née Child). According to the Halicz record books, on 17 April 1907 she converted to the Karaite faith from Christianity’s Anglican tradition (Russ. “pereshla iz Anglikanskogo veroispovedaniia v karaimskoe”). Her conversion to Karaism was officially registered by the ḥazzan Shalom Nowachowicz. Afterwards, however, this newly converted Karaite believer left Halicz and never returned there again.473 Her conversion appears to have been motivated by the aim of obtaining permission from the Troki ḥakham to be married to Gedalia Feruz, a Karaite from Crimea. The Troki ḥakham, Isaac-Boaz (Bogusław) Firkowicz, registered their marriage in Troki on 15 August 1907. Crimean ḥakham, Samuel Panpulov, was apparently very dissatisfied when he received news of this rather scandalous marriage. Nevertheless, it seems that the marriage was considered legal even after his official enquiry. The first ḥazzan of the Harbin community (Chinese Russia), Abram Azarovich El, allowed non-Karaites to join the community. Thus, soon two Japanese and one Russian joined the qehilah.474 Several mixed Karaite–Rabbanite marriages were, with some apparent difficulties, registered in the Russian Empire in the second half of the nineteenth

471 MS LMAB F.301, no. 326, fol. 13. 472 Idem, fols. 21, 60. 473 GAARK F. 241, op.1, no. 1180, fol. 3r (Russian; a translation from German and Latin). 474 Most of this data might be found in Leonid Lavrin, “Kolonia karaimska w Harbinie,” Awazymyz 1 (5) (2001): 12-13. Unfortunately, the author of the article does not provide the readers with a single date concerning the time of the succession of the ḥazzanim. 106 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

century.475 According to F.M. Viner (Wiener) the first mixed marriage of this type was registered in the town of Ol’giopol’ by the local rabbi on 9.02.1873.476 It seems, however, that there were a few more marriages of this type that had been registered in Russia before that.477 The discussion concerning mixed Karaite–Rabbanite marriages continued into the early twentieth century. The question troubled not only Karaite and Rabbanite religious leaders, but the Russian authorities as well. In 1908, the Taurida and Odessa Karaite Consistory asked the Russian government to ban marriages between Karaite men and Rabbanite women registered by Talmudic rabbis.478 The government, however, did not support this petition, but stated that children born out of such marriages cannot be registered as Karaites; having been born by Rabbanite mothers, they were supposed to be Rabbanites (1908).479 The very existence of this petition testifies to the fact that there such marriages indeed took place. The first to suffer from this decision was the future Karaite poet and nationalist, Aleksander Mardkowicz, who married to a Rabbanite woman, Rozalia Sandomirska, in 1910, in the Russian part of Poland. Their marriage was apparently registered by Rabbanite authorities; as a result of the new law, his three children were not officially allowed to be registered Karaites. In 1908 the Troki ḥakham Romi

475 D.A. Prokhorov, “Organy karaimskogo konfessional’nogo samoupravleniia i problema prozelitizma, mezhkonfessional’nykh i mezhetnicheskikh brakov v Tavricheskoi gubernii v XIX – nachale XX veka (po materialam fonda TOKDP),” Istoricheskoe nasledie Kryma 18 (2007): 136. Dr. Prokhorov also informed me that there were many cases of mixed Karaite-Rabbanite marriages discussed in the materials of TOKDP and dated to the second half of the nineteenth – early twentieth century (private communication, June 2013). 476 F. Viner, Kharakteristika prazdnikov evreev: s prilozheniem teorii kabbalistiki i kriticheskogo ocherka obosobleniia karaimov ot evreev-talmudistov (Odessa, 1873), 74, ft. 1; 79, ft. 1. 477 I.I. Armentsov, “O brakah mezhdu karaimami i evreiami,” Novorossiiskie vedomosti (12.08.1871). 478 GAARK F. 241, op. 1, no. 1083. 479 Gessen, “Pravovoe polozhenie,” 295. 480 MS LMAB F. 301-326, fol. 30-31. The Problem of Mixed Marriages and Conversion 107

without prior consent on the part of Karaite authorities.481 The Karaite Consistory, however, a year later, in 1911, accepted a regulation prohibiting mixed marriages between Karaites and other ethnic and religious groups (be it Jews, Slavs or other ethnicities).482 This decision, however, was valid only among the Russian Karaite communities (Volhynia, Lithuania, and Crimea), whereas the Karaites of Halicz, Cairo, and Constantinople did not recognize it as binding.483 The question of mixed marriages and acceptance of into the Karaite community continued to be discussed during the Karaite conferences of 1917. It seems that the younger and more emancipated Karaite leaders were ready to soften these regulations, but the turbulent events of that period prevented them from implementing any decisions pertaining to this question.484 For further development of this issue, see 3.8.2 and 3.8.3.

***

To sum up, for the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community the time from 1900 and until the beginning of the First World War was the period of comparative stability and prosperity. The wave of Jewish pogroms, which swept various parts of the Russian Empire in the 1900s, practically did not touch the local Karaites. Two communities – those of Łuck and Wilno – published their own national periodicals with materials in the Russian and Karaim languages. Although most community members still preserved their traditional religious views and Judeo-Karaite (“Israelite”) identity, among the young Karaite modernists there already appeared those who considered themselves to be Karaites of Turkic and not of Semitic extraction. Furthermore, starting from the 1890s the Troki Karaite authorities actively lobbied the idea of replacing the traditional term to denote their houses of prayer – synagogue – with Turko-Karaim word kenesa. In 1911 this idea was finally realized by the decision of the Taurida and Odessa Karaite ḥakham Samuel Panpulov. This was perhaps the first – but not the last – step on the long road of dejudaization of the Karaite community in Eastern Europe in the twentieth century. From 1911, after the death of Romi

481 “K voprosu o karaimsko-evreiskikh brakakh,” KZh 1 (1911): 109. 482 Contrary to popular , this decision was not taken during the all-Karaite conclave of 1910; materials from this conclave do not contain a single reference to the question of mixed marriages (“Pervyi natsional’nyi karaimskii s’’ezd v Evpatorii,” KZh 1 (1911): 70-86; “Eshche o pervom natsional’nom s’’ezde,” KZh 2 (1911): 59-63). This regulation was accepted a bit later, in Feb. 1911 (GAARK F. 241, op. 1, no. 1163). 483 Gini, I Caraimi, 12. 484 Prokhorov, “Organy,” 137-140. 108 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918

local Karaites left the region or were forced into remote evacuations; many were recruited into the Russian and Austrian armies. Many of those who remained in the areas of military action became impoverished, many died of epidemics. The Łuck and Halicz synagogues-kenesalar were robbed by soldiers and civilian marauders, many houses were burnt and damaged, as was the Halicz Karaite cemetery. As a result, the surviving Polish-Lithuanian Karaites met the long-awaited end of the war and military actions with great relief. Their life during the interwar period – with specific emphasis placed on the dejudaization (Turkicization) of the community – is analyzed in Chapters Three and Four.