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Renewal and Tradition in Devout Hebrew Poetry. the Case of the Early Modern Karaites in Poland-Lithuania

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Renewal and Tradition in Devout Hebrew Poetry. the Case of the Early Modern Karaites in Poland-Lithuania Zutot 16 (2019) 31–42 ZUTOT: Perspectives on Jewish Culture brill.com/zuto brill.com/zuto Renewal and Tradition in Devout Hebrew Poetry. The Case of the Early Modern Karaites in Poland-Lithuania Riikka Tuori University of Helsinki Abstract The article discusses the manifestations of religious renewal in devout Karaite Hebrew poetry written in Poland-Lithuania in the early modern period. While this type of Hebrew poetry is entrenched in tradition and derivative in nature, certain innovative elements appear both in the wordings and in the performance of Karaite Hebrew po- etry during the early modern period. Alluding, for example, to new Sabbath rituals, the poems reflect the influence of popular mysticism on Karaite ideology. Hebrew poetry also indicates slight changes in the societal status of Karaite women as well as an in- crease in the use of the vernacular. Keywords Karaites – Karaite Judaism – Hebrew poetry Karaite Judaism represents the only surviving non-rabbinic version of Judaism, deriving religious authority from the individual interpretation of the Written Torah. Leaving the intricacies of Talmudic debates behind, medieval Karaites developed a halakhic tradition of their own, based on scholarly consensus, and authored major exegetical works in Hebrew and in Arabic. During the past few decades, Karaite Judaism has become an intriguing object of research for new generations of scholars, providing invaluable material for the study of medi- eval Jewish history. More than a schismatic sect of yore, this intra-Jewish phe- nomenon is currently observed in its dynamic complexity.1 1 On the origins and development of Karaite Judaism and thought, see M. Polliack, ed., Karaite Judaism: A Guide to its History and Literary Studies (Leiden 2003). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/18750214-12161006Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 06:19:05AM via free access 32 Tuori The present article will focus on a later strand of Karaite Judaism: the Karaites of Poland-Lithuania and their devout poetry during the early mod- ern period.2 Writing formalistic Hebrew poetry had been an essential mode of expressing Karaite piety and academic aptitude for centuries.3 The term ‘de- vout poetry’ refers to Hebrew poems performed in varied religiously motivated settings, in the synagogue or at homes during specific junctions of the calen- dar or life cycle (births, circumcisions, weddings, festive meals, and funerals). Karaites wrote poems for several ritualistic purposes: piyyutim for liturgy, peni- tential and petitionary poems (selihot, ʿaqedot, baqqashot) for fast-days, pri- vate lamentations (qinot) for the dead, and hymns (zemirot) for miscellaneous use. Since the 12th century, Byzantine Karaite Jews had written poetry using the Andalusian Hebrew quantitative meters, and the form of East European Karaite poetry followed their example.4 Karaite devout poetry can be found in manuscripts, prayer books, and printed collections from the 16th century onwards. This ample corpus includes plenty of intriguing material: the intertextual networks of the poetry reveal the education of the poets in the Hebrew Bible and grammar, Karaite and rabbinic exegetical and halakhic works, Jewish medieval poetry, philosophy, and musar. Nevertheless, this type of devout poetry is often highly conventional. Karaite poets habitually use the same stock of metaphors or cite a fixed stock of bibli- cal verses; rather than being ‘original’ poets, they are entrenched in tradition and dependent on the literary examples of their predecessors. Aware of its na- ture as an inherently conservative corpus, I will cautiously use Karaite devout poetry as a source of historical information and ask how early modern Karaite Judaism was adjusting to the shifting of times, both via its inner impetus and challenges brought forth by new ideas. I will also ask whether it is possible to identify any type of renewal or transformation in early modern Karaite piety 2 In Eastern Europe, Karaites lived in three distinct areas: Lithuania (especially Troki), Galicia (Halicz, Łuck), and Crimea; see D. Shapira and D. J. Lasker, eds., Eastern European Karaites in the Last Generations (Jerusalem 2011); G. Akhiezer and D. Shapira, ‘Karaites in Lithuania and Volhynia-Galicia until the Eighteenth Century’ (in Hebrew), Peʿamim 89 (2001) 19‒60; M. Kizilov, Karaites of Galicia (Leiden 2009); J. Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature (New York 1931). 3 On medieval Karaite Hebrew poetry, see L. Weinberger, Jewish Hymnography (Portland, OR 1998) 408–431. 4 On the form and contents of Karaite devout poetry in Poland-Lithuania, see R. Tuori, ‘Polish- Lithuanian Karaite Hebrew Zemirot: Imitation only? A Review on a Marginal Genre,’ Studia Orientalia 114 (2013) 359–372. DownloadedZutot from 16 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 31–42 06:19:05AM via free access Renewal and Tradition in Devout Hebrew Poetry 33 and ritual, expressed via poetry. I will first discuss the Karaite poets in their historical context and then bring forth a few examples from their poems.5 Karaites in Poland-Lithuania David Ruderman delineates the effects of early modernity on Jewish cultural life with five characteristics: an accelerated mobility between Jewish commu- nities, a heightened sense of communal cohesiveness, an explosion of knowl- edge due to the development of printing, the crisis of rabbinic authority partly due to the Sabbatean upheaval of the mid-17th century, and the blurring of religious identities.6 As we will see below, many of these elements played a role also in the lives of contemporary Karaite Jews living in Eastern Europe, reveal- ing them as an integral part of early modern Judaism. Karaites lived in the vast domains of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a ‘Jewish minority within a minority,’7 among many other ethnicities and religious factions.8 Although their every-day language was the Turkic Karaim,9 Hebrew was the literary language of their religious and administrative texts. Legally, they were part of the general Jewish minority and were taxed by the state. They convened assemblies to settle their own internal matters, but were subservient to the famous Polish and Lithuanian Jewish councils (vaʿad arbaʿ aratzot and vaʿad lita) in fiscal matters. This autonomous, albeit inter- dependent co-existence created conflicts between Karaites and Ashkenazim whenever the economic resources were scarce.10 Although Karaites consid- ered themselves as Jews and encountered the same anti-Jewish assaults and accusations,11 they were typically seen as alien by the Ashkenazim, who made 5 My main sources include the Karaite prayer book, Siddur ha-tefillot ke-minhag ha-qara’im, vols. I‒IV (Vilna 1890‒92), and several East European manuscripts. 6 D.B. Ruderman, Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton 2010). 7 F. Astren, Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding (Columbia, SC 2004) 8. 8 On the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its Jewish denizens in the early modern period, see G.D. Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity (Berkeley 2004). 9 The Karaim language belongs to the north-western Kipchak group of Turkic languages and has retained many archaic features; D. Shapira, ‘The Turkic Languages and Literatures of the East European Karaites,’ in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 657‒707. 10 Mann, Texts and Studies, 626. 11 See, for example, M. Waysblum, ‘Isaac of Troki and Christian Controversy in the XVI Century,’ Journal of Jewish Studies 3 (1952) 65; Mann, Texts and Studies, 578‒579. By the early 19th century, questions of ethnicity and anti-Semitic legislation in the Russian Empire launched a debated process of ‘dejudaization’ among the Karaites; see more in Zutot 16 (2019) 31–42 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 06:19:05AM via free access 34 Tuori the overwhelming majority among Eastern European Jewry.12 If contemporary Ashkenazic sources address the Karaites at all, they are labelled as heretics (minim), a description familiar from medieval rabbinic sources addressing non-conformists.13 Perhaps partly due to this animosity, Karaites remained in close connection with their brethren in the Ottoman Empire, and fre- quent correspondence, shared prayer books, and scholarly visits strengthened these ties.14 For a tiny minority such as the Karaites, striving to remain faithful to tra- dition is one of the most important modes of survival.15 Insularity, however, is hardly the most defining element of early modern Karaite Judaism: the ‘knowledge explosion’ launched by the printing press and increased migration left its imprint on them. In the 1620s, the visit of the Jewish physician Joseph Solomon Delmedigo of Candia (1591–1655) empowered Lithuanian Karaite in- tellectuals to cultivate their interests in arts, science, and Kabbalah.16 Although intellectual stimulation provided by Delmedigo was most likely restricted to the members of the elite,17 the Karaite desire to acquire more knowledge in- creased during the 17th century.18 In addition, the Christian Hebraist interest P. Miller, Karaite Separatism in Nineteenth-century Russia: Joseph Solomon Lutski’s Epistle of Israel’s Deliverance (Cincinnati, OH 1993). 12 There were hundreds of thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe, but never more than a few thousand Karaite Jews in Eastern Europe; Akhiezer and Shapira, ‘Karaites in Lithuania,’ 21. 13 There were hardly any cases of mixed marriages between them, and only few cases of conversion from one group to the other; Mann, Texts and Studies, 686–687, 695. 14 On these contacts, see Mann, Texts and Studies, 698–714; D. Lasker, From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyachi: Studies in Late Medieval Karaite Philosophy (Leiden 2008) 265–266. 15 Such attitudes are visible as late as in the early 20th century; see a story documented by Reuven Fahn, where Karaite faith is kept secret under threat of violence: R. Fahn, Kitvei Re’uven Fahn (Bilgoray 1929) 146. 16 S. Schreiner, ‘Josef Schelomo Delmedigos Aufenthalt in Polen-Litauen,’ in G. Veltri and A. Winkelman, eds., An der Schwelle zur Moderne.
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