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 poetry 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 medieval 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).

The present article will focus on a later strand of Karaite Judaism: the Karaites of Poland-Lithuania and their devout poetry during the early modern period.2 Writing formalistic Hebrew poetry had been an essential mode of expressing Karaite piety and academic aptitude for centuries.3 The term ‘devout 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, private 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 nature 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 communities, a heightened sense of communal cohesiveness, an explosion of knowledge 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 tradition 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 intellectuals 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 increased 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. Juden in der Renaissance (Leiden 2003) 207‒232. Ruderman (Early Modern Jewry, 49) includes the Cretan Delmedigo as one of the representatives of ‘intellectual migration’ typical of early modern Jewish history in Europe, intersecting between Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Karaite cultures. Delmedigo’s letter Ahuz to the Lithuanian Karaite Zerah ben Nathan (Troki, 1578–1663) merits numer- ous copies in various Karaite archives. On the impact of the letter among Karaite intellectuals of the time, see P. Muchowski, Folk Literature of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites. Abkowicz 3 Manuscript, Part 2 (Paris 2013) 34–38. 17 Otherwise, ‘the [general] educational level of most of the Karaites in Poland-Lithuania remained quite poor’; G. Akhiezer, ‘Isaac ben Abraham of Troki and his Polemics against Rabbanites,’ in C. Goodblatt and H. Kreisel, eds., Tradition, Heterodoxy and Religious Culture: Judaism and Christianity in the Early Modern Period (Beersheva 2006) 447. 18 Lithuanian Karaites tried to gain access to philosophical and Kabbalistic books. The correspondent of Delmedigo, Zerah ben Nathan (c. 1578–1657/8) wrote in his letter to

DownloadedZutot from 16 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 31–42 06:19:05AM via free access Renewal and Tradition in Devout Hebrew Poetry 35 on Karaite Judaism inspired the birth of new Karaite apologetic literature: for instance, the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites Mordecai ben Nisan (d. c. 1709) and Solomon ben Aaron (d. 1745) wrote extensively about their history and faith for outside enquirers.19 A lack of a viable printing press led to the arduous copying of manuscripts, while the purchase and printing of books under rabbinic con- trol was restricted especially following the Sabbatean crisis of the later decades of the 17th century.20 Mordecai ben Nisan reveals in his letter to the Dutch Hebraist Jacob Trigland that most of his books were available only in manuscript form.21 Although the printing of Hebrew books in Poland-Lithuania became more widespread during the 18th century,22 Karaites continued to have trouble in both acquiring and printing new works through rabbinic printing houses, which strictly controlled the contents of their publications.23 Karaite reactions to the most revolutionary phenomena of religious revival among early modern Jewry, the Sabbatean movement and Hasidism, have not been studied in depth. Both movements seized the minds of Ashkenazic Jews in the heartlands of Karaite residence. There were a few contacts between Shabbetai Zevi and Karaite individuals in the Ottoman Empire, but details about East European Karaite reactions to Sabbateanism are scant.24 Hasidism, however, could not have escaped their attention: in the later decades of the 18th century, the Karaites of Troki lived only twenty kilometers west of the hub of the Vilna Mitnagdim and must have been aware of the clashes between the Hasidic movement and its opponents.25 Later, a few Karaite scholars expressed reservations on what they saw as Hasidic innovations, using arguments

the Karaite Joseph ben Moses Maruli about his desire to obtain more knowledge; see Akhiezer and Shapira, ‘Karaites in Lithuania’, 40. 19 Astren, Karaite Judaism, 252–259. For a recent English translation of one of the works, see Mordecai ben Nisan, The Royal Attire: On Karaite and Rabbanite Beliefs by Hakham Mordecai ben Nisan (Daly City 2016). 20 On the later development of Karaite printing in Eastern Europe and problems they encountered, see B. Walfish, ‘Karaite Press and Printing,’ in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 925–959. 21 Astren, Karaite Judaism, 256. 22 On the invention of the printing press as ‘knowledge explosion’ for early modern Jews, see Ruderman, Early Modern Jewry, 99. 23 Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania, 118; Walfish, ‘Karaite Press and Printing,’ 925. On vaʿad arbaʿ aratzot and the printing of Hebrew books, see I. Halpern, Jews and Judaism in Eastern Europe (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem 1968) 78–87. 24 Astren, Karaite Judaism, 252, n. 30. The bibliography on Karaites only contains two en- tries on Sabbateans and Karaites; see B. Walfish and M. Kizilov, Bibliographica Karaitica (Leiden/Boston 2011) 546. 25 Mann, Texts and Studies, 690, n. 123.

Zutot 16 (2019) 31–42 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 06:19:05AM via free access 36 Tuori resembling the criticism of Maskilim against Hasidism.26 In his Tetiv daʿat, the Karaite author Mordecai Sultansky (1772–1863) unapprovingly listed Hasidic practices he witnessed in his youth in Łuck, Volhynia: wild dancing and lengthy Kabbalistic prayers, excessive eating and drinking, indecency, and nightly vigils in the cemetery.27 Sultansky’s remarks on rituals awakening the deceased are particularly dire because of the stringency of Karaite halakha regarding purity rules.28

Old and New Rituals in Karaite Devout Poetry

Beginning from the mid-17th century, Karaite life was marred by the hardships that hit Poland-Lithuania for various military, economic, and political reasons. Karaite men wrote prose and poetry as a response to their experiences, and new rituals of bereavement were added to the liturgical service. Typically, the Karaite lamentations contain historical information as well as record general sentiments on the events.29 The infamous Chmielnicki revolts of 1648–1649, which destroyed the Karaite community of Derazhne in Volhynia, constituted such an event. In response, the Karaite poet Joseph ben Jeshua (d. 1678), whose father was murdered in the attacks, wrote several poems describing or referring to the atrocities.30 One of his piyyutim recounts the forced baptisms of Jewish children during the attack,31 and his hymn for the Sabbath begins by addressing the ‘remnant

26 On relations between Maskilim and Karaites, see the references in Walfish and Kizilov, Bibliographica Karaitica, 550–551. The famous manuscript collector, Crimean Karaite Abraham Firkowicz (1787–1874) fiercely opposed Hasidism, designating them as mithas- dim (‘hypocrites’) (Mann, Texts and Studies, 691, 695, esp. n. 133). 27 M. Sultansky, Tetiv daʿat (Gozlow 1857) 78–79. Sultansky ends his description on the rituals: ‘Does greater stupidity exist?’. 28 In the Torah (see, for example, Num. 19), being in close contact with a dead body trans- mits ritual impurity. Unlike the Rabbanite Jews, Karaites continued to follow the rules more strictly. On the impurity of the dead in Karaite halakha, see E. Bashyachi, The Mantle of Elijah (in Hebrew) (Constantinople 1532) 86ab. 29 On Karaites writing qinot (both liturgical and funeral lamentations), see R. Tuori, ‘Notes on Karaite Hebrew Qinot: Mourning and Poetry in Eastern Europe,’ Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 41 (2016) 37–53. see Ms. Evr. I/854 at the National) צַ הֲ לִ י וְרֹונִי עֲ נַּיָ ה ,His most famous poem on the attacks 30 Library of Russia, St. Petersburg), describes the events in graphic detail; see M. Nosonovski, ‘The Karaite Community in Derazhnia and Its Destruction,’ Shvut 6, no. 22 (1997) 206‒211; F. von Rohden, ‘Karäisches Gedenken der Khmelnytsky-Verfolgungen: ein Piyut von 1650,’ Judaica 60, no. 2 (2004) 159–169. 31 Mann, Texts and Studies, 826, n. 345.

DownloadedZutot from 16 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 31–42 06:19:05AM via free access Renewal and Tradition in Devout Hebrew Poetry 37 of the escaped nation, silent and mute.’32 The Chmielnicki attacks persisted in collective Karaite memory until the 20th century, and Karaites would pil- grimage from Łuck to Derazhne to remember their dead during the ten days between Yom Teruʿa and Yom Kippur.33 Another example of a notable event is the plague of the summer of 1710, which claimed the lives of half of the Lithuanian Karaites and devastated vast numbers of European cities. As a reaction, Solomon ben Aaron wrote a I shall stir my heart to mourn)34 grieving ,אֲעֹורֵ ר לְ בָ בִ י לְקֹונֵ ן) Hebrew lamentation the disastrous effects of the epidemic among the Karaites of Troki. The poem reflects the poet’s submission to the divine will and supplies a haunting image of the disease indiscriminately killing its victims: bodies mount on heaps, and the voice of the righteous is muted. Following Andalusian aesthetics, the poem I shall) אֲ שַ חֵ ר עֲ דָ תִ י ,is recited in the ‘style’ of a much earlier Sephardic qina seek for my congregation).35 The lamentation became part of a yearly ritual of mourning the victims between the ninth of the month of Tammuz until the seventh of the month of Av, after the weekly Torah reading.36 Mourning with lamentations is part of the ancient Jewish tradition of re- membering the tragic turns of history.37 However, one genuine ritual innova- tion took place in the early modern period. By the turn of the 18th century, Karaites embraced the popular mystical ritual of receiving the Sabbath, partly inspired by local Ashkenazic customs.38 While the personification of the Sabbath as a bride originates from the Talmud (bShab. 119a), in 16th-century Lurianic Kabbalah receiving the Sabbath with wedding metaphors began to symbolize the mystical aim to return God’s feminized presence, Shekhinah, back to her spouse. The popular ritual consists (to this day) of receiving the Sabbath by singing songs such as the famous Lekhah dodi (Come, my beloved) by the 16th-century Safedian poet Solomon Alkabetz. Although this quintes- sential hymn for the Sabbath was never printed in Karaite siddurim, it was

.Vilna Siddur, vol. IV, 110 , ֶ י תֶ ר ּפְ לֵ י טַ ת עַ ם ּד ּו מָ ם וְנֶ עְ לָ ם 32 33 Akhiezer and Shapira, ‘Karaites in Lithuania,’ 52. 34 Vilna Siddur, vol. IV, 260‒261. .7855א:I. Davidson, Thesaurus of Medieval Hebrew Poetry (New York 1924) 1 35 36 For a historical review of the incident and a Karaim translation of the lament, see M. Kizilov, ‘The Lithuanian Plague of 1710 and the Karaites. A Poem of Lament in the Karaim Language from Tadeusz Kowalski’s Archival Collection,’ Lituanus 57, no. 2 (2011). 37 For the concept of memory and remembrance in Jewish history, see Y.H. Yerushalmi, ‘Zakhor’. Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle 1996). 38 Mann, Texts and Studies, 684–685.

Zutot 16 (2019) 31–42 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 06:19:05AM via free access 38 Tuori copied in East European Karaite manuscripts with instructions on how to receive the Sabbath.39 Despite its strong rabbinic Jewish background, several Karaite poets were inspired by the ritual and in their poems refer to the Sabbath as a bride re- ceived by the congregation.40 For example, the above-mentioned Solomon אֶ זְ ּכֹור לְ מִ צְ וַ ת מֶ לֶ ְך ,ben Aaron writes in the refrain of his hymn for the Sabbath (I shall recall the commandment):41

ּבֹואּו נַ וְ קְ ּבִ י לָ ה ּכַ ּלָ ה ּכְלּולָ ה Let us receive the perfect bride נֵ צֵ א לֵמּו לָ ּה עִ ם קֹול שִ י ר וְגִ י לָ ה let us go out towards her with the sound of song and joy!

The embracing of such Kabbalistic ideas was a general trend among all early modern Jews that did not bypass the Karaites.42 In addition to the adaption of the Sabbath ritual, Polish-Lithuanian Karaite poets occasionally use overt Kabbalistic terminology in their poetry, including references to the divine attributes (sefirot), to the four-fold structure of the world, and to the esoteric secrets of the Torah.43 The adaption of such conspicuously rabbinic Jewish customs into Karaite rite had in fact been part of a general process that could be called the ‘rabbinization’ of Karaite Judaism. In the 15th-century Byzantine Empire, for example, Karaites had approved the rabbinic order of the Torah reading beginning in the month of Tishri instead of the traditional month of Nisan, and permitted the kindled candles and heated stoves on the Sabbath.44

39 See, for example, Ms. Schocken 13555 (an 18th-century Karaite prayer book) 86b, Schocken Library, Jerusalem. 40 In the Vilna Siddur, the bride is a central image in the refrains of three hymns for the Sabbath by three Karaite poets (Solomon ben Aaron, Joseph ben Isaac, and Abraham ben Mordecai); see the Vilna Siddur, vol. IV, 96–98. 41 Vilna Siddur, vol. IV, 96; Ms. Schocken 13555, 88b‒89a. 42 For the revolutionary popularization of Kabbalah among early modern Jews, see R. Weinstein, Kabbalah and Jewish Modernity (Oxford/Portland, OR 2016). 43 On early modern Karaites in Eastern Europe and their interest in Kabbalah, see D.J. Lasker, ‘Simḥa Yiṣḥaq Lucki: The Eighteenth-century Karaite Kabbalist’ (in Hebrew), in Z. Gries, ed., Shefaʿ ṭal: Studies in Jewish Thought and Culture (Beersheva 2004) 171‒190; R. Tuori, ‘Karaites and Popular Kabbalah: Cooperation and Conflict in Poland-Lithuania,’ in I. Lindstedt, J. Hämeen-Anttila, R. Mattila, and R. Rollinger, eds., Case Studies in Transmission (Münster 2014) 189–199. 44 Since the kindling of fire on the Sabbath is absolutely forbidden in the Torah (Exod. 35:3), early Karaites opposed the custom of leaving any kind of fire aflame. See D. Frank, ‘Karaite Exegetical and Halakhical Literature in Byzantium and Turkey,’ in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 550‒552.

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Certain innovations in the writing and performance of devout Karaite poetry may have ensued due to the changing status of women during the early modern period. At the outset, Karaite women were excluded from many of the rituals surrounding the performance of devout poems outside the domes- tic sphere: due to purity rules, women’s participation in Karaite synagogues is restricted, more so than in rabbinic service.45 The language politics of the community also played a major role in creating gendered divisions: tradi- tionally, women were not required to learn to read or write texts in Hebrew. Thus, the writing of Hebrew poetry remained an exclusively male occupation. Typically, actual women – not metaphors or ideal images of women46 – would appear in two contexts in pre-modern Karaite poems: in a handful of acrostics of wedding poems and in poems dedicated to the birth of baby girls.47 Nevertheless, women were certainly capable of enjoying – as well as creating – poetry and music, and in the secular sphere, these needs were met with the help of the vernacular. Just as Ashkenazic women could read Yiddish texts in Hebrew script,48 Karaite women were literate in Karaim-language texts written in the Hebrew alphabet. The first known translations of Hebrew devout poems into the Karaite vernacular, Karaim, appeared in the late 16th century, but by the 18th century, they became ubiquitous. Karaim rapidly developed into a full-fledged literary medium in a process resembling the development

45 Solomon ben Aaron, for example, criticizes rabbinic Jews for lenience on the participation of women in nidda; see his Appiryon ʿasa lo, in A. Neubauer, Aus der Petersburger Bibliothek. Beiträge und Documente zur Geschichte des Karäerthums und der karäischen Literatur (Leipzig 1866) 21. 46 To my knowledge, the role of Karaite women in the early modern period as well as more general aspects related to gender in Karaite Judaism are fairly unexplored topics. On modern Egyptian Karaite women, see R. Tsoffar, The Stains of Culture: An Ethno-Reading of Karaite Jewish Women (Detroit, MI 2005). 47 Typically, in the poems written to celebrate the birth of a daughter, the acrostics contain the name of the author, or a male relative, instead of the name of the female child. The Vilna Siddur, for instance, contains twenty Hebrew zemirot dedicated to the bridegroom and one to the wedding couple, while only one poem is dedicated to the bride; see Vilna Siddur, vol. IV, 140–151. Eighteen zemirot celebrate the birth and circumcision of male offspring. Only two poems are dedicated to the birth of a girl, both of them relatively late; see the poems by Joseph Solomon ben Moses (Gozlow, Crimea, 1770–1845), and his son, Abraham ben Joseph Solomon (1792–1855). In these later poems, the role of the new-born daughter is to remain pure and virtuous, reach huppa in due time, and give birth to male children; see the Vilna Siddur, vol. IV, 160, a hymn by Joseph Solomon ben Moses. 48 On early modern Ashkenazic women and their poetry in Yiddish, see C. Weissler, Voices of the Matriarchs (Beacon Press 1998); D. Kay, Seyder Tkhines: The Forgotten Book of Common Prayer for Jewish Women (Philadelphia, NJ 2004).

Zutot 16 (2019) 31–42 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 06:19:05AM via free access 40 Tuori of Yiddish,49 where for the first time, the spiritual needs of Ashkenazic women were genuinely addressed. New religious songs, tkhines, were written for women and often also by women in Yiddish. The emergence of this type of poetry was closely connected to other early modern phenomena, popular mysticism and 17th-century Messianic enthusiasm.50 A similar change in the Karaite literary culture is evident in their early modern manuscripts, which contain several Hebrew devout poems followed by Karaim language translations (peshatim), often translated by the original poet himself. In contrast to Hebrew poems with male names in the acrostics, the acrostics of Karaim peshatim occasionally contain the name of a wife or other female relative of the (always male) poet. For example, Mordecai ben Samuel, a hazzan51 in Galicia in the first half of the 18th century, dedicates the translation ,(He is a haven in times of trouble) מִׂש ּגָ ב אֶ ל עִּתֹות ּבַ ָ ּצ רָ ה ,of his Hebrew poem to his first (deceased) wife Deborah, the daughter of Isaac ben Abraham ha- shofet. Her name is hidden in the acrostic, while the original poem in Hebrew contains the name of the author himself.52 Several similar examples appear ֶ שבַ ח ְ ו ִ שי ר אָ רִ י ם in the same manuscript: the Karaim translation of the poem (I shall raise a song and praise) by Shalom ben Aharon is dedicated to his wife Ester ha-rabbanit, the daughter of Joseph, while the original Hebrew zemer (hymn) contains the name of the author himself.53 Another early 19th-century manuscript54 from the Galician town of Halicz honors the deceased scholar Shalom ben Zechariah (d. 1813) by listing the names of his relatives and, sig- nificantly, by adding the honorary epithet ha-toranit (learned in the Torah) to all the women. Shalom’s daughter Rebecca was later remembered as a woman

49 Kizilov, The Karaites of Galicia, 160–165. Without a doubt, the linguistic process among the Karaites should be studied against similar developments among contemporary Ashkenazic Jews. The printing of prayer books in Yiddish in the 16th century had a revolutionary effect on Ashkenazic women; Kay, Seyder Tkhines, 6. 50 As Kay (Seyder Tkhines, 3) notes: ‘It represents an age of religious, sexual, linguistic, and literary revolution within the Jewish community across Europe, an age when mysticism pervaded mainstream Judaism.’ 51 Hazzan was a ritual expert and a teacher in the Karaite community; see Mann, Texts and Studies, 620. 52 Ms. A065, fols. 128ab, Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy in St. Petersburg (copied in 1861). 53 Ms. A065, fol. 48a–49b. 54 The list belongs to the private archives of Anna Sulimowicz (Warsaw, Poland), recovered from the Karaite community of pre-war Halicz.

DownloadedZutot from 16 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 31–42 06:19:05AM via free access Renewal and Tradition in Devout Hebrew Poetry 41 of scholarly inclinations who corrected the Hebrew pronunciation of the male congregants in the synagogue.55 With the new practices of visualizing women at the ‘top’ and ‘front’ of the poems written by Karaite men, women who had been excluded were slowly gaining recognition. The proliferation of devout Karaim-language poems in the early modern period is a sign of Karaite women becoming more active and more vocal in worship. It also created broader benefits for the whole community: the increased use of the vernacular in the religious sphere included other members of the community, children and those who for various reasons could not learn Hebrew.56 Karaites were probably conscious of new (and very Jewish) trends of popularizing religious knowledge and realized its value in strengthening the faith and identity of the less-educated members of the group. Thus, the popularity of devout poetry in the vernacular indicated a rise in the level of religiosity and religious revival experienced in early modern Karaite communities.

Conclusion

A small but persistent minority, early modern Karaites experienced similar intellectual, cultural, and social phenomena to those of other Jews of the period, and, to some extent, expressed similar inclinations towards religious renewal. They formed self-governed assemblies; they were interested in the fields of historiography, Kabbalah, and science; they benefited from the knowledge distributed by migrating Jewish intellectuals and the availability of literature enabled by the printing press. In this article, I have supplied a few examples of poems that reflect Karaite reactions to general trends of the time, including popular Kabbalah and new intellectual stimuli, as well as their response to persecutions and epidemics. The growing need for Karaim-language translations of devout Hebrew poems herald women as more active members of the communities, in areas previously closed to them. The linguistic process shows how Hebrew was slowly receding

55 See the journal article by the pen-name ‘Karaucu’ (Observer), ‘Zapomniany nauczyciel’ (Forgotten teacher), Awazymyz 2, no. 13 (2006) 13–18. On Shalom ben Zekharya, see R. Tuori, ‘Defining Karaite Faith in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe: A Poem on the Five Principles of Faith,’ Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 39 (2015) 83–101. 56 Translations had an important role in religious education. According to the preface to Simha Dubinsky’s collection of Karaim-language liturgical poetry, Tzaqun lahash (Vilna 1895, iii), it was customary to translate prayers into the vernacular so that the ‘uneducated masses and women’ would also understand the contents of the poems.

Zutot 16 (2019) 31–42 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 06:19:05AM via free access 42 Tuori as the Karaite language of cult and culture, culminating in the exclusive use of Karaim-language liturgy by the early 20th century. Observing changes and novelties in devout poems show that their authors reacted to the transformation of early modern Karaite ritual in a positive and approving way. Karaite devout poetry, thus, despite its conservative nature, offers one opportunity to observe novel developments in Karaite faith and practice in the East European context.

DownloadedZutot from 16 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 31–42 06:19:05AM via free access