Many traditionalist Karaites maintain that the origin of the Karaite Judaism was with the giving of the Torah to Moses, that Karaite Judaism is the form of Judaism practiced by the original Israelites under Moses.

Most scholars and some Karaites maintain that it was founded at least in part by Anan ben David, whereas other Karaites believe that they are not the historical disciples of Anan ben David at all, and point out that many of their later sages ( such as Ya ' acov Al-Kirkisani ) argued that most of Anan's teachings were " derived from Rabbanite Lore ".

Some European Karaites do not see themselves as part of the Jewish community at all, although most do.

Some Jews did not accept the written codification of the oral law at all ; known as Karaites, they comprised a significant portion of the world Jewish population in the 10th and 11th Centuries CE, and remain extant, though they currently number in the thousands.

This includes all Christians, all Children of Israel ( including Jews, Karaites and Samaritans ), and Sabians.

He argued that throughout this history the Masorites did not invent the vowel points and accents, but that they were delivered to Moses by God at Sinai, citing Karaite authorities Mordechai ben Nisan Kukizov ( 1699 ) and his associates, who stated that " all our wise men with one mouth affirm and profess that the whole law was pointed and accented, as it came out of the hands of Moses, the man of God ," The argument of the Karaites shows that some copies have always been pointed and some copies were not pointed with the vowels, especially those copies in Synagogues which Gill talks about.

After all, it was the Karaites who placed such absolute reliance on the Torah text.

Some recent Ashekenazi Ḥaredi scholars have held that Karaites should be regarded as Gentiles in all respects, though this is not universally accepted.

As opposed this, in 1971 Rav ‘ Ovadia Yosef, who was then the Rishon LeṢiyyon / Chief Rabbi of the Sefaradim and ‘ Edot HaMizraḥ of Israel proclaimed that Karaites are Jews " LeKhol Davar " ( literally, for all purposes ) and that it is permissible for Rabbanite Jews to marry with them.

In response to the position taken by the Karaites in regards to the authority of the Talmud, Orthodox Judaism counters first that the majority of the Oral Law codified in the Mishnah and Talmud are the legal rulings of the last Sanhedrin, a body of 71 elders that made up the highest court of jurisprudence in ancient Israel, and that not all of the Oral Law are literally " Laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai ".

For these reasons, the Karaites never mixed with the laws of the Russian Imperial Jews and enjoy all the rights of the indigenous population, which the Jews did not use-for example, were made in officer ranks, were admitted to the privileged schools and so on.

Number of legislative acts Russian government confirmed the complete isolation of the Karaite religious religion and Karaites afforded all the rights of Russian citizens, without any restrictions.

The name " Crimean Karaites " or " Krymkaraylar " pertains only to several hundred members of the clerical families currently living in the Crimea and is a misnomer in reference to all other branches of the Karaims and Karaylar who have long been established in other parts of Europe, Crimea being only one such location.

His successor permitted in 1503 return to Lithuania all " Jews ", including Karaites.

Earlier scholars like Simha Pinksker had aimed to show that Karaites " were the source of all intellectual achievement of medieval Judaism.

Karaites rejected the rabbinic tenet that an Oral Torah ( oral law ) was transmitted to Moses at Mount Sinai along with the written scriptures.

This opinion was refuted by Moses Schorr and Adolf Jellinek, who observed that Eldad's halakot contain rules concerning the examination of slaughtered animals which are not accepted by the Karaites.

A second Karaite, Moses b. Elijah ha-Levi, has left a similar account of the year 1654 ; but it contains only a few points of special interest to the Karaites ( ib ).

For Karaites, the beginning of each month, the Rosh Chodesh, can be calculated, but is confirmed by the observation in Israel of the first sightings of the new moon.

This assertion was historically challenged by the Karaites, a movement that flourished in the medieval period, which retains several thousand followers today and maintains that only the Written Torah was revealed.

On the calendars used by Karaites and Samaritans, Abib or Aviv 15 ( as opposed to ' Nisan ') corresponds to April 11 in 2009.

As a biblically-mentioned holiday, Shemini Atzeret is also observed by Karaites and Samaritans:

As da Costa himself pointed out, traditional Pharisee and Rabbinic doctrine had been contested in the past by the Sadducees and the Karaites.

" One of the more common accusations made against Karaites, especially by leaders of Rabbinic Judaism, is that the Karaite religion is closer to being a Muslim faith.

The readiness with which vows were made and the facility with which they were annulled by the scribes gave the Karaites an opportunity to attack rabbinic Jews.

Karaites absorbed certain aspects of Jewish sects such as Isawites ( Shi ' ism ), Malikites ( Sunnis ) and Yudghanites ( Sufis ), who were influenced by East-Islamic scholarship yet deferred to Ash ' ari when contemplating the sciences.

The discovery in 1910 of Sefer Zadok mentions by the Karaite sage Ya ' akov al-Qirqisani, led to a renewal for the hypothesis of the Sadducee influences on the Karaites.

Karaims ( or Karaites ) are a small Turkic-speaking religious and ethnic group resettled to Trakai by Grand Duke Vytautas in 1397 and 1398 from Crimea, after one of his successful military campaigns against the Golden Horde.

In a work written in Arabic, and entitled Kitab al-Ḥujjah wal-Dalil fi Nuṣr al-Din al-Dhalil, كتاب الحجة و الدليل في نصرة الدين الذليل, ( known in the Hebrew translation of Judah ibn Tibbon by the title Sefer ha-Kuzari ), Judah ha-Levi expounded his views upon the teachings of Judaism, which he defended against the attacks of non-Jewish philosophers, against the Karaites, and against those he viewed as " heretics ".

) His descendants were regarded by the Karaites as the true exilarchs.

That the personage of the exilarch was familiar to Muslim circles is also shown by the fact that the Rabbinite Jews were called Jaluti, that is, those belonging to the exilarch, in contradistinction to the Karaites.

" This belief is known to have been held by Karaites.

When interpreting the Tanakh, Karaites strive to adhere to the plain or most obvious meaning (" peshat ") of the text ; this is not necessarily the literal meaning, but rather the meaning that would have been naturally understood by the ancient Israelites when the books of the Tanakh were first written.

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

In Poland, Karaites are a recognized minority, represented by the Association of Polish Karaites () and the Karaite Religious Association in the Polish Republic ().

However, at the same time Maimonides holds ( Hilkhot Mamrim 3: 3 ) that most of the Karaites and others who claim to deny the " oral teachings " are not to be held accountable for their errors in the law because they are led into error by their parents and are similar to a tinoq shenishbah ( a captive baby ), or to one who was forced.

They hasten to add that this opinion is not intended to insult the Karaites, but only to give individual Karaites the option of integrating into mainstream Judaism by way of conversion.

:: Contains responsa on Abortion, bar / Bat Mitzvah ; Brit Milah ; Conversion ; Death, mourning and funeral practices ; Divorce and gittin ; Gambling ; Intermarriage, keruv and raising children ; Jewish identity ; Kashrut ; Marriage and the ketubah ; Pesach and kashrut ; Shabbat ; Yom Tov Shnei ; printing the 4 letter name of God ; Accepting Egyptian Karaites as Jews ; Women and Jewish law.

While there have been Jewish groups whose beliefs were claimed to be based on the written text of the Torah alone ( e. g., the Sadducees, and the Karaites ), most Jews believed in what they call the oral law.

Many believe that the ben Asher family were Karaites.

Evidently the regulations preferring male descendants came to be disregarded in some respects, as the Book of Job, which textual scholars date to the fourth century, states in its epilogue that Job's daughters were given equal inheritance rights to his sons, and the Karaites always gave daughters the same rights as sons.

Karaites were said to have attended his lectures, among them being Aaron ben Joseph the Elder, who later became one of the greatest Karaite authorities ( although Graetz writes that there is no veracity to that ).

Karaites were the first Jewish Sect to subject Judaism to Mu ' tazilah.

In 1835 there were 1, 363 Jews with 113 Karaites living in the town of Kutais ( Kutaisi ) and its surroundings: 1, 040 in Gori, 623 in Akhaltsikhe, and 61 in Tiflis ( Tbilisi ).

His followers were called Ananites and, like modern Karaites, do not believe the Rabbinic Jewish oral law ( such as the Mishnah ) to be divinely inspired.

In the 10th century, the Karaites were believed to have comprised about 10 % of the world's Jewish population.

At the time of the traveler Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century, Karaites were widely dispersed around the eastern Mediterranean, both in Islamic areas and the Byzantine Empire.

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

Karaites were at one time a significant proportion of the Jewish population, In the early 21st century, it was estimated that there were somewhat more than 50, 000 Karaites worldwide, over 40, 000 of whom had made aliyah ( emigrated to Israel ) from Arab countries such as Egypt and Iraq.