Under the Czars:
the Karaites Become a People Apart

Throughout their history, the Karaites had always thrown their lot in with their Jewish neighbors. Things were no different in the Crimea and eastern Europe, where the Karaites settled in Rabbanite towns, agreed to be represented by Rabbanite leaders, and joined forces with the Rabbanite Jews in various economic and communal endeavors. During the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648, Karaites and Rabbanites had suffered equally, and needless to say their attackers were not interested in determining whether or not their victims were followers of the Oral Law.

But between 1783 and 1812, the Russian empire annexed major Jewish population centers in Poland, Lithuania, and the Crimea. The discrimination against Jews in these regions, under a regime not known for its benevolence toward minorities, led the Karaites to make numerous attempts to dissociate themselves from their Jewish brethren. The Karaites bet on legal separation from the Jews as their only hope of retaining the economic and political advantages they had enjoyed under Polish kings and Tatar khans. After nearly a century of delegations and petitions to the czars, Karaism was recognized as a separate nationality in 1863. This decree would ultimately spare the Karaites the fate of the Jews under Hitler and Stalin.

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