← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Oliver Cromwell
Thread ID: 11653 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2003-12-29
2003-12-29 15:54 | User Profile
I post this here because during the year or so I've been absent, the quality of the discussion on places like the Science forum has deteriorated significantly. This thread may clear up some misunderstandings about Jews, Khazars, Karaites, Nazi racial laws etc..
The Karaites were a Jewish sect that originated in Egypt in the Middle Ages. They diverged from Rabbinic Judaism in that they rejected the Oral Law (ie the Talmud and other writing by post-Biblical sages), regarding only the Hebrew Bible as authoritative. The difference between Karaite Jews and Rabbinical Jews, the majority, was hence doctrinal, and not racial in any way. In fact, small groups of Karaite Jews remained in Egypt until modern times.
The name Karaite is derived from the Hebrew verb "kara", the basic meaning of which is "to cry out"; derived meanings are "to recite" or "read aloud", and hence "to read (silently)". A Karaite is therefore a "reciter" (of the biblical text).
At one time Karaism was widespread, and Karaites could be found in Jewish communities wherever they existed. However, the Rabbinic Establishment, fearing a threat to its power and prestige, suppressed Karaism, and it eventually disappeared in most places.
However, Karaism remained strong in the Crimea and also in Lithuania, perhaps because of the remoteness of those localities from the major centres of Rabbinic Judaism.
In the late 19th Century, when anti-Jewish legislation was introduced into the Russian Empire, the leaders of the Karaite communities in the Crimea and Lithuania applied for exemption on the grounds that they were separate from the majority Rabbinic Jewish community, against which the legislation was directed. They claimed (falsely) that their ancestors had migrated from Palestine to the Crimea well before the birth of Christ, and hence could not have any guilt for the crucifixion.
The application of the Karaite leaders was accepted by the Tsarist Government, and the Karaites were exempted from all anti-Jewish measures. Many Karaites rose to high positions in Russia, some becoming military officers.
After the Russian revolution, many Karaite military officers and officials emigrated to the West along with the hundreds of thousands of tsarist exiles, most settling in Germany. There, the Karaite exiles established close connections with the anti-Bolshevik radical right, including with the fledgeling National Socialist Party. Some Karaites became advisers to senior National Socialists, in particular Rosenberg, on Bolshevism and the Bolshevik regime in Russia.
When the National Socialist Party came to power in Germany and began to introduce anti-Jewish legislation, the Karaite exiles applied for exemption, as they previously had in Tsarist Russia. This time they did not use a religious argument, but one that would appeal to National Socialist ideology; they claimed to be not of Jewish race, but rather Tartars who had adopted a version of the Jewish religion.
Again their application was successful, and Karaites living in Germany were exempted from the anti-Jewish measures. That exemption was also applied to Karaites encountered in Poland after the conquest of that country.
When the German Army invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, there were Russian Karaite exiles in its ranks, serving as advisers to the occupation administration.
Late in 1941, the Germans came into contact with the large Karaite community in the Crimea. At first, the German Security Police did not know what to make of them, and there were cases of Karaites being killed along with other Jews. It was the Karaites serving with the German administration who brought their influence to bear, and argued that the Karaites of the Crimea, even though they had been under Soviet rule and Bolshevik influence for 20 years, should be treated in the same way as the karaites in Germany and Poland, ie exempted from all anti-Jewish measures.
Once again, the plea of the Karaite leaders was successful, and the Crimean Karaites were preserved, on the same basis as the Karaite exiles in Germany, ie that they were not Jewish by race.
There is an intriguing epilogue to the story of the Crieman Karaite story. Some 500 of them joined the auxiliary police force set up in Crimea, which consisted mainly of Muslim Tartars. In 1943, that police force was absorbed into the Waffen-SS, including its Karaite members.
At a later point, Himmler gave permission for Waffen-SS men belonging to the various Eastern minorities to resume practising their ancestral religions. Thus, the Muslim Crimean SS-men began practising Islam, and the 500 Karaites began practising their form of Judaism, which to an outside observer does not differ much from Orthodox Judaism, eg most of the festivals such as Simchat Torah are the same.
The sight of men in Waffen-SS uniform publicly practising Judaism, parading in the streets wearing prayer-shawls and carrying Torah scrolls, naturally became quite a scandal, and Himmler received protests from outraged SS-officers. Eventually, he abided by his original decision regarding the practice of traditional religions, and granted permission to the Karaite SS-men to continue practising Judaism, provided they did so in private.
On the more general matter of German treatment of persons without any Jewish ancestry who converted to Judaism or otherwise identified with Jewry was regulated by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.
Under those laws, classification as a Jew or non-Jew was determined by ancestry. A person with at least three Jewish grandparents, defined as persons who belonged to the Jewish religious community, was classifed as a full Jew, and subject to the full range of anti-Jewish measures.
Persons with one or two Jewish grandparents were classified as of mixed race (Mischlinge), and were exempt from the anti-Jewish measures, except that they were restricted in their choice of marriage partners.
However, Mischlinge could be defined as full Jews under certain circumstances, eg if they married a full Jew or practised the Jewish religion or otherwise were linked to the Jewish community. Such acts were(reasonably) regarded as a sign of identification with Jewry, and in National Socialist ideology were explained as the dominance of their Jewish ancestry (or "blood") over the non-Jewish.
The same attitude was taken to non-Jews who identified with Jewry through such means as conversion to Judaism. They were regarded under the law as full Jews ("Geltungsjuden" was the legal term used - persons who "qualified" as Jews), and subject to the full range of anti-Jewish measures. A non-Jew who married a Jew after the proclamation of the Nuremberg Laws was also regarded legally as a full Jew, but not one who was already in such a marriage.
In National Socialist ideology, the voluntary identification of a non-Jew with the Jewish community was regarded as a sign of some unknown past admixture of Jewish "blood" that was somehow taking over the individual concerned and actually turning him into a Jew.
I hope this helps some.
2003-12-30 02:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Oliver Cromwell] At one time Karaism was widespread, and Karaites could be found in Jewish communities wherever they existed. However, the Rabbinic Establishment, fearing a threat to its power and prestige, suppressed Karaism, and it eventually disappeared in most places.
However, Karaism remained strong in the Crimea and also in Lithuania, perhaps because of the remoteness of those localities from the major centres of Rabbinic Judaism. [/QUOTE]
Interesting. I just finished the first chapter of William Mills' book [u]Black Sea Sketches[/u] (available from Rockford Institute, incidently), and the author makes mention of a large contingent of Karaites who once lived in the Crimea.
2003-12-30 08:24 | User Profile
Great stuff, thanks.
I was in Lithuania recently and did a tour of Vilnius. The tour guide said that there still is a small Karaite community there. She said "they're not Jews", which struck me as strange. I replied that well, they are Jews who reject the Talmud, but she insisted that they're actually not Jews, adding that they "stick to themselves."
I don't think that the community in Vilnius is very large, but the remains of their traditional area in the old town was quite impressive.
Walter
2004-01-04 20:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Great stuff, thanks.
I was in Lithuania recently and did a tour of Vilnius. The tour guide said that there still is a small Karaite community there. She said "they're not Jews", which struck me as strange. I replied that well, they are Jews who reject the Talmud, but she insisted that they're actually not Jews, adding that they "stick to themselves."
I don't think that the community in Vilnius is very large, but the remains of their traditional area in the old town was quite impressive.
Walter[/QUOTE]
In "Judaism's Strange Gods", Michael Hoffman quotes Moses Maimonides, probably the most revered Talmudic Jew of all time, saying that all Jews had a mitzva (religious duty) to destroy both Christians and Karaites.
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2004-01-04 22:11 | User Profile
Yes, the "second Moses" was a heathen swine of the first order. He even disallowed planting winter crops in vinyards because of a perversion of God's Law.
One of the reasons I no longer support the Chalcedon Foundation is that they published an article by a dumb housewife complementery of Maimonides. He is even more evil that Paul "Ehrenburg" Wolfowitz.
2004-01-05 01:03 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Oliver Cromwell]Yes, the "second Moses" was a heathen swine of the first order. He even disallowed planting winter crops in vinyards because of a perversion of God's Law.
One of the reasons I no longer support the Chalcedon Foundation is that they published an article by a dumb housewife complementery of Maimonides. He is even more evil that Paul "Ehrenburg" Wolfowitz.[/QUOTE]
My guess is the woman was just ignorant, but surely the people running Chalcedon should know better. Declaring that Christians should be destroyed is probably not the kind of Maimonides' teachings that the Jews like Christians to be aware of.
I think all Christians should know about Maimonides, especially since he's probably the Jewiest Jew who ever lived and is still revered by all serious Jews today. Unfortunately, many Christians are so confused that they won't hear anything unfavorable to Jews.
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