THE CONCEPT OF KARAISM IN HOKHMAT YISRAEL : FROM THE HASKALAH TO MARXISM

ABSTRACT Wissenschaft des Judentums, a new discipline that appeared in Berlin in the early nineteenth century, played a key role in the emergent study of the Karaite movement, along with its rationale and causes. Jewish studies subsequently developed within the Russian Empire, beginning in the 1840s, with a particular focus on Karaism. To some extent, this focus can be considered both a continuation of the Protestant study of Karaism and an expression of the desire among the Maskilim (Enlightenment thinkers)—especially the scholars of the Reform Movement—to develop a new form of Judaism, suited to modern-era Europe, using Karaism as a model. This paper seeks to outline the influence of four modern ideologies—the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), the Reform Movement, nationalism, and Marxism—on Karaite studies. It aims to present how, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these ideologies and some of their characteristic ideas transformed the concept of Karaism by adapting it to their own agendas and terminology.