Karaite Judaism ─ A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources

Karaism is defined as a Jewish religious movement of a scripturalist and messianic nature, which crystallized in the second half of the ninth century in Persia/Iraq and Palestine, and reached its peak from the 10th to the 11th centuries when its center had migrated west and north. Most of today's Karaites who define themselves as Jews, some 20,000, are now in Israel. Scholars of Arab and Jewish history, language, literature, and religion synthesize the current state of Karaite studies, which have seen a revival over the past few decades. They cover the scholarly study of Karaism and Karaite historiography, Karaism in the Middle East, scholarship and literature of the Medieval period, history and culture of the modern period, Byzantium and Turkey, Eastern Europe and the Crimea, and manuscript collections and printing. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Meira Polliack, Ph.D. (1993) in Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, is Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Tel-Aviv University. She has published extensively on Karaism, medieval Judaeo-Arabic literature and biblical exegesis, includingThe Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation (Brill, 1997).