Karaite Taxation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its Relation to Population Size Before the Conduction of the First Jewish Census in 1764/1765
Karaite Taxation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its Relation to Population Size Before the Conduction of the First Jewish Census in 1764/1765

Summary/Abstract: The Karaite community’s extant taxation documents and other community documents can serve as an aid not only for examining the proportion of taxes paid by communities, but also for discussing the correlation among the financial capability of each settlement at a particular period of time, the authority each possessed in the eyes of their co-believers, and the actual power each had in joint decision-making. Another aspect that can be assumed when combining taxation documents and the sources of the first Jewish census of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1764–5 and when making some rough estimates is the approximate number of Karaites before the census was completed, challenging the dominant stance in the historiography, which estimates the size of the Karaite community to 2 per cent of the entire Jewish population. This brief comparison of the tax burden of the Karaite and Rabbanite communities provides new research perspectives that can lead us to an explanation for the rapid growth in the taxation of the Jews after the census in 1765 and the establishment of new fiscal regulations by the state.

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