Gdzie się podział Anan? Jehuda ha-Lewi i jego nowatorska rekonstrukcja początków karaizmu. Księga Kuzari, III: 64–67 – próba przekładu i interpretacji
Where is Anan? Yehudah ha-Levi and His Innovative Reconstruction of the Origins of Karaism. The Book of Kuzari, III: 64-67 – a Translation and Interpretation Attempt

Summary/Abstract: One of the most influential books of Jewish thought ever written is Yehudah ha-Levi’s Kitab al-radd wa al-dalil fi al-din al-dhalil, or Kitab al-chujja wa al-dalil fi nusrat al-din al-dhalil [The Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion], better known under its shorten Hebrew title Sefer ha-Kuzari. On the basis of a letter preserved in the Cairo Genizah, some scholars assumed that it has originally been composed as a polemical response to a Karaite convert. And yet, the Karaites are neither perceived, nor described by ha-Levi as heretics. In fact, his depiction of this alternative to Rabbanite form of Judaism – its adherents and origins – appeared so appealing to the Karaites that made some of them believe that the author had been a Karaite himself, while his reconstructions of the movement’s history with time became appropriated as the founding myth of Karaism. The aim of this paper is to scrutinize ha-Levi’s historical reconstruction of the origins of Karaism against the backdrop of earlier and later Rabbanite reports on the subject in order to understand his complex attitude towards the Karaites vis-à-vis his concept of heresy. It demonstrates that, paradoxically, and despite ha-Levi’s overt claims to the contrary, his writings contributed to the identification of the Karaites with the Sadducees – subsequently consolidated by Abraham ibn Ezra and Moses Maimonides – thanks to his dating of the beginnings of Karaism in the Second Temple period, at the time of a fierce conflict between the Hasmoneans and the Sadducees on the one hand, and the Pharisean sages on the other.

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