Category Archives: Prayer

January 31, 2013 · 6:00 am

How do Karaites Pray? The “Haqdamah”

Source: Magnes Museum; The Karaite Jews- Karaite Service, Foster City, CA by Ira Nowinski (Egypt, Israel, and USA, 1984)

Source: Magnes Museum; The Karaite Jews- Karaite Service, Foster City, CA by Ira Nowinski (Egypt, Israel, and USA, 1984)

Among the most common requests I receive is to provide readers with the means to learn a traditional Karaite prayer. Indeed, the Karaite community (in addition to having a rich interpretive history) has a rich liturgy. Thus far, I have resisted these requests, because it really isn’t the focus of the blog.

Recently, though, there was a discussion on Mi Yodeya asking how Karaites pray. And after Monday’s post on keeping it real, I thought it was time to do at least one post related to Karaite prayer. It didn’t take me long to determine where to begin: the Haqdamah.

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Filed under Crimea, Karaite Jews of America, Karaite Prayers & Melody, Prayer

November 30, 2012 · 8:55 am

Karaite Studies: The State of the Field (Part II)

Presentaion of Karaite CommunityThis is the second (and, for now, final) post related to the Karaite Studies:  The State of the Field workshop held in Israel in early 2012.

In this post, we’re picking up where we left off by summarizing and annotating the second half of a question-and-answer session between Rabbi Moshe Firrouz, the Chief Rabbi of the Karaite Council of Sages, and various attendees at the workshop. Based on the number of views, the post on the first half of the question-and-answer session was a hit, and YouTube has a video of the entire session.

A little background is necessary before jumping into this post.  A lot questions relate to ritual purity. Karaites generally concern themselves with ritual purity more so than Rabbanites because the traditional Karaite view is that one may not enter a holy place (such as, in the Karaite tradition, the sanctuary of a synagogue) while ritually impure. We’ll discuss this issue in more detail in a later post. Other topics in this post relate to Karaite butcher shops, mikvehs, fertility, and even the permissibility of pets.

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Filed under Crimea, Daniel Lasker, Fertility, Free Will, Full Prostration, Head Coverings, Karaite Rabbanite Relations, Marriages, Menstruation, Mikveh, Moetzet Hachamim (Council of Sages), Moshe Firrouz, Mourning, Pets, Prayer, Ritual Purity, Sacrifice, Secular Karaism, What is Karaite Judaism, Women in Karaism