The Karaite Community of Jerusalem in the Late Eighteenth and the Early Nineteenth Centuries.

The main contribution to the history of the Karaite community of Jerusalem was made by the late Jacob Mann. In the second volume of his famous monograph “The Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature” he portrayed the revival of the Karaite settlement in Jerusalem in 1744. It was founded by émigré from Damascus Samuel Hallevi b. Abraham. For the most part of the time the Jerusalem Karaite community was dependent on the donations from their coreligionists abroad. Little wonder that the financial correspondence with the other Karaite communities servers as the major source on the history of the Karaite settlement in Jerusalem in the late Ottoman Empire period.
Toward the end of the XVIII century the Karaite communities of the Crimea became major contributor to charity. The large part of the correspondence between the Crimean and Jerusalem communities is now preserved in the Russian State Library (Moscow). The object of the lecture is to investigate the vicissitudes of the Karaite settlement in Jerusalem in the light of the new data. It enables us to present more detailed biographies of Samuel Hallevi and his sons, who took charge of the settlement after his death. But the most intriguing part of the story is the strained relations of the Karaite community with the Ottoman administration and local élites. Set in a broad historical context, it presents a vivid historical picture of the Jewish life in the late Ottoman Empire period.