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Friday, December 10, 1999 | return to: news & features

Israel's 30,000 Karaites follow Bible, not Talmud
by NECHEMIA MEYERS, Bulletin Correspondent


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REHOVOT, ISRAEL -- Israel today is home to some 30,000 Karaites who are Jews, but Jews with a difference. They are followers of a movement that broke away from mainstream Judaism in eighth-century Babylonia, and retained its separate identity and customs to this day.

Israel's Karaites don't look any different from other Israeli Jews. Moreover, they attend the same schools, hold the same kind of jobs and serve in the same military units.

But in one significant respect they are different: While the religious life of other Jews is governed primarily by the oral law, as embodied in the Talmud, the Karaites reject the Talmud.

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