The Art of Ambiguity: The Karaites as Portrayed in Judah Halevi's Book of the Kuzari
On the basis of a letter preserved in the Cairo Geniza, Judah Halevi is assumed to have originally composed his influential book of religious thought, the Kuzari, as a polemical response to a Karaite convert. However, he neither perceived nor described the Karaites as heretics. In fact, his depictio...
| Subtitles: | Research Article |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Pennsylvania Press
2021
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| In: |
AJS review
Year: 2021, Volume: 45, Issue: 1, Pages: 143-166 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Yehudah, ha-Leṿi 1075-1141
/ Karaites
/ Yehudah, ha-Leṿi 1075-1141, Kitāb al-ḥuǧǧa wa-ʾd-dalīl fī naṣr ad-dīn aḏ-ḏalīl
/ Rabbinic literature
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| RelBib Classification: | BH Judaism HD Early Judaism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | On the basis of a letter preserved in the Cairo Geniza, Judah Halevi is assumed to have originally composed his influential book of religious thought, the Kuzari, as a polemical response to a Karaite convert. However, he neither perceived nor described the Karaites as heretics. In fact, his depiction of the adherents of this alternative to Rabbanite Judaism and their origins so appealed to the Karaites that some of them believed that the author had been a (crypto-)Karaite himself, and his reconstructions of the movement's history became appropriated as the founding myth of Karaism. This paper attempts to discern Halevi's attitude toward the Karaites, and his perception of their main fault. It also addresses the fundamental question of his purpose in writing the Kuzari. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4541 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Association for Jewish Studies, AJS review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0364009420000392 |