Physical Description

Only edition, octavo, 24 pp. 237:165 mm, nice margins, light damp & age staining. A very good copy bound in the original wrappers.

Detail Description

Judah ben David Kukizow was a member of the famous Karaite family of that name, originating from the name of the town Kukiziw (Krasny Ostrow), in Galicia. The founder of this dynasty was Mordechai b. Nisan (d. 1709), prominent Karaite scholar, disciple of Joseph ben Samuel ha-Mashbir from Halicz and of Solomon ben Aaron from Troki. Mordechai was born and lived in Troki, but in 1688, upon the order of King Jan III Sobieski, Mordechai and some Karaite families were forced to settle in Kukizow, a private possession of the Sobieskis, where he suffered from isolation and seclusion. In Kukizow he served as ḥazzan of the small community. He and his son Nisan were murdered on their way from Eastern Galicia to the Crimea. Mordechai was the first Karaite author in Eastern Europe who wrote treatises on Karaite historiography and influenced the following generations of authors. However, his works are important mainly for the history of the historiographic genre in Karaite literature, rather than for their historical material. On the instructions of Charles XII of Sweden, several Swedish scholars asked Kukizow for information on the origins of Karaism and the difference between them and the Rabbanites, in the belief that the Karaites were in some ways similar to the Protestants. Kukizow's answer, contained in Levush Malkhut completed in 1698, (published by A. Neubauer, Aus der Peterburger Bibliothek, Leipzig (1866), 30–66) discusses the antiquity of Karaism and gives a brief description of Karaite doctrine. His most important composition, Dod Mordechai, completed in 1699 (Hamburg, 1714, with Latin translation by J.L. Wolf; reprinted without translation, Vienna, 1830; Ramla 1966), was written as responses to questions by the Protestant professor Jacob Trigland of Leiden, Holland, mainly concerning the split between Karaites and Rabbanites. Without any critical approach Mordechai introduces the traditional apologetical Karaite claim that the split between Rabbanism and Karaism began in the Second Temple period. He cited many previous Karaite authors as well as Rabbanite literature, including the Talmud, trying to prove the concept of the early appearance of Karaism and that the Karaites originated from Judah ben Tabbai , and the Rabbanites – from R. Simeon ben Shetaḥ . Of the later generations of this distinguished Karaite family Judah (1840–1917) was the most renowned. He lived in the Crimea and St. Petersburg. His works include two treatises on calendation; Binah la-Ittim (parts 1–2, Odessa, 1878–79), and Halikhot Olam (Odessa, 1880); an edition with Russian translation of the Passover Haggadah according to the Karaite rite (Odessa, 1883; St. Petersburg, 1889); and two works in Russian "A Short Sketch of the History of the Karaites" (St. Petersburg, 1900) and "Forty-Four Epitaphs from the Karaite Cemetery at Chufut-Qaleh" (ibid., 1910), where he tried to refute the accusations about Firkovich 's falsifications of the dates on tomb inscriptions. Judah disappeared after he left his house in Petrograd during the events of the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917.

Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Jewish religious movement characterized by the recognition of the Tanakh alone as its supreme authority in Halakha (Jewish religious law) and theology. It is distinct from mainstream Rabbinic Judaism, which considers the Oral Torah, as codified in the Talmud and subsequent works, to be authoritative interpretations of the Torah. Karaites maintain that all of the divine commandments handed down to Moses by God were recorded in the written Torah without additional Oral Law or explanation. As a result, Karaite Jews do not accept as binding the written collections of the oral tradition in the Midrash or Talmud.

Hebrew Description

חבור בחשבונות התכונה החדשה בו ידעו... ארבע מראות הלבנה שהם המולד... וימי הפסח וראש השנה שלנו הקראים ושל הרבנים... וכל אלו החשבונות מתוקנים ומיוסדים על עגול קו צהרים <מירידייאן> ניכולאייב שבמלכות רוססייא, מאתי יהודה... כוכיזוב... חלק [א]-ב. ‬

שמו של המדפיס באותיות קיריליות.

References

Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 #000141152; EJ