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Rare is the scholar who can write with expertise about the literature of both the rabbis and the Karaites. Dr. Ilana Sasson was such a scholar, but she left us at a tragically young age. Dr. Burton Visotzky, of New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary and Dr. Marzena Zawanowska of the Institute of History, University of Warsaw, and Jewish Historical Institute, join together to offer this two-part chapter, dedicated to Ilana’s blessed memory.

Visotzky writes about the period ca. 650–1050 CE, which encompasses shifts in the genres of rabbinic literature. As the Babylonian Talmud coalesced into its current form, rabbis in Jewish Babylonia and elsewhere (called Geonim) wrote introductions to and commentaries on the Talmud. The Geonim wrote responsa to halachic questions. The era was fruitful for new genres of midrash (biblical interpretation).

The rabbis who attended to the minutiae of the biblical text are called Masoretes (masters of tradition). The Geonic era was a rich time for rabbinic philosophy as well as a flowering of Jewish mysticism. Some of the earliest post-biblical poetry was composed then. Sherira Gaon’s »History of Rabbinic Literature,« covered from the time of the Mishnah unto his day, attempting to trace an unbroken chain of rabbinic tradition as a response to Karaites.

Zawanowska explains that Karaism, aimed at bringing the Jews back to the Written Torah, appeared as a separate branch in Judaism in the second half of the ninth or at the early tenth century C.E., in Persia and Iraq. The messianic-Zionistic branch, known as the Mourners of Zion, moved to Palestine and established a leading Karaite community. The emergence of a thriving community in Jerusalem resulted in an efflorescence of Karaite literature (the so-called »Golden Age«) during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Its sudden end was caused by the first Crusade in 1099.

Zawanowska surveys Karaite legal texts and especially Scriptural exegesis. The first exegetical compositions were composed in the ninth century. There was a gradual shift in the focus of exegesis from the non-literal, de-contextualizing tendencies of rabbinic midrash towards the present, but still largely marginalized, literal-contextual approach to Scripture. The most important representative of this formative period was the Karaite Daniel al-Qūmisī. He may have been the first Jewish exegete to leave midrash behind and write continuous Bible commentaries. Zawanowska also considers Karaite works on biblical masorah (tradition), grammar, philosophy, polemic, homilies, Karaite liturgy, and poetry.