Are Karaites Sceptics? The Jewish Perception of Karaism in Nineteenth Century Italy

While Morais is contributing to the transformation of Samuel David Luzzatto (1800– 1865), also known by his Hebrew acronym ShaDaL, into a Jewish icon, making him a sort of archetypal Italian Jew,3 it is less clear to whom he is referring when he mentions the ‘enemies of the tradition’ and the ‘heretics who philosophise.’ I have claimed elsewhere that the so called ‘heretics who philosophise’ should be identified with the advocates of Jewish Reform, who, in their writings and in their deeds, challenged the status of revelation, the power of the rabbis, and the observance of legal precepts.4 For questioning the textual canon, religious authority, and shared practice of Judaism, orthodox antagonists, e.g. Luzzatto and to some extent also Sabato Morais, considered these reformers to be a threat undermining the legal, political, and social pact upon which Jewish life had relied for the previous two millennia, and were therefore accused of having been led astray by the ‘sceptic spirit of the centu-

the chief rabbi of Mantua, MarcoM ortara( 1815 -1894),w ho unlike Nissim was favourable to the possibilityofintroducing certain reforms to Jewishpractice, differed in his explanation of the phenomenon though was in agreement with the facts. In a letter to the Leghorn Jewishcommunity,hewrites: 'it is not because of the lack of the religious sentiment that people make transgressions, but to excuse the transgressions they affect religious indifference.'¹⁰ But in the theological debate in the nineteenth century there is at hird category of Jews, related to the previous two, i. e. the Karaites,areligious movement founded in the eighth century in Babylon, who stirred considerable interest and preoccupation among Italian Jews as ambivalent objectso fa ttractionand repulsion.¹¹ Thisa rticle is dedicated to the attempt to understand who these Karaites are and whyd id they become ap olemicalt argeti nt he theological debate of the nineteenth century.

Karaites in the Early Modern Religious Debate
Obviously, Karaites have been at argeto fJ ewishr eligious polemic not just in Italy and not onlyi nt he nineteenth century.F rom the earlyM iddle Ages, Jewisha uthors occupied themselvesagreat deal with Karaism and wereu suallydirected by an antagonistic mindset toward them. The Karaites were, accused of scripturalism,i.e.ofa literal readingo ft he Hebrew Bible. Resentment between Rabbanites and Karaites has been particularlyfierceinEastern Europe and Islamic lands wherethe two communitiesl ived at close quarters with one an another and became intimatelya cquainted with one another'sl awsa nd regulations. In Western Europe underChristian rulers, the presenceofK araites was extremelyscant and sporadic, hence debates concerning this minority faith primarilyc ame about in two different historical settings. The first from the sixteenthtothe beginning of the eighteenthcentury, the second in the nineteenth century when the studyofK araism emergedasafully-fledged field of academic scholarship. In the last two decades,much scholarlyattention has been devoted to the instrumental role of the figure of the Karaite in earlym odern and modern European religious controversy.¹² From these studies emergesthe importance of Protestant Hebraists in introducing Karaism within the rangeo fE uropean erudition in the early moderne ra.The considerable curiosity concerning Karaites among Christian scholars, particularlyP rotestants, waso stensiblyd ue to the analogyb etween Karaism and Reformed Christianityont he one hand,a nd Rabbinic Judaism and Catholicism on the other.This correlation recurs in the writingso fL eiden university professors, such as the antiquarian Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540 -1609),t he exegete Johannes Drusius( 1550 -1616), the theologian JohannesH oornbeek (1617-1666), or Jacobus Trigland the Younger .¹³ Karaism also became ac entral concern in millenarian circles all over Northern Europe, as in the works by the Scottish irenicist John Dury (1596 -1680),correspondent of the Amsterdam rabbi Menasseh BenIsrael (1604 -1657), and whose knowledge about the Karaites came mainlyfrom the Christian kabbalist Johann Stephan Rittangel (1606 -1652).¹⁴ Missions were send to the Karaites residinginthe Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth for the purpose of gathering information concerning their customs and writings, and probablya lso for converting them to Christianity,such as the mission organised by the Christian Orientalist GustavP eringer (1651-1710) from Uppsala, under the aegis of king Charles XI of Sweden.
In the second period of revival of interest for the Karaites, in the nineteenth century,Karaism wasinvoked by some scholars of the incipient Wissenschaft des Judentums,such as Abraham Geiger (  Roman Catholic prelate, took the Karaites as amodel of what he deemed modern Judaism should be.²¹ The second claim regarding the lack of attention to the Karaite phenomenon within Jewishc ommunities before the nineteenth century,c annot be taken at face value, in the knowledge of the deepd octrinal stir caused the Karaism accusations addressed to heterodoxm embers within the Sephardic communities of Amsterdam, Hamburg and London in the seventeenth and eighteenth century,s tudied by YosefK aplan and Shalom Rosenberg.²² Oddlyenough, contemporary scholarship seems to have overlooked the fact that, aside from the NorthernEuropean Sephardic communities,another important centre existed in the earlym odern erat hat produced awide array of texts on the Karaites: Italy. In their appraisal of Karaism, Italian Jews, especiallythosegathered in Venice, differed from the Christian hebraists of their time and from Sephardic intellectuals living in the Netherlands. Not onlywas the first Karaite prayer book printed in Venice by CorneliusAdelkind in the Bombergpresses with the collaboration of local rabbanite Jews in 1528 -1529,²³ but the Karaites alsoelicited much interest among the Venetian Jewishintellectual elite, such as Leon Modena (1571-1648), who wroteanentire tractate (now lost) on the Karaites,²⁴ Joseph SolomonD elmedigo( 1591-1655) whose occupation with Karaism is attestedb yh is Sefer Elim (Amsterdam, 1629),²⁵ and Simone Luzzatto (1580 -1663), who devoted af ew but significant paragraphs to Karaism in his Discorso circa il stato degli Hebrei (Venice: Giovanni Calleoni, 1638).²⁶ While in NorthernE uropean Diasporat he label of 'Karaite' and the terms 'Sadducee' or 'Boethusian,' wereu sed by rabbis such as ImmanuelA boab( 1555 -1628), Isaac Orobio de Castro (1617-1687), Moshe Hagiz (1671-1750), or David Nieto(1654-1728), to discredit those doubting the validity of the Oral Law, the Venetian rabbis appeared to have shared al essb iased attitude towards Karaism.²⁷ While ridiculing its practices and contradictions, Modena, Delmedigo, and Luzzatto are sensitivet o the critical attitude and intellectual integrity of Karaism, and werep rone to considering this group afull-fledgedcomponent of the Jewish nation and not necessarilyits antagonist.I nt he famous sixteenth "Consideratione" of his Discorso,L uzzatto lists the Karaites as the fourth classo fJ ews, after the talmudists, the philosophers( ' teologi filosofanti'), and the kabbalists. He deems the Karaites,despite their small number and their rejection of tradition, to be praiseworthyf or their piety and for their grammatical expertise. In particular, Luzzatto recognises that in comparison to ancient sects within Judaism they were closert ot he fundamental principles of faith of the rabbanite Jews for believing in the immortalitya nd immateriality of the soul and accepting the existenceo ft he angels.²⁸ This mayexplain why, in the context of the controversy regardingSabbateanism, Italian Jews, such as Samson Morpurgo (1681-1740), aphysician and rabbi in Ancona, appear to have been reluctant to endorse the equation between the heresy of Shabbatai Zevi (1626-1676)a nd Karaism, as prompted by Moshe Hagiz of Amsterdam.²⁹ It seems as if this ambiguous, and not entirelyderogatory,appraisal of Karaism, so peculiart ot he aforementioned Italian Jews, wasd ue to their perception of the Karaites as as ort of sceptical sect that was wrong in its practical conclusions but correct in its intellectual challenges casting doubt on the conceit of reason. Certainly, much work remains to be done to ascertain the role of Italian Jews as intermediaries of information in earlymodernEuropean debates of Karaism, exemplified by the case of the tobacco dealer and Sabbatean JewJonas Salvador of Pinerolo in Pied- The imageofKaraism in Italyseems to present some substantial differences from the wayMarina Rustow describest he Sephardic diaspora in NorthernE urope; see Rustow, "KaraitesR eal and Imagined," 36: 'morethan anyother type of deviation fromrabbinic norms,Karaism came to represent the denial of rabbinic authority.This was true even in its absence: the label of Karaism served as ac ategory into which rabbinic and communal authorities placed all manner of biblicizinge rror and of resistance to rabbinic authority.'  Luzzatto, Discorso,84v-85r: 'sono più corretti che li antichi Saducei, admettendo essi l'incorporalità et immortalità dell'anima, come ancoassentiscono che vi siano angioli immateriali.' Avery similar description of the Karaites, though morea ttentive to the present condition of the Karaitesi nt he diaspora can be found in Leon Modena, Historia de gli riti hebraici (Paris,1 637),f ifth part,c hapter one. Were the anonymous work QolS akhal ('The Voiceo ft he Fool')t ob ea ttributed to Modena we would find am uch moree nthusiastic appraisal of Karaism consideredt ob et he onlyo ne that preserved the correct revelation of Moses and did not fall intod ecline. The popularity of the Kuzari is attested to by at least two Italian translations, one by the chief rabbi of Florence, David Maroni (1810 -1888),⁴⁰ the second by Cesare Foà (1833 -1907) in 1872.⁴¹ Added to these two literary achievementsa re the numerous renditions of Halevi'sp oetry into Italian in the nineteenth century by towering figures of Italian Jewish intellectual life e. g. Cesare Rovighi (1820 -1890),⁴² Salvatore De Benedetti (1818 -1891),⁴³ or Giuseppe Barzilai (1824Barzilai ( -1902.⁴⁴ The most important representative of this Halevian revival is undoubtedlySamuelDavid Luzzatto whose affection for Halevi'spoetry appears throughout his oeuvre, from the publication of a poetic anthologyofJ udahH alevi, with notes and an introduction, under the title of anti-kabbalistic SamuelDavid Luzzatto,⁴⁷ shared an unblemished fondness for Judah Halevi'soeuvre, can be explainedasasurvival of acharacteristic Italian desire from the late Renaissance on to harmonise am oderate Maimonidism with af ideistic approach to religion influenced by Halevi.⁴⁸ However,Halevi'ss uccess among Italian Jews cannot be separated from his defence of the foundational value of the Oral Lawand the traditional building of Jewish faith. This alsoe xplains the strong engagement of Italian Jewishs cholars with the Maṭṭeh Dan written by David NietoaVenetian rabbi, living in London.⁴⁹ This book was published simultaneouslyi nH ebrew and Spanish in London in 1714,a long with as eparate edition in Hebrew and another exclusively in Spanish. While the first Kuzari was ad efence of the Written Law, David Nieto'ss econd Kuzari sets out to offer arguments in favour of the authenticity of the rabbinical tradition, against the attackso ft he Karaites.N eedless to say, these imaginary Karaites have little or nothing to do with the real Karaite communities living in Lithuania, Crimeaand different parts of the Ottoman empire during thattime. The Karaites David Nietotargets are none other than religious dissidents,m ostlyofC onverso origin, influenced by a critical approach towardthe Oral Law(torah she-be-'al-peh)ofthinkers such as Uriel da Costa(c. 1585 -1640), Juan (Daniel) de Prado (c. 1612-c. 1670), and most famously Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). It is noteworthyt hat, although neither Spinozism nor Karaite communities in the East werea pparentlyo fg reat concern for Italian Jews in the following century,the Maṭṭeh Dan,which had been alreadypartiallytranslated by Aviad Sar Shalom Basilea (c. 1680-1743/9), rabbi of Mantua, in the first half of the eighteenthc entury,⁵⁰ was rendered into Italian in at least two integralt ranslations; one by the aforementioned rabbi David Maroni in Florence, the other carried out between 1843a nd 1845u nder the title Dissertazione ed ifesa della legge orale ('Dissertation and Defence of the Oral Law')1 846 by Eliseo Pontremoli (1778 -1851), at that  Luzzatto'sc ritical comments to the first volumeo fG ideon Brecher's1 838e dition of the Kuzari wered eemed important enough by the editort ob ei ncluded in the second volume published the next year. Aside from the work'ss tatus as ar eference guide to Jewisht hought, it is clear that the interest manifested by Italian Jews concerning Halevi and Nieto does not derive so much from the factual information concerning the Karaites in theiro euvre, but from the possibility of providinga na pology of rabbinic Judaism. However,t he malleability of the figureo ft he Karaite, cut off from anyc oncrete referencet ot he real representativeso ft his community,a llowed its appropriation and instrumental use in different historical contexts. In the nineteenth century,i nac ontext of civil emancipation of the Jews and their progressive integration within society as a whole, Karaism reappears in the writingso fI talian Jews attemptingt od efine the characteristics and the role of Judaism in modernity.B ut while in the earlym odern eraJ ews tended to associate Karaism with deistic postures within the Jewishc ommunity and rationalist attacksa gainst tradition, in the nineteenth century Karaites werei ncreasingly singled out as as pecular imageo fc ontemporary Jewishr eform. Hence, Karaites are placed in the hot seat for the novelty of theirdoctrines and ignorance of Judaism, rather than for their alleged challenges against the Oral Law.

The Italian Wissenschaft des Judentums,t he Reform and the Karaites
In the nineteenth century,the Karaites return to the fore in Jewish intellectual debate in ac ompletelyn ew context dominatedb yt he oppositionb etween Reform and Orthodoxy.M ichael Meyer has noted that 'by reviving interest in Samaritans, Hellenizers, Essenes, Sadducees, and Karaites,Reformed Jews wereable to challengethe association of Judaism with Pharisaism, whose extension was the rabbinism that reigned at the time.'⁵³ Thereforei ti sn os urprise that the most often quoted works favourable to the Karaites are to be found among Reformers. Abraham Geiger,for instance, explicitlyr eferred to the Karaites as the prototype of the Reformed Jew. Conversely, in the orthodoxcamps, Karaites are accused of all the evils of modernity,irreligiosity and assimilation. TheGalician rabbiand scholarSolomon Judah Rapoport (1786 -1867) compared the strife and animosity of the Jewish reformers with the rift introduced within Judaism by Karaism and Sabbateanism.⁵⁴ AzrielH ildesheimer (1820 -1899) reintroduced the use of writing the name of the followers of Karaism in Hebrew as Qaraʽim with an 'Ayin insteado fw ith an Alef,i nsisting by such of a device on the divisive nature of this sect within Judaism (the Hebrew root Q.R.A means 'to rip'). Examples of this attitude against and in favour of 'Karaism' are widespread to such an extent that the Karaites became what DanielL asker called the 'Jewisho ther' par excellence.⁵⁵ Sometimes, the term 'Karaite' could be used by Reformed Jews as adouble-edged polemicalw eapon against conservative rabbis.Therefore, reformers such as Joseph Aub( 1804 -1880) or the aforementioned Abraham Geiger,i nw hose writingst he word 'Karaite' is av ery ambivalent concept and depends on his polemicalt argets, sometimesa ccuse their orthodoxc ounterparts of being Karaites for not being able to adaptt othe changingsituation of Jewish life and sticking to the letter of the Talmud.⁵⁶ What all these usesofthe word 'Karaite',pejorative or sympathetic, have in common, is thatthe Karaitehas become the figureofafracturedJ udaism in two opposite camps. It is worth quoting Marcus Jost'sexemplary imageofthe Karaites: 'Die Karaiten […]behaupten […]gegen die übrigen Juden dieselbe Stellung, wie die Protestanten gegend ie Katholiken, und die Schiiten gegend ie Sunniten.'⁵⁷ In the Germancultural domain, the Jewishworld is thereforeperceivedtobeasirremediablydivided as Christianitya nd Islam, torn by an inner war of religions.
Without insisting or believingi na nI talian Sonderweg,t he Karaite question in Italyisposited in aquite different form than in German lands. At the turn of the nineteenth century, even prior to the mobilisation of the first and second Kuzari by the nascent Orthodoxy and Reformers in German speaking landsand in England,⁵⁸ Karaites elicited ag ood deal of curiosity among Italian Jews. Thisc ould well have been the background for the rumours widelyc irculated in Europe claiming Italian Jews weretrying to implementsubstantial reformsofthe Jewish lawinspired by the spirit of Karaism. The rumours reached Abbé Henry Grégoire, and Italian rabbis werecompelled to issue blunt disclaimers dismissing such allegations.⁵⁹ Nevertheless, Gré-goire'sw ork praising the allegedly 'Karaiteb ent' of Italian Jews was translated into Italian by the Piedmontese JewS alomon Isaac Luzzati titled Osservazioni sullo stato degli ebrei in Francia eGermania (Casale Monferrato:Zanotti Bianco, 1806),⁶⁰ and the Jewishp ress of the period reviewed it favourably.⁶¹ At around the sametime Abraham Vita de Cologna (1755 -1832), vice-president of the Napoleonic Sanhedrin in 1808 and Great Rabbi of France, apost he was to hold until 1826, wroteas elf-defined 'anti-Karaite' treatise, that survivedo nlyi na1820 translation from French into Hebrew,t itled the Qerah a-Gever ('The Cockcrow'), by Elisha Pontremoli.⁶² Posing as ah istory of the Karaites and their literature,w hich to al arge degreei ti s, the Qerah a-Gever contains manya nti-Christian remarks and constitutes al ate offspring of ak ind of apologetic literature in defenceo ft he Oral Lawa gainst the criticism of Christian and Jewish sceptics.I nc hoosing to translate this work into Hebrew clearlyreveals Pontremoli'sinvolvement in religious polemics, as ubjectt ow hich he devoted as hort text, Wikkuaḥ Socrati be-'Inyanei ha-Emunah ('Socratic Dialogue on Faith'), and his engagement in Jewish apologetics against those inclined to reform Judaism in the name of ar estoration of the biblical purity, which the orthodoxc amp perceiveda sm odernm anifestations of Karaism. It is no coincidencet hatP ontremoli defines the despised Voltairea s' am odern Sadducee.' Despite this polemicala ttempt at disqualifying Karaism'sc laims to be the authentic representative of Judaism, Cologna'sw ork in Pontremoli'st ranslation makes aclear distinction between Karaism, as asect of Judaism in the times of Geonim and contemporary Karaites,described in the eight chapter as 'much less distinct from rabbaniteJ ews todaythan they wereinthe past,' expressing the hope of areconciliation with them in the near future, countering Christian attempts to increase the gapbetween the twoJewish groups.Cologna'streatise demonstrates agreater accuracy and deeper knowledge of real Karaism and the Karaited iaspora, and along with the traditional attacks to theirf aith present detailed description of theirl iterature, their beliefs and their customs. This is neither the first nor the onlyi nstance of an academic and less biased attitude concerning Karaism and Karaites. An earlier example of the curiosity attracted by this religious group is evidenced in the biblical studies inspired by the new methods of philologyand textual criticism is inarguablythe precious collection of Karaite manuscripts collected by the Venetian rabbi JacobR aphaelS araval (1708 -1782)i n the course of his numerous travels throughout Europe.⁶³ Saraval provided the abbot Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi (1742 -1831), professor of Oriental languages at the University of Parma, with the main bodyofinformation of Karaism thatappeared in his encyclopaedic work on the history of Jewishl iterature. De Rossi was able to correct and add new sources to the classical textbooks on Karaism written by Jacobus Trigland,Johann Gottfried Schupart(1677-1730), GustavP eringer and Johann Christoph Wolf (1683 -1739) thanks to Saraval'se ruditec ooperation, from whose collection he purchased several Karaitem anuscriptsf or the Palatine library in Parma.⁶⁴ Another bibliophile and book collector,Moise Beniamin Foà(1730 -1822), an important Jewishs cholar and merchant from Reggio wellc onnected to the European academic networks, wasable to bring part of Saraval'sKaraitecollection into the library holdingso ft he Duchyo fM odena.⁶⁵ Avery positive assessment of Karaism can be found in the chapters thirteen and fourteen of the reform project designed by Aron Fernandez (1761 -1828)(or Fernando -as he signed all of his works to Italianize his Iberian patronym) Progetto filosofico d'una completa riforma del culto ed ella educazionep olitico-morale del popolo ebreo (Tibériade, 1810; vere Florence: Marenigh, 1813) from Leghorn. Fernandezw as convinced that 'Karaites agree with the rest of the Jews in what concerns the fundamental points of religion.'⁶⁶ He admired theirf aith unburdenedo fu seless practices and dangerous superstitions that had entered into Judaism over centuries of wanderings among idolatrous cultures, but criticised Karaism for its 'austerity that makes it in manyp arts almost impracticable.'⁶⁷ Despite acurrent imagethat is to be proven incorrect by recent Karaism scholarship, Fernandez was among the first scholars to understand thatK araites,weren ot adepts of ap ure literal readingoft he Bible for they accepted parts of the Masoretic interpretation of the Scriptures,and thereforecould not be assimilated, basedonthe principle of sola scriptura, into Protestant hermeneutics.F ernandez is fullya ware that Karaism is far from being ad eistic and rational form of Judaism unlike the ver- sion of it he wishestospread among his contemporaries and warns against an excessive idealisation of Karaism.⁶⁸ Fernandez found an admirer of his radical project of reform in the otherwise moderate and observant rabbi of Gorizia, IsaacS amuelR eggio (1784 -1855), a main figure of the Wissenschaft des Judentums in Italya nd one of the founders of the rabbinicalc ollegeo fP adua. In 1852, Reggio published,u nder the title Beḥinat ha-Qabbalah ('Examination of the Tradition'), the work that he attributedt oL eon Modena,t he Qol Sakhal ('The Voice of the Fool'), at ext thatm entionst he Karaites in highlyf avourable terms.A ccordingt oH anan Gafni, that very particular kind of Karaism found in Reggio'swritingsc oncerns the legal authority of the Talmud, considered by Reggio as purelytheoretical, bearingnoconsequences for establishingthe Halakhah.⁶⁹ The onlybindingt ext for Reggio wast he Mishnah, thus relativizing the reverencethe Talmud was givenbyJews in the Middle Ages in the Diaspora. Forthis reason Solomon Judah Rapoport attacked Reggio dubbing him a 'Karaite'.⁷⁰ Besides Reggio, another central figure of Italian Judaism in the nineteenth century,S amuel DavidL uzzatto, displayeda ni ntense interest for Karaites cholarship and history.L ike Reggio, Luzzatto corresponded with the Russian KaraiteA braham Leonowicz (1780 -1851).⁷¹ Luzzatto dealsl engthilyo nt he origins of the Karaites in his lessons of Jewishh istory,o riginallyd elivered duringt he academic year 1830 -31 at the rabbinical collegei nP adua but publishedo nlyt wo decades later.⁷² His main goal is to demonstrate, against the Kuzari author'so pinion and the seventeenth century Dutch reform theologian JacobT rigland, that Karaism is posterior to the constitution of rabbinic Judaism. The question is not onlyascholarlyd iatribe, but alsow ho is to be considered the representative of the authentic and original Judaism and who is but al ater,c orrupted, reformed version of it.L uzzatto writes: In demonstrating his claim, Luzzatto puts forward four arguments. Firstly, that the Karaites are not mentioned in talmudic literature, secondly, the Karaites do not mention anyscholaroft heir schoolbefore Anan in the eighth century,thirdlyt hey have adopted the vocalic system of the rabbanitetradition of the Bible which Luzzatto believed was developed after the fifth centuryo ft he common era, and lastlyt hey observes tricter rules than rabbaniteJ ews in their matrimoniall aw.
However,without sharing the sympathies of Fernandez and Reggio towards the Karaites,L uzzatto insists thatK araism does not necessarilyc ontrast with what he deems the fundamental principles of faith of Judaism, to which he devotes his book Lezioni di Teologica dogmatica (Trieste: Coen, 1863). In line with his Italian predecessor,L uzzatto attemptst od rawa nh istorical portrayal of Judaism which in contradistinction to Christianity, has not been affected by religious schisms. Thus, he dismisses the Samaritans considering them as belongingt ot he Moabiten ation and not to be Jews. Of the Sadducees and the Boethusians Luzzatto insists their weight in Judaism has been almost completelyi rrelevant.Writing of these sects, active in the Second Temple period he states they were 'always numericallyfeeble and did not have anyp ublic impact.'⁷⁴ And as for the last and still existingJ ewish sect, the Karaites, after having demolished their claim to antiquity and allegedlysuperior adherencet ot he original meaning of the Scriptures,h ec oncludes: [A]lthough they negate the rabbinical traditions,they do not do it in an absolute manner,since their opposition to the sacred text of the lawi so nlya pparent.I nr eality they admit the immortality of the soul, and in practice they arethe most rigid observers of the Lawand of the Moral.⁷⁵ RabbaniteJ ews and Karaites are united in theirb asicb elief in ac ommon faith and both reject the sceptic attitude of modernity against religion, which is Luzzatto's main polemicalt arget.⁷⁶ In the writingsofAronF ernando, Isaac SamuelReggio, Samuel David Luzzatto, and others, the Karaite is not the figure of the classical schismatic, as say, the Protestant in the eyes of the Catholic, or the Reformed Jewinthose of the Orthodox. In a country such as Italy, that had not experiencedthe religious divides of other European regions,t he Karaites represented instead the fear of the possibilityo fs uch ad ivision. Within Italian Judaism thatwas moving towardsamore carefullydefined doxology, the doctrinal differences between Karaism and Rabbinical Judaism had to be neutralized. Jews in Italy, reformist leaning or not,wishedt om aintain af açade of unity.I nt he words of one of the main political leaders of Italian Jews in the nine- Luzzatto, Il giudaismo illustrato,3 7: 'Furono sempred ebolid in umeroedi credito pubblico.'  Ibidem: 'Ic araiti poi negano essi le tradizioni rabbiniche, ma non assolutamente, ma in quanto sembrano opporsi al sacro testod ella legge;a mmettono poi l'immortalità dell'anima, es ono nella pratica ip iù rigidi osservatori della Leggeed ella Morale.'  Luzzattoconsiders scepticism and not Karaism the main menacetothe unity of the Jewish people and devotes different sections (24t o2 7) of his Lezioni di Teologica dogmatica to undermining the spread of this dangerousa ttitude amongh is fellow Jews.
AreK araites Sceptics?T he Jewish Perception of Karaism in Nineteenth CenturyI taly velopment of Judaism, stressing that the coreo ft he dogmatic structure of Judaism, was shared by Karaites and Rabbanites,p ermitted Jews in Italyt of ind ac ommon ground in fighting what Morais,i nhis literary portrait of Luzzatto, labelled 'the corrosive effects of indifferentism and scepticism.' This tooexplains the transformation of Samuel David Luzzatto into aconsensual Jewishicon for all emancipated Jews, notwithstanding their personal positions in the spectrum of attitudes toward religion, tradition, and practice.The strongdrive to give ad ogmatic foundation to Judaism, one of the majorg oals of Luzzatto'si ntellectual endeavour,r esulted in av ision of the Jewishp olitical and religious bodya sf undamentally unified and impermeable to change. In the process, the Karaites' differences to normative Judaism could be domesticated and transformt heir imagef rom schismatics waiving the banner of scepticism against theirf ideistic antagonists (as was the case among Jews and Christians alike in ar eligiouslyd ivided Central and NorthernE urope) into ab ranch of the people of Israel, exotic but innocuous, confirming the universality and eternity of the Jewishf aith.
Are Karaites Sceptics? The Jewish Perception of Karaism in Nineteenth Century Italy