Drawing on the variety of archival sources in the host of European and Oriental languages, the book focuses on the history, ethnography, and convoluted ethnic identity of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites. The vanishing community of the Karaites, a non-Talmudic Turkic-speaking Jewish minority that had been living in Eastern Europe since the late Middle Ages, developed a unique ethnographic culture and religious tradition. The book offers the first comprehensive study of the dramatic history of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community in the twentieth century. Especially important is the analysis of the dejudaization (or Turkicization) of the community that saved the Karaites from horrors of the Holocaust.

Setting: The Crimean peninsula, the borderland between Europe and Asia, where East meets West. Become a guest of one of the Crimea's most enigmatic inhabitants: the Crimean Karaites. The Karaites are Jews who rely solely on the Hebrew Bible. Their enigmatic past still engenders debate and discussion: their supposed descendancy from the ancient Judeans, their association with the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and the nomadic Khazars, and the heated controversy surrounding their legal separation from the larger Jewish population in Russia fill the pages of this volume with the drama of intrigue, excitement, mystery, and redemption. Karaites Through the Travellers' Eyes makes you an eyewitness to the riveting story of the Karaites in the Crimea, through the words of those who witnessed this mystifying people first hand.