S
Sophia
Guest
THE HOFFMAN WIRE
Dedicated to Freedom of the Press,
Investigative Reporting and Revisionist History
Michael A. Hoffman II, Editor
Sept. 5, 2004
EXPLOSIVE KARAITE "HERESY" CENTERPIECE OF NEW BOOK
by Michael A. Hoffman II
This column online at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books
Karaites are one of the centerpieces of the action
in Cynthia Ozick's
latest novel, "Heir to the Glimmering World."
<br
But widespread knowledge
of Karaism's doctrine could seriously undercut
Christian fundamentalist
support for Judaism,
so why did Ozick dare dredge this fascinating but
intensely suppres
sed subject up?
The fact is, the so-called "heretical" creed of Karaism
is actually the
orthodox religion most Christians
believe
Judaism to be.
In other words,
Christians imagine that Judaism,
while rejecting Christ,
at least
strictly adheres to the Old Testament,
when in fact Judaism filters the
Old Testament through the gloss that is the Talmud,
with all its
lawyerly loopholes and nullification.
For Karaites, the Talmud is a distorting prism
which they reject in
favor of the doctrine of sola Scriptura (the Bible alone),
which is also
the classic Protestant position.
Hence the dilemma for Ozick: in opening
the Pandora's box of Karaite doctrine in her novel,
<b
r> is she helping to
unmask and undercut Judaism
at a time when Christian support for the
Jewish state is a critical constituent
in the success of Israeli policy?
The riddle is compounded when w
e consider
that Ozick herself is a
fervent Zionist.
In focusing on the confusion surrounding the identity
of who it is that
authentically represents the Old Testament religion --
Judaism or Karaism
--Ozick
is playing with themes of masquerade
and counterfeit that
enliven her narrative and unleash a powderkeg of controversy
beyond the
world of the novel itself.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>For example, revisionist historian Charles
Provan asserts that Nazi Reichminister
Heinrich Himmler spared Karaites
(who are ethnically Jewish)
from persecution,
because Himmler
distinguished between those Judaics
who follow the Old Testament
(benign)
from those who follow the Talmud (evil). <
br>
This distinction was not shared
by most of the rest of the Nazi hierarchy however,
who labeled Bolshevism a virus that originated
with Moses and culminated in Lenin.</span>
In using a well
-crafted work of fiction to highlight these issues,
Ozick is harkening to one of the most dynamic,
if tightly suppressed debates
of our time:
who it is that is the rightful heir of Yahweh's covenant:
Karaites, rabbis or Christians?
In my book, "Judaism's Strang
e Gods," I
have contended against the rabbinic position.
The sympathy which Ozick extends to the Karaites
and the corona of
mystery she invokes around them
cannot but help to heighten interest and
spark study of the Karaite/Judaism divide,
and if this was indeed
Ozick's intention, as seems likely,
her motive is itself a glittering
enigma several magnitudes above the ones she raises
in "Heir to the
Glimmering Wo
rld."
Other reviews:
'Heir to the Glimmering World':
Sects and the City, reviewed by John
Leonard New York Times Sunday Book Review Sept. 5 2004
Review excerpt:
...But also a g
rim parable about ''purifications'' --
by fundamentalist
ascetics like the Karaites,
repudiators of the rabbis and Talmudic
commentary...
I must tell you some things about the Karaites
that Ozick doesn't
because she can't;
precognition is against the rules.
Nobody knew it in
1935, but the Nazis would end up giving the Karaites a pass.
As
they had
earlier petitioned the czars of Russia,
arguing that they weren't even
Israelites and so couldn't possibly have been
Christ-killers, so the
Karaites persuaded Heinrich Himmler himself
to treat them like Turks and
Tatars.
They actually served in the Waffen SS.
If we dig deep in the archives,
we
even find opportunistic and
meretricious connections being faked
between Karaites and the Khazars,
those Turkish tribesmen between the Caucasus and the Volga,
the Black
Sea and the Caspian, who inexpli
cably converted to Judaism
around 740 A.D., causing books to be written
by Arthur Koestler and Milorad Pavic.
The head starts to hurt. You want to go to Target
and buy a red-string
cabala bracelet to charm off evil eyes.
...Almost the last thing Rose tells us concerns
Jacob al-Kirkisani (the
Karaite leader):
''He had seen the Ganges, he had defended Scripture
against the false adornments of men,
he had uncovered heresy in the
Godhea
d itself.
He had tunneled like a worm into Mitwisser's brain.
'His
bones were Mesopotamian dust,
yet they had permitted me to witness
ecstasy.' (End quote)
Toronto Globe and Mail Sept. 4, 2004 (excerpt):
Mitwisser studies Karaite
Judaism,
a heretical Jewish sect that accepts
only scripture,
rejecting the centuries of oral interpretation that
constitute the Talmud..." (End quote)
Newsday, Aug. 29: (excerpt):
...Ozick&#
39;s new novel, "Heir to the Glimmering World,"
delivers an almost
Victorian quota of cliffhangers and complexities.
Yet she is never, not
even for the span of a single page,
a meat-and-potatoes storyteller.
What matters most are the elaborations,
the aperus, the second thoughts,
all of them sublimely scribbled in the margins of her narrative.
In short, it's a Talmudic approach to fiction,
answering every question
with another question.
One of the great pleasures of Ozick's new novel -
and there are many
-
is the way this taste for Talmudic disputation
is woven into the very
heart of the story.
Among her multiple protagonists is a professo
r of
theological history, Rudolf Mitwisser,
expelled from his academic post
by the Nazis in 1933.
Fleeing Berlin with his family in tow, he makes
landfall in upstate New York.
There, under the auspices of a tiny Qua
ker
college, he pursues his obsessive investigation
of the Karaites, an
ancient Jewish sect.
And what is the credo of this splinter group?
It despises the Talmud
itself, with its "clamor of contradiction,"
its apotheosis of the
afterthought.
"All this," we read, "the Karaites refuse and deny.
In the
9th century, they become the rabbis' foes.
Scripture! they cry,
Scripture alone!
They will not tolerate rabbinic interpretation.
They
will not allow rabbinic commentary.
They scorn metaphor and the poetry
of inference.
Only the utterance of Scripture itself is the d
ivine
heritage!" (End quote)
"Judaism's Strange Gods"
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/cgi-bin/...ora.cgi?p_id=83
Dedicated to Freedom of the Press,
Investigative Reporting and Revisionist History
Michael A. Hoffman II, Editor
Sept. 5, 2004
EXPLOSIVE KARAITE "HERESY" CENTERPIECE OF NEW BOOK
by Michael A. Hoffman II
This column online at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books
Karaites are one of the centerpieces of the action
in Cynthia Ozick's
latest novel, "Heir to the Glimmering World."
<br
But widespread knowledge
of Karaism's doctrine could seriously undercut
Christian fundamentalist
support for Judaism,
so why did Ozick dare dredge this fascinating but
intensely suppres
sed subject up?
The fact is, the so-called "heretical" creed of Karaism
is actually the
orthodox religion most Christians
believe
Judaism to be.
In other words,
Christians imagine that Judaism,
while rejecting Christ,
at least
strictly adheres to the Old Testament,
when in fact Judaism filters the
Old Testament through the gloss that is the Talmud,
with all its
lawyerly loopholes and nullification.
For Karaites, the Talmud is a distorting prism
which they reject in
favor of the doctrine of sola Scriptura (the Bible alone),
which is also
the classic Protestant position.
Hence the dilemma for Ozick: in opening
the Pandora's box of Karaite doctrine in her novel,
<b
r> is she helping to
unmask and undercut Judaism
at a time when Christian support for the
Jewish state is a critical constituent
in the success of Israeli policy?
The riddle is compounded when w
e consider
that Ozick herself is a
fervent Zionist.
In focusing on the confusion surrounding the identity
of who it is that
authentically represents the Old Testament religion --
Judaism or Karaism
--Ozick
is playing with themes of masquerade
and counterfeit that
enliven her narrative and unleash a powderkeg of controversy
beyond the
world of the novel itself.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>For example, revisionist historian Charles
Provan asserts that Nazi Reichminister
Heinrich Himmler spared Karaites
(who are ethnically Jewish)
from persecution,
because Himmler
distinguished between those Judaics
who follow the Old Testament
(benign)
from those who follow the Talmud (evil). <
br>
This distinction was not shared
by most of the rest of the Nazi hierarchy however,
who labeled Bolshevism a virus that originated
with Moses and culminated in Lenin.</span>
In using a well
-crafted work of fiction to highlight these issues,
Ozick is harkening to one of the most dynamic,
if tightly suppressed debates
of our time:
who it is that is the rightful heir of Yahweh's covenant:
Karaites, rabbis or Christians?
In my book, "Judaism's Strang
e Gods," I
have contended against the rabbinic position.
The sympathy which Ozick extends to the Karaites
and the corona of
mystery she invokes around them
cannot but help to heighten interest and
spark study of the Karaite/Judaism divide,
and if this was indeed
Ozick's intention, as seems likely,
her motive is itself a glittering
enigma several magnitudes above the ones she raises
in "Heir to the
Glimmering Wo
rld."
Other reviews:
'Heir to the Glimmering World':
Sects and the City, reviewed by John
Leonard New York Times Sunday Book Review Sept. 5 2004
Review excerpt:
...But also a g
rim parable about ''purifications'' --
by fundamentalist
ascetics like the Karaites,
repudiators of the rabbis and Talmudic
commentary...
I must tell you some things about the Karaites
that Ozick doesn't
because she can't;
precognition is against the rules.
Nobody knew it in
1935, but the Nazis would end up giving the Karaites a pass.
As
they had
earlier petitioned the czars of Russia,
arguing that they weren't even
Israelites and so couldn't possibly have been
Christ-killers, so the
Karaites persuaded Heinrich Himmler himself
to treat them like Turks and
Tatars.
They actually served in the Waffen SS.
If we dig deep in the archives,
we
even find opportunistic and
meretricious connections being faked
between Karaites and the Khazars,
those Turkish tribesmen between the Caucasus and the Volga,
the Black
Sea and the Caspian, who inexpli
cably converted to Judaism
around 740 A.D., causing books to be written
by Arthur Koestler and Milorad Pavic.
The head starts to hurt. You want to go to Target
and buy a red-string
cabala bracelet to charm off evil eyes.
...Almost the last thing Rose tells us concerns
Jacob al-Kirkisani (the
Karaite leader):
''He had seen the Ganges, he had defended Scripture
against the false adornments of men,
he had uncovered heresy in the
Godhea
d itself.
He had tunneled like a worm into Mitwisser's brain.
'His
bones were Mesopotamian dust,
yet they had permitted me to witness
ecstasy.' (End quote)
Toronto Globe and Mail Sept. 4, 2004 (excerpt):
Mitwisser studies Karaite
Judaism,
a heretical Jewish sect that accepts
only scripture,
rejecting the centuries of oral interpretation that
constitute the Talmud..." (End quote)
Newsday, Aug. 29: (excerpt):
...Ozick&#
39;s new novel, "Heir to the Glimmering World,"
delivers an almost
Victorian quota of cliffhangers and complexities.
Yet she is never, not
even for the span of a single page,
a meat-and-potatoes storyteller.
What matters most are the elaborations,
the aperus, the second thoughts,
all of them sublimely scribbled in the margins of her narrative.
In short, it's a Talmudic approach to fiction,
answering every question
with another question.
One of the great pleasures of Ozick's new novel -
and there are many
-
is the way this taste for Talmudic disputation
is woven into the very
heart of the story.
Among her multiple protagonists is a professo
r of
theological history, Rudolf Mitwisser,
expelled from his academic post
by the Nazis in 1933.
Fleeing Berlin with his family in tow, he makes
landfall in upstate New York.
There, under the auspices of a tiny Qua
ker
college, he pursues his obsessive investigation
of the Karaites, an
ancient Jewish sect.
And what is the credo of this splinter group?
It despises the Talmud
itself, with its "clamor of contradiction,"
its apotheosis of the
afterthought.
"All this," we read, "the Karaites refuse and deny.
In the
9th century, they become the rabbis' foes.
Scripture! they cry,
Scripture alone!
They will not tolerate rabbinic interpretation.
They
will not allow rabbinic commentary.
They scorn metaphor and the poetry
of inference.
Only the utterance of Scripture itself is the d
ivine
heritage!" (End quote)
"Judaism's Strange Gods"
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/cgi-bin/...ora.cgi?p_id=83