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-