After a hearty breakfast, loving the rhubarb, we took a half hour journey to the castle of Grand Duke Vytautas. In 1397, the grand Duke brought 380 Karaite families from the Crimea to settle in Trakai to serve as guards. They spoke Turkish so could not be understood to tell secrets. They wrote Hebrew, wore tallit, and followed the Torah but not the Talmud. The Karaite don't identify as Jewish and were spared by the Nazis. There are 260 Karaite still living in Lithuania and they served us a very delicious lunch of food with Middle Eastern influence. For spouses, they go back to the 10,000 population still in Crimea, or to Palo Alto where the third branch reside.
Posts
When you come home, I will show you a memento of a Kairaite synagogue in Egypt that was given to Jonathan and Mary Minifie, and which they gave to me. I'm not a good blog reder so I can't exactly figure out the order in which you're writing, but I'm loving your reflections and keeping you in my mind and heart.
ReplyDeleteWonderful to know this!
DeleteBlog is just most recent first and back from there.