MARRIAGE WITH KARAITES

A Karaite young girl, whose family comes from Egypt and who says she has always considered herself Jewish, asks a rabbi to officiate at her marriage with a Jewish young man. Shall he, as a Reform rabbi, officiate at the marriage? (From H. M. Y., Cherry Hill, New Jersey.)

THE status of the Karaites in Jewish law has shifted a number of times. Sometimes they are received and sometimes they are excluded; as for example, Isserles says plainly, we must not marry with them {Even Hoezer, 4:3 7) . No one questions that they are of Jewish descent, but the question involved from time to time is the question of their legitimacy. If their marriages were deemed invalid, then the children of course cannot be illegitimate in Jewish law, since a child born out of wedlock is not deemed illegitimate in Jewish law. Only a child born out of a union that cannot be legitimatized is illegitimate, such as a union between a man and a too close relative, or between a man and a woman married to someone else. So what is really held against the Karaites is that their marriages are deemed valid as a general rule, but their divorces are deemed invalid. Therefore, if a woman is divorced by Karaite law and remarried by Karaite law, her offspring of the second union will be illegitimate. This is the basis for their rejection.

But there is no doubt that emotions were involved. In periods when the groups were hostile to each other, the laws were strictly interpreted. Therefore nothing is to be gained for the present by following the ups and downs of the law. I can tell you simply that one of the greatest authorities, David ben Zimri of Egypt, who had more connection with Karaites perhaps than any other rabbi, is very liberal about them. (cf. A Treasury of Responsa, p. 122 ff.) In David ben Zimri’s responsum on marriage with a Falasha, he speaks by analogy about the Karaites, and he takes the general point of view that their marriages are deemed valid but their divorces are deemed invalid, and because of this, if any Karaite is a descendant from a woman remarried after a Karaite divorce, such a person may be deemed a mamzer and cannot marry a Jew.

This is precisely the burden under which the B’nai Israel labors in the state of Israel today. The Orthodox rabbis, on the analogy with the Karaites, consider their marriages valid and their divorces invalid. Therefore the group is under the suspicion of mamzerus.

However, David ben Zimri continues that nevertheless, many of the Karaites have intermarried with Jews, and he says that by the law of average, the likelihood of illegitimacy, i.e., the percentage of divorce and “remarriage” and of children from this “remarriage” is so small a percentage that they could be easily considered legitimate and should be accepted into the community. David ben Zimri concludes that he agrees with Maimonides’ son, the Nagid Abraham, that they should be received into the community. Similarly, Jacob Castro (died in Egypt 1610) contemporary of Joseph Caro, in his notes to Shulchan Aruch (Hilchos Gerim) said that Karaites simply must promise before a Beth Din that they will observe the oral law.

Beyond all this, there is a special consideration involved in the fact that we are Reform Jews. We accept the validity of civil divorce, at least in the United States. In some countries the Reform congregations give a form of divorce which really does not change the situation in the eyes of Orthodoxy, since these Reform divorces are considered by the Orthodox authorities as invalid (just like the Karaite divorces). Therefore we frequently marry people who are children of women who had been only civilly divorced and have remarried. The children of such a union are certainly illegitimate in Orthodox law. Yet we marry them without hesitation.

The reason for refusing a Karaite certainly does not have validity for Reformers. If we accepted the old ground for refusal, we could not marry a considerable percentage of people we do marry. Since the authorities agree that Karaite marriages are valid and Karaites are of Jewish descent, and since the only objection is the validity of their divorce and the consequences drawn from it, we should have no hesitation in officiating at the marriage of a Karaite and a Jew.

(Originally published in Central Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook, Vol. LXXV, 1965.)