1. See Ratzhabi, Jehudah, “New Poems of R. Yehudah Halevi” [in Hebrew], Sinai 113 (1993): 1–13Google Scholar. This article was prepared within the framework of the research project “The Karaites and Karaism as Portrayed in Medieval Rabbanite Sources: A Comparative Study and Translation of Judah Halevi's Kuzari,” sponsored by National Science Centre (NCN; grant Opus 10; no. 2015/19/B/HS2/01284; PI: Marzena Zawanowska). I presented its drafts at a research seminar at the Stockholm School of Theology (April 4, 2018), the 50^th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies (Boston, December 16–18, 2018), and the 19^th International Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies (University of Antwerp, July 1–4, 2019). Throughout the paper, all the citations from the Book of the Kuzari follow Barry S. Kogan and Lawrence V. Berman's translation, with slight modifications when necessary. I am very grateful to Prof. Kogan for sharing his work with me prior to its publication. I would also like to express my gratitude to Prof. Daniel Lasker for reading the final draft of this paper, suggesting certain improvements, and directing my attention to additional works.

2. According to Michael S. Berger, Halevi's “apparently free-flowing style has … allowed interpretations of the Kuzari to proliferate.” See Berger, Michael S., “Toward a New Understanding of Judah Halevi's Kuzari,” Journal of Religion 72, no. 2 (1992): 210CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a standard critical edition of the Kuzari, see Yehudah Halevi, The Book of Refutation and Proof on the Despised Faith (The Book of the Khazars) [in Arabic and Hebrew], ed. David Tzvi Baneth (David Hartwig) and Haggai Ben-Shammai (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977). For a thorough study of the Jewish reception of Halevi's work, see Shear, Adam, The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

3. For the title al-Kitab al-Khazari, see Halevi's letter preserved in the Geniza (referred to below). For the title Kitab al-Radd wa-al-Dalil fi al-Din al-Dhalil, see MS Cambridge T.-S. Arabic N.S. 308.86; for the title Kitab al-Hujja wa-al-Dalil fi Nasrat al-Din al-Dhalil, see MS Oxford, Bodleiana, Poc. 284. On the reconstruction of the title and its variants, see Halevi, The Book of Refutation, יב–יא. Cf. Nehemya Allony, “The Kuzari: A Jewish Polemical Response to the ‘Arabiyya’” [in Hebrew], ’Eshel Beer Sheva 2 (1980): 119–44; Jacob Levinger, “The Kuzari and Its Significance” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 40, no. 4 (1971): 472–82. For an early printed edition of Halevi's text under a shortened Hebrew title (Kuzar instead of Kuzari), see Yehudah Halevi, Sefer ha-Kuzar (Fano: Gerszom Soncino, 1506). Cf. Magdalena Bendowska, “Printed Editions of The Book of the Kuzari from the 16th to 18th Century” [in Polish], Jewish History Quarterly 271, no. 3 (2019): 548–54; Shear, The Kuzari, 48.

4. For a view that it was chiefly an antiphilosophic or antirationalistic treatise, see, e.g., Isaac Husik, A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1946). Leo Strauss argues that it was intended as an apologetic defense of faith against reason. See Leo Strauss, “The Law of Reason in the Kuzari,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 13 (1943): 47–96. For a suggestion that it was, after all, a theological treatise on divine attributes, see David Neumark, Essays in Jewish Philosophy (Cincinnati, OH: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1929). For an opinion that the work conveyed an apologetic defense of Judaism, see e.g., Levinger, “The Kuzari and Its Significance”; Eliezer Schweid, “Criticism of Aristotelianism in the Middle Ages” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1962), 1:17–96; and Schweid, History of Jewish Philosophy [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1968), 122–77. For an argument that it was a critique of bourgeois society in al-Andalus, see Abraham ibn Daud, A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah), ed. and trans. Gerson D. Cohen (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1967), 293–302, esp. 300. For an opinion that it was an eschatological, messianic text, see Ben-Zion Dinaburg (Dinur), “Rabbi Yehudah Halevi's Aliyah to the Land of Israel and the Messianic Ferment of His Age,” in Offering to David: A Collection of Papers in Jewish Studies Presented to R. David Yellin on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Simha Assaf, Ben-Zion Dinaburg, and Samuel Klein (Jerusalem: Va‘ad Ha-yuval, 1935); repr. in Ben-Zion Dinur, Historical Writings [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1975), 2:232–36. For a study emphasizing the mystical aspects of this text, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Merkavah Traditions in Philosophical Garb: Judah Halevi Reconsidered,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 57 (1990–1991): 179–242. For an argument that the Kuzari was a polemical response to Baḥya ibn Pakuda's opus magnum, Kitab Dara'ib al-Qulub (The book of the duties of the hearts), see Ehud Krinis, Baḥya Ibn Paqūda and Judah Halevi: Radical Judeo-Andalusian Thinkers in Conflict (forthcoming). I am grateful to the author for having permitted me to read this insightful and inspiring text prior to its publication.

5. See Shelomo Dov Goitein, “Autographs of Yehuda Halevi” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 25, no. 4 (1956): 409; Mordechai A. Friedman, “Judah Ha-Levi on Writing the Kuzari: Responding to a Heretic,” in “From a Sacred Source”: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif, ed. Ben Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 159. Cf. David H. Baneth, “Some Remarks on the Autograph of Yehudah Halevi and the Genesis of the Kuzari” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 26, no. 3 (1957): 297–303; Shelomo Dov Goitein, “The Biography of Rabbi Judah Ha-Levi in Light of the Cairo Genizah Documents” [in Hebrew], Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 28 (1959): 41–56. Cf. also Fred Astren, Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004), 198, where Astren argues that “all of part 3 can be read as an anti-Karaite argument.” Salo W. Baron claims that “the very forces of religious Jewry were divided by the increasing onslaught of Karaism, which constituted a problem of sufficient gravity for Halevi to spend a substantial portion of his philosophic work in combating its doctrines.” See Salo W. Baron, “Yehudah Halevi: An Answer to an Historic Challenge,” Jewish Social Studies 3 (1941): 253. Joseph Yahalom, in Yehuda Halevi: Poetry and Pilgrimage (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2009), 94, maintains that “it is possible to see the king of the Khazars as the convert representative of the Karaites.” (On pp. 95–97, he offers an analysis of the Geniza letter and proposes that the Kuzari was written in response to a Karaite convert.) A similar hypothesis was put forward few decades earlier by Howard L. Apothaker in his inspiring (but hardly accessible) master's thesis. See Howard L. Apothaker, “Khazars and Karaites in Halevi's Kuzari” (master's thesis, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, 1980). I am grateful to Dr. Marc Herman for bringing it to my attention and kindly sharing a copy of this work with me (unfortunately, only after the completion of this paper). According to Shelomo Goitein, David Baneth, and Mordechai Friedman, as well as Eliezer Schweid, only the third chapter was directed against the Karaites. Developing this thesis, Yochanan Silman claimed that this chapter was written first. See Yochanan Silman, Philosopher and Prophet: Judah Halevi, the Kuzari and the Evolution of His Thought [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1985); trans. Lenn J. Schramm (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995). However, according to Berger, “Toward a New Understanding,” 213, Goitein, Baneth, Schweid, and Silman “all reject the notion that the revised Kuzari retained its original and exclusive anti-Karaite aim.”

6. For an argument that the Jewish heretics (Ar. khawārij; lit. “dissenters,” “rebels”) mentioned at the beginning of the book were the Karaites, see Daniel J. Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” in From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding: Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Nahum M. Sarna (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989), 112n4; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” in From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyatchi: Studies in Late Medieval Karaite Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 141n3.

7. See Astren, Karaite Judaism; Golda Akhiezer, Historical Consciousness, Haskalah and Nationalism of Eastern European Karaites [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2016), trans. David B. Greenberg (Leiden: Brill, 2018). Cf. Samuel Poznański, introduction to Zekher Ẓadikim: A Historical Chronicle of Mordekhai (ben Josef) Sułtański [in Polish] (Warsaw: Ha-ẓefirah, 1920), 5–69.

8. See Akhiezer, Historical Consciousness; Astren, Karaite Judaism, 192–201; Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism.” For an important unpublished study, see Apothaker, Khazars and Karaites.

9. For an explanation of the term “branches” (Ar. furū‘) in this context as “details and particulars derived from more general pronouncements of the Torah,” and “roots” (Ar. uṣūl) as “elemental toraitic halakha,” see Astren, Karaite Judaism, 199. Marc Herman argues that this word (Ar. furū‘) was specifically used in al-Andalus to denote the rabbinic derivation of new laws as opposed to prophetically reveled ones (Ar. uṣūl). See Marc Herman, “Situating Maimonides’ Approach to the Oral Torah in Its Andalusian Context,” Jewish History 31 (2017): 39–41.

10. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 139. Cf. Piotr Muchowski, “Essenes and Karaites: The Problem of the Genesis of Karaism in the Pronouncements of the Polish Karaites” [in Polish], Scripta Biblica et Orientalia 4 (2012): 201.

11. In Kuzari 3:65, Halevi reports: “The sage said: … After that came the era of Simon the Just, a High Priest, and the students and companions who followed him. After him came Antigonos of Sokho, a well-known figure. Among his disciples were Zadok and Boethus, who were the original dissenters (Ar. aṣl^an li-’l-khawārij). The Sadducees and Boethusians were named after them.” Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 138.

12. The term minim appears also in Kuzari 3:19, but with no reference to Karaism.

13. On this division, see Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 113; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 142. For an assessment that “this portion of the Kuzari functions as heresiography, succinctly contextualizing the Sadducees, Boethusians, Christians, and Karaites into rabbinic history and clearly establishing distinct origins for each,” see Astren, Karaite Judaism, 198.

14. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 138.

15. Until Halevi's times, Jewish authors had treated the Sadducees and the Karaites as different manifestations of heresy in the history of Israel. Although some of them had claimed—evidently for polemical purposes—that ‘Anan (the alleged founding father of Karaism) recruited his followers from among the remnants of ancient sectarians, this does not mean that they had assumed any continuity, or direct connection, between the two temporally distant religious phenomena. It is only since the second half of the twelfth century (viz., more or less, after the appearance of Halevi's work, dated c. 1140), that the word “Sadducee” began to serve as a synonym for the term “Karaite.” So it was used inter alios by Abraham ibn Ezra (1089/1090–1164?) and Naḥmanides (1194–1270). See Marzena Zawanowska, “From Yūsuf al-Baṣīr to Judah Halevi: The Sadduccean Myth of the Origins of Karaism in Medieval Rabbanite Sources Revisited,” Medieval History Journal (forthcoming).

16. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 130.

17. See Muhammad Hawary, The Differences between the Karaites and the Rabbanites in the Light of Genizah MSS [in Arabic] (Cairo: Dar el Zahraa, 1994), 94–95. We read there, “My aversion to the Rabbanites, however, was only due to what I saw in their books, the diversity of interpretations, the controversies and the disputes. But I really sank into the mire because of a group quite small in number, but with the most violent disputes, abominable interpretations, disgraceful ignorance, and the most vile separateness. For they adhere to a position which can be summarized by their statement [Ar. kalimatuhum] One Torah and one law [Num 15:16]. They repudiate any book written according to the traditional interpretation [Ar. sunna] and not [according to] the Written Torah [Ar. al-Torah al-maktūba]. They, however, produce a variety of books, differing explanations, and mutually contradictory interpretations. [This began] with ʿAnan and [continued] with Benjamin [al-Nahawandi] and Malik [al-Ramli], one after the other, until Abu Hatim al-Dhahabi, and until this Ramlite, Isra'il ben Daniel.”

18. According to Muslim political theory, the unity of God is reflected in the caliph (in Sunnism) or the imam (in Shi‘ism) as head of the community (Ar. umma), whose unity is threated by civil wars and dissention, or sedition (Ar. fiṭna).

19. Halevi's choice of vocabulary (i.e., the fact that he calls Karaism a madhab) is revealing, given that in Sunni Islam the term is used to denote one of the four equally orthodox and acceptable schools of law. Yet, it ought to be noted that he was not the first to do so, as Sa‘adiah had already done so. See Yudah Seewald, Kitab al-Radd ‘ala ‘Anan (Rav Sa‘adiah Gaon's Book of Polemics against ‘Anan), in Koveẓ ḥiẓe giborim (New York: Mekhon Plitat Sofrim, 2016), 9:36–37 [Arabic], 52–54 [Hebrew].

20. See Ya‘qub al-Qirqisani, Kitab al-Anwar wa-’l-Maraqib: Code of Karaite Law, ed. Leon Nemoy (New York: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1939–1943), 1:14 (2:21); Bruno Chiesa and Wilfrid Lockwood, Ya‘qub al-Qirqisani on Jewish Sects and Christianity: A Translation of “Kitab al-anwar,” book I, with Two Introductory Essays (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1984), 104; Leon Nemoy, “Al-Qirqisānī's Account of the Jewish Sects and Christianity,” Hebrew Union College Annual 7 (1930): 330. Cf. Astren, Karaite Judaism, 94, 96, 170.

21. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 90. Dov Schwartz argues that the novelty of Halevi's approach was in the fact that he was the first to suggest the possibility of gaining the hereafter in this world and that his thought, combining eschatological elements typical of Sa‘adiah's approach with the idea of individual redemption promulgated by Maimonides, constitutes a missing link in the historical development of the messianic idea in Judaism. See Dov Schwartz, “The Messianic Idea in the Doctrine of Yehudah Halevi and Its Reception by the Commentators of the [Book] of the Kuzari in Provence” [in Hebrew], Sefunot 21 (1993): 11–39. For more on Halevi's views on eschatology, see Daniel J. Lasker, “Judah Halevi on Eschatology and Messianism,” in Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo-Arabic Culture, ed. Benjamin H. Hary and Haggai Ben-Shammai (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 85–106.

22. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 90.

23. See Eliezer Schweid, Feeling and Speculation [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Masada, 1970), 37–79 (esp. 48–54), 90–112. For an argument that Halevi's critique was directed against Jewish Sufis rather than the Karaites, see Ehud Krinis, “The Arabic Background of the Kuzari” [in Hebrew], Pe‘amim 132 (2016): 171–236; Krinis, “The Arabic Background of the Kuzari,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 21, no. 1 (2013): 14. Max Wiener, in “Judah Halevi's Concept of Religion,” Hebrew Union College Annual 23 (1950–1951): 679, claims that “the Karaites against whom Judah Halevi polemicized evoked issues that were purely theoretical.”

24. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 110–11.

25. For an interpretation of this parable according to which its aim is to convey the message that “what is distinctive in the Jewish idea of the aim of life, sharply distinguishing it from other monotheistic ideals, is its rootedness in this world,” see Lenn E. Goodman, “Judah Halevi,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman (London: Routledge, 1997), 205–6.

26. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 112–13.

27. Ibid., 135.

28. Joshua Blau, ed., The Responsa of Maimonides [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1989), 2:729–32. Cf. also Daniel L. Lasker, “Maimonides and the Karaites: From Critic to Cultural Hero,” in Maímónides y su época, ed. Carlos del Valle Rodriguez, Santiago García-Jalón de la Lama, and Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, 2007), 311–25.

29. For a study of Sa‘adiah Gaon's position in these debates (as a precursor of Halevi), see Moshe Zucker, “Fragments from Rav Saadya Gaon's Commentary to the Pentateuch” [in Hebrew], Sura 2 (1955–1956): 330–31, 347; Zucker, “Fragments from Kitab Taḥṣil al-Shara‘i al-Sama‘iyah to Sa‘adiah Gaon” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 41, no. 4 (1971–1972): 383–86. Cf. Diana Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha-Levi's Kuzari (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000), 56–63. Cf. also Marzena Zawanowska, “Reconstructing the Past and Conceptualizing the Jewish “Other”: How the Babylonian Geonim Contributed to the Creation of the Founding Myth of Karaism,” History of Religions (forthcoming).

30. On Halevi's epistemological skepticism, which did not mean that “he wished to abandon the rational approach to life,” but rather that “notwithstanding his sharp critique of the prevalent rationalist trends in Arabian thought … [he] remained basically a rationalist to the end of his life,” and that as a rationalist “he argued that human cognition is wholly inadequate for the task of penetrating the deep mysteries of existence,” see Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 259.

31. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 120.

32. The investigation of the extent to which Halevi's position was informed by Muslim jurisprudence goes beyond the scope of this paper. It appears that the accusation of practicing ijtihād is purely rhetorical, given that when the Kuzari was written, it ceased to be a reality among the Karaites. For an argument that “the allusion to Karaite anarchy was already anachronistic by Halevi's time,” since the use of ijtihād, which had led to this anarchy, was discontinued by the Karaites who also adopted the concept of tradition, see Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 119, 121; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 147–48, 150. For a discussion of Halevi's ambiguous use of an analogous term, qiyās, not only in terms of its negative, but also its positive aspects, see Daniel J. Lasker, “Arabic Philosophical Terms in Judah Halevi's Kuzari” [in Hebrew], in Heritage and Innovation in Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Culture: Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies, ed. Joshua Blau and David Doron (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000), 161–66.

33. He states there (Kuzari 3:73): “Now I do not deny, O king of the Khazars, that there are things in the Talmud about which I cannot convince you, nor can I even prove that they belong to a [single] domain. They are the things which the Talmud simply brought together because of the diligent effort [Ar. ijtihād] of the disciples [of the sages], since they held to the view that even the ordinary conversation of the sages requires study [B. Avodah Zarah 19b; B. Sukkah 21b]. Their sole intent was to state only what they had heard from their masters, while at the same time making a diligent effort [Ar. ijtihād] to pass on everything that they had heard from their masters. In that regard they were also intent on [reporting] their exact words. Now sometimes they did {not} understand what they meant, and so they said, ‘Thus, we were told, and [thus,] we have heard.’ But sometimes, the master had certain aims with regard to that subject, which were concealed from his students. And so, the matter [in question] reached us, and we attached no importance to it because we did not know his aim. However, all of this pertains to what is neither permitted nor forbidden. Therefore, [practically speaking,] we need not be concerned with it. Nor will it harm the work [if we adopt this stance], notwithstanding the different viewpoints that we have mentioned.” Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 146.

34. Ibid., 121–22.

35. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 55–56.

36. For an argument that it was mainly intended to defend the Andalusian Jewish way of life, see Cohen, Book of Tradition, 300.

37. Daniel Lasker writes that “according to Halevi, the fact that Karaites try harder (i.e., they use idjtihād) is a sign of their ultimate weakness.” See Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 119; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 147–48.

38. In Kuzari 3:65, Halevi states: “As for the Karaites, they exercise independent judgment concerning the roots [of the Law and] engage in intellectual speculation with regard to the branches. Sometimes, the corruption even crosses over into the roots, but out of ignorance on their part, not intentionally [Ar. lā qaṣad^an].” For a view that “the Kuzari is written with more than a hint of respect toward them [= Karaites]. … The Kuzari stresses repeatedly the good intentions and zeal of the Karaites, and so, too, their method of biblical interpretation, which was close to the plain (literal) approach, was praised (The Kuzari, 3, 22),” see Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 94.

39. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 229.

40. See Silman, Philosopher and Prophet, 283–85. Cf. Krinis, “Arabic Background of the Kuzari,” 50.

41. See Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism.” Cf. Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 261: “These historical truths [= the Sinaitic revelation amplified in many details by direct divine communications to individual men from Adam to Moses before it and to the Israelite prophets thereafter], to be sure, must not conflict with human reason.”

42. See Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 94.

43. See Krinis, “Arabic Background of the Kuzari,” 39.

44. For a study of the uniquely Andalusian understanding of this adage, see Herman, “Maimonides’ Approach.”

45. See Marzena Zawanowska, “David in Judah Halevi's Book of the Kuzari: A Reconciliation Project,” in Warrior, Poet, Prophet and King: The Character of David in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ed. Marzena Zawanowska and Mateusz Wilk (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

46. Interestingly, the first chapter of the Kuzari, as pointed out by Daniel Lasker, “is based solely on the biblical text, without recourse to rabbinic literature.” See Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 115; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 144. Cf. Astren, Karaite Judaism, 199n64.

47. According to the traditional account, first cited in the sixteenth century by Rabbi Gedalyah in his Shalshelet ha-kabbalah (Chain of tradition), this trip led to his death. On the centrality of the Jewish people, the Hebrew language, and the Land of Israel in Halevi's thought, see, e.g., Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 263. On the importance of other categories, such as the Jewish rituals and way of life, the history of Israel and its wisdom, God, His revelation (the Torah), and His Temple, see Wiener, “Judah Halevi's Concept of Religion,” 674–75, 678.

48. See Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 93–94.

49. Ibid., 130.

50. On the idea of ṣafwa and its reception in Halevi's treatise, see Ehud Krinis, “The Idea of the Chosen People in Judah Halevi's al-Kitāb al-Khazari and Its Origins in the Shī‘ī Imām Doctrine” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2008); Krinis, God's Chosen People: Judah Halevi’s Kuzari and the Shī‘ī Imām Doctrine, trans. Ann Brener and Tamar Liza Cohen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014); Krinis, “The Legitimist Inheritance Question and the Formation of the Idea of the Chosen People in Judah Halevi's Kuzari” [in Hebrew], in Spiritual Authority: Struggles over Cultural Power in Jewish Thought, ed. Haim Kreisel, Boaz Huss, and Uri Ehrlich (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2009). On the Karaite Mourners of Zion's self-description as the righteous remnant (Heb. she'erit), see, e.g., Salomon ben Yeruḥam's (or Yeroḥim's) commentary on Psalms 69:1 in Lawrence Marwick, The Arabic Commentary of Salmon ben Yeruham the Karaite on the Book of Psalms, Chapters 42–72 (Philadelphia: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1956), 97–98. Cf. Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2^nd ed. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1957), 5:232; Yoram Erder, The Karaite Mourners of Zion and the Qumran Scrolls; On the History of an Alternative to Rabbanite Judaism [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uḥad, 2004), trans. Yaffah Murciano (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), 37–38; Simḥa Pinsker, Lickute Kadmoniot. Zur Geschichte des Karaismus und der karäischen Literatur [in Hebrew] (Vienna: Della Torre, 1860), 1:21.

51. I am grateful to Daniel Lasker for bringing this distinction to my attention. On the Karaites’ self-perception as a community that was forced in the past to remain in hiding, see Yefet ben ‘Eli's comment on Zechariah 5:9–11, where he declares: “The supporters of truth [Ar. ahl al-ḥaqq] had been subdued and [made] invisible [presumably, by the majority who embraced the Oral Torah] until the time of the appearance of the little horn [= Muhammad; Daniel 7:8], who … enabled [selected] individuals from [the children of] Israel to disclose something of the truth in the kingdom of the little horn [= Muslim empire].” I am grateful to Kees de Vreugd for having permitted me to read his edition of Yefet's commentary on Zechariah prior to its publication.

52. On the Karaites’ presence on the Iberian Peninsula, see Cohen, Book of Tradition, XLVI–L; Daniel J. Lasker, “Karaism in Twelfth-Century Spain,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 1 (1992): 179–95; Judah Rosenthal, “Karaites and Karaism in Western Europe” [in Hebrew], in Studies and Texts in Jewish History, Literature and Religion, ed. Judah Rosenthal (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1967), 1:241. Cf. also Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 118n32 and further references there; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 147n33 and further references there.

53. See Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 66.

54. Ratzhabi, “New Poems.” Cf. Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 65.

55. Halevi's ambivalent attitude toward the Karaites has already been suggested by Daniel Lasker, who indicates many parallels between Karaites and philosophers, especially in terms of the use of logic instead of tradition, and points out that both “held a certain attraction for Halevi,” which resulted in his ambiguous attitude toward both these groups. See Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 125; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 154.

56. Gerson D. Cohen claimed that in the Kuzari, Halevi attacked Jewish (bourgeois) society in al-Andalus. See Cohen, Book of Tradition, 300. For an argument that the king of the Khazars stands for a representative of courtier society in al-Andalus, see Daniel J. Lasker, “What Did the King of the Khazars Know and When Did He Know It?” [in Hebrew], in A Tribute to Hannah: Jubilee Book in Honor of Hannah Kasher, ed. Avi Elqayam and Ariel Malachi (Tel Aviv: Idra, 2018), 119–28.

57. On Halevi's alleged racism or nationalism, see, e.g., Cedric Dover, “The Racial Philosophy of Jehuda Halevi,” Phylon 13, no. 4 (1952): 312–22; Yair Schiffman, “More on the Subject of Yehudah Halevi's Racism” [in Hebrew], Ba-mikhlalah 9 (1998): 65–82. Cf. Stanley F. Chyet, “Yehuda Halevi: The Consolations of Utopia,” in Bits of Honey: Essays for Samson H. Levey, ed. Stanley F. Chyet and David H. Ellenson (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993), 155–56. On the Muslim sources of Halevi's racial ideas, see Krinis, “Idea of the Chosen People”; Krinis, God's Chosen People; Krinis, “Legitimist Inheritance Question,” 47–70. Cf. Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 263–66, 273 (“extreme racialism of Halevi”; “[his] extreme racialist contentions”; “his racism”); Wiener, “Judah Halevi's Concept of Religion,” 673–74 (“of all Jewish thinkers, Judah Halevi was the most ardently nationalistic”). For an argument that, according to Halevi, a convert cannot reach the same level as a genetic Jew, see Daniel Lasker, “Proselyte Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Thought of Judah Halevi,” Jewish Quarterly Review 81, nos. 1–2 (1990): 75–91.

58. David Hartwig (Zvi) Baneth, “Judah Halevi and al-Ghazali,” in Studies in Jewish Thought: An Anthology of German Jewish Scholarship, ed. Alfred Jospe (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1981), 198.

59. Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 65.

60. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 108.

61. For more on Halevi's dream of reunification, see Apothaker, “Khazars and Karaites.”

62. For such a dream expressed by Salomon ben Yeruḥam (or Yeroḥim), see Israel Davidson, ed., Book of the Wars of the Lord: Containing the Polemics of the Karaite Salmon ben Yeruḥam against Saadia Gaon [in Hebrew] (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1934), 131.

63. For an assessment that “more than anyone else Halevi was sensitive to the inner and external forces of disintegration,” and that “the Al-Khazari undertook to redefine Judaism to both the outside world and its own adherents with due cognizance of the contemporary crisis,” see Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 253, 257.

64. Berger, “Toward a New Understanding,” 220.

65. See a passage from Kuzari 3:53 cited above. Cf. Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 64.

66. Cf. Ibid.

67. On Halevi's literary artistry, see Eliezer Schweid, “The Literary Structure of the First Book of the Kuzari” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 30, no. 3 (1961): 257–62; Schweid, Feeling and Speculation. On the use of irony, subversion, and other rhetorical strategies, see also Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy, 162–64.

68. It should be noted that Karaite scripturalism remained both an epistemological premise and a declared precept even after Karaites developed their own idea of tradition. In addition, the emergence of Karaite tradition is marked first in the middle of the eleventh century by Tobiah ben Moses, and it is difficult to demonstrate that concept of tradition was present among the Karaites before 1141 (the date of Halevi's death) and/or that it held sway among Karaites in Spain. See Akhiezer, Historical Consciousness, 34–39; Astren, Karaite Judaism, 175–78.

69. See Herman, “Maimonides’ Approach.”

70. On Ibn Kammunah and his treatise, see Nemoy, Leon, “Ibn Kammunah's Treatise on the Differences between the Rabbanites and the Karaites,” Jewish Quarterly Review 63 (1972–1973): 97–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 222–46 [English translation]; Nemoy, , “Ibn Kammunah's Treatise on the Differences between the Rabbanites and the Karaites,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 36 (1968): 107–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar [Arabic original]; Nemoy, , “Notes on Ibn Kammunah's Treatise on the Differences between the Rabbanites and the Karaites” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 24, no. 3 (1955): 343–53Google Scholar. The first edition of this work (including numerous errors) was prepared by Hartwig Hirschfeld, see Arabic Chrestomathy in Hebrew Characters with a Glossary [in Arabic and Hebrew] (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1892), 69–103. On the role of Ibn Kammunah's work in establishing the correct reading of the Judeo-Arabic original of Judah Halevi's Book of the Kuzari, see ibid., 343.

71. See Rustow, Marina, Heresy and Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

72. Although the correspondence between early twelfth-century Spain and Fatimid Egypt may illuminate sociohistorical setting of Halevi's ambiguity toward the Karaites, its study goes beyond the scope of the paper devoted to the Kuzari.

73. It is not possible to simply identify the sage's view with those of Halevi; see Strauss, “Law of Reason,” 53 and n. 17 there. For an identification of the king of Khazars with an Andalusian Jew, see Lasker, “What Did the King of the Khazars Know?,” 128.

74. For example, Halevi puts into the mouth of the Khazar king words of criticism against Jewish (Rabbanite) hypocrisy and life in the Diaspora (see, e.g., Kuzari 2:22–24) to which we know from his poetry he himself subscribed. See, e.g., his poem “Devareikha be-mor ʿover rekuḥim” (Your words are compounded of myrrh). Cf. Schirmann, Hayyim (Jefim), The History of Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain. Edited, Supplemented and Annotated by Ezra Fleischer [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1995–1996), 463Google Scholar. For more on this poem in the context of Halevi's ideological debates with the Karaites, see Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 92–97.