Abraham ben Samuel Firkovich (Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 אברהם בן שמואל - Avraham ben Shmuel; Crimean Karaim

Karaim language

The Karaim language is a Turkic language with Hebrew influences, in a similar manner to Yiddish or Ladino. It is spoken by Crimean Karaites – ethnic Turkic adherents of Karaite Judaism in Crimea, Lithuania, Poland and western Ukraine...

: Аврагъам Фиркович - Avragham Firkovich) (1786–1874) was a famous leader of the Qarays (Crimean Karaites

Crimean Karaites

The Crimean Karaites , also known as Karaim and Qarays, are a community of ethnic Turkic adherents of Karaite Judaism in Eastern Europe...

). He was born in Lutsk

Lutsk

Lutsk is a city located by the Styr River in northwestern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Volyn Oblast and the administrative center of the surrounding Lutskyi Raion within the oblast...

, Volhynia

Volhynia

Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...

, then lived in Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

, and finally settled in Çufut Qale

Çufut Qale

Çufut Qale sometimes spelled as Chufut Kale is a historic fortress in Crimea, near Bakhchisaray. Its name is Crimean Tatar and Turkish for "Jewish Fortress" . Çufut Qale was historically a center for the Crimean Karaite community...

, Crimea

Crimea

Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...

. Firkovich was a communal leader and hakham

Hakham

Hakham is a term from Judaism, meaning a wise or skillful man; it often refers to someone who is a great Torah scholar. The word is generally used to designate a cultured and learned person: "He who says a wise thing is called a wise man ["hakham"], even if he be not a Jew"...

. He is best known as a collector of manuscripts and amateur archeologist. In Karaite circles he is sometimes known by the acronym "ABen ReSheF" (from "Abraham ben Rabbi Shemuel Firkovich").

Biography

In 1818 Firkovitch was hazzan

Hazzan

A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

 of his native city, an office which among both Karaites and Rabbinites includes that of cantor, reader, teacher, and minister. In 1828 he lived in Berdichev, and had controversies with some Rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

nite Jews, the result being his anti-rabbinical work Masah u-Meribah (Eupatoria

Eupatoria

Yevpatoria or Eupatoria is a city in Crimea, Ukraine.-History:The first recorded settlement in the area, called Kerkinitis , was built by Greek colonists around 500 BC...

, 1838). In later years when he became closely connected with the Rabbinites, he repudiated the sentiments contained in that pamphlet. In 1830 he visited Jerusalem, where he collected many Karaite and Rabbinite manuscripts. On his return he remained two years in Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, as teacher in the Karaite community. He then went to Crimea

Crimea

Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...

 and organized a society to publish old Karaite works, of which several appeared in Eupatoria

Eupatoria

Yevpatoria or Eupatoria is a city in Crimea, Ukraine.-History:The first recorded settlement in the area, called Kerkinitis , was built by Greek colonists around 500 BC...

 with comments by him. In 1838 he was the teacher of the children of Sima Babovich

Sima Babovich

Sima ben Salomon Babovich was a Hakham of the Crimean Karaites, one of the early figures in the Karaim movement....

, the head of the Russian Karaites, who one year later recommended him to Count Vorontzov

Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov

Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov , was a Russian prince and field-marshal, renowned for his success in the Napoleonic wars, and most famous for his participation in the Caucasian War from 1844 to 1853....

 and to the Historical Society of Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

 as a suitable man to send to collect material for the history of the Karaites. In 1839 Firkovich began excavations in the ancient cemetery of Çufut Qale

Çufut Qale

Çufut Qale sometimes spelled as Chufut Kale is a historic fortress in Crimea, near Bakhchisaray. Its name is Crimean Tatar and Turkish for "Jewish Fortress" . Çufut Qale was historically a center for the Crimean Karaite community...

, and unearthed many old tombstones, some of which, he claimed, belonged to the first centuries of the common era. The following two years were spent in travels through the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

, where he ransacked the genizot

Genizah

A genizah is the store-room or depository in a Jewish synagogue , usually specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial, it being forbidden to throw away writings...

 of the old Jewish communities and collected many valuable manuscripts. He went as far as Derbent

Derbent

Derbent |Lak]]: Чурул, Churul; Persian: دربند; Judæo-Tat: דארבּאנד/Дэрбэнд/Dərbənd) is a city in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia, close to the Azerbaijani border. It is the southernmost city in Russia, and it is the second most important city of Dagestan...

, and returned in 1842. In later years he made other journeys of the same nature, visiting Egypt and other countries. In Odessa he became the friend of Bezalel Stern and of Simchah Pinsker, and while residing in Wilna he made the acquaintance of Fuenn and other Hebrew scholars. In 1871 he visited the small Karaite community in Halych

Halych

Halych is a historic city on the Dniester River in western Ukraine. The town gave its name to the historic province and kingdom of Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, of which it was the capital until the early 14th century, when the seat of the local princes was moved to Lviv...

, Galicia, where he introduced several reforms. From there he went to Vienna, where he was introduced to Count Beust and also made the acquaintance of Adolph Jellinek. He returned to pass his last days in Çufut Qale, of which there now remained only a few buildings and many ruins. However, Firkovich's house is still preserved in the site.

Firkovich collected a vast number of Hebrew, Arabic and Samaritan manuscripts during his many travels. These included thousands of Karaite and rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

nic documents from throughout the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 in what became known as the First Firkovich Collection. He was one of the first to visit the Cairo Genizah

Genizah

A genizah is the store-room or depository in a Jewish synagogue , usually specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial, it being forbidden to throw away writings...

 with the intention of cataloging and studying its contents. His visit, in 1863, took place thirty four years before Solomon Schechter

Solomon Schechter

Solomon Schechter was a Moldavian-born Romanian and English rabbi, academic scholar, and educator, most famous for his roles as founder and President of the United Synagogue of America, President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and architect of the American Conservative Jewish...

's more famous trip; Firkovich therefore got first pick of the documents contained in the Genizah. Though this "Second Firkovich Collection" contains only 13,700 items in comparison to Schechter's 140,000, the Firkovich documents are generally more complete.

In his later years he became obsessed with "proving" that Crimean Karaites were not Judean in descent, but rather descendants of Israelite

Israelite

According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...

 tribes who arrived in Crimea before the common era (thus not being culpable for the crucifixion of Jesus). To this end Firkovich resorted to forgeries of tombstones and documents. Because of this, and his secrecy regarding the sources for the Second Collection, any document that passed through Firkovich's hands is academically suspect. His theories caught on in the Russian imperial court, and the Karaites were excluded from the restrictive measures against other Jews.

Upon his death in 1874 Firkovich's collection was bought by the Russian National Library

Russian National Library

The National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, known as the State Public Saltykov-Shchedrin Library from 1932 to 1992 , is the oldest public library in Russia...

.

Among the treasures in the Firkovich collection is a manuscript of the Garden of Metaphors, an aesthetic appreciation of Biblical literature written in Judeao-Arabic by one of the greatest of the Sephardi poets, Moses ibn Ezra

Moses ibn Ezra

Rabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as ha-Sallah was a Jewish, Spanish philosopher, linguist, and poet. He was born at Granada about 1055 – 1060, and died after 1138. Ezra is Jewish by religion but is also considered a great influence in the Arabic world in regards to his works...

.

Forgeries

The discoveries made by Firkovich, which were first announced to the world in Pinner's "Prospectus" (Odessa, 1845), gave rise to a whole literature. The collection of stones, facsimiles, manuscripts, and molds taken from tombstones, which was acquired from Firkovich by the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, on the recommendation of Professor Daniel Chwolson in 1859, was declared by some authorities to consist partly or wholly of forgeries committed for the purpose of glorifying the Karaites and of enhancing the value of Firkovich's discoveries.

Briefly stated, the discoveries include the major part of the manuscripts described in Pinner's Prospectus der der Odessaer Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Alterthum Gehörenden Aeltesten Hebräischen und Rabbinischen Manuscripte (Odessa, 1845), a rather rare work which is briefly described in Literaturblatt des Orients for 1847, No. 2. These manuscripts consist of:

• Fifteen scrolls of the Law, with postscripts which give, in Karaite fashion, the date and place of writing, the name of the writer or corrector or other interesting data.
• Twenty copies of books of the Bible other than the Pentateuch, some complete, others fragmentary, of one of which, the Book of Habakkuk
  Book of Habakkuk
  The Book of Habakkuk is the eighth book of the 12 minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is attributed to the prophet Habakkuk, and was probably composed in the late 7th century BC. A copy of chapters 1 and 2 is included in the Habakkuk Commentary, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.Chapters 1-2...
  
  , dated 916, a facsimile is given.
• Nine numbers of Talmudical and rabbinical manuscripts.

The account of the contents of his second and more important collection, which he sold for a very large sum to the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg in 1862-63 (see Fürst, Geschichte des Karäerthums, iii. pp. 174 et seq., Leipsic, 1869), gives more than 700 numbers of various Karaite and Rabbinite manuscripts. Another collection of 317 Samaritan

Samaritan

The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...

 manuscripts, acquired in Nablus, arrived in the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy in 1867 (ib. p. 176).

Probably the greatest service that Firkovich rendered to Jewish science was the awakening of interest in Karaite history and literature, that led to the discussion of his alleged discoveries. His personal contributions to it are mostly of a bibliographical nature, and great caution is necessary in utilizing his materials. His most sympathetic critic, Chwolson, gives as a résumé of his belief, after considering all controversies, that Firkovich succeeded in demonstrating that some of the Jewish tombstones from Chufut-Kale date back to the seventh century, and that seemingly modern forms of eulogy and the method of counting after the era of creation were in vogue among Jews much earlier than had been hitherto suspected. But even on these points the opinions of authorities are far from being unanimous.

S. L. Rapoport has pointed out some impossibilities in the inscriptions (Ha-Meliẓ

Ha-Meliz

Ha-Meliẓ was the first Hebrew newspaper in Russia. It was founded by Alexander Zederbaum, in Odessa, in 1860, as a weekly, and was transferred to St. Petersburg in 1871....

, 1861, Nos. 13-15, 37); A. Geiger in his Jüdische Zeitschrift (1865, p. 166), Schorr in He-Ḥaluẓ, and A. Neubauer in the Journal Asiatique (1862–63) and in his Aus der Petersburger Bibliothek (Leipsic, 1866) have challenged the correctness of the facts and the theories based upon them which Jost, Julius Fürst

Julius Fürst

Julius Fürst , was a Jewish German orientalist.Fürst was a distinguished scholar of Semitic languages and literature...

, and Heinrich Grätz, in their writings on the Karaites, took from Pinsker's Liḳḳuṭe Ḳadmoniyyot, in which the data furnished by Firkovich were unhesitatingly accepted. Further exposures were made by Strack and Harkavy

Harkavy

Harkavy is surname which may refer to:* Abraham Harkavy , historian* Alexander Harkavy , writer* Yehoshafat Harkabi military historian...

 (St. Petersburg, 1875) in the Catalog der Hebr. Bibelhandschriften der Kaiserlichen Oeffentlichen Bibliothek in St. Petersburg; in Harkavy's Altjüdische Denkmäler aus der Krim (ib. 1876); in Strack's A. Firkowitsch und Seine Entdeckungen (Leipsic, 1876); in Fränkel's Aḥare Reshet le-Baḳḳer (Ha-Shaḥar, vii. 646 et seq.); in Deinard's Massa' Ḳrim (Warsaw, 1878); and in other places. Chwolson alone defended him, but he also was forced to admit that in some cases Firkovich had resorted to forgery. In his Corpus Inscriptiorum Hebraicarum (St. Petersburg, 1882; Russian ed., ib. 1884) Chwolson attempts to prove that the Firkovich collection, especially the epitaphs from tombstones, contains much which is genuine. It must be admitted that Firkovich did much to further the study of Karaite and Crimean Jewish history, and that after all deductions are made his discoveries still remain of great value.

Works

Firkovich's chief work is his Abne Zikkaron, containing the texts of inscriptions discovered by him (Wilna, 1872). It is preceded by a lengthy account of his travels to Daghestan, characterized by Strack as a mixture of truth and fiction. His other works are Khotam Toknit, antirabbinical polemics, appended to his edition of the Mibkhar Yesharim by Aaron the elder (Eupatoria

Eupatoria

Yevpatoria or Eupatoria is a city in Crimea, Ukraine.-History:The first recorded settlement in the area, called Kerkinitis , was built by Greek colonists around 500 BC...

, 1835); Evel Kavod, on the death of his wife and of his son Jacob (Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

, 1866); and Bene Reshef, essays and poems, published by Peretz Smolenskin (Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, 1871). Gabriel Firkovich of Troki was his son-in-law.

Sources

• Ben-Sasson, M. (1991). "Firkovich's Second Collection: Notes on historical and Halakhic material." Jewish Studies, 31: 47-67 (Hebrew).
• Josephs, Susan. "Fact from Fantasy" The Jewish Week January 12, 2001.
• Markon, I. “Babowitsch, Simcha ben Salamo.” Encyclopaedia Judaica 3: 857-58.

________. “Firkowitsch, (Firkowitz), Abraham ben Samuel.” Encyclopaedia Judaica 6: 1017-19.

• Miller, Philip E. Karaite Separatism in Nineteenth-Century Russia. Cincinnati, 1993
• Harkavy, Albert. Altjudische Denkmaller aus der Krim mitgetheilt von Abraham Firkowitsch, 1839-1872. In Memoires de l’Academie Imperiale de St.-Peterboug, VIIe Serie, 24, 1877; reprinted Wiesbaden, 1969.

• Кизилов, Михаил. “Караим Авраам Фиркович: прокладывая путь тюркскому национализму.” Историческое наследие Крыма 9 (2005): 218-221.

• Кизилов М., Щеголева T. Осень караимского патриарха. Авраам Фиркович по описаниям очевидцев и современников // Параллели 2-3 (2003). С.319-362.

• Shapira, Dan. “Remarks on Avraham Firkowicz and the Hebrew Mejelis 'Document'.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 59:2 (2006): 131-180.

• Shapira, Dan. Avraham Firkowicz in Istanbul (1830–1832). Paving the Way for Turkic Nationalism. Ankara: KaraM, 2003.

• Shapira, Dan. “Yitshaq Sangari, Sangarit, Bezalel Stern and Avraham Firkowicz: Notes on Two Forged Inscriptions.” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 12 (2002–2003): 223-260.

• Kizilov, Mikhail. Karaites through the Travelers’ Eyes. Ethnic History, Traditional Culture and Everyday Life of the Crimean Karaites According to Descriptions of the Travelers. New York: al-Qirqisani, 2003.