The Crimean Karaites or simply Karaites (Crimean Karaim: Кърымкъарайлар, Qrımqaraylar, singular къарай, qaray; Trakai dialect: karajlar, singular karaj; Hebrew: קראי מזרח אירופה; Crimean Tatar: Qaraylar; Yiddish: קרימישע קאַראַיִמער, romanized: krimishe karaimer), also known more broadly as Eastern European Karaites, are an formerly Turkic-speaking[8]Judaic ethnoreligious group[9][10] indigenous to Crimea.[11][12][13]
The Karaite religion, known in Eastern Europe as Karaism, split from mainstream Karaite Judaism in the 19th and 20th centuries.[14] Most Karaites in the region do not consider themselves to be Jews, associating the ethnonym with Rabbinical Jews alone, but rather consider themselves to be descendants of the Khazars, non-Rabbinical Judeans, or other Turkic peoples.[15]
Research into the origins of the Karaites indicates they are of ethnic Jewish origin and are genetically closely related to other Jewish diaspora groups.[16][17] Some researchers believe they originated in Constantinople and later settled in the Byzantine Principality of Theodoro.[18]
A closely related group, the Slavic Karaites, were formally accepted into the Karaite ethnoreligious community after the deposition of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917. They are descendants of ethnic Russian Subbotniks.[19][20]
^Kizilov, M. (2008). The Karaites of Galicia : an ethnoreligious minority among the Ashkenazim, the Turks, and the Slavs, 1772-1945. Brill. ISBN978-90-47-44288-2.