In the 980s, Vladimir of Rus is recorded as having summoned the scholars of different Abrahamic faiths to explain their beliefs to him, then sending envoys of his own to lands where said faiths were predominant, in pursuit of a religion better for his people's lives and for his realm's political legitimacy. He spoke with 'the Jews', but declined further interest in the faith, citing the fall of Jerusalem as reason to believe that their god had abandoned them. It's most likely and believed that these nonspecific Jews were from the Khazar culture, itself having by the decision of its own king Bulan converted to Rabbinical Judaism, which asserts the authority of the Talmud.
The 10th century is identified as the peak of Karaite Judaism, a sect that disputes the near-divine status of the Talmud and places emphasis on individual study and interpretation of the written Torah. The 'Karaites' of this time were thriving in the Middle East between Egypt and especially Abbasid Iraq where they took positions as public servants and tax collectors, build their own schools, and ran their communities separate from the Rabbinical Jewish sect that predominates to this day. Fierce debates and polemics between Rabbinical and Karaite scholars escalated into different religious and even cultural identities: the Karaites described by Maimonides as heretics eventually emphasized their differences to loosen anti-Jewish restrictions by the Russian Empire in Crimea, and were even overlooked by Nazi occupiers in the 1940s, but have eventually become tolerated and counted as Jews in the State of Israel today.
What if in Vladimir's time, he or his scholars were impressed by Karaite scholars in/from Iraq or Constantinople, enticed by the prospect of writing and promoting a Torah interpretation politically favorable to the Rurikids, and convinced enough of their wise men to settle in and preach across the Rus? Will a south- and east-oriented Russian state secure Crimea from the Byzantines sooner than later? Likewise, would better relations with the Abbasid Caliphate and parts of the Muslim world make Mongol domination a shorter period of Russian history? Would this Slavic-speaking Jewish state, jealously asserting its Vladimir-sanctioned sect, eventually prevail in numbers and in image as "the" Judaism ITTL?
The 10th century is identified as the peak of Karaite Judaism, a sect that disputes the near-divine status of the Talmud and places emphasis on individual study and interpretation of the written Torah. The 'Karaites' of this time were thriving in the Middle East between Egypt and especially Abbasid Iraq where they took positions as public servants and tax collectors, build their own schools, and ran their communities separate from the Rabbinical Jewish sect that predominates to this day. Fierce debates and polemics between Rabbinical and Karaite scholars escalated into different religious and even cultural identities: the Karaites described by Maimonides as heretics eventually emphasized their differences to loosen anti-Jewish restrictions by the Russian Empire in Crimea, and were even overlooked by Nazi occupiers in the 1940s, but have eventually become tolerated and counted as Jews in the State of Israel today.
What if in Vladimir's time, he or his scholars were impressed by Karaite scholars in/from Iraq or Constantinople, enticed by the prospect of writing and promoting a Torah interpretation politically favorable to the Rurikids, and convinced enough of their wise men to settle in and preach across the Rus? Will a south- and east-oriented Russian state secure Crimea from the Byzantines sooner than later? Likewise, would better relations with the Abbasid Caliphate and parts of the Muslim world make Mongol domination a shorter period of Russian history? Would this Slavic-speaking Jewish state, jealously asserting its Vladimir-sanctioned sect, eventually prevail in numbers and in image as "the" Judaism ITTL?
