Chamishah Chumshei Torah [Pentateuch].

(KARAITICA).

Arub Oglu Bogus

Orta-Koi (near Constantinople)

1832-35

Parts I-III only (of 5). Text in two columns: Hebrew and translation into Judeo-Tatar. With introductory poems. Edited by Abraham Firkovitch, et al. Issued without a title-page.

Vinograd, Const. 690; Yaari, Const. 515; JNUL copy incomplete.

The first Pentateuch produced for the Karaite community. “In Czarist Russia during the nineteenth century, the Karaites sought to emphasize their differences with the followers of traditional, rabbinic Judaism, in order to avoid being victim to anti-Jewish laws and so improve their socio-economic status. Clearly aimed at the Karaite community, this Bible, with translation into Judeo-Tartar (the local Karaite Crimean dialect), was thus a cultural statement as well as a political tool for achieving a separate - but more than equal - status under imperial Russian law” (Words Like Sapphires: 100 Years of Hebraica at the Library of Congress, 1912–2012).