Summary
The Karaite Jews of America (KJA), the nonprofit organization formally established in July 1983 by the Egyptian Karaite community of the San Francisco Bay Area, treated in The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry as the institutional vehicle of that community’s reestablishment in the United States (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 3204-3342).
Details
- The Bay Area Karaite community — some 130 families, over 400 people, mostly of the Cairo community who emigrated between 1964 and 1970 — maintained its cohesion through the 1960s and 1970s by sporadic ritual observance, social contact and shared memories, meeting in private homes for high holidays at the initiative of Jacob Masliah and Elie Nounou; a parallel Chicago association organized by Jacques Mangubi in the mid-1970s did not survive his death in 1977 (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 3204-3342).
- The community collected $112,000 to finance its activities between 1983 and 1985; Jehoash Hirshberg’s 1986 survey of ninety-three members found half the respondents willing to devote time to community activities (Chapter 7, note 24). Its institutional form was contested: more observant families favored a traditional synagogue, more Americanized families an educational center that would not obstruct integration into the broader American Jewish community (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 3204-3342).
- The religious-center proponents organized first: Masliah was elected president of their association in 1982, monthly Sabbath prayers began at Temple Sinai (Reform, Foster City) in May 1983 through Fred Lichaa, and in July 1983 the KJA was formally established as a nonprofit with Masliah as president, Moussa El Kodsi as vice-president, Maurice Pessah as secretary and Elie ‘Ovadia as treasurer; Joe Pessah has served continually as acting rabbi (Chapter 7, note 25) (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 3204-3342).
- Its programs include the twice-yearly KJA Bulletin (from 1984, published by Joe and Remy Pessah), a computerized mailing list of all Karaites in the United States, the Lake Tahoe summer camp for ages 7–11, 12–15, 16–21 and over 21, David Elichaa’s Karaite family tree project (begun 1993), and a subsidy for Mourad El-Kodsi’s The Karaite Jews of Egypt, 1882–1986, the community’s semiofficial history (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 3204-3342).
- By 1991 the KJA purchased a house in San Francisco’s Sunset district as a synagogue and community center; in June 1994 it purchased the former Congregation B’nai Israel building in Daly City, financed by over $100,000 in contributions and loans from Karaites throughout the United States, and celebrated Rosh ha-Shanah of 5755 (1994) there (Chapter 7, note 26) (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 3204-3342).
- In 1984 the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly resolved, and the Reform rabbinate similarly decided, that Karaites should be regarded as Jews as long as they did not reject Rabbanite tradition; in 1995 the Northern California Jewish Bulletin began including the KJA in its weekly list of Bay Area Jewish congregations (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 3204-3342).
Related pages
The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, Karaites, Joe Pessah, Jacob Masliah, Yusuf Darwish