Reconstructing the Past and Conceptualizing the Jewish “Other”: How the Babylonian Geonim Contributed to the Creation of the Founding Myth of Karaism

The purpose of the article is threefold. First, it explores whom the term “Karaites” initially denoted. The suggested answer is that as late as toward the middle of the tenth century, it designated representatives of a cross-sectoral (or trans-sectarian) phenomenon within Judaism of an antitradit…