- Seraya Shapshal
Seraya Shapshal or "Haji Seraya Han Shapshal" (Karaim: Хаджи Серая Хан Шапшал; _ru. Серая (Сергей) Маркович Шапшал; _pl. Seraj Szapszal) (
1873 -1961 ) was ahakham and leader of theCrimea n and thenLithuania n Karaim community.Shapshal was born in
Çufut Qale ,Crimea and studied at St. Petersburg University, where he received a doctorate inphilology andOriental languages . He was invited to serve as the personal tutor of theIran ian crown prince,Mohammad Ali Shah , and became a minister in the Persian government in 1907 (rumor had it that he was aRussia n spyFact|date=June 2008). In 1911 he returned toCrimea and became ChiefHakham of theCrimean Karaite communities.From 1919 to 1927 he lived in
Istanbul . Here he was active in thepan-Turkic movementFact|date=June 2008. In 1927 he moved to Vilna, and became the head of theKaraims inPoland andLithuania . A philosophical disciple ofAvraham Firkovich , he took Firkovich's ideas to extremes, denying any connection between Karaims andRabbi nicJews . In 1941 he met with Nazi authorities and was instrumental in the formulation of their policy towards the Karaim. As Hakham of Vilna he was infamous for his confrontations with such Jewish community figures asZelig Kalmanovich , and having given to the Nazis a detailed list of the members of the Karaim communities ofTroki andVilnius , allowing them to easily discover and arrestJews who had forged papers stating that they were Karaims.After the war he lived in Troki and later Vilna, teaching at the
Soviet -dominated Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. He co-authored of a Karaim-Russian-Polishdictionary (published in 1974) and wrote a number of articles on the Karaims of Crimea. His "History of the Karaims" remains unpublished. Part of his collections and books are kept in a small museum in the oldkenesa of Troki, where he died in 1961.21 November 1905 Seraya Shapshal (the old name Samuil ben Moshe Shapshal) wrote the
Letter to the Falashas where he described the religious life of the Karaims and theire origins.References
* Shapshal, S. M.: Karaimy SSSR v otnoshenii etnicheskom: karaimy na sluzhbe u krymskich chanov. Simferopol', 2004
* Shapshal, S. M.: Karaimskaya Zhizn'. St.Petersburg, 1905
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