Russian religious movements
Subbotniks
(Russian:
Субботники
,
IPA:
[s??botn??k??]
, "Sabbatarians") is a common name for adherents of
Russian
religious movements that split from
Sabbatarian
sects in the late 18th century.
[1]
[2]
The majority of Subbotniks were converts to
Rabbinic
or
Karaite
Judaism from Christianity. Other groups included
Judaizing Christians
and
Spiritual Christians
.
[3]
[4]
There are three main groups of people described as Subbotniks:
- Judaizing Talmudists: Subbotnik
converts
to
Rabbinic Judaism
, also described as "Gery" (
Russian
:
Геры
), "Talmudisty" (
Russian
:
Субботники-Талмудисты
), or "Shaposhniki".
[1]
[4]
- Karaimites
[5]
[6]
or Karaite Subbotniks
[1]
(
Russian
:
Субботники-Караимиты
): also described as "Russian Karaites" (
Russian
:
Русские Караимы
),
[7]
considering themselves as adherents of
Karaite Judaism
.
[8]
They recognize only the scriptural authority of the
Torah
and reject the Talmud;
[9]
however, it has been reported that they do not practice circumcision.
[9]
[10]
[4]
- Subbotnik
Molokans
(
Russian
:
Молокане-субботники
): in contrast to the other Subbotnik sects, they recognize the
Gospel
, but also practice some of the rules and precepts of the
Old Testament
.
[11]
A 1912 religious census in Russia recorded 12,305 "Judaizing Talmudists", and 4,092 "Russian Karaites", and 8,412 Subbotniks who "had fallen away from Orthodoxy".
[4]
On the whole, the Subbotniks probably differed little from other Judaizing societies in their early years.
[12]
They first appeared toward the end of the 18th century during the reign of
Catherine the Great
. According to official reports of the
Russian Empire
, most
[
citation needed
]
of the sect's followers circumcised their boys, believed in a
unitary God rather than in the Christian Trinity
, accepted only the
Hebrew Bible
, and observed the
Sabbath on Saturday
rather than on Sunday as in Christian practice (and hence were called "sabbatarians"). There were variations among their beliefs in relation to
Jesus
, the
Second Coming
, and other elements of
Eastern Orthodox doctrine
.
Prior to the
First Partition of Poland
in 1772, few
Jews
had settled in the Russian Empire.
[4]
The Subbotniks were originally Christian peasants of the
Russian Orthodox Church
. During the reign of
Catherine the Great
(1729?1796), they adopted elements of
Mosaic Law
from the Old Testament and were known as "Sabbatarians", part of the
Spiritual Christianity
movement.
[4]
Subbotnik families settled in the
Holy Land
at the time part of the
Ottoman Empire
, in the 1880s, as part of the
Zionist
First Aliyah
in order to escape oppression in the Russian Empire and later mostly intermarried with Jews. Examples of
Israeli Jews
descended from Subbotniks include
Alexander Zaid
, Major-General Alik Ron, and former Israeli foreign, prime minister, and general
Ariel Sharon
.
[13]
[14]
History
[
edit
]
Subbotniks, meaning sabbatarians for their observance of the Sabbath on Saturday, as in the Hebrew Bible, rather than on Sunday, arose as part of the
Spiritual Christian
movement in the 18th century.
[12]
Imperial Russian officials and Orthodox clergy considered the Subbotniks to be heretical to Russian Orthodox religion, and tried to suppress their sects and other
Judaizers
. They also emphasized individual interpretation of the law rather than accepting the
Talmud
or clergy. The Subbotniks concealed their religious beliefs and rites from Orthodox Christians. The Russian government eventually deported the Subbotniks, isolating them from Orthodox Christians and Jews.
The Subbotniks observed the Sabbath on Saturday, and were also known as sabbatarians. They avoided work and tried to avoid discussing worldly affairs. Apart from practicing circumcision of boys, many began to slaughter their food animals according to the laws of
shechita
when they could learn the necessary rules. Some clandestinely used
phylacteries
,
tzitzit
(ritual tassels), and
mezuzot
(doorpost markings), and prayed in private houses of prayer. As their practice deepened, some acquired Jewish "
siddur
" prayer books with Russian translation for their prayers. The
hazzan
(cantor) read the
prayers
aloud, and the congregants prayed silently; during prayers a solemn silence was observed throughout the house.
According to the testimony, private and official, of all those who studied their mode of life in tsarist times, the Subbotniks were remarkably industrious; reading and writing, hospitable, not given to drunkenness, poverty, or prostitution. Up to 1820 the Subbotniks lived for the most part in the governments of
Voronezh
,
Oryol
,
Moscow
,
Tula
, and
Saratov
. After that year, the government deported those who openly acknowledged their membership in the sect to the foothills of the
Caucasus
, to
Transcaucasia
, and to the
Siberian
governments of
Irkutsk
,
Tobolsk
, and
Yeniseisk
. In 1912, the government's Interior Ministry recorded 8,412 Subbotniks; 12,305 Judaizing Talmudists; and 4,092
Russian
Karaites
.
[4]
Under Alexander I and Nicholas I
[
edit
]
Under
Alexander I
's policies of general tolerance, the Subbotniks enjoyed a great deal of freedom. But the
Russian clergy
opposed them and killed about 100 Subbotniks and their spiritual leaders in
Mogilev
, in present-day
Belarus
, including the former
archbishop
Romantzov
[
citation needed
]
. In addition, Romantzov's young son was tortured with red-hot irons before being burned at the stake. The Subbotniks came to an agreement with the Russian Orthodox
priests
and succeeded in gaining a measure of peace for a period. To compensate the Church for any loss of finances due to the Subbotniks leaving their congregations, the members of the sect undertook to pay the Church the usual fee of two
Russian rubles
for every birth and three rubles for every
marriage
. The
tsar
permitted the Subbotniks to profess their faith openly, but prohibited them from hiring
rabbis
or proselytizing among Christians.
Under
Nicholas I
, the Subbotniks began to feel restless. Some wanted to
embrace Judaism
and traveled into the
Pale of Settlement
in order to learn more about
Judaism
. Upon learning this, the Russian government sent a number of priests to the Subbotniks to try to persuade them to return to Russian Orthodoxy. When the priests did not meet with any appreciable success, the government decided to suppress the Subbotniks with force. In 1826, the government decided to deport those who lived openly as Subbotniks to internal exile in the above-mentioned regions in the Caucasus, Transcaucasia, and Siberia. At the same time, it prohibited Jews and members of the Russian Orthodox Church from settling among any Subbotniks.
Zionism and settlement in Ottoman Palestine
[
edit
]
Subbotnik communities were among early supporters of Zionism. During the
First Aliyah
at the end of the 19th century, thousands of Subbotniks settled in
Ottoman Palestine
to escape religious persecution due to their differences with the Russian Orthodox Church. Some Subbotniks had immigrated to Ottoman Palestine even prior to the First Aliyah.
The Subbotniks faced hurdles when intermarrying into the wider Jewish population, as they were
not considered Jews
according to
halakha
. They were noted for often being more religiously observant than the mostly secular Jewish Zionist population in that period.
[15]
They Hebraized their surnames to assimilate. Within a short period, the descendants of Subbotnik Jews who arrived in
Ottoman Palestine
in the late 19th century had completely blended and inter-married into the wider Jewish population of Israel.
[16]
Soviet period
[
edit
]
Holocaust
[
edit
]
Subbotniks in
Nazi-occupied
areas of
Ukraine
were killed by SS
Einsatzgruppen
troops and
local Ukrainian collaborators
due to their Jewish self-identity. They were relatively recent migrants to Ukraine from areas of
Voronezh
and considered outsiders by the peasants, who noted their practice of some Jewish customs. During the Holocaust, Nazis killed thousands of Subbotniks. By contrast, they did not attack
Crimean Karaites
, accepting the state's records that they were ethnic Tatars (or Khazars).
Post-WW2
[
edit
]
Following their massacre in the Holocaust, the Subbotniks came to have an increasingly nationalist self-identification as Jews. However, after the
War
, the
Soviet
government ceased to recognize the "Subbotnik"
as a legal ethnic category
. They counted these people as a subset of the
ethnic Russian
population.
Between 1973 and 1991, the Subbotniks of
Ilyinka
in
Voronezh Oblast
emigrated to
Israel
.
Post-Soviet era
[
edit
]
After the fall of the Soviet Union, a few thousand Subbotniks left Russia for Israel. This coincided with the
1990s Post-Soviet aliyah
to Israel of more than a million
Russian Jews
and members of their immediate families. Since that period, Subbotniks remaining in Russia have encountered
status-related problems
. In the 21st century, the
Shavei Israel
organization for outreach to "lost Jews" and related communities, appointed a rabbi for the Subbotniks at
Vysoky
in
Voronezh Oblast
. The objective of teaching them Judaism and facilitate their formal conversion to Orthodox Judaism would make them eligible for
aliyah
to Israel.
[13]
State of Israel
[
edit
]
In the early 21st century, the issue arose of the Jewish identity of some members of Moshav
Yitav
, located in the
Jordan Valley
north of Jericho in the
West Bank
, who were Subbotniks, immigrants from former Soviet
Georgia
. In 2004, the Sephardic
Chief Rabbi of Israel
Shlomo Amar
ruled the Subbotniks were not defined as Jewish and would have to undergo an Orthodox conversion. The
Interior Ministry
classified the Subbotniks as a Christian sect and ineligible for aliyah to Israel, because no one knew if their ancestors had formally converted to Judaism (and there is much historic evidence that they did not).
[17]
The ruling was abolished in 2014, with an attempt by the Interior Ministry to allow remaining Subbotnik families to immigrate to Israel.
[18]
Statistics
[
edit
]
It has been difficult to estimate the exact number of Subbotniks in Russia at any given time. The discrepancies between government statistics and the membership have varied widely. Official data from tsarist times placed the membership of the sect at several thousand. The writer
E. Deinard
, who was in personal contact with the Subbotniks, said in 1887 there were 2,500,000.
[19]
Deinard may have included in his figures
all
of the Judaizing sects, and not just the Subbotniks, as this estimate is not supported by any other historians. Apart from their religious rites, the Subbotniks were generally indistinguishable from
Russian Orthodox
or
secular
Russians in terms of dress and lifestyle.
Subbotnik Karaites
[
edit
]
Distribution
[
edit
]
Besides Tambov, Subbotnik Karaites also lived in
Saratov Oblast
,
Astrakhan Oblast
,
Volgograd Oblast
,
Stavropol Krai
,
Samara Oblast
,
Khakassia
,
Irkutsk Oblast
along the
Molochna River
in
Novorossiya
, in
Krasnodar Krai
,
Armenia
and
Azerbaijan
and along the
Russian Empire
's borders with
Iran
. While not all statistics for all provinces are readily available, there are more than 2500 in
Privolnoye, Azerbaijan
alone.
[20]
[21]
Characteristics
[
edit
]
From 1870 they began to use the "Everyday Prayers for
Karaites
" by
Abraham Firkovich
(1870,
Vilnius
) for their liturgy, which in 1882 they were allowed to publish in Russian as "
Порядок молитв для караимов
" (tr.
Poryadok molitv dlya karaimov
).
[22]
It was based on the
Siddur Tefillot keMinhag haKaraim
by Isaak ben Solomon Ickowicz. The Subbotnik Karaites had contacts with the
Crimean Karaites
, who, to a degree, exemplified for them "a Jewish model to be imitated", "were occasional and never formally arranged since, in particular, normative Karaism denied the acceptance of proselytes and regarded the very existence of a community of Karaites of non-Jewish origin senseless."
[21]
Distribution
[
edit
]
Due to tsarist persecution, Subbotniks spread out creating a wide
diaspora
, living since the 19th century in the following countries and regions:
[23]
Notable people
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
Chernin, Velvl (2007).
"The Subbotniks"
.
Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research and Strengthening Jewish Vitality
.
- ^
Khanin, Ze’ev; Chernin, Velvl.
"Identity, Assimilation and Revival: Ethnosocial Processes among the Jewish Population of the Former Soviet Union"
.
- ^
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Rosenthal, Herman
; Hurwitz, S (1901?1906).
"Subbotniki ("Sabbatarians")"
. In
Singer, Isidore
; et al. (eds.).
The Jewish Encyclopedia
. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
{{
cite encyclopedia
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Dynner, Glenn
(2011).
Holy Dissent: Jewish and Christian Mystics in Eastern Europe
.
Wayne State University Press
. pp. 358?359.
ISBN
9780814335970
.
There were very few Jews in the Russian empire before 1772 and there is no indication of direct contact between Jews and the early Spiritual Christians... Most dramatically, in the late eighteenth century, the so called Subbotniks or Sabbatarians ? ethnic Russians from the central and southern provinces ? even turned away from the fundamental Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and the messiahship of Jesus to embrace the Mosaic law of the Old Testament. As the work of Aleksandr Lvov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Panchenko, Sergey Shtyrkov, and Nicholas Breyfogle demonstrate, these Russian sabbatarians developed strong communities that survived the severe persecution of both the imperial and Soviet governments. Although the Subbotniks did not, as a rule, follow the
Talmud
, some of them began follow other practices of different Jewish communities, both talmudic and non-talmudic, even as they retained their separate ethnic identity. In the religious census of 1912, the Department of Spiritual Affairs of the Interior Ministry noted the presence of 8,412 Subbotniks who had fallen away from Orthodoxy, 12,305 Judaizing Talmudists, and 4,092 Russian
Karaites
.
- ^
"Bulgakov"
. Retrieved
30 May
2019
.
- ^
H. Gray (2013). "8. 'Recrudescent forms' subsection C 'Karaimites'
".
Judaizing
.
Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics
. Vol. 7. p. 612.
(c) Karaimites or Karimit ("Karaitizers'), who, like the Karaites q.v. recognize only the Pentateuch and reject the Talmud, but who do not observe all the Pentateuchal laws, e.g. that regarding circumcision
- ^
"Overview of Russian sects and persuasions" by T.J. Boutkevitch pages 382?384
- ^
"www.karaimskajazizn.estranky.cz ? 7. Из архива караимского духовного правления"
.
www.karaimskajazizn.estranky.cz
. Retrieved
30 May
2019
.
- ^
a
b
Gray, Louis Herbert
(1914).
"Judaizing"
. In
Hastings, James
(ed.).
Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics
. Vol. 7.
Edinburgh
:
T&T Clark
. p. 612
. Retrieved
7 June
2020
– via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
S.V. Bulgakov "Handbook of heresies, sects and schisms" under Караимиты
- ^
Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary
Жидовствующие:
- ^
a
b
Berdyaev, Nikolai
(1999) [1916].
"Духовное христианство и сектантство в России"
[Spiritual Christianity and Sectarianism in Russia].
Russkaya Mysl (Русская мысль, "Russian Thought")
. Translated by Janos, S.
- ^
a
b
"Dr. Ruchama Weiss ? Rabbi Levi Brackman, "Russia's Subbotnik Jews get rabbi"
"
.
Ynetnews
. 9 December 2010
. Retrieved
22 August
2015
.
- ^
Eichner, Itamar (11 March 2014).
"Subbotnik Jews to resume aliyah"
. Israel Jewish Scene.
Archived
from the original on 9 April 2014
. Retrieved
9 April
2014
.
- ^
Itamar Eichner, "Subbotnik Jews to resume aliyah"
Published: 3 November 2014,
Israel Jewish Scene
- ^
"Subbotnik Jews in Russia and Israel (Евреи-субботники в России и Израиле)"
, 5 June 2013
- ^
Ari Ben Goldberg"'Abandoned' in the Jordan Valley"
,
The Jerusalem Report
, 19 November 2001, reprinted at Molokane website
- ^
[1]
Itamar Eichner
Published: 3 November 2014
- ^
E. Deinard, in
Ha-Meli?
, 1887, No. 75
- ^
"Valvl Chernin "The Subbotniks"
"
(PDF)
. Retrieved
30 May
2019
.
- ^
a
b
"Velvl Chernin, "Subbotnik Jews as a sub-ethnic group"
"
. Retrieved
30 May
2019
.
- ^
"Alexander Lvov. Plough and Pentateuch: Russian Judaizers as Textual Community (summary)"
.
lvov.judaica.spb.ru
. Retrieved
30 May
2019
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
"The Subbotnik Information Exchange"
. Retrieved
4 June
2019
.
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Astyrev, N. "Subbotniki v Rossii i Sibiri". In
Syeverny Vyestnik
, 1891, No. 6.
- Dinard, E. In
Ha-Meli?
, 1887, No. 75.
- Dynner, Glenn
(2011).
Holy Dissent: Jewish and Christian Mystics in Eastern Europe
. Wayne State University Press.
ISBN
9780814335970
.
- Kostomarov,
Russkaya Istoriya,
vol. i.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Rosenthal, Herman
; Hurwitz, S (1901?1906).
"Subbotniki ("Sabbatarians")"
. In
Singer, Isidore
; et al. (eds.).
The Jewish Encyclopedia
. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
{{
cite encyclopedia
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Univ. Isr. 1854, p. 396.
External links
[
edit
]