Elijah ben Abraham

Little is known about the Karaite Elijah ben Abraham, who may have lived in Palestine. Elijah’s only surviving literary work, a booklet, is titled Controversy between the Karaites and the Rabbanites (Ḥilluk ha-Kara’im ve-ha-Rabbanim), but it is not clear whether the title is original or a later addition. He wrote it for an otherwise unknown Judah ben Shabbetai. It surveys the history of Jewish sectarianism, listing some fourteen groups, of which only four had survived to Elijah’s day: Rabbanites, Karaites, Tiflisites, and the followers of an obscure ninth-century figure, Mīshawayh al-‘Ukbarī. Clearly a Karaite partisan, Elijah was well informed about his opponents and his ancestors.