Creator Bio
Tuviah ben Moses
11th Century
Tuviah ben Moses, known by the epithet ha-avel (the mourner) or ha-ma‘atik (the translator), was one of the founding leaders of Byzantine Karaism. Tuviah studied with leading Jerusalem Karaite scholars, particularly Yûsuf al-Basïr, and translated many Karaite works from Arabic to Hebrew. His letters that survive in the Cairo Geniza record information about his life and travels. By 1048, Tuviah had come to lead the Karaite community in Byzantium, but he continued to travel to Egypt and maintained communication with Karaites throughout the world. Tuviah was a liturgical poet and Karaite legal authority, but his lasting legacy is to be found in bringing Karaism from the Arabic world to Byzantium, both in written and in institutional forms.
Content by Tuviah ben Moses
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O our God, You have loved us
This Byzantine Judeo-Greek translation of Ecclesiastes, found in the Cairo Geniza, begins in the middle of Ecclesiastes 2:13 and breaks off at 2:23. Each Greek line begins with the first word of the…
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Letter to His Daughter
I am writing to you, my daughter, from Jerusalem, may God keep it, with three [days] remaining in the month of Rajab. Part of what I have to tell you, my daughter, is what I think about your affairs…