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Perhaps the reason why, unlike Jascha Heifety, Yehudi Menuhin was not averse to appearing in Germany and playing under a Nazi conductor, and that Menuhin was not a Rabbanite but a Karaite Jew.
During the war the Nazis did not harass the Karaites, and gave them complete freedom to practice their religion and carry on with their lives. They apparently had a certificate from Cathryn the Great that they were not ethnic Jews and were tolerated in Russia, while the other Jews underwent recurrent pogroms. (See Scribe No. 63).
The Karaite movement began in Baghdad in the 8th Century by Anan Ben David and was the Spiritual successor to the Sadducees, whose party were paradoxically in power in Judah at the time of Jesus.
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