Avelei Zion—the Mourners of Zion אבלי ציון
People who settled in Jerusalem to keep unceasing mourning for the Temple: without meat or wine, in sackcloth, apart from everyone. They held that by this they hastened the redemption.
The phrase is from Isaiah 61:3, 'to give unto them that mourn in Zion'. Many lived in mourning for the Temple; here the term means a community that made that mourning a way of life.
From the end of the ninth century Karaites from Iraq and Persia began moving to Jerusalem. The first of weight was Daniel al-Qumisi; it was he who proposed the arrangement that held it together: the diaspora collects money and maintains in the city chosen men who live there on behalf of the whole community.
They lived in the quarter called sela' ha-elef—on the eastern slope of the Ophel or within the walls of the City of David; the congregation was called the Community of Lilies. The manner of life was severe: no meat and no wine, sackcloth, and separation from others. The reason was stated plainly: while the Temple lies in ruins there should be no rejoicing, and such a life hastens the coming of the Messiah.
Jerusalem thereby became a centre of Karaite writing—commentary, theology, polemic. The community was broken by the Seljuk conquest of the 1070s and finished by the First Crusade: in 1099 some were taken captive and some burned in a synagogue. The survivors went to Byzantium.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Isaiah 61:3 — the source of the phrase itself
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Avelei Zion" — the community's way of life, its quarter in Jerusalem and its end in 1099
Basis: documents and evidence.