One of the most unusual Bibles in the Hebraic Section is this splendid edition commissioned by the leaders of the Karaite community in Ortakoi, a city near Constantinople (today’s Istanbul). The Karaites are a Jewish sect with roots going back to the eighth century, and though smaller in number today, they represented a considerable challenge to traditional rabbinic Judaism in the High Middle Ages during the heyday of their power in cities such as Cairo and Baghdad. In Czarist Russia during the nineteenth century, the Karaites sought to emphasize their differences with the followers of traditional Judaism in order to avoid the anti-Jewish laws and improve their socio-economic status. This Bible, with the Judeo-Tartar translation clearly aimed at the Karaite community, was thus a cultural statement as well as a political tool for achieving a separate—but more than equal—status under imperial Russian law. Each of the five biblical books has an introductory poem written by the translators and editors of this edition; here we see part of the poem introducing the Book of Leviticus and the opening verses from the first chapter.