The Karaim (singular: Karay) are a small community of Turkic-speaking Karaite Jews whose origins intersect with the Khazar question. They live in three traditional centers: Crimea, Trakai (Lithuania), and Halych (Ukraine/Poland). Their language — Karaim — is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch, suggesting ancestors who were Turkic-speaking peoples of the Pontic steppe. The Karaim practice Karaite Judaism (rejection of the oral Torah and Talmud, adherence to written Scripture only) while speaking a language structurally similar to those of the Khazar empire’s Turkic populations. The Karaim of Lithuania were brought there by Grand Duke Vytautas (~1397 AD) as palace guards. Their population today is tiny — perhaps 2,000–3,000 — but historically significant: during the Holocaust, some Karaim communities claimed non-Jewish ethnic status based on their Turkic/Khazar origins, and Nazi racial authorities controversially ruled some Karaim as non-Jews, sparing them from the Final Solution while mainstream Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews were murdered. Whether this claim was historically legitimate or a survival stratagem remains debated.