But as opposed to the advent of the more egalitarian Reform and Conservative strains popular with American Jews, Mr. Haroeh said, “We were always like that.”

The number of Karaite Jews in Israel is hard to gauge because no census has been held. The Karaites say it is forbidden to count Jews, citing a verse from Genesis 32: “I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.”

Generally, though, the community is estimated at 30,000 to 50,000, out of Israel’s population of eight million. There are also smaller communities in the United States, Turkey and Europe. Most came to Israel from Egypt in three waves starting in 1948, when the state was founded, and 1970. Many live in Ramla or the Mediterranean port city of Ashdod. Others are in smaller concentrations around the country.

The community is undergoing a revival. Dozens of Karaite children attended a summer camp here in August. Eli Eltachan, the deputy chairman of the community and a manager at Ericsson, said that the young, educated professionals now in leadership roles had brought “a new spirit.”

Shoshanna Eliahu, from the town of Rehovot, was attending the Elul feast. She was born in 1956 as her parents made their way from Egypt to Israel. Her son, Elior, 18, with a diamond stud in his ear, had come for a blessing from the rabbi because he was soon to be drafted into the military.

The deputy rabbi of Ramla, Maor Dabbah, 25, gave a sermon on the importance of happiness. Sporting a fashionable buzz cut, he urged people to buy a newly published illustrated collection of songs and blessings for the family, which includes a disc by the Karaite choir.

But amid this new energy, some rabbis have questioned the Jewishness of the Karaites.

In Karaite Judaism there is no Hanukkah, because that festival is not mentioned in the Bible. The Hebrew months go strictly according to the lunar cycle and cannot be altered, as in rabbinical Judaism, for the sake of convenience. Karaite dietary laws differ from those of the mainstream, and while the matriarchal line of descent usually determines who is a Jew, the Karaite line is patriarchal. “It is written in the Torah that Abraham begat Isaac,” said Ovadiah Murad, the rabbi of the ancient Karaite synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem.