[Avodah] various outside groups (was karaites....)

[Harvey Benton]

don't they claim yichus going way back?
if we shouldn't marry them, based on yichus, then
why should we believe (and thus be able to marry) 
certain families claiming yichus going way back 
(like to the vilna gaon or whoever);
i would figure that any isolated community, with 
continual practices going back centuries, very similar
or akin to our own, and claiming that they follow toras
moshe, should at least on yichus grounds, have the same
mesorah value to their validity as say the yemenites, 
or shomronim, or any other isolated group ....; 
the key word here being isolated, in that their communities
didn't historically accept outsiders (as one poster noted) 
and this weren't much influenced along the way......

shouldn't the same limus test apply to all groups
vis a vis validity and marriage, 
regardless of their ideologies.....
i think that since they (and perhaps other non-main
stream groups going way back (not reform or conservative)
claim to have views that differ from our own, we view them
as possibly not being validly jewish.....
(eg, hatred or fear of the outsider)
-do yemenites have a better chazaka going way back???

-shomronim wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan
-karaite wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaite_Judaism
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