Still, there are key differences. Karaylar have traditionally differentiated themselves from Jews, including Krymchaks. To escape Czarist persecution, they proposed that they were Turks of the Mosaic faith. (The reasoning is that as they were neither desceded from Saducees nor follow the practices of Pharisees, they should not be punished as "Christ Killers".) In the 20th century, Karaylar went so far as to claim that they were in fact Khazars, although much of their evidence is faud.
The break became irrevocable only during the Holocaust. While it made no difference in Lithuania or Galicia, the SS spared Crimean Karaylar. This was probably in defference to the Muslim Crimean Tatars. (The SS recruited Tatars) The fate of the Krymchaks was quite grim. At first, the Nazis killed the Ashkenazi Jews of Crimea. Then the Krymchaks were marked for death. While many Karaylar and even some Crimean Tatars hid Krymchaks, some Karaylar helped the SS. The Krymchaks intermarried with Ashkenazi Jews or from mixed families were annihilated almost to the person. After World War II, Stalin punished all populations that worked with the Nazis. Ironically, the surviving Krymchaks were rounded up and sent on a decimating captivity to Siberia. While all Tatars were eventually allowed to return, the Krymchak population was too small to sustain itself. A few Krymchaks were counted in the last Soviet surveys, but there is no evidence that any exist today. The dialect is considered dead.
Some of the claims in the article are questionable. Karaylar took converts, there just are none today. They are wary of Ashkenazi Jews and don't take converts from us. They don't take Muslim Tatar converts because it is suicidal to do so.
PS. IF you would like I could post some of the responses once I send this to other members of the Karaylar-L discussion group.
I have seen some 18th-century responsa from the Noda Beyehuda (Rabbi Ezekiel Landau) regarding the Karaim. A Jewish married a Karaite woman in a Jewish ceremony and wanted to divorce her--was he required to give her a get? It was a very complicated situation, not as simple as merely saying "they are not Jews."