A new Jewish centralized organization, the Federation of Communities of Mountain Jews of Russia (FOGER), appeared this year in the Russian Federation; in February it received registration documents. The rabbi of the communities of Mountain Jews in Moscow, Anar Samaylov, told RIA Novosti about the history and culture of Mountain Jews, the goals and objectives of the new organization. Interviewed by Radik Amirov.
- The question immediately arises: why create a new organization, because there are already various Jewish centers in Russia?
- The new Jewish organization in the Russian Federation does not mean that Mountain Jews cease to be Jews or sow disunity. This is not true. We have good relations with the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR), the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations in Russia (KEROOR) and others.
But I will note that we, Mountain Jews, have a slightly different way of life, traditions, culture. We decided that the spiritual wealth of our people, which has preserved all the best that we have for many centuries of existence, should not be forgotten - it should be multiplied many times over. And this aspect does not conflict with the ideas of other Jewish organizations pursuing the same goals of preserving religion and community.
At first glance, we Mountain Jews are a little different from the usual Jews, but nevertheless we remain and will remain them - Jews. Yes, certain ceremonies are carried out a little differently in our country, for example, weddings, circumcision. We do not have the usual Jewish court for the Jews. And the culture of education is slightly different. But by and large we are Jews. For us, the Torah is one, the law is one, the constitution is one.
— Many conventionally divide the Jewish community into Ashkenazi and Sephardim. Do you consider yourself to be the latter?
- Yes. Ashkenazim are European Jews, and we are Eastern Jews. Our ancestors mainly lived in Persia and the Caucasus. If you look at the modern map of the world, we note that the Sephardim lived in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, on the territory of present-day Azerbaijan - these are Baku, Shamakhi, Cuba, Red, and before the 1917 revolution - Jewish Sloboda. And also Tajikistan, Uzbekistan.
A large community also existed on the territory of Russia: Nalchik, Grozny, Khasavyurt, Buynaksk and, of course, the legendary Derbent. In these cities, the Mountain Jews lived as a friendly community, in peace and friendship with their neighbors - Christians and Muslims. Remember that Jewish pogroms were only in Europe, the pogroms did not affect Eastern Jews. Obviously, this did not happen for one simple reason - the Eastern peoples are very religiously tolerant.
It is also quite obvious that we have absorbed a lot from a foreign culture, but at the same time we have not dissolved into another community. We have preserved the language (juri), religion, culture, rituals, traditions, carrying them through the centuries. I think it is very, very important for any people not to assimilate, but to remain themselves.
— Is it true that Mountain Jews are very religious?
— We were the first in Moscow in 1993 to create a community of Mountain Jews. The well-known Gilalov family provided great assistance in the construction of the Beit Talkhum synagogue for mountain Jews in the Russian capital in 1998. At that time, they were just beginning to talk about the construction of religious buildings, and the Mountain Jews already had their own temple. A yeshiva (religious educational center - ed.) was built in Khripani, near Moscow. Religious buildings for Mountain Jews with the support of this family also appeared in Israel - Tirat-Karmel and Jerusalem. The Gilalovs initiated in 2003 the creation of the World Congress of Mountain Jews, which was once spoken of by the whole world, and not only the Jewish one.
Today Akif Gilalov is the organizer and chairman of the Council of the centralized Orthodox Jewish organization "Federation of Communities of Mountain Jews of Russia". He did a lot for us. This is not so much money as attention and concern for the people and their future.
Today, Mountain Jews are implementing projects in the field of charity, education, these are children's camps, holding holidays, and simply community meetings, because for us a lively conversation is a prerequisite for life.
— In what other countries of the far abroad do religious organizations of Mountain Jews operate?
— The geography is vast. Canada, USA, Latin America, Europe, Georgia, Turkey and, of course, Israel. More than a dozen communities of Mountain Jews with a total number of 120,000 people work in these countries. We have close contacts with foreign organizations, joint projects that meet our common interests.
— Will a large community center of Mountain Jews appear in Moscow?
Yes, it is very necessary for us. Therefore, we will appeal to the federal and regional authorities with a request to allocate space for the construction of the Community Center of Mountain Jews, and about 10-15 thousand of them live in Moscow. It will be, according to our plans, not only a religious, but also a cultural center, where, in addition to spiritual education, it will be possible to join one's roots, traditions and rituals. There are patrons and those wishing to help in the construction of the community center.
Our plans for the coming period are the creation of a community center for all branches of Sephardic Jews in Moscow.
Among the numerous descendants of the biblical forefather Abraham and his sons Isaac and Jacob, a special category is a sub-ethnic group of Jews who have settled in the Caucasus region since ancient times and are called Mountain Jews. Having retained their historical name, they have now largely left their former habitat, settling in Israel, America, Western Europe and Russia.
Replenishment among the peoples of the Caucasus
Researchers attribute the earliest appearance of Jewish tribes among the peoples of the Caucasus to two important periods in the history of the sons of Israel - the Assyrian captivity (VIII century BC) and the Babylonian, which occurred two centuries later. Fleeing from the inevitable enslavement, the descendants of the tribes of Simeon - one of the twelve sons of the biblical forefather Jacob - and his brother Manasseh first moved to the territory of present-day Dagestan and Azerbaijan, and from there dispersed throughout the Caucasus.
Already in a later historical period (approximately in the 5th century AD), Mountain Jews intensively arrived in the Caucasus from Persia. The reason why they left the formerly inhabited lands was also the unceasing wars of conquest.
With them, the settlers brought to their new homeland a peculiar mountain-Jewish language, which belonged to one of the language groups of the southwestern Jewish-Iranian branch. One should not, however, confuse Mountain Jews with Georgians. Despite the commonality of religion between them, there are significant differences in language and culture.
Jews of the Khazar Khaganate
It was the Mountain Jews who rooted Judaism in the Khazar Khaganate, a powerful medieval state that controlled territories from the Ciscaucasia to the Dnieper, including the Lower and Middle Volga regions, part of the Crimea, as well as the steppe regions of Eastern Europe. Under the influence of the rabbis-settlers, the ruling Khazaria, for the most part, adopted the law of the prophet Moses.
As a result, the state was significantly strengthened due to the combination of the potential of local warlike tribes and trade and economic ties, with which the Jews who joined it were very rich. At that time, a number of East Slavic peoples turned out to be in his dependence.
The role of the Khazar Jews in the fight against the Arab conquerors
The Mountain Jews provided the Khazars with invaluable assistance in the struggle against Arab expansion in the 8th century. Thanks to them, it was possible to significantly reduce the territories occupied by the commanders Abu Muslim and Mervan, who forced the Khazars to the Volga with fire and sword, and also forcibly Islamized the population of the occupied areas.
The Arabs owe their military successes only to internal strife that arose among the rulers of the kaganate. As often happened in history, they were ruined by an exorbitant thirst for power and personal ambitions. Handwritten monuments of that time tell, for example, about the armed struggle that broke out between supporters of the Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Kundishkan and the prominent Khazar commander Samsam. In addition to open clashes, which caused considerable damage to both sides, the usual tricks in such cases were used - bribery, slander and court intrigues.
The end of the Khazar Khaganate came in 965, when the Russian prince Svyatoslav Igorevich, who managed to win over the Georgians, Pechenegs, as well as Khorezm and Byzantium, defeated Khazaria. Mountain Jews in Dagestan fell under his blow, as the prince's squad captured the city of Semender.
The period of the Mongol invasion
But the Jewish language was heard for several centuries in the vastness of Dagestan and Chechnya, until in 1223 the Mongols, led by Batu Khan, and in 1396 by Tamerlane, destroyed the entire Jewish diaspora in them. Those who managed to survive these terrible invasions were forced to convert to Islam and forever abandon the language of their ancestors.
The history of the Mountain Jews who lived in the territory of northern Azerbaijan is also full of drama. In 1741, they were attacked by Arab troops led by Nadir Shah. It did not become disastrous for the people as a whole, but, like any invasion of conquerors, it brought incalculable suffering.
The scroll that became a shield for the Jewish community
These events are reflected in folklore. To this day, the legend of how the Lord Himself interceded for His chosen people has been preserved. It is said that one day Nadir Shah burst into one of the synagogues during the reading of the sacred Torah and demanded that the Jews present renounce their faith and convert to Islam.
Hearing a categorical refusal, he swung his sword down on the rabbi. He instinctively raised a Torah scroll above his head - and the combat steel got bogged down in it, unable to cut the shabby parchment. Great fear seized the blasphemer, who raised his hand to the shrine. He fled shamefully and ordered that the persecution of the Jews should cease in the future.
Years of conquest of the Caucasus
All Jews of the Caucasus, including mountain Jews, suffered innumerable victims during the period of the struggle against Shamil (1834-1859), who carried out the forcible Islamization of vast territories. On the example of the events that unfolded in the Andean Valley, where the vast majority of the inhabitants preferred death to the rejection of Judaism, one can get a general idea of the drama that played out then.
It is known that members of numerous communities of Mountain Jews scattered throughout the Caucasus were engaged in medicine, trade and various crafts. Perfectly knowing the language and customs of the peoples around them, as well as imitating them in clothing and cuisine, they nevertheless did not assimilate with them, but, firmly adhering to Judaism, preserved national unity.
With this link connecting them, or, as they say now, “spiritual bond”, Shamil waged an uncompromising struggle. However, at times he was forced to make concessions, since his army, constantly in the heat of battle with the detachments of the Russian army, needed the help of skillful Jewish doctors. In addition, it was the Jews who supplied the soldiers with food and all the necessary goods.
As is known from the chronicles of that time, the Russian troops, who seized the Caucasus in order to establish state power there, did not oppress the Jews, but did not provide them with practically any help. If they turned to the command with such requests, they met, as a rule, an indifferent refusal.
In the service of the Russian Tsar
However, in 1851, Prince A.I. Boryatinsky, appointed commander-in-chief, decided to use the Mountain Jews in the fight against Shamil and created a widely branched agent network from them, supplying him with detailed information about the locations and movement of enemy units. In this role, they completely replaced the deceitful and corrupt Dagestan scouts.
According to Russian staff officers, the main features of the Mountain Jews were fearlessness, composure, cunning, caution and the ability to take the enemy by surprise. Considering these properties, since 1853, it was customary to have at least sixty mountaineer Jews in the horse regiments fighting in the Caucasus, and on foot their number reached ninety people.
Paying tribute to the heroism of the Mountain Jews and their contribution to the conquest of the Caucasus, at the end of the war, all of them were exempted from paying taxes for a period of twenty years and received the right to free movement across the territory of Russia.
The hardships of the civil war
The years of the civil war were extremely difficult for them. Hardworking and enterprising, the Mountain Jews, for the most part, had prosperity, which, in an atmosphere of general chaos and lawlessness, made them a desirable prey for armed robbers. So, back in 1917, the communities living in Khasavyurt and Grozny were subjected to total looting, and a year later, the same fate befell the Jews of Nalchik.
Many mountain Jews died in battles with bandits, where they fought side by side with representatives of other Caucasian peoples. For example, the events of 1918 are sadly memorable, when, together with the Dagestanis, they had to repel the attack of the detachments of Ataman Serebryakov, one of the closest associates of General Kornilov. During the long and fierce battles, many of them were killed, and those who managed to survive left the Caucasus forever with their families, moving to Russia.
Years of the Great Patriotic War
During the Great Patriotic War, the names of the Mountain Jews were repeatedly mentioned among the heroes awarded the highest state awards. The reason for this was their selfless courage and heroism shown in the fight against the enemy. Those of them who ended up in the occupied territories, for the most part, became victims of the Nazis. The history of the Holocaust included a tragedy that took place in 1942 in the village of Bogdanovka, Smolensk Region, where the Germans carried out a mass execution of Jews, most of whom were from the Caucasus.
General data on the number of people, their culture and language
At present, the total number of Mountain Jews is about one hundred and fifty thousand people. Of these, according to the latest data, one hundred thousand live in Israel, twenty thousand - in Russia, the same number in the United States, and the rest are distributed among the countries of Western Europe. A small number of them are also in Azerbaijan.
The original language of the Mountain Jews has practically fallen into disuse and has given way to the dialects of those peoples among whom they live today. The general one has largely been preserved. It is a rather complex conglomerate of Jewish and Caucasian traditions.
Influence on the Jewish culture of other peoples of the Caucasus
As mentioned above, wherever they had to settle, they quickly began to resemble the locals, adopting their customs, manner of dressing and even cuisine, but at the same time they always sacredly kept their religion. It was Judaism that allowed all Jews, including mountain Jews, to remain a single nation for centuries.
And it was very difficult to do so. Even at present, there are about sixty-two ethnic groups in the territory of the Caucasus, including its northern and southern parts. As for the past centuries, according to researchers, their number was much larger. It is generally accepted that among other nationalities, the Abkhazians, Avars, Ossetians, Dagestanis and Chechens had the greatest influence on the culture (but not religion) of the Mountain Jews.
Surnames of Mountain Jews
Today, along with all their brothers in faith, Mountain Jews also make a great contribution to world culture and economy. The names of many of them are well known not only in the countries where they live, but also abroad. For example, the famous banker Abramov Rafael Yakovlevich and his son, a prominent businessman Yan Rafaelevich, the Israeli writer and literary figure Eldar Gurshumov, the sculptor, author of the Kremlin wall, Yuno Ruvimovich Rabaev, and many others.
As for the very origin of the names of the Mountain Jews, many of them appeared rather late - in the second half or at the very end of the 19th century, when the Caucasus was finally annexed to the Russian Empire. Prior to this, they were not used among the Mountain Jews, each of them managed just fine with his own name.
When they became citizens of Russia, each received a document in which the official was obliged to indicate his last name. As a rule, the Russian ending "ov" or the feminine "ova" was added to the father's name. For example: Ashurov is the son of Ashur, or Shaulova is the daughter of Shaul. However, there were exceptions. By the way, most Russian surnames are also formed in the same way: Ivanov is the son of Ivan, Petrova is the daughter of Peter, and so on.
Metropolitan life of Mountain Jews
The community of Mountain Jews in Moscow is the largest in Russia and, according to some sources, is about fifteen thousand people. The first settlers from the Caucasus appeared here even before the revolution. These were the wealthy merchant families Dadashevs and Khanukaevs, who received the right to unhindered trade. Their descendants live here today.
The mass resettlement of Mountain Jews to the capital was observed during the collapse of the USSR. Some of them left the country forever, while those who did not want to radically change their way of life preferred to stay in the capital. Today their community has patrons who support synagogues not only in Moscow, but also in other cities. Suffice it to say that, according to Forbes magazine, four Mountain Jews living in the capital are mentioned among the hundred richest people in Russia.
During their long and difficult history, Jews have repeatedly been subjected to various persecutions in many countries of the world. Fleeing from their pursuers, representatives of the once united people scattered over the centuries to different parts of Europe, Asia and North Africa. One group of Jews as a result of long wanderings arrived on the territory of Dagestan and Azerbaijan. These people created an original culture that absorbed the traditions and customs of different peoples.
They call themselves juuru
The ethnonym "Mountain Jews", which has become widespread in Russia, cannot be considered completely legitimate. So these people were called by the neighbors to emphasize their difference from the rest of the representatives of the ancient people. Mountain Jews call themselves dzhuur (in the singular - dzhuur). Dialect forms of pronunciation allow such variants of the ethnonym as "zhugur" and "gyivr".
They cannot be called a separate people, they are an ethnic group formed in the territories of Dagestan and Azerbaijan. The ancestors of the Mountain Jews fled to the Caucasus in the 5th century from Persia, where representatives of the tribe of Simon (one of the 12 tribes of Israel) lived from the 8th century BC.
Over the past few decades, most of the Mountain Jews have left their native lands. According to experts, the total number of representatives of this ethnic group is about 250 thousand people. Most of them now live in Israel (140-160 thousand) and the USA (about 40 thousand). There are about 30 thousand Mountain Jews in Russia: large communities are located in Moscow, Derbent, Makhachkala, Pyatigorsk, Nalchik, Grozny, Khasavyurt and Buynaksk. About 7 thousand people live in Azerbaijan today. The rest are in various European countries and Canada.
Do they speak a dialect of the Tat language?
From the point of view of most linguists, Mountain Jews speak a dialect of the Tat language. But the representatives of the tribe of Simonov themselves deny this fact, calling their language Juuri.
To begin with, let's figure it out: who are the Tats? These are people from Persia who fled from there, fleeing wars, civil strife and uprisings. They settled in the south of Dagestan and in Azerbaijan, like the Jews. Tat belongs to the southwestern group of Iranian languages.
Due to the long neighborhood, the languages of the two above-mentioned ethnic groups inevitably acquired common features, which gave specialists a reason to consider them as dialects of the same language. However, Mountain Jews consider this approach fundamentally wrong. In their opinion, Tat influenced the Juuri in the same way that German influenced Yiddish.
However, the Soviet government did not delve into such linguistic subtleties. The leadership of the RSFSR generally denied any relationship between the inhabitants of Israel and the Mountain Jews. Everywhere there was a process of their tatization. In the official statistics of the USSR, both ethnic groups were counted as some kind of Caucasian Persians (Tats).
Currently, many Mountain Jews have lost their native language, switching to Hebrew, English, Russian or Azerbaijani, depending on the country of residence. By the way, representatives of the Simonov tribe have had their own written language for a long time, which in Soviet times was first translated into Latin, and then into Cyrillic. Several books and textbooks were published in the so-called Jewish-Tat language in the 20th century.
Anthropologists are still arguing about the ethnogenesis of the Mountain Jews. Some experts rank them among the descendants of the forefather Abraham, others consider them a Caucasian tribe that converted to Judaism in the era of the Khazar Khaganate. For example, the famous Russian scientist Konstantin Kurdov, in his work “Mountain Jews of Dagestan”, which was published in the Russian Anthropological Journal of 1905, wrote that Mountain Jews are most close to the Lezgins.
Other researchers note that the representatives of the Simonov tribe, who settled in the Caucasus long ago, are similar to Abkhazians, Ossetians, Avars and Chechens in their customs, traditions and national clothes. The material culture and social organization of all these peoples are almost identical.
Mountain Jews lived for many centuries in large patriarchal families, they had polygamy, and it was necessary to pay bride price for a bride. The customs of hospitality and mutual assistance inherent in neighboring peoples have always been supported by local Jews. Even now they cook dishes of Caucasian cuisine, dance lezginka, perform incendiary music, characteristic of the inhabitants of Dagestan and Azerbaijan.
But, on the other hand, all these traditions do not necessarily indicate ethnic kinship, they could be borrowed in the process of long-term coexistence of peoples. After all, the Mountain Jews have retained their national characteristics, the roots of which go back to the religion of their ancestors. They celebrate all major Jewish holidays, observe wedding and funeral rites, numerous gastronomic prohibitions, and follow the instructions of the rabbis.
British geneticist Dror Rosengarten analyzed the Y-chromosome of Mountain Jews in 2002 and found that the paternal haplotypes of this ethnic group and other Jewish communities largely coincide. Thus, the Semitic origin of the Juuru is now scientifically confirmed.
Fight against Islamization
One of the reasons that allowed the Mountain Jews not to get lost among other inhabitants of the Caucasus is their religion. Firm adherence to the canons of Judaism contributed to the preservation of national identity. It is noteworthy that at the beginning of the 9th century, the class top of the Khazar Khaganate - a powerful and influential empire located in the south of modern Russia - adopted the faith of the Jews. This happened under the influence of representatives of the tribe of Simonov, who lived on the territory of the modern Caucasus. By converting to Judaism, the Khazar rulers received the support of the Jews in the fight against the Arab invaders, whose expansion was stopped. However, the kaganate still fell in the 11th century under the onslaught of the Polovtsians.
Having survived the Mongol-Tatar invasion, for many centuries the Jews fought against Islamization, not wanting to give up their religion, for which they were repeatedly persecuted. Thus, the troops of the Iranian ruler Nadir Shah Afshar (1688-1747), who repeatedly attacked Azerbaijan and Dagestan, did not spare the Gentiles.
Another commander who, among other things, sought to Islamize the entire Caucasus, was Imam Shamil (1797-1871), who opposed the Russian Empire, which asserted its influence on these lands in the 19th century. Fearing extermination by radical Muslims, the Mountain Jews supported the Russian army in the fight against Shamil's detachments.
Growers, winemakers, merchants
The Jewish population of Dagestan and Azerbaijan, like their neighbors, is engaged in gardening, winemaking, weaving carpets and fabrics, leatherworking, fishing and other crafts traditional for the Caucasus. There are many successful businessmen, sculptors and writers among the Mountain Jews. For example, one of the authors of the monument to the Unknown Soldier, erected in Moscow near the Kremlin wall, is Yuno Ruvimovich Rabaev (1927-1993).
In Soviet times, the writers Khizgil Davidovich Avshalumov (1913-2001) and Mishi Yusupovich Bakhshiev (1910-1972) reflected the life of fellow countrymen in their work. And now books of poems by Eldar Pinkhasovich Gurshumov, who heads the Union of Caucasian Writers of Israel, are being actively published.
Representatives of the Jewish ethnic group on the territory of Azerbaijan and Dagestan should not be confused with the so-called Georgian Jews. This sub-ethnos arose and developed in parallel and has its own original culture.
In contact with
Partly descendants of Iranian Jews.
Until the middle of the XIX century. lived mainly in the south of Dagestan and the north of Azerbaijan, subsequently began to settle first in cities in the north of Dagestan, then in other regions of Russia, and later in Israel.
General information
The ancestors of the Mountain Jews came from Persia sometime in the 5th century. They speak a dialect of the Tat language of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family, also called the Mountain Jewish language and belonging to the southwestern group of Jewish-Iranian languages.
Jewish Encyclopedia, Public DomainAlso common are Russian, Azerbaijani, English and other languages, which have practically replaced the native language in the diaspora. Mountain Jews differ from Georgian Jews both culturally and linguistically.
- siddur "Rabbi Ychiel Sevi" - a prayer book based on the Sephardic canon, according to the custom of the Mountain Jews.
The total number is about 110 thousand people. ( 2006, estimate, according to unofficial data - ten times more), of which:
- in Israel - 50 thousand people;
- in Azerbaijan - 37 thousand people. (according to other estimates - 12 thousand), of which about 30 thousand are in Baku itself and 4000 in Krasnaya Sloboda;
- in Russia - 27 thousand people. ( 2006, estimate), including in Moscow - 10 thousand people, in the region of the Caucasian Mineral Waters (Pyatigorsk) - 7 thousand people, in Dagestan - approx. 10 thousand people
- Mountain Jews also live in the USA, Germany and other countries.
They are divided into 7 local groups:
- Nalchik(nalchigyo) - Nalchik and nearby cities of Kabardino-Balkaria.
- Kuban(guboni) - Krasnodar Territory and part of Karachay-Cherkessia, most of the Kuban Jews were killed, first during dispossession, later during the Holocaust.
- Kaitag(kaitogi) - the Kaitag district of Dagestan, especially in Tubenaul and Majalis;
- Derbent(derbendi) - Derbent region of Dagestan, including the village of Nyugdi.
- Cuban(guboi) - the north of Azerbaijan, mainly in the village of Krasnaya Sloboda ( Kyrgyz Kesebe);
- Shirvan(shirvoni) - north-east of Azerbaijan, in the past the village of Muji, Shamakhi region, Ismayilli, as well as in Baku;
- Vartashensky- the cities of Oguz (formerly Vartashen), Ganja, Shemakha (about 2000 people).
- Grozny- the city of Grozny (sunzh galai) (about 1000 people).
History
According to linguistic and historical data, Jews begin to penetrate from Iran and Mesopotamia to Eastern Transcaucasia no later than the middle of the 6th century, where they settled (in its eastern and northeastern regions) among the population speaking Tat and switched to this language, probably in connection with the suppression of the uprising of Mar Zutra II in Iran (simultaneously with the movement of the Mazdakites) and the settlement of its participants in new fortifications in the Derbent region.
The Jewish settlements of the Caucasus were one of the sources in the Khazar Khaganate. The Mountain Jews also included later settlers from Iran, Iraq and Byzantium.
Max Karl Tilke (1869–1942), Public Domain The earliest material monuments of Mountain Jews (tomb steles near the city of Majalis in Dagestan) date back to the 16th century. There was a continuous strip of settlements of Mountain Jews between Kaitag and the Shamakhi region.
In 1742, the Mountain Jews were forced to flee from Nadir Shah, and in 1797–99 from the Kazikumukh Khan.
The entry of the Caucasus into Russia saved them from pogroms as a result of feudal civil strife and forced conversion to Islam.
In the middle of the XIX century. mountain Jews settle outside the original ethnic territory - at Russian fortresses and administrative centers in the North Caucasus: Buynaksk (Temir-Khan-Shura), Makhachkala (Petrovsk-Port), Andrey-aul, Khasavyurt, Grozny, Mozdok, Nalchik, Dzhegonas, etc. .
In the 1820s, the first contacts of Mountain Jews with Russian Jews were noted, which became stronger at the end of the 19th century. in the process of development of the Baku oil-producing region. At the end of the XIX century. emigration of Mountain Jews began in . They were first recorded as a separate community in the 1926 census (25.9 thousand people).
A.Naor, Public Domain In the 1920s and 30s, professional literature, theatrical and choreographic art, and the press developed.
In the mid-1920s in Dagestan, Mountain Jews lived in the villages - Ashaga-arag, Mamrash (now Soviet), Khadzhal-kala, Khoshmenzil (now Rubas), Aglobi, Nyugdi, Jarag and Majalis (in the Jewish settlement). At the same time, an attempt was made to resettle part of the mountain Jewish population in the Kizlyar region. Two resettlement settlements named after Larin and Kalinin were formed there, but most of the inhabitants of these settlements left them.
The Tat language in 1938 was proclaimed one of the 10 official languages of Dagestan. Since 1930, a number of mountain-Jewish collective farms have been created in the Crimea and the Kursk region of the Stavropol Territory. Most of their inhabitants died in the occupied territory at the end of 1942. At the same time, the Mountain Jews living in the Caucasus, on the whole, escaped persecution by the Nazis.
In the post-war period, teaching and publishing activities in the Jewish-Tat language ceased, in 1956 the publication of the yearbook “Vatan sovetimu” was resumed in Dagestan. At the same time, the state-supported policy of “tatization” of Mountain Jews began. Representatives of the Soviet elite, mainly in Dagestan, denied the connection of Mountain Jews with Jews, were registered in official statistics as tats, making up the vast majority of this community in the RSFSR. At the beginning of the 20th century, K. M. Kurdov expressed the opinion that the Lezgins "... were miscegenated by representatives of the Semitic family, mainly Mountain Jews."
In the 1990s, the bulk of Mountain Jews emigrated to Israel, Moscow and Pyatigorsk.
Insignificant communities remain in Dagestan, Nalchik and Mozdok. In Azerbaijan, in the village of Krasnaya Sloboda (within the city of Quba) (the only place in the diaspora where Mountain Jews live compactly), the traditional way of life of Mountain Jews is being recreated. Small settlements of Mountain Jews appeared in the USA, Germany, Austria.
In Moscow, the community numbers several thousand people.
Photo gallery
Mountain Jews
self-name - zhugur [juhur], pl. h zhugurgio,
more traditional also guivre
Hebrew יהודי ההרים
English Mountain Jews or Caucasus Jews also Juhuro
traditional culture
The main occupations of Mountain Jews known by the second half of the 19th century: gardening, tobacco growing, viticulture and winemaking (especially in Kuba and Derbent), growing madder to obtain red dye, fishing, leather craft, trade (mainly in fabrics and carpets), hired labor . In terms of material culture and social organization, they are close to other peoples of the Caucasus.
Until the early 1930s, the settlements consisted of 3-5 large 3-4-generation patriarchal families (over 70 people), each occupied a separate courtyard in which each nuclear family had its own house. Large families descended from a common ancestor united in tukhums. There was polygamy, engagements in infancy, payment of kalym (kalyn), customs of hospitality, mutual assistance, blood feud (in case of non-fulfillment of blood feud within three days, the families of the bloodlines were considered relatives).
In the cities they lived in separate quarters (Derbent) or suburbs (Jewish, now Red Sloboda of Cuba). There were 2 levels of the rabbinical hierarchy: a rabbi - cantor and a preacher in the synagogue (nimaz), a teacher in an elementary school (talmid-huna), a carver; dayan - the elected chief rabbi of the city, who presided over the religious court and led the higher religious school, the yeshiva. All R. 19th century The Russian authorities recognized the Dayan Temir-Khan-Shura as the Chief Rabbi of the Mountain Jews of the northern Caucasus, and the Dayan of Derbent - of southern Dagestan and Azerbaijan.
Jewish rituals associated with the life cycle (circumcision, wedding, funeral), holidays (Pesach - Nison, Purim - Gomun, Sukkot - Aravo, etc.), food prohibitions (kasher) are preserved.
Folklore - fairy tales (ovosuna) that were told by professional storytellers (ovosunachi), songs (ma'ani) performed by the author (ma'nihu) and transmitted with the author's name.
In works of art
During the Soviet period, the life of Mountain Jews was reflected in the works of the Derbent writer Khizgil Avshalumov and Misha Bakhshiev, who wrote in Russian and Mountain Jewish.
Mountain Jews are called Jews who came from the Northern and Eastern regions of the Caucasus. Until the 50s of the 19th century, Mountain Jews settled in the south of Dagestan and the northern regions of Azerbaijan, and then migrated to various regions of Israel. Mountain Jews had a Persian origin until the 5th century. The language of the Mountain Jews belonged to the Jewish-Iranian language group. Many of the representatives of the Mountain Jews are fluent in Russian, Azerbaijani, English and a number of other languages. Mountain Jews differ from Georgian Jews in a number of cultural and linguistic ways.
The community of Mountain Jews numbers over 100,000. Mountain Jews in Israel make up the majority - more than 50 thousand. About 37,000 Mountain Jews inhabit Azerbaijan, a little 27,000 live in Russia, in particular, 10,000 Mountain Jews have chosen Moscow as their place of residence. Small communities of Mountain Jews currently inhabit various European countries. There are also communities of Mountain Jews in America. All Mountain Jews are divided into eight groups: Grozny, Kuban, Cuban, Kaitag, Shirvan, as well as Nalchik Mountain Jews, Vartashen and Derbent groups.
During the 19th century, the main occupation of the Mountain Jews was gardening, tobacco growing, winemaking and fishing. Many were engaged in the sale of fabrics, and were also hired workers. Some were engaged in various crafts, dressed skins. One of the most common crafts at that time for Mountain Jews was getting red paint from madder, which they themselves grew. In terms of their social organization and household arrangements, the Mountain Jews were close to the model of the peoples who lived for centuries in the Caucasus.
In the early 30s, about 70 people settled in the villages of Mountain Jews, five large families each. Each of the families had their own place of residence. Among the Mountain Jews practiced polygamy, vendetta, early marriage with the engagement of children. Mountain Jews who inhabited large cities usually settled in separate districts or city blocks, and were divided into two hierarchical groups. The dayan of Temir-Khan-Shura was appointed chief rabbi in the North Caucasus, and the dayan of Derbent in the southern regions of Dagestan.
The linguistic affiliation of the Mountain Jews belongs to the Persian group of languages. Some groups of Mountain Jews are Bukhara, inhabiting regions of Iran and Afghanistan.
Mountain Jews who inhabited the regions of the Caucasus received their name "mountain" in the 19th century, at a time when all the peoples inhabiting the mountainous regions of the Caucasus had the name "mountain" in all the documentation. Mountain Jews call themselves Juur or Yeudi.
In one of his works, I. Anisimov in 1889 pointed to a kinship between the language of the Mountain Jews and the Tats - the Persian peoples in the Caucasus. From this, it was concluded that the Mountain Jews belong to the Iranian tribe - the Tats, who converted to Judaism and occupied the territory of the Caucasus. Such a theory about the Tats origin was promoted by the Jews themselves, who were constantly subjected to persecution and repression. Based on the state of these things, it was beneficial for the Jews to classify themselves as part of the Tats group of peoples.
Such conclusions were developed in the 30s, and the theory of the Tat Jews appeared in everyday life. The definition of Tata - Mountain Jews has firmly settled in all textbooks, and was officially accepted at all levels. This led to the fact that any cultural activity of Mountain Jews - books, songs, musical compositions, etc. were perceived as "Tats" - "Tats literature", "Tats theater, although the Tats themselves were not involved in all this.