 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 300–430 | |
| Languages | |
| Hebrew (in Israel), Judeo-Tat, Russian | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Mountain Jews, Ashkenazi Jews. |
The Jewish community of Makhachkala are Jews who have ever lived on the territory of modern Makhachkala, a city in the Russian Republic of Dagestan. During the Persian campaign in 1722 in Makhachkala was a camp for the troops of the Russian Emperor Peter I. Mountain Jews and Ashkenazi Jews were allowed to settle there. [1]
During the era of the Khazars Khanate, near Makhachkala in the village of Tarki, there was a Khazars settlement. [2] Many Khazar scholars believe that the capital of the Khazar Khanate, the city of Samandar, [3] was located on the site of Makhachkala. According to Ibn Hawqal, in the city of Samandar back in the 10th century there lived Jews who had their own synagogues. [2]
In 1862, the first synagogue was built in the city, in which both Ashkenazi Jews and merchants Mountain Jews prayed there (including 61 artisans and 20 soldiers of the local garrison). [1]
Also in 1926, a Jewish pogrom took place in Makhachkala, provoked by a blood libel. In the fall of that year, a rumor spread in several villages of Dagestan that supposedly Mountain Jews had killed a Muslim boy (or two) for some "ritual purposes." The angry mob organized several pogroms in Makhachkala, Derbent and other populated areas of Dagestan. [4]
During the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in 1998−1999, several representatives of the Jewish community were kidnapped for ransom. Many Jews of Makhachkala left for Israel and other countries and regions. [6]
Amidst the 2023 Hamas-Israel war, a group waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-semitic slogans forcefully entered the Makhachkala airport, looking for Israeli and Jewish travelers arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv. The incident resulted in about 20 injuries, as reported by local health authorities. Passports of some passengers were scrutinized by the crowd. [10] [11]
The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest population of Jews in the world. Within these territories, the primarily Ashkenazi Jewish communities of many different areas flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also facing periods of antisemitic discriminatory policies and persecution, including violent pogroms. Some have described a "renaissance" in the Jewish community inside Russia since the beginning of the 21st century; however, the Russian Jewish population has experienced precipitous decline since the dissolution of the USSR which continues to this day, although it is still among the largest in Europe.
The history of the Jews in the Soviet Union is inextricably linked to much earlier expansionist policies of the Russian Empire conquering and ruling the eastern half of the European continent already before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. "For two centuries – wrote Zvi Gitelman – millions of Jews had lived under one entity, the Russian Empire and [its successor state] the USSR. They had now come under the jurisdiction of fifteen states, some of which had never existed and others that had passed out of existence in 1939." Before the revolutions of 1989 which resulted in the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, a number of these now sovereign countries constituted the component republics of the Soviet Union.
Mountain Jews or Caucasus Jews, also known as Juhuro,Juvuro,Juhuri,Juwuri, Juhurim,Kavkazi Jews or Gorsky Jews, are Jews of the eastern and northern Caucasus, mainly Azerbaijan, and various republics in the Russian Federation: Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. The Mountain Jews comprise Persian-speaking Jewry along with the Jews of Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The Mountain Jews are the descendants of Persian Jews from Iran, and fall within the Mizrachi category of Jews. Mountain Jews took shape as a community after Qajar Iran ceded the areas in which they lived to the Russian Empire as part of the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813.
Mizrahi Jews, also known as Mizrahim (מִזְרָחִים) or Mizrachi (מִזְרָחִי) and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or Edot HaMizrach, are a grouping of Jewish communities that lived in the Muslim world.
Bukharan Jews, in modern times called Bukharian Jews, are an ethnoreligious Jewish sub-group of Central Asia that historically spoke Bukharian, a Judeo-Tajik dialect of the Tajik language, in turn a variety of the Persian language. Their name comes from the former Central Asian Emirate of Bukhara, which once had a sizable Jewish population. Bukharan Jews comprise Persian-speaking Jewry along with the Jews of Iran, Afghanistan, and the Caucasus Mountains. Bukharan Jews are Mizrahi Jews, like Persian, Afghan and Mountain Jews.
The Krymchaks are Jewish ethno-religious communities of Crimea derived from Turkic-speaking adherents of Rabbinic Judaism. They have historically lived in close proximity to the Crimean Karaites, who follow Karaite Judaism.
Judeo-Tat or Juhuri is a Judeo-Persian dialect of the Tat language historically spoken by the Mountain Jews, primarily in Azerbaijan, Dagestan, and today in Israel. It belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian division of the Indo-European languages with heavy influence from the Hebrew language. In the era of Soviet historiography, the Mountain Jews were mistakenly considered to be related to the Muslim Tats of Azerbaijan. However, they do not share a common linguistic heritage, as the Mountain Jews kept their native language, while the Muslim Tats eventually adopted Persian. The words Juvuri and Juvuro translate as "Jewish" and "Jews".
The history of the Jews in Azerbaijan dates back many centuries. Today, Jews in Azerbaijan mainly consist of three distinct groups: Mountain Jews, the most sizable and most ancient group; Ashkenazi Jews, who settled in the area during the late 19th-early 20th centuries, and during World War II; and Georgian Jews who settled mainly in Baku during the early part of the 20th century.
Qırmızı Qəsəbə, translated as "Red Town", is a village and municipality in the Quba District of Azerbaijan. As of 2010, it had a population of 3,598, mostly Jews. It is widely believed to be the world's only population centre exclusively made up of Jewish people outside of Israel and the United States, and is likewise considered to be the last surviving shtetl.
Nyugdi is a rural locality in Derbentsky District of the Republic of Dagestan, Russia.
Hizgil Davidovich Avshalumov was a Soviet novelist, poet and playwright. He wrote in languages of the Mountain Jews (Juhuri) and Russian. He was awarded the Suleyman Stalsky award. He was a USSR Union of Writers member.
The Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry, often called the Khazar myth by its critics, is a largely abandoned historical hypothesis that postulated that Ashkenazi Jews were primarily, or to a large extent, descended from Khazars, a multi-ethnic conglomerate of mostly Turkic peoples who formed a semi-nomadic khanate in and around the northern and central Caucasus and the Pontic–Caspian steppe. The hypothesis also postulated that after collapse of the Khazar empire, the Khazars fled to Eastern Europe and made up a large part of the Jews there. The hypothesis draws on medieval sources such as the Khazar Correspondence, according to which at some point in the 8th–9th centuries, a small number of Khazars were said by Judah Halevi and Abraham ibn Daud to have converted to Rabbinic Judaism. The scope of the conversion within the Khazar Khanate remains uncertain, but the evidence used to tie the subsequent Ashkenazi communities to the Khazars is meager and subject to conflicting interpretations.
Judeo-Tat literature is the literature of the Mountain Jews in the Juhuri language.
Karchag is a rural locality and the administrative centre of Karchagsky Selsoviet, Suleyman-Stalsky District, Republic of Dagestan, Russia.
The Judeo-Tat Theatre in Derbent, Dagestan, Russia specializes in staging plays with themes related to the lives of Mountain Jews, which are created mainly by Mountain Jews. The plays are performed in the Judeo-Tat language (Juhuri).
Ashaga-Arag, also known as Juhuro-Arag, Lower Arag is an abandoned Lezgins aul in the Suleyman-Stalsky District of Dagestan.
Khanzhalkala (Khanzhal-Kala), also known as Khanjal-Kala is an abandoned Lezgin aul in the Magaramkentsky District of Dagestan. The name comes from Judeo-Tat and means "fortress of the dagger". It was protected not only by the steep slopes of the mountain on which it was located, but also by its fortress walls. It was abolished in 1968.
The Derbent Synagogue, also known as Kele-Numaz is the only synagogue in the city of Derbent in the Russian Republic of Dagestan.
The Jewish community of Derbent, a city in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, is the oldest in the North Caucasus and dates back to the 7th century. A large influx of Jewish immigrants occurred during the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Most Derbent Jews immigrated from the mountain and steppe villages of the northern Caucasus.
Judaism in Dagestan is mainly practiced by Mountain Jews. By the beginning of the 8th century BCE Mountain Jews had reached Persia from Israel. Under the Sasanian Empire, with the arrival in Dagestan of Iranian-speaking tribes from the north, they settled in different regions of the Caucasus.
