 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 120,000–140,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Beersheba, Or Akiva, Hadera, Acre, Sderot | |
| Languages | |
| Hebrew, Juhuri, Russian | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism |
Mountain Jews in Israel , also known as the Juhurim, refers to immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Mountain Jewish communities, who now reside within the state of Israel. The Mountain Jewish community are involved with "Mizrachi Jews" (Oriental) grouping. [1]
Even before the advent of Zionism, the Juhurim had a desire to return to Zion, which many did in the 1840s and 1850s. [2]
Mountain Jews were among the first to make Aliyah, with some immigrating independent of the Zionist movement, while others came inspired by it. [3] They were represented at the Zionist congresses and the first Mountain Jewish settlers in Ottoman Syria established the modern Israeli town of Be'er Ya'akov in 1907. [3] In the early 1920s, Baku became one of the centres of the Jewish national movement, and Zionist newspapers were published in Juhuri. [4] [5]
The Mountain Jews living in the Soviet Union celebrated the creation of the State of Israel loudly and proudly, which led to repression by Soviet authorities. Many were arrested and imprisoned for engaging in "anti-Soviet propaganda." [3] The Six-Day War resulted in an eruption of Jewish patriotism among Mountain Jews, although the broader Zionist awakening didn't take place until the early 1970s. It was then when over 10,000 Mountain Jews (about a quarter of the population) emigrated to Israel. [6]
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, thousands of Mountain Jews moved to Israel. [7] During the First Chechen War, some left due to the violence. Despite the usual close relations between Jews and Chechens, many were kidnapped by Chechen gangs who ransomed their freedom to "the international Jewish community." [8]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Already in the 1840s or 1850s the yearning for the Holy Land led some Mountain Jews to Ereẓ Israel. In the 1870s and 1880s Jerusalem emissaries regularly visited Daghestan to collect money. In the second half of the 1880s a Kolel Daghestan already existed in Jerusalem.
The Georgian Jews are a community of Jews who migrated to Georgia during the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BCE. It is one of the oldest communities in the region. They are also widely distinguished from the Ashkenazi Jews in Georgia, who arrived following the Russian annexation of Georgia.
The Jewish Agency for Israel, formerly known as the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization (WZO).
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine region, which is today chiefly represented by the State of Israel. Traditionally described as "the act of going up", moving to the Land of Israel or "making aliyah" is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism. The opposite action — emigration by Jews from the Land of Israel — is referred to in the Hebrew language as yerida. The Law of Return that was passed by the Israeli parliament in 1950 gives all diaspora Jews, as well as their children and grandchildren, the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship on the basis of connecting to their Jewish identity.
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.
Hashomer was a Jewish defense organization in Palestine founded in April 1909. It was an outgrowth of the Bar-Giora group and was disbanded after the founding of the Haganah in 1920. Hashomer was responsible for guarding Jewish settlements in the Yishuv, freeing Jewish communities from dependence upon foreign consulates and Arab watchmen for their security. It was headed by a committee of three: Israel Shochat, Israel Giladi and Mendel Portugali.
The World Union of Jewish Students is the international, pluralistic, non-partisan umbrella organisation of independent Jewish student groups in 38 countries. The World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) aims to connect, represent, and empower Jewish students globally, promoting the unity and participation of these students in advancing the Jewish people's aspirations, continuity, and cultural heritage.
Yosef Shagal is an Israeli politician and former journalist, of Azerbaijani Jewish origin. He served as a member of the Knesset for the Russian-immigrant dominated Yisrael Beiteinu between 2006 and 2009. From 2012 until 2015, he was the ambassador of Israel to Belarus.
The First Aliyah, also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (aliyah) to Ottoman Palestine between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen, stimulated by pogroms and violence against the Jewish communities in those areas. An estimated 25,000 Jews immigrated. Many of the European Jewish immigrants during the late 19th-early 20th century period gave up after a few months and went back to their country of origin, often suffering from hunger and disease.
The Second Aliyah was an aliyah that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews, mostly from Russia, with some from Yemen, immigrated into Ottoman Palestine.
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.
The 1970s Soviet Union aliyah was the mass immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel after the Soviet Union lifted its ban on Jewish refusenik emigration in 1971. More than 150,000 Soviet Jews immigrated during this period, motivated variously by religious or ideological aspiration, economic opportunity, and a desire to escape anti-Semitic discrimination.
In the years leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and for just over a decade thereafter, a particularly large number of Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet countries. The majority of these emigrants made aliyah, while a sizable amount immigrated to various Western countries. This wave of Jewish migration followed the 1970s Soviet aliyah, which began after the Soviet government lifted the ban on the country's refuseniks, most of whom were Jews who had been denied permission to leave the country.
Georgian Jews in Israel, also known as Gruzinim, are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Georgian Jewish communities, who now reside within the state of Israel. They number around 75,000 to 80,000. The Georgian community is considered to be aligned with the Mizrachi community in Israel.
Labor Zionism or socialist Zionism refers to the left-wing, socialist variant of Zionism. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations, and was seen as the Zionist sector of the historic Jewish labour movements of Eastern Europe and Central Europe, eventually developing local units in most countries with sizable Jewish populations. Unlike the "political Zionist" tendency founded by Theodor Herzl and advocated by Chaim Weizmann, Labor Zionists did not believe that a Jewish state would be created by simply appealing to the international community or to powerful nations such as the United Kingdom, Germany, or the former Ottoman Empire. Rather, they believed that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of the Jewish working class making aliyah to the Land of Israel and raising a country through the creation of a Labor Jewish society with rural kibbutzim and moshavim, and an urban Jewish Proletariat.
Kurdish Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Kurdish Jewish communities, who now reside within the state of Israel. They number between 150,000 and 300,000.
Russians in Israel or Russian Israelis are post-Soviet Russian citizens who immigrate to Israel and their descendants. As of 2022, Russian-speakers number around 1,300,000 people, or 15% of the Israeli population. This number, however, also includes immigrants from the Soviet Union and post-Soviet states other than Russia proper.
Russian Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Russian Jewish communities, who now reside within the State of Israel. They were around 900,000 in 2007. This refers to all post-Soviet Jewish diaspora groups, not only Russian Jews, but also Mountain Jews, Crimean Karaites, Krymchaks, Bukharan Jews, and Georgian Jews.
Bukharan Jews in Israel, also known as the Bukharim, refers to immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Bukharan Jewish communities, who now reside within the state of Israel.
Yehezkel Nisanov was a Mountain Jewish Zionist and early immigrant in Eretz Israel.