History of the Jews in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani Jews are Jews who live in Azerbaijan.

Distribution

There are three communities of Jews in Azerbaijan: Azerbaijani Jews (Juhuro), Ashkenazi Jews, and Georgian Jews. Nearly 16,000 Jews reside in the country. Of these, 11,000 people are Mountain Jews, including 6,000 people living in Baku and 4,000 in Guba, while 1,000 live in other cities. Ashkenazi Jews are 4,300 in number, and mostly reside in Baku and Sumgayit. There are 700 Georgian Jews in Azerbaijan.

Mountain Jews

Mountain Jews currently dominate the entire Jewish Diaspora of the country. They speak primarily in the Tat language, yet one can come across a great many words of Turkish, Persian and Russian origin in their speech.

Mountain Jews follow Rabbinic Judaism. Along with the Tanakh, they also base their religion on rabbinic rulings and Talmudic legends. Due to the lack of religious education they explained the rules of Talmud in a perverted way and adopted some concepts connected with the idolatry of the Caucasus people. They believe in women Dedeyol, that live in the forest and feed on the hearts and lungs of pregnant women, Ilan-Ajdaha (Dragon-snake) that kills new-born children, and the tradition of jumping over the fire two weeks before Christmas. These examples originate from the local beliefs rather than from Judaism.

Mountain Jews are more orthodox compared to Ashkenazi Jews. On the whole, the Jews of Azerbaijan are quite far from the political and religious trends common among Polish and Ukrainian Jews since the 18th century as well as reform Judaism.

Synagogues

A number of synagogues of Mountain Jews exist in Baku, Oghuz and Guba. Krasnaya Slobada of Guba is the only place of compact residing of mountain Jews on the whole post Soviet area. Mountain Jews arrive here from all the countries of the world as pilgrimage or for visiting the burial places of their relatives on the ninth Day of fasting. The region accounts for three synagogues and a mikva, constructed for conducting ceremonies.

Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews originate from Europe and in fact come from medieval Germany. Though small in number, the community of Georgian Jews is very active. A synagogue of Georgian Jews was restored by the financial aid of the Joint in 1997.

Community

After Azerbaijan gained independence, the Jewish community of the country intensified their activity, strengthened relations with international Jewish organizations and created their religious schools: yeshivas, cultural centers (as the cultural center of Jewish community), societies (as the women's society Eva, Hesed-Hershon charitable society), clubs (as Alef, Hillel youth clubs, Mishpaha videoclubs), newspapers (as Az-Iz, Bashnya, Amishav). The Jewish agency (Soxnut), the Joint and Vaad-I-Hetzola operated for preserving Jewish traditions among the Jewish Diaspora, assisting synagogues and conducting various cultural arrangements.

Baku religious community of Jews named Jews of Azerbaijan was registered at Azerbaijan State Committee for Religious Affairs on May 17, 2002. Since the very first days of the organization, the administration of the center "Khabad" has taken big steps in development of Jewish communities of Azerbaijan, improvement of their religious and secular studies. Within less than a year of the official establishment of the organization, thanks to the initiative of Baku Jewish religious community Jews of Azerbaijan, a new school Khabad Or-Avner got registered at Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan and received a teaching license through Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan on April 25, 2003. As a part of Khabad Or-Avner strategy, a special attention is paid to development of spiritual and intellectual studies of every member of the community for further involvement in social infrastructure of Azerbaijan

A new Jewish synagogue, which became the biggest synagogue of Europe, was opened in Baku on March 9, 2003. The first Jewish school has been operating in Azerbaijan since September of 2003.

External links

• Chabad centers in Azerbaijan
• Jewish Community of Azerbaijan
• Jewish Religious Community of Baku "Jews of Azerbaijan"
• Jewish Azerbaijan

See also

Mountain Jews
Krasnaya Sloboda