Mountain Jews origin. Mountain Jews - religious directions

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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. This is what the neighbors called these people to emphasize their difference from the rest of the representatives. 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.

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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 modern Russia, - accepted 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.

Orynganym Tanatarova
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The history of the Jews in the Caucasus dates back to ancient times and is lost in the fog of literary and oral traditions. The state of Armenian-Georgian historiography does not yet allow understanding the numerous legends about the most ancient Jewish settlements in the Caucasus. Modern Jews of the Caucasus have retained very vague memories of their origin. But, as travelers of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries testify, there was still a legend among the Jews of the Caucasus that they were descendants of the ten tribes of Israel settled in Media by the Assyrian kings ( cf., for example, the testimony of the traveler Gärber of 1728 in Sammlung russischer Geshichte, IV, 116, as well as the reports of Reineggs in Allg. hist. - topographic. Beshreibung. Kaukasus, 1796, and Yehuda the Black in Sefer HaMas-ot, St. Petersburg, 1884).

This tradition of the Caucasian Jews coincides with the Aggadic tradition. When asked where the ten tribes were taken, Mar Zutra answers: "to Africa"; Rabbi Hanina: “to the mountains servants» ( Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 94a). By "Africa" ​​some understand the Caucasus, and by "Servant", perhaps, one should understand Cylici ( A. Harkavi, “A-yehudim u-sfat a-glory”, Vilna 1867, 120, approx. 48).

This corresponds to the following place in the Talmud: "(And the Assyrian king resettled the Israelites in Assyria), and settled them in Halakh, Khabor, and by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Media ...". - Median cities are Hamadan (Gamadan) and nearby areas ( Hamadan we havrotea); others say that the Median cities are Nagavend and the surrounding areas; under the words "nearby areas ( we havrotea), according to Mar Shmuel, one should understand Karak, Moski, Huski and Rumki" ( Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 72a). "Mosks" here correspond to the Caucasian Moskhi in classical writers, Muski in cuneiform monuments and the current Meskhi ( Harkavi, 1 p., pp. 115-116; cf. Rappoport in Kerem Chemed, V, letter 17, and Cassel, 1c).

Parallel to this legend, which relates the beginning of the Jewish settlement in the Caucasus to the era of the destruction of the Samaritan (Northern Israel) kingdom ( 696 BC), another legend has been preserved, according to which the beginning of the Jewish settlement in the Caucasus should be attributed to the era of the destruction of the First Temple (586 BC). According to the "History of Georgia" by Prince Vakushtia, after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, part of the exiles came to Georgia and asked the governor of Mtskheta to give them a place to settle. The king agreed and assigned them a site on the Zanav River, which, in view of the tribute paid by the Jews, was called Kerk (“ tribute").

The Bagratuni clan and the Amatuni clan

This last tradition corresponds to the data of Mar Abbas-Katin, the author of the history of Armenia, fragments of which are given by the Armenian historian Moses Khorensky. According to him, the Armenian king Haracheay (Hayk II), a contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar, begged from the latter one of the noble Jewish captives named Shambat (Smbat) and took him to Armenia. The famous Armenian family of Bagratuni originates from Shambat.

Around the middle of the 3rd century BC. e. the powerful and wise Jewish man Shambu Bagarat was showered with honors by the Armenian king Vagharshak I "for the previous selfless help rendered to the king, for loyalty and courage." The king granted his family the right to be hereditary tagadir, i.e., to lay crowns on the Arshakids, and appointed him the head of tens of thousands of soldiers in the western borders of Armenia. Shambu Bagarat retained his influence even after he rejected Vagharshak's proposal to leave the Jewish faith. But the high position of the Bagratuni clan did not last long. Arshak (128-115 BC) demanded worship of idols from the sons of Bagarat. Two of them courageously accepted death for the faith of their fathers, while the other sons agreed to break the Sabbath.

The situation of the clan became even more complicated under Tigran the Great (95 BC). According to Moses of Khorensky, Tigran ordered everyone nakhararam to offer sacrifices in temples, but members of the Bagratuni clan refused this and were therefore deprived of leadership over the troops, and one of them, named Asud, had their tongue cut out. However, they retained their dignity. aspects(heads of the cavalry), but it was subsequently taken away.

Continuous cruel persecution led to the fact that this family subsequently left the Jewish faith, and its representatives appropriated barbaric names for themselves.

Another powerful family Jewish origin was, according to M. Khorensky, the Amatuni clan, who migrated from the eastern Aryan countries to Armenia in the reign of Artashes (85-127 AD). These data of M. Khorensky, Bishop Sebeos and other Armenian historians have long been accepted as quite reliable. In the newest school of Armenian-Georgian historiography, mainly under the influence of the well-known works of Karer, Gudshmidt and Gagarashyan, a negative attitude was established towards the work of the “father of Armenian history” Moses Khorensky.

However, it can be argued with high probability that the beginning of Jewish settlement in the Caucasus dates back to the period of the Second Temple, approximately at the time of the emergence of the Jewish diaspora in the Crimea. According to the aforementioned "History of Georgia", after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 AD), Jewish refugees came to Mtskheta and settled there along with their co-religionists who had come in the old days.

Era after the Second Temple

Based on the above interpretation of the word “Africa” in ancient Jewish sources, it can be concluded that during the era of the Bar Kokhba movement, the Jewish population of the Caucasus was apparently significant, and Rabbi Akiva also visited the Caucasus during his agitation trip ( cf. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 4b; Menachot 34 b). The Talmud also mentions Rabbi Yaakov from Armenia (Yerushalmi, Gitin VI). According to the interpretation of I. Schwartz ( Tvuot a - Aretz, 1865), there was a Jewish community in Derbent (טרבנת), and Rabbi Shimon Safra was a teacher there.

In the "History of Georgia" by Prince Vakushtia, a Christian legend is reported that St. Nina (314 AD) arrived in Urbnis and entered the city inhabited by Jews, with whom she could converse, thanks to her acquaintance with the Hebrew language. During her stay in Mtskheta, St. Nina often visited the Jewish city and allegedly managed to "convert" the Jewish priest Evyatar, who is credited with an important role in the baptism of Georgia, to Christianity.

In 360 AD, according to Faust of Byzantium, during the invasion of the Persians at Sapor (Shabur), they took 75,000 Jewish families from Artashat, Eruandashat, Zeragavan, Zarishat and Vann, the descendants of those Jews who were brought captives from Eretz Israel King Tigran Arshakun together with High Priest Hyrcanus.

Persecution in Mesopotamia and Persia contributed to the influx of Jewish emigration to the Caucasus. Chronicle of Derbend-Name ( ed. Kazem-bek, 91, 93, 102) preserved the news that before the arrival of the Arabs, most of the population of Tabaristan professed the religion of Moses.

The era of the Arab conquests

According to one handwritten version of Derbend-Name ( reported by I. Anisimov; cf. Miller, Materials, p. IV), Abu Muslim in 737 established Islam among the Jews of Dagestan with fire and sword. In the 9th century, Musa al-Zafrani, known as Abu-Imran al-Tiflisi, according to Karkasani ( Kirkisani; Kitab-al-anwar VIII, ed. Harkavy), lived in Tiflis, where he found followers who existed in the time of Karkasani under the name "Tiflisians".

The Arab historian Masudi (XX century) reports that in the Zergeran region the population consisted of Christians, Muslims and Jews. According to Ibn Hanukal (XX century), Jews lived in the city of Semender (later - Tarki), who had their own synagogues.

The testimony of Hasdai ibn-Shafrut in a letter to the Khazar king Yosef (circa 960) dates back to the same time: “Our ancestors told us that the place where they (Khazar Jews) lived was formerly called “Mount Seir”, but my sovereign knows that this mountain is far from his place of residence. As A. Garkavi pointed out, here “Mount Seir” means “not Byzantium, known in medieval Jewish literature under the names of Seir and Edom, but Serir in the Caucasus adjacent to Khazaria ... The name of the mountain fits Serir, for Masudi also writes about it: “ It is a branch of the Caucasus ... it is located in the mountains ”( A. Garkavi, Legends of Jewish writers about the Khazars, pp. 145-146).

S. L. Rappoport, speaking of the testimony of Eldad from the tribe of Dan (9th century, “they live behind a wall called Dagab-Daki (pure gold), and fight with seven kingdoms”), also believes that the country Serir is meant here or Serir al-Dzaghab ("golden throne") ( Rappoport, 1 p.; cf. Harkavi, 1 p., pp. 23-24).

Bearing in mind the frequent campaigns of the Khazars in Transcaucasia, their power over Dagestan and the existence of Khazar cities in the east of the Caucasus, Garkavi (1. s.) and Miller (1. s.) believe that the adoption of the Jewish faith by the khagan occurred mainly under the influence Caucasian Jews subject to him.

With the fall of the Khazar kingdom and the spread of Islam in the northeastern Caucasus, living conditions became extremely difficult for the Jews. Many Jewish villages converted to Islam. From them originate the current Tats-Muslims, who in appearance, language and way of life are no different from the mountain Jews.

The data that has come down to us about the life of Jews in the Caucasus from that time until the transition of the Caucasus to Russia are very fragmentary. Benjamin of Tudela (12th century) says that the jurisdiction exilarch(“head of exile”) extended, among other things, to the Jews “of all Armenia and the country of Kota, near Mount Ararat, in the country of Alania.”

The testimony of Abraham ibn Daud dates back to the same time, that Jewish settlements extend to the Caucasus ( "ve-nikret Gargan ve-erets aGirgashi"). Petahya from Regensburg (XII century) reports that “in the land of Ararat big cities, but there are very few Jews in them. Before, in the old days, there were many of them; but they destroyed each other, and then scattered and dispersed into the cities of Babylonia, Media, Persia and the land of Cush.

Wilhelm de Rubruquis (XIII century) reports that "there are many Jews in the whole country (Eastern Caucasus)." How difficult their life was can be concluded from the fact that the decrees of Rustem Khan's utsmiya (XII century) on the protection of Jews determined: "A Muslim who killed a Jew must fill the skin of the murdered with silver and give this silver to the utsmi" ( Zap. Cav. department Imp. Geogr. Society, VIII, 25-26).

The Georgian Tsar Alexander I, in a letter addressed to the former Catholicos and Patriarch Diometius of 1328, listing the possessions granted to the patriarch, says that 27 Jewish families are granted to the patriarch in Ganukh. In subsequent times, Jews were often donated by their owners or wives of the latter to monasteries, where the most difficult work was assigned to them ( cf. Gujar of Ananur " Holy Mother of God» of the monastery dated 1693, Registers and inscriptions, II, No. 1280).

new time

In 1646, Don Juan Meneles, a political adventurer from Spain, offered Turkey citizenship to Armenia, inhabited by Jews.

In 1690, Witsen, who compiled a description of Northern and Eastern Tataria, reports that there were thousands of Jews in the village of Boynak (now Buynak) and the Tatar (Lezgin) principalities. In one principality of Ostma (the possession of the former Harakaytak utsmi), there were 15 thousand of them. According to Witsen, the Jews trace their origins from Babylon and are engaged in agriculture, while the Lezgins are devoted to military affairs and are engaged in robbery.

In the 17th and 18th centuries The Jewish population in the Caucasus has significantly decreased. Archil, the king of Imereti, who was in Moscow in 1703, describing the then state of Georgia to the boyar Prince Golovin, says that "the whole people profess the Christian faith, except for a small number of Jews." Jews everywhere were subjected to harassment and extortion by local rulers, and in part were forced to convert to Christianity.

But the living conditions of Jews in Muslim villages were especially painful. In 1728, Gerber described their situation as follows: “The Jews pay their owners, in addition to the usual tax, also a special one - kharaj, or total, and are used for all sorts of heavy and dirty work that cannot be entrusted to a Muslim. Of the property they are left with only as much as is necessary so as not to die of hunger. If a Jew is riding somewhere and meets kyzylbash or some other Muslim, then he must turn off the road to the side and, at the request of the oncoming one, get off the horse; if he does not do this, then the Muslim is allowed to beat him as he likes, so long as he remains alive, and the beaten one has no right to complain. They say that they were once more numerous, but because of the many oppressions that they endured from the natives, their number constantly decreased and could not increase.

According to Gerber, the Jews were engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding, and in the city of Shamakhi - in trade; the Jews speak the language of the surrounding peoples, the rabbis "understand" also in Hebrew. The Jews announced to Gerber that they were for the most part descended from the tribe of Judah and some from Benjamin; their rabbis do not know anything, except that the ancestors were taken away from Jerusalem by the Mosul, i.e. Nineveh, king and sent around Media and the local countries; they are ruled in the villages by their own elders - hahams.

Arrival to the Caucasus of Russia

At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, with the appearance of Russian troops in the Caucasus, the situation of the Jews became even worse. The revived patriotism and fanaticism of the Muslims led to the cruel persecution of the Jews; they were required to accept Islam and actively participate in the fight against the Russians. Pogroms and raids on Jewish settlements were continuously arranged by Kazi-Mulla and Shamil.

Despite this, most Jews remained faithful to their faith. But some auls completely converted to Islam. In some areas of Dagestan, such as, for example, Akhty, Rugzhami, Arakan, and others, the descendants of these Jews were kept as shrines for a long time. Jewish books passed down to them from their ancestors.

With the conquest of the Caucasus, their situation has changed little for the better. They were constantly moved from one village to another. They were constantly called upon to free performance of various state works, construction, etc.

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 Mountain Jews are currently inhabited by 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. The 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 out 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.

Mountain Jews are not a separate people. They represent a group of Jews who, as a result of mass migration, settled in the territory of Azerbaijan and Dagestan. They are characterized by a unique culture, which was formed thanks to their own knowledge and ideas about life, as well as under the influence of other peoples.

Name

Mountain Jews is not an independent name. So called people by their neighbors, who emphasized the foreignness. The people themselves called themselves Juur. The Juur settled in the Caucasus around the 5th century AD.
In recent decades, Mountain Jews have been leaving their native lands. Mostly people move to Israel and the United States of America. Communities in Russia number approximately 30,000. Some Juur live in Europe and Canada.

Language

Many linguists believe that the Juur language can be attributed to the Tat dialect. Mountain Jews call the language Juuri. It should be clarified that tatami are called natives of Persia, who left the region due to civil strife. Like the Mountain Jews, they ended up in the Caucasus. The Tat dialect itself belongs to the Iranian group. Now many Mountain Jews use Hebrew, English, Russian. Some have learned Azerbaijani. At the same time, there are several books and textbooks written in the Hebrew-Tat language.

Nation

There is no definitive answer to the question of which nation the Juurs belong to. A number of scientists who support Konstantin Kurdov put forward a version according to which the Juur comes from the Lezgins. However, there are many dissenters who identify the Mountain Jews as Ossetians, Chechens and Avars. This is due to the established material culture and organization, similar to the peoples listed.

• The Juurs have always had a patriarchy;
• Sometimes there was polygamy, the Jews even supported the peculiarities of the customs of hospitality, characteristic of the neighboring regions;
• Juur prepare Caucasian cuisine, they know Lezginka, in culture they are similar to Dagestanis and Azerbaijanis;
• At the same time, there are differences expressed in the observance of Jewish traditions, including holidays. Among the Mountain Jews there are many who revere the rabbis and live according to their instructions;
• The genetic relationship with the Jews is confirmed by the analyzes of British geneticists who studied the Y chromosomes.

Life

The main occupation of the inhabitants is gardening. Mountain Jews love to make wine, sell carpets, make fabrics and fish. All these are traditional crafts for the inhabitants of the Caucasus. The production of sculptures can be considered unique occupations of the Juur. It was a native of the Mountain Jewish communities who participated in the creation of the monument to the Unknown Soldier. Many among the Mountain Jews turned out to be writers, including Misha Bakhshiev.

Religion

For the Mountain Jews, it was fundamentally important to preserve Judaism. As a result, the influence of their religion was great enough for the Khazar Khaganate to adopt the Jewish faith. In the future, the Khazars, together with the Jews, opposed the Arabs in order to prevent expansion. However, the Polovtsians managed to defeat the armies, and then the Mongol-Tatars came, who forced people to abandon religion. With the advent of the troops of Imam Shamil, the Juur had to make an alliance with the Russian Empire in order to defend the faith.

Food

The cuisine of the Mountain Jews was influenced by neighboring peoples, but people managed to keep many of the recipes. So, many spices predominate in their dishes. Many observe the requirements of kashrut, which prescribe not to eat the meat of a bird of prey and not to mix any kind of meat with milk. Moreover, it is forbidden to eat dairy products (cheese, cottage cheese, cream) mixed with meat dishes. Any vegetables can be used, but they are strictly selected through the representatives of kashrut. The most important culinary tradition is the baking of Sabbath bread. It is baked before Shabbat (Saturday) and is called challah. This bread can be served at the same time as meat. You can eat challah right in the morning, thus opening Shabbat.
The word "challah" means a piece of dough that was separated from the pie to present to the Jerusalem temple. Interestingly, the challah can have a different shape, for example, be performed in the form of a key or a bunch of grapes. The festive challah looks like a circle, which indicates unity with the Almighty. Traditional baking consists of several braided braids.

1. During the meeting of Shabbat, a rabbi is invited, two lighted candles are placed on the table, the rabbi breaks off a piece of dough, dips it in salt and passes the challah on.
2. For breakfast, Mountain Jews always preferred cheese, cream, cottage cheese, to get enough before the start of the working day, but not to put too much stress on the body.
3. After work, it was time for the shulkhan, on which a fairly large table was set. Shulkhan necessarily meant the use of snacks, in the role of which were cilantro, parsley and other herbs. Herbs have always been given special place in the diet, because they made it possible to strengthen the gums and contained many vitamins. Together with greens, they ate vegetables, dried fish. As a hot dish, juur is eaten dyushpere - dumplings with broth and a lot of spices. Onions were necessarily added to it, and the dough was made very thin. Additionally, garlic was added to the dish and flavored with vinegar. Such a recipe is necessary for preparing a hearty and burning dish, because the juur always had to live in the mountains, where the climate is quite severe in winter.
4. The container was prepared from beef broth, to which dried cherry plum, onion and a lot of meat are added. Herbs are also added to the dish. A feature of the soup is its excessive density, so it is eaten with the help of cakes, on which the finished mixture is spread.
5. From fish heads, tails and fins they make bugleme-jahi. The fish is boiled over low heat, then pre-stewed onions, fish, cherry plums are added to the broth, salt, pepper and boiled rice are added.
6. Yagni became a favorite dish of Juur. This dish is also cooked in broth, which is made from chicken or beef. The broth is boiled for 15 minutes, then tomato paste with onions is added.
7. The popular dolma is made from ground beef, rice and onions. All ingredients are mixed, then cilantro, parsley, salt, pepper are added. All this is wrapped in grape leaves. It turns out a kind of cabbage rolls. The leaves must be boiled for at least 10 minutes, then, after formation, the cabbage rolls are placed in a saucepan and poured with boiling water. Dolma should be cooked on low heat.
8. Another variant of cabbage rolls is called yapragi. This dish, familiar to every inhabitant of Russia and Ukraine, differs only in that more water is added to it.
9. From drinks Mountain Jews prefer tea, dry wines.

clothing

The clothing of the Mountain Jews is identical to that worn by the Dagestanis and Kabardians. The Circassian coat is sewn from cloth, the basis for the hat is astrakhan fur or sheep's wool. Many Juurs carry long daggers, which are a must attire. For some time, such weapons were forbidden to carry, but after the end of the 30s of the last century, the ban was lifted. Caftans were used for insulation, which were tied with straps. Such a wardrobe item is typical for Orthodox residents.
Women decorate outfits with metal items and jewelry. A white shirt was put on the body. Pants must be worn on the legs, as religion requires a woman to cover her legs. The head is covered with a scarf, only the father or husband can see the hair. Of the headdresses, a woman is allowed to wear a chudka (chutkha).

Traditions

Mountain Jews, who are often called Caucasian or Persian, in addition to traditional Judaism, are distinguished by their belief in good and evil spirits. Representatives of orthodox communities deny the possibility of the existence of such creatures, but there is evidence of the influence of third-party cultures. It is surprising that such a phenomenon arose in their society, because for him it is completely uncharacteristic. Otherwise, the Juurs follow the Sephardic branch.

Mountain Jews are called Persian, Caucasian. They are still not distinguished as a separate people, but they managed to form a unique culture, absorbing the traditions of other peoples and at the same time did not assimilate. This is a unique case for immigrants, which only emphasizes the unusual and diverse life of people in different parts of the world.

From this video you can learn in detail about the life of the Mountain Jews. Features of their history and formation.

in the Eastern Caucasus. Live mainly in Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, Israel. The total number of about 20 thousand people. In the Russian Federation, the 2002 census counted 3.3 thousand Mountain Jews, and the 2010 census counted 762 people. Mountain Jews speak the Tat language, dialects are Makhachkala-Nalchik, Derbent, Kuban. Writing based on the Russian alphabet.

The community of Mountain Jews in the Eastern Caucasus was formed in the 7th-13th centuries by immigrants from Northern Iran. Having adopted the Tat language, Mountain Jews from the 11th century began to settle in Dagestan, where they assimilated part of the Khazars. Close contacts with the Jewish communities of the Arab world contributed to the fact that the Sephardic liturgical way was established among the Mountain Jews. A continuous strip of Jewish settlements covered the territory between the cities of Derbent and Kuba. Mountain Jews until the 1860s paid local Muslim rulers kharaj. In 1742, the ruler of Iran, Nadir Shah, destroyed many settlements of the Mountain Jews. In the first third of the 19th century, the lands where the Mountain Jews lived became part of the Russian Empire. During the Caucasian War in 1839-1854, many Mountain Jews were forcibly converted to Islam and subsequently merged with the local population. From the 1860s-1870s, Mountain Jews began to settle in the cities of Baku, Temir-Khan-Shura, Nalchik, Grozny, and Petrovsk-Port. At the same time, contacts were established between Caucasian Jews and Ashkenazi Jews in the European part of Russia, and representatives of Mountain Jews began to receive European education. At the beginning of the 20th century, schools for Mountain Jews were opened in Baku, Derbent, and Cuba; in 1908-1909, the first Jewish books were published in the Tat language using the Hebrew alphabet. At the same time, the first few hundred Mountain Jews emigrated to Palestine.

During the civil war, part of the villages of the Mountain Jews was destroyed, their population moved to Derbent, Makhachkala and Buynaksk. In the early 1920s, about three hundred families left for Palestine. During the period of collectivization, a number of collective farms of Mountain Jews were organized in Dagestan, Azerbaijan, the Krasnodar Territory and in the Crimea. In 1928 the writing of the Mountain Jews was translated into Latin, in 1938 into Cyrillic; A newspaper for Mountain Jews in the Tat language was launched. During the Great Patriotic War, a significant number of Mountain Jews who ended up in Nazi-occupied Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory were exterminated. In 1948-1953, teaching, literary activity, and the publication of a newspaper in the native language of the Mountain Jews were discontinued. The cultural activities of the Mountain Jews were not restored to their former extent even after 1953. Beginning in the 1960s, the transition of Mountain Jews to the Russian language intensified. A significant number of Mountain Jews began to be recorded on tatami. At the same time, the desire to emigrate to Israel grew. In 1989, 90% of Mountain Jews were fluent in Russian or called it their native language. In the second half of the 1980s, the emigration of Mountain Jews to Israel acquired a massive scale and even more intensified after the collapse of the USSR. During the period from 1989 to 2002, the number of Mountain Jews in the Russian Federation decreased threefold.

Traditional occupations of Mountain Jews: agriculture and handicraft. The townspeople were also largely engaged in agriculture, mainly horticulture, viticulture and winemaking (especially in Kuba and Derbent), as well as the cultivation of madder, from the roots of which red dye was obtained. By the beginning of the 20th century, with the development of the production of aniline dyes, the cultivation of madder stopped, the owners of the plantations went bankrupt and turned into laborers, peddlers and seasonal workers in the fisheries (mainly in Derbent). In some villages of Azerbaijan, Mountain Jews were engaged in tobacco growing and arable farming. In a number of villages until the beginning of the 20th century, leather craft was the main occupation. By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the number of people employed in petty trade increased, some merchants managed to get rich in the trade in fabrics and carpets.

Until the late 1920s and early 1930s, the main social unit of the Mountain Jews was a large three-four-generation family with 70 or more members. As a rule, a large family occupied one yard, in which each small family had its own house. Until the middle of the 20th century, polygamy was practiced, mainly two and three marriages. Each wife with children occupied a separate house or, more rarely, a separate room in a common house.

At the head of a large family was the father, after his death, the primacy passed to the eldest son. The head of the family took care of the property, which was considered a collective property, determined the order of work of all the men of the family; the mother of the family (or the first of the wives) ran the household and oversaw women's work: cooking (prepared and consumed together), cleaning. Several large families descended from a common ancestor formed a tukhum. At the end of the 19th century, the process of disintegration of a large family began.

Women and girls led a closed life, not showing themselves to outsiders. The engagement was often made in infancy, and kalyn (kalym) was paid for the bride. The customs of hospitality, mutual assistance, and blood feud were preserved. There were frequent twinnings with representatives of neighboring mountain peoples. The auls of the Mountain Jews were located next to the auls of neighboring peoples, in some places they lived together. The settlement of Mountain Jews consisted, as a rule, of three to five large families. In the cities, Mountain Jews lived in a special suburb (Kuba) or in a separate quarter (Derbent). Traditional stone dwellings with oriental decoration, from two or three parts: for men, for guests, for women with children. The children's rooms were distinguished by the best decoration, decorated with weapons.

Mountain Jews borrowed pagan rituals and beliefs from neighboring peoples. The world was considered inhabited by many spirits, visible and invisible, punishing or favoring a person. This is Num-Negir, the lord of travelers and family life, Ile Novi (Ilya the prophet), Ozhdegoe-Mar (brownie), Zemirey (rain spirit), evil spirits Ser-Ovi (water) and Shegadu (an unclean spirit that drives one crazy, leading a person astray from the path of truth). In honor of the spirits of autumn and spring, Gudur-Boy and Kesen-Boy were held festivities. The holiday of Shev-Idor was dedicated to the ruler of plants, Idor. It was believed that on the night of the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Aravo), the fate of a person is determined; the girls saw her off in divination, dancing and singing. Fortune-telling of girls in the forest by flowers on the eve of the spring holiday is characteristic. Two months before the wedding, the rite of Rah-Bura (crossing of the path) was performed, when the groom gave the bride's father a dowry.

To a large extent, compliance religious traditions associated with the life cycle (circumcision, wedding, funeral), the consumption of ritually suitable food (kasher), matzah, the holidays of Yom Kippur (Judgment Day), Rosh Hashanah ( New Year), Easter (Nison), Purim (Gomun). In folklore, fairy tales (ovosuna) performed by professional storytellers (ovosunachi) and poems-songs (ma`ni) performed by poets-singers (ma`nihu) and transmitted with the name of the author stand out.