At the Heart of the Caucasus

Abstract This chapter tells the story and the traditions of the Mountain Jews of the Caucasus. Communities of Mountain Jews are dispersed among the Russian Federation, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The Mountain Jews preserve their oral historical tradition and transfer it from generation to generation. They are known by a variety of names, and refer to themselves as the Dzuhur in their language, Dzuhurian, of Persian origin. The fundamental source of the history of the Mountain Jews was written by Ilya (Eliyahu) Anisimov in 1870 during an ethnographic expedition. During the Soviet period, Mountain Jews became subjects of forced relocation from the region where they historically resided to new territories defined by the government. During the Second World War, many communities of Mountain Jews disappeared, as their residents were sent to concentration camps. Today the most significant communities of Mountain Jews live in Moscow, the Russian Federation, and Israel.