Azerbaijan’s Mountain Jews A Model For Jewish-Muslim Coexistence

When I visited the Red Town several years ago, its tranquility reminded me of the summers I spent in Azerbaijan as a child before my family emigrated to Canada. A smell of the local cuisine wafted over from an open window as a group of kids kicked a deflated soccer ball down the road. The six domes of the red brick synagogue just ahead of us glinted under the sun.

Elderly men sat underneath shaded pergolas, drinking hot black tea from pear-shaped armudu glasses in 40- degree weather. It seemed counterintuitive at first, but the locals assured me of the cooling properties of a hot glass of tea. I remember the rustling of the vine leaves over their pergola. A few Isabella grape clusters hung above and looked heavy enough to tumble to the ground from the nudge of the slightest breeze. Several ornate mansions loomed over the modest homes in the foreground, blocking the sky with their height. They belong to the significant number of business tycoons in Russia who’ve originated from the Red Town. In the Azerbaijani and Mountain Jewish traditions of maintaining enduring connections with one’s hometown and family, particularly with the older  generations, the renowned businessmen are known to visit the town often, while continuously reinvesting into the Red Town’s infrastructure and building homes for their extended families.

Eight synagogues out of the original 13 have been preserved in the Red Town, after decades of Soviet measures to repress religion across the USSR. During the Soviet years Mountain Jews were forbidden from attending synagogues, yeshivas, or partaking in religious activities. They still gathered together for Shabbat dinners and honored their culture, albeit quietly and with much fear, as not to attract the attention of the Soviet government officials. The Russification policies across the region, which forced both the local Jewish and Muslim communities to adopt Russian as their primary language, had endangered the native tongue of the Mountain Jews — Juhury — confronting them with ensuing its continuity through the Soviet repressions.

With the protection of the local government and support of businessmen of Azerbaijani Mountain Jewish origin in Russia, Jews in Azerbaijan experienced a sort of a religious revival since the 90s. Synagogues were renovated and reopened; a yeshiva was built in the Red Town, and another one — Chabad Ohr Avner — in Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku. New routes are being planned around the country, to connect visitors with Jewish history and culture.