Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.054 July 10, 1993 1) Jews of the Caucasus (Gerald M. Phillips) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Jun 29 20:52:42 1993 From: Subject: A noteworthy news story This was sent to me by a friend. It may be of interest. washington, june 28 (special) - the following article by Fred Haitt appeared Sunday in the Washington Post: NIUGDI, Russia--In her tin-roofed, two-room shack in this isolated village near the Caspian Sea, Turunj Khananayeva carefully keeps her matzoh dry above a stove and hangs over her front door a small beaded bag containing a Hebrew prayer. Khananayeva, 74, a longtime Communist Party worker on the collective farm here, knows little about Judaism. But like her ancestors before her for more than 2,000 years, Khananyeva has preserved biblical customs dating back to the ancient destruction of the First Temple. Khananayeva is a Mountain Jew, one of perhaps 50,000 who until recently lived unassimilated in the villages and ancient cities of the rugged Caucasus mountain regions of Russia and Azerbaijan. Long after Hitler wiped out the shes and ghettoes of Eastern Europe, the Mountain Jews continued to maintain their segregated lifestyle here, celebrating Passover without knowing why, living in all-Jewish villages and naming their children after Jews who wandered in the desert with Moses. Today, more than half of these Jews, who say they have lived here since the Assyrians destroyed Jerusalem's First Temple in 722 B.C., have left for Israel, and 700 more leave each month. Soon this last pocket of unassimilated Jewry will be gone, along with the language that Khananayeva knows simply as "Jewish"--a version of Persian mixed with ancient Hebrew terms. "As a scholar, you may feel sorry about this," said Baruch Gur, who handles emigration from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for the Jewish Agency in Israel. "As a Jew, I am very happy." Their exodus is part of a massive emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel, which grew from 13,000 in 1989 to 185,000 in 1990 and 148,000 in 1991. Last year, because of unemployment and crowded housing in Israel, the number dropped to 64,500, and only 20,000 left for Israel during the first five months of this year, according to the Jewish Agency's Moscow spokesman, Avraham BenYakov. About the same number of Jews leave for the United States, Canada, Germany and other countries combined, he said. But more than half of those leaving now come from Central Asia and the Caucasus, where political instability and fears of ethnic discrimination have accelerated the exodus. More than 80 percent of Tajikistan's Jews have left, as well as perhaps 70 percent of Caucasian Jews like Khananayeva, Ben-Yakov said. On a recent Saturday morning, a dozen or so Jewish men prayed in the lone remaining synagogue of Derbent, where Oriental carpets line the floor and women are not welcome. Many more elderly Jews sat outside on the sidewalks of Lenin Street, the heart of the Jewish quarter, hawking books and light bulbs to raise funds to emigrate, or simply to survive. Nami Danilova, 66, sat on a bench in the shade of an acacia tree offering to sell a pair of shoes, some long-playing records and the childhood piano exercise books once used by her daughter, who left for Israel last year. "My daughter says, 'Come, come!' " Danilova said. "But I have no money. How can I go?" Danilova would like to leave, not because of antisemitism, but because life has grown more difficult for her, as for many Russians, in recent years. Her apartment has been robbed twice, she said, and inflation makes it impossible for her to eat decently. Other Mountain Jews, such as historian Gennadi Sosunov, want to fulfill what they believe is their historical destiny to return to the land of their ancestors. Sosunov, 35, said his Soviet-educated generation received no religious training but spoke "Jewish" at home, celebrated Purim and looked favorably upon Zionism. "This is our homeland, and Israel is our homeland too," Sosunov said. But David Davidov, 35, like his father a rabbi in Derbent, said he will not leave as long as some Jews remain. "For centuries, we've been here," Davidov said as services concluded. "How can we throw all this away, this synagogue, these people? If we move to Israel, we will lose our language and everything else." Historians believe that some of the Mountain Jews' ancestors were brought from Israel as captives by the Assyrians, others by the babylonians after the Second Temple's destruction in 586 B.C. They lived in Persia and gradually migrated north toward the Caucasus. Here, the harsh climate and topography helped isolate them and preserve their customs, just as 28 other nationalities with distinct languages have survived here in the mountainous Russian province of Daghestan alone. During the Middle Ages, legends circulated in Europe about the lost tribes of Israel imprisoned in the Caucasian mountains. More than a century ago, Russian scholar Yuda Chorny traveled among the Mountain Jews and found a fascinating mixture of ancient biblical customs and adaptations to surrounding Muslim culture and belief. Few Mountain Jews, Chorny reported in 1870, could understand Hebrew or explain Jewish religion. Yet they favored ancient Hebrew names--such as Gamlil, Yoav and Shulamit--and used Hebrew letters to write their Persian-like language. Hosts washed guests' feet, as in biblical times, Chorny reported. Gravestones gave the year of death according to the ancient Hebrew calendar. And although their houses resembled those of Muslim mountain-dwellers in neighboring villages, only the Jews washed the floors and walls every Friday, before the traditional Jewish Sabbath. Despite decades of anti-religious pressure from Soviet authorities, the same mix of ancient custom and local influence has persisted. The Jews of Daghestan were saved during World War Ii when the Nazi advance was halted in Nalchik, in the nearby northern Caucasus. How many remain is uncertain. Many sought to evade Soviet antisemitism by registering as "Tats," a mountain tribe that speaks a Persian-like language but follows Islam. "Previously, Jews said they were Tats so they could get into universities," Sosunov said. "Now, Tats call themselves Jews so they can get into Israel." Before he leaves for Israel, Sosunov wants to complete photographing cemeteries in Mountain Jewish villages. Many are ghost towns now, and only the Hebrew lettering on mossy, tilting gravestones proves Jews once lived there. In Khananayeva's village, the Jewish population has dwindled from hundreds to about 10 families. After living in her little house without running water virtually all her life, she has no desire to move. But her daughter, Liza Davidova, 40, thinks the time has come. "And if I go, she'll come with me," Davidova said Gerald M. Phillips ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.054