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Azerbaijan's Jewish Enclave

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  • Azerbaijan's Jewish Enclave

    AZERBAIJAN'S JEWISH ENCLAVE
    By Sabuhi Mamedli in Krasnaya Sloboda

    Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
    Aug. 31, 2006

    "Mountain Jews" live harmoniously with their Muslim neighbours in
    the north of the country.

    "Krasnaya Sloboda is the safest place for Jews at the moment," said
    Nisim Nisimov, head of the municipal administration in the village of
    Krasnaya Sloboda - which means "Red Settlement". "We are not hostile
    towards Muslims. We live on perfect good neighbourly terms with them."

    Krasnaya Sloboda, the last surviving compact community of "Mountain
    Jews" in the Caucasus, is situated in the mountainous Quba district
    of northern Azerbaijan.

    This small community has managed to stay immune to both the Jewish
    exodus from the region following the end of the Soviet Union and
    fallout from the Jewish-Muslim conflict in the Middle East.

    During the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the media
    in Azerbaijan came out with conflicting reports, with some saying
    that Jewish families had fled from Israel to Krasnaya Sloboda, while
    others said that residents had gone in the opposition direction to
    enrol as volunteers in the Israeli Defence Forces.

    Semyon Ihilov, head of the Jewish community of Azerbaijan, told IWPR
    the reports were not true and a visit to Krasnaya Sloboda suggested
    a much more quiet and harmonious picture - despite it being an island
    of Jews surrounded by Muslims.

    According to Jewish community leaders, a little over 16,000 Jews live
    in Azerbaijan today, of whom 11,000 are Mountain Jews with about
    3,600 of them in Krasnaya Sloboda. They speak a dialect of the Tat
    language, which is related to Persian, and have lived in the Caucasus
    for generations.

    Krasnaya Sloboda is a prosperous place, which stands in sharp contrast
    to the surrounding area. The roads are in a good state and there are
    plenty of expensive foreign cars. Seen from high ground, the village
    has a reddish tint, due to the red tiling of the roofs - which may
    be the explanation for its name. Frequent signs in Hebrew and the
    wearing of skullcaps are the main clues to the different cultural
    identity of the place.

    "The village has two secondary schools, a college, synagogue, a house
    of culture, where we observe all our religious holidays and historical
    dates," said Nisimov.

    Local residents are mostly well off, but few of them have jobs.

    Municipal official Pisah Isakov, said, "There used to be a canning
    factory here, which employed at least a thousand people. Nowadays the
    plant is running at half capacity, and unemployment has grown. There
    are no lands to cultivate in the village either."

    Explaining the secret of the village's prosperity, Isakov said it
    was supported by benefactors, all wealthy natives of the village now
    living elsewhere He said these included three men Zahar Iliev, Telman
    Ismailov, Sergei Kokunov, who have fortunes estimated at between 350
    and 540 million dollars and all of whom feature in Forbes Magazine's
    list of the 100 richest people in Russia.

    Isakov said Kokunov had donated money for repair work on the schools
    in Krasnaya Sloboda, which should be completed by the beginning of
    the new school year.

    Relations are generally friendly between Krasnaya Sloboda and other
    villages and there are cases of inter-ethnic marriages.

    "Three years ago my son married the daughter of my neighbour Abraham,"
    said Gasym Aliev. "They live in Israel today. Of course we are worried
    about them because of the war. But from a financial point of view,
    they live very well and send money to us every month too."

    However, some neighbouring Muslims - Azerbaijanis, Lezgins and Tats -
    are envious of the Jews' prosperity.

    "I have a great respect for Jews," said Abdullayev. "But why have
    they been able to make their village look like a small European town,
    whereas we cannot do this with ours? You must have seen how terrible
    the state of Quba's bus station is. And that's the centre of the
    district... I'm not even mentioning the villages."

    Nisim Nisimov said that the village's population used to be 19,000 but,
    beginning in the 1970s, many Jews began to emigrate to Israel.

    In the last few years the outflow has stopped. Several Azerbaijani
    and Lezgin families now live alongside their Jewish neighbours.

    Nisimov wants to encourage Jews to move back to the village. "It
    would be a justified step for our compatriots to move from warring
    Israel back to our peaceful village," said Nisimov. "During the many
    years we've lived in the village surrounded by Muslim communities,
    there have never been any ethnic or religious differences. We've
    lived in peace and harmony for many years.

    "Krasnaya Sloboda is in fact the safest place in the world for Jews
    to live. But despite the safety of our village, not a single Jewish
    family has come from Israel to live here. Even those who left the
    village have never come back."

    School headmaster Yaushva Silanduyev said they get many visits from
    former residents, especially on August 3 which is their annual day
    of mourning for the dead.

    "Lots of people came from America, France, Israel and Russia this
    year," he said. "Probably, this year's mass arrival of Jews in
    Azerbaijan was misinterpreted because of the war between Israel
    and Lebanon."

    The villagers are keen to stress that they are good Azerbaijani
    citizens and their first loyalty is to Azerbaijan. "We consider
    ourselves to be part of the Azerbaijani people," said Nisimov. "A big
    part of the repertoire of the Gubba musical ensemble, which I direct,
    consists of Azeri folk songs and mugams (traditional songs)."

    Abdulla Abdullayev, from the nearby Azerbaijani village of Nugadi,
    said the Gubba group from Krasnaya Sloboda was frequently invited
    to Azerbaijani weddings, "They sing our songs well, even better than
    many Azerbaijani musicians."

    In Krasnaya Sloboda, they also mention the fact that their most famous
    son Albert Agaronov, a tank-driver, was made a hero of Azerbaijan
    after he was killed defending the town of Shusha in 1992 in the war
    over Nagorny Karabakh. Lazar, aged 73, said, "All Mountain Jews are
    proud of him. If a new war to free Karabakh begins tomorrow, I'm sure
    all the young men from Krasnaya Sloboda will stand up and fight."

    However, Lazar adds that no one in the village has displayed any
    willingness to go and defend Israel and he doubted that would happen,
    "Yes, we are Jews, and when blood is being spilled in Israel, we
    feel pain for our brothers. But we are citizens of Azerbaijan, and
    our homeland is here. We should defend our homeland, Azerbaijan."

    Sabuhi Mamedli is a freelance journalist based in Baku.
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