A Contribution towards the History of the Jewish Communities in the Caucasus Region

Abstract

The Jewish community in the Caucasus region appears to have emerged in the early medieval period, following the settlement of Persian Jews along major trade routes. By the twentieth century, Jewish communities were primarily concentrated in the eastern and southern Caucasus, particularly in the town of Krasnaya Sloboda in Azerbaijan, as well as in Georgia and several autonomous republics of what is now the Russian Federation, including Chechnya, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and North Ossetia. Over the centuries, most of Caucasian Jewish communities adopted the Sephardic rite of Rabbinic Judaism. This paper aims to explore and map the contributions of Jewish communities to the societies of the Caucasus. The study draws primarily on secondary sources.