Mountain Jews

Mountain Jews are the Mizrahi Jewish subgroup of the eastern and northern Caucasus, mainly Azerbaijan, and various republics in the Russian Federation: Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia–Alania, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria, and are the descendants of Persian Jews from Iran. Mountain Jews took shape as a community after Qajar Iran ceded the areas in which they lived to the Russian Empire as part of the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813. The forerunners of the Mountain Jewish community have inhabited Ancient Persia since the 5th century BCE. The language spoken by Mountain Jews, called Judeo-Tat, is an ancient Southwest Iranian language which integrates many elements of Ancient Hebrew. It is believed that Mountain Jews in Persia, as early as the 8th century BCE, continued to migrate east, settling in mountainous areas of the Caucasus. Mountain Jews survived numerous historical vicissitudes by settling in extremely remote and mountainous areas. They were known to be accomplished warriors and horseback riders. In the Caucasus region, Mountain Jews and Georgian Jews are Jewish subgroups, each with its own regional Jewish vernacular and local expressions of Jewish communal traditions.