The Jewish Community of Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan

Azərbaycan Respublikası  - Republic of Azerbaijan

An independent Transcaucasia Republic from December 1991, formerly a Soviet republic in the Soviet Union.

21st Century

Estimated Jewish population in 2018: 7,800 out of 10,000,000. There are three main Jewish groups in Azerbaijan: The Mountain Jews, Ashkenazi (or European) Jews, and Georgian Jews. The community of Mountain Jews opened a new synagogue in Baku in 2011.  The Museum of History and Culture of Mountain Jews opened in Krasnaya Sloboda in 2020. 

Baku Religious Community of European Jews
AZ1014 Baku Dilyara Aliyeva st.,171
Phone: 994-50-543-25-67
E-mail: eugenybr@yandex.ru 
Website: www.sinagogabaku.org

 

HISTORY


A treaty in 1828 divided Azerbaijan between Russia and Persia, the northern part came under Russian rule and the southern part was given to Persia. Since then the Azerbaijan nationality in the north has been split between the allegiance to the northern entity and the aim to unite the two parts into one. About two thirds of the Azerbaijan people live in Iran.

There have been Jewish settlements in Azerbaijan ever since Jews settled in Persia. However, their presence is attested by documentary evidence only from the 12th century. Benjamin of Tudela (c.1165) refers in his “travels” to a chain of “more than a hundred congregations in the Haftan mountains up to the frontiers of Media” which included Persian Azerbaijan. Samuel b. Yahya al-Maghribi relates that David Alroy (12th century) found adherents for his messianic movement in such cities as Khoi, Salmas, Tabriz, Maragha, Nad Urnia (Rizaiyeh).

When after 1258 Hulagu Khan established his residence in Tabriz, the new center attracted many Jewish settlers. Sa’ad al-Dawla (d. 1291) made his career there as courtier. Tabriz, Sultaniyya, and other places in Azerbaijan continued to be a scene of Jewish events in the 13th and 14th centuries. Azerbaijan was also a Karaite center. Under the Safavids, Jews are mentioned in several districts.

The Jews in Azerbaijan survived persecutions in the 17th century. Between 1711 and 1713 an emissary (shali’ah) from Hebron, Jidah b. Amram diwan, visited many communities in Azerbaijan. The suffering of the Jews under the Kajar dynasty (from 1794) in Maragha, Urmia, Salmas, and Tabriz is graphically described by Christian missionaries and various travelers of the 19th century, including David b. Beth Hillel.

Under Russia and before the 1917 Revolution, the northern part of Azerbaijan formed the governments of (provinces) Baku and Yelizavetpol. Up to the late Middle Ages this region was called Albania, Azerbaijan then comprising only the present Iranian area. When the region was first annexed by Russia the Jewish population mainly consisted of Tat-speaking Mountain Jews. Their main centers were the city of Quba and district, as well as the villages of Miudji and Miudji- Aftaran in the government of Baku, and the village of Vartashen in the government of Yelizavetpol. The Jewish residents in Quba and district numbered 5,492 in 1835, of whom 2,718 lived in the city itself, which had a separate Jewish quarter. In 1866 a Jewish traveler reported 952 Jewish households in Quba, 145 in Miudji, and 190 in Vartashen, while a Russian traveler recorded that year 6,282 Jews in Quba, 957 in Miudji, and 1,396 in Vartashen.

The Jews of Azerbaijan generally engaged in agriculture, petty trade, and manual labor; on average, their economic position was poor. They also suffered from persecution by the local Muslim population, and were often the victims of violent attacks.

The region was closed to residence for Jews from European Russia during the Czarist regime . With Baku’s rapid growth as an oil-producing center, however, a considerable number of European Jews took an active part in developing the industry. The census of 1897 records 12,761 Jewish residents in Baku government and 2,031 in Yelizavetpol. The largest urban communities were in Quba (6,662 Jewish residents) and Baku (2,341). A secular Jewish-Russian school was opened in Quba in 1908.

During the civil war following the 1917 revolution and in subsequent years, many Jews of Azerbaijan left their villages, mainly for Baku, which also attracted Jews from European Russia. Miudji was completely deserted, and about 3,500 Jews left Quba; Baku then became the most important Jewish center in Azerbaijan. After the establishment of the Soviet regime, all Jewish traditional schools were closed and government schools were opened for the Jewish population. By the end of the 1920’s there was a Turkish-Jewish school in Vartashen and a school for Mouintain Jews in Baku; a Jewish club was functioning in Quba, and a group of tat-speaking writers was active in Quba and in Baku. Attempts were made to settle Jews on the land, and 250 Jewish families were occupied in agriculture by the end of 1927. The census of 1926 recorded 19,000 European Jews and 7,500 mountain Jews in Azerbaijan, and the census of 1959 showed 40,204 Jews in the republic (1.1% of the total population); of the 38,917
living in urban communities, 29,197 were settled in Baku and its environs; 8,357 declared that their mother tongue and 6,255 Yiddish. A religious congregation was reported to exist in Baku in 1955, and a congregation of Mountain Jews was active in Quba in 1964, but the synagogue was then under threat of closure. In 1959 one Jew was serving on the Supreme Soviet of the republic (out of 325 members).

In the census of 1989 30,670 Jews were recorded in Azerbaijan. In 1991, when Azerbaijan became independent, the Jewish population was estimated at 26,500. The community’s institutions in the spheres of religion, education, and culture functioned freely. Many of the Jews were integrated in various fields of government.

In 1997 there were 30,000 Jews living in Azerbaijan; 20,000 in Baku 4,000 in Quba and the rest in Jewish communities in smaller towns.