I'm not white! I'm a Jew, a Caucasian one!
There’s been a lot of war in the Caucasus lately, that wedge of southern Russia that speaks in over 28 languages spread over an ethnic tapestry that weaves at least as many threads.
Nabi Abdullaev of the Moscow Times reports:
Scores of armed Islamist militants carried out near-simultaneous attacks on police, security and military sites in the Kabardino-Balkaria capital of Nalchik on Thursday morning, killing at least 12 servicemen and 12 residents. The attacks sparked fierce fighting that stretched into the evening, with hundreds of federal troops, police and security service officers facing down a handful of militants holed up in a police station and a store. Five hostages were being held in the police station. It appeared unlikely that any of the militants would make it out alive. President Vladimir Putin ordered the city of 240,000 sealed and told law enforcement officials to shoot anyone who put up resistance.
And of course Jews have lived in this area since Shalmaneser rocked the casbah.
The FJC reports:
The Jewish Community of Nalchik reported that no Jews were among the victims of the terrorist attack that occurred in this city yesterday – Yom Kippur. Of the estimated 2,000 Jews residing in this North Caucasus city, several hundred had gathered in the Synagogue for the Yom Kippur ceremony. From there, everybody could hear shooting going on outside of the building and remained in their places.
The uniqueness of Caucasian Jewry owes alot to the character of a region where there are so many ethnic groups struggling for autonomy that everyone belongs to a minority in some way. The linguistic, cultural and religious traditions of this Jewish community, spread over the Russian North Caucasus to Dagestan and down into Azerbaijan and the Armenian reach to Anatolia created a community literally on the edge.
For a taste, on Georgian Jewry in particular.
The Georgian link does not work.
fixed
Just curious why there are still Jews in this part of the world? For example, I’m hearing on http://www.israelnewsradio.net that there are Jews in Ukraine who are being beaten literally to death, being spat upon in the streets, roving bands on skinheads raising hell with anyone or anything they find Jewish and yet the Jews still stay.
What does it take for people to wake up? I would think a one way ticket on El Al to Israel would fix a lot of these ills.
beau, you obviously havent been listening to our leftist brethren and their leftist allies at the various universities in israel and around the world: israel is a racist apartheid state from which we should disinvest with the ultimate goal of establishing a judenfrei palestine (finkelstein, chomsky, beinin, et al); if you believed that jew of such stature must be accurate, would you want to go there?
The Jews of Nalchik speak Judeo-Tat, an ancient Persian dialect. There a few thousand left, mostly went to Israel, or Moscow, or the US. They are commonly called Mountain Jews, along with those of Dagestan and Azerbaijian. In Israel, the Ashkenazi look down on us, which is why many Caucasians remain in, where we have been for centuries before there even was an Ashkenazic ethnogensis, though it is increasingly dangerous. Up until recently, there was little strife w/local Muslims. The Chechen confilct has changed all that.
Mountain Jews still exist, there are about 120,000 of us!