Celebration carpet of the mountain Jews of Qırmızı Qəsəbə, the center of their community in North Azerbaijan. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
One of the ethnic groups in Azerbaijan is known as “juhuro”, or “dağ yəhudiləri” in Azerbaijani, meaning Mountain Jews. Its origins are traced to Persia. Currently, there are massive migrants to Israel and other places, but some persist in Azerbaijan, and the community has an important role in relations between the two countries.
Also known as יהודי קווקז (yehudey kavkaz), or Caucasian Jews, the community is descended from Persian Jews and lives predominantly in Azerbaijan, with much smaller groups in Russia and the North Caucasus. They are estimated to be between 20 000 y 50 000 and its cultural center Red Town (red village or Krasnaya Sloboda) in the northern administrative district of Guba in Azerbaijan, a city populated entirely by Mountain Jews, while others live in the capital, Baku, and other places throughout the country. According to some sourcesthe village is the “only fully Jewish outside of Israel and the United States.”
Given his Persian origin, his traditional language is judeotati, also locally called Juhuri, a Persian language that mixes Persian, Hebrew and Turkic words that in its history has used the Hebrew, Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. Mountain Jews have their own judaism traditionwhich is different from that of the Eskenazi and Sephardic communities.
With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, many conflicts in the North and South Caucasus, a difficult economic transition, a large part of the community left for Israel, where it is now estimated that there are between 100,000 to 150,000 peopleAs this documentary explains:
Photo of Mountain Jew showing a rug woven by her, at Q Gallery. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
They continue to maintain strong ties with Azerbaijan, especially with Qırmızı Qəsəbə where they build mansions and return during the summeras shown in the exhibition “The history of a people” in Q Gallery In Berlin
Indeed, the Mountain Jews, already incorporated into the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 19th century, were able to own land and developed their own local industries of silk and carpet making, and tobacco and wine. The exhibition is dedicated to rug making, a predominantly female activity that is displayed in the gallery with rugs, photos, and paintings.
Here, a rug celebrates rug weavers, a key part of family pride and decoration in all homes:
Here a picture of female rug makers is depicted as a real rug. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
This photo from 1937 shows a group of female carpet weavers from Qırmızı Qəsəbə:
Photo from 1937 showing a group of carpet weavers from Qırmızı Qəsəbə. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Another rug weaver shows off her rug:
Photo from the family archive of Frida Yusufova. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Este cuadro es de la vieja synagoga de Red Town, de Rami Meir:
Painting by Rami Meir depicting the old synagogue in Qırmızı Qəsəbə. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
