Krasnaya Sloboda, often referred to as the “Jerusalem of the Caucasus,” is a vibrant community of approximately 3,700 residents, nestled in the outskirts of Quba. This unique village is home to the Mountain Jews, a group often confused with the Tats, primarily due to the similarities in their languages. However, it is important to note that both languages are merely dialects of Persian, and the Tats are essentially the Caucasian Persians, along with the peoples of Caucasian Albania, descendants of the Medes, and Turkmen who have consolidated into the Azerbaijani identity. The Persian community assimilated into Azerbaijani culture primarily during the Soviet era; by the early 20th century, Tats comprised about 8% of the population of what would become Azerbaijan, predominating in the Absheron Peninsula near Baku.
Historically, migration from the Persian plateaus to the lush landscapes of the South Caucasus has occurred for centuries. Thus, it is no surprise that along with the Persians, Jews also settled in this region after Cyrus the Great, the “King of Kings,” destroyed Babylon. Similar migrations can be seen with Bukharan Jews moving to Central Asia. However, by the late 19th century, a myth took hold in the Caucasus that the Jews, known as Juhurs, were not actually Jews but rather Persians who had once embraced Judaism. While this perspective has been debunked by both geneticists and linguists, the Juhurs found this myth advantageous, as it implied they were not subject to anti-Semitic laws. In reality, the Jewish influence in their culture and affairs proved stronger than that of the Tats. Consequently, it is now the Tats—who are, in fact, practicing Muslims—who are mistakenly regarded as crypto-Jews, while the Juhurs have largely retained their Jewish identity. Similarly, those who consider the Juhurs to be Khazars are mistaken; Jews inhabited these mountains long before the establishment of the Khazar Khaganate, and it was likely the influence of Mountain Jewish merchants that led some Turkic khans to adopt Judaism.
Numerous hypotheses exist regarding how and when Jews arrived in Dagestan. Archaeologists have uncovered remnants of a 7th-century synagogue in the ruins of the ancient city of Shabran, which was the first trading hub in the Great Gateway of the Eastern Caucasus, connecting Iran and Turan. The initial wave of Jewish migration was likely linked to the construction of border fortifications, as Jews were known as warriors during that era. However, they were also adept traders, serving as intermediaries between warring nations. The foundation of the Juhur community was established during the Sasanian period and was later enriched by several waves of migration. The next significant influx occurred in the 10th and 11th centuries, not from the south but from the north, as many refugees from the fallen Khazaria sought refuge in the mountains, assimilating almost without a trace.
In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Persian Shah Abbas I expelled Armenians from the periphery to the capital and similarly relocated Jews from major cities to the outskirts. During his reign, the then “capital” of the Juhurs, Abasava, was established in the suburbs of Derbent, with the entire Jewish Valley (Jukhud-Kata) lying further up in the mountains. In the 18th century, another parallel branch emerged—the Gilyaks, or Shirvani Jews. Between the 17th and 18th centuries, for reasons that remain unclear, Jews migrated en masse from Iranian Gilan to Shirvan, situated across the mountains from both Iran and Dagestan. Their primary attractions were the prosperous city of Shemakha and Christian settlements, particularly the Udi village of Vertashen, now known as Oghuz, where a few synagogues still stand. However, these synagogues remain the only purely Gilan-Jewish monuments, as the Gilyaks soon flocked to Baku and Quba, blending with the Juhurs.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Juhurs lived relatively peacefully, cultivating tobacco and madder (a dye source) in the mountains, engaging in leather production, and clearly not suffering from poverty. Even in Cairo or Venice, local merchants were aware of the “Israelite tribes exiled by Alexander the Great beyond the Caspian Mountains.” Among the many goods transported by the Juhurs from the Mediterranean were books, which likely explains why services in the mountain synagogues followed the Sephardic liturgy—reflecting the influence of Spanish Jews. However, outside their synagogues, the Juhurs appeared more like mountain dwellers than Jews. Their attire, including the beshmet (a traditional coat), papakha (a high fur hat), and daggers, along with many customs, remained distinctly Caucasian even into the 19th century.
The Juhurs lived in “large families,” sometimes comprising dozens of people, sharing a common courtyard with individual homes for each “small family.” All families descended from a common ancestor formed a “tukhum” (clan). Male heads of families typically led the households, and upon the father’s death, the eldest son would take his place—contrary to the stereotype of the “Jewish mother.” Within their communities, practices such as kalym (bride price), child betrothals, and even polygamy persisted until the Soviet era. Blood feuds were also a part of their culture, albeit with a unique stipulation: Juhurs were given three days to seek revenge against fellow tribesmen, after which the families of the victim and the murderer were officially joined by marriage. However, by the end of the 19th century, the traditional mountain lifestyle began to erode due to the oil boom in Baku, drawing many Juhurs down from the mountains.
The journey from the merchant prosperity of the 16th and 17th centuries to the oil boom was a long one, and the Juhur community weathered its crisis—though not comparable to the Holocaust, it was certainly akin to the Crusades or the Khmelnytsky Uprising. It is likely that the mountain rabbis, well-versed in their people’s history, envied the friends and brothers of their distant ancestors who had migrated from Iran not to Derbent or Shemakha, but to Bukhara or Balkh. While Central Asia remained one of the most tolerant places for Jewish communities for centuries, life in the harsh environment of Dagestan was challenging, even by Islamic standards. The kharaj (tax on non-Muslims) was coupled with forced labor, often relegating Jews to the most degrading and dirty tasks, unacceptable for proud Muslims. When hosting mountain warriors, Jews were also required to pay compensation known as dush-egrisi—literally “toothache tax.”
In Persia, a parallel situation unfolded with the emergence of a “Hmel-zlodey”—Nadir Shah, the last great military leader of Iran, who caused considerable upheaval from Dagestan to Fergana. Interestingly, he adversely affected the lives of Jews in both regions, albeit in different ways. In the 1740s, Nadir developed a sympathy and respect for Jews, integrating them into his inner circle, while after his invasion, Uzbeks and Tajiks considered the Yahuds a fifth column of Persia and sought vengeance for several decades. Conversely, in the Caucasus during the 1730s, Nadir Shah was a fierce anti-Semite, and most Juhur villages, including Abasava, were razed to the ground by his army.
However, the era of Nadir Shah, although tumultuous, was not long-lasting. Following his death in 1747, dozens of Azerbaijani khanates emerged from the ruins of his empire. One such khanate was the Quba Khanate, whose history I recounted in the previous section. To summarize, Turkic Shiites ruled over the Sunni Lezgins, seeking external support. Nadir’s vassals, Hussein-Ali and his son Fatali, who later conquered lands from Derbent to Ardabil, eagerly invited Jews, Armenians, and Gypsies into their domains. Thus, opposite the khan’s palace, by the swift Gudiolchay River, the Jewish Sloboda was established in 1742, formed by those who survived Nadir’s invasion. Transitioning from the disintegrated khanate to Russian control, by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Mountain Jews in Quba constituted more than half of the population.
In the Russian Empire, the Juhurs encountered Ashkenazi Jews for the first time, yet neither group was eager to recognize each other as kin, often competing in the struggle for influence in Baku. Even today, Ashkenazi and Georgian Jews share a synagogue in the city center, while the Juhurs have their own house of worship on the outskirts. From Quba, the scattering of Jewish villages around Derbent and communities in the cities of Dagestan led the Juhurs to settle throughout the North Caucasus, establishing significant communities in Grozny, Nalchik, and Kislovodsk. Despite their inability to enter the oil business, the Juhurs engaged in various trades, primarily commerce. During the Civil War, Mountain Jews became a crucial support for the Red Army in Dagestan, while during World War II, the fates of their communities in occupied cities varied significantly: where both Juhurs and Ashkenazis resided, the Nazis exterminated everyone, while in areas with only Juhurs, the occupation was shorter than the time it took Nazi ideologists to decide whether to classify them as Aryans or Jews.
In 1926, the Jewish Sloboda near Quba was renamed Krasnaya Sloboda, and in 1991, it received its Azerbaijani name, Gyrmyzy-Gasaba, which is a direct translation. It remains, in essence, the last Jewish settlement where Jews constituted the majority. Here, the famous Caucasian “aerodrome” caps were clandestinely crafted; a “cap from Quba” is akin to “Murano glass.” During the Soviet era, the Juhurs maintained their unity and way of life much more robustly than the Ashkenazis, and they truly demonstrated their resilience with the return of capitalism, where the combination of Caucasian temperament and kinship with Jewish business acumen created remarkable opportunities. By the late 1980s, around 100,000 Mountain Jews lived in Azerbaijan and Dagestan, and almost overnight, they began to disperse—two-thirds of the community moved to Israel, while others settled in the United States or larger Russian cities.
In Russia, Mountain Jews are simply one of the strongest groups in ethnic business, while in Azerbaijan, they have helped the nation find its place in the world, establishing a much stronger bridge from Baku to Israel than to Shiite Iran.