Is it possible to live happily as a Jew under Muslim rule? Yes it is - in Azerbaijan where 9,000 Jews live in harmony, says Said Mousayev in the Jerusalem Post.
The
history of Azerbaijan itself and its peoples is multicultural. In
particular, the history of the Jews in Azerbaijan is exemplary. This is
exemplary because Azerbaijan, a country with a Muslim majority 96%, is
against anti-Semitism. In Azerbaijan, religion is separate from the
state. All confessions are equal before the law. The national
educational system is secular. The official language of the Republic of
Azerbaijan is Azerbaijani. According to the most recent census, there
are people of 150 ethnicity living in Azerbaijan, 22 of them having compact settlements in different regions of the state.
There are three Jewish
communities in modern Azerbaijan: Mountains Jews (or Bukharian Jews),
Ashkenazi Jews, and Georgian Jews. The community of Mountains Jews is
the oldest, their ancestors arriving to the territory almost 15
centuries ago, according to some data. This version claims that after
the Mazdakeans were subdued in Iran (late 5th – early 6th century A.D.),
most of the Iranian Jews who had supported them were exiled to the
outskirts of the empire, i.e., today’s Northern Azerbaijan and Southern
Dagestan.
The ancestors of the Mountains Jews spoke a South-Western
dialect of the Persian language, which the modern Mountain Jewish
language of Old Persian origin called Juhuri or Judeo-Tat, related to
the Persian spoken by Jews in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and also
containing many Turkic and Semitic elements.
The great synagogue in Baku (Getty images)
As of 2016, approximately
9,000 Jews live in in perfect harmony with Muslims and other religions
in Azerbaijan. Recognized as Juhuros, Mountain Jews self-nominate, would
be descendants of the 12 tribes exiled from the Kingdom of Israel by
the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V in the VIII century BC.
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"approximately 9,000 Jews live in in perfect harmony with Muslims and other religions in Azerbaijan"
ReplyDeletePerfect Harmony. Haven't we heard that before?
" descendants of the 12 tribes exiled from the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V in the VIII century BC."
Ten not 12 tribes were exiled from the kingdom of Israel. The use of BC in Jewish publications is inappropriate, as it refers to Christian religious belief [BC = before Christ]
"Never been a pogrom in Azerbaijan"??? What about Armenians killed, torched, raped in Baku in 1990? 90 killed, 700 injured, according to Wikipedia-
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_pogrom
JP should be embarrassed for publishing this nonsense.