The Mountain Jews Of Azerbaijan Adapt To Freedom
A EurasiaNet photo essay by Jason Eskenazi

In the highlands of northern Azerbaijan, a community of Jews has quietly thrived in a mainly Islamic region. Legend has it that the mountain Jews of Azerbaijan are descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel, having fled the Holy Land after the destruction of the first temple in 722 b.c. They settled in the mountains of northern Azerbaijan roughly two centuries ago, after being forced to flee from what was then Persia. Today, the Jewish community is centered in the town of Krasnaya Sloboda. The mountian Jews have survived centuries of persecution, most recently at the hands of Soviet authorities. Before the Bolsheviks siezed power, there were 13 synagogues in Krasnaya Sloboda. All but one were closed, many of them converted into workshops and warehouses, during the Stalin era. The collapse of Communism has dramatically altered life in the town. The removal of restrictions on freedom of movement has prompted many residents to emigrate in search of economic opportunities. The number of Jews in the town has dwindled to 5,000 from about 35,000 during the late Soviet era. At the same time, efforts have been undertaken to revive the town’s religious traditions, including the renovation of the town’s synagogues. Photographer Jason Eskenazi visited Krasnaya Sloboda in 1999 to document life in the rapidly changing town. A selection of his images from that trip, most of them never before published, appear in this EurasiaNet photo essay.

Editor’s note: Jason Eskenazi’s photographs have appeared in such publications as Time Magazine and The New York Times. He first began photographing in the former Soviet Union in 1991. In 1996, he won an Alicia Patterson Fellowship for his work in Russia. In 1999, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was awarded the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize for his work on the Jewish community in Azerbaijan. He is now at work on a book of photography covering the former Soviet Union, tentatively titled "Wonderland."

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Posted March 30, 2001 © Eurasianet
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