Caucasian Jews Mountaineers

Among the many nationalities of the Caucasus, have attracted the attention of researchers in ethnography, there is still one of not numerous tribe of the life that still knows very little. This Mountaineers-Jews, or, as they are called, "Mountain Jews". None of our scholars of the Caucasus is not specifically engaged in the study of this nation, and few travelers talked about it in passing when describing the other tribes of the Caucasus. In all likelihood, this is explained by the fact that this little narodec did not use any known historical or literary, and its insignificance almost nothing stood out from others around it, tribal, as appearance and clothes. However, in the last ten or twenty years, appeared in print four poems dedicated to the Jews-mountaineers. The first of them - the book was Nemirovich-Danchenko "Militant Israel." It operates more on the reader's imagination with their fantastic, artistic pictures, than the mind. A picture of manners, customs, and certain aspects of life of Mountain Jews, in the form of art scenes, she has acquired quite an extensive range of readers, but only among European Jews were interested in information about their co-religionists in the Caucasus. The second article of the Mountain Jews appeared 15-16 years ago, first in Jewish magazines in Hebrew and then in the Collection of information about the Caucasian Highlanders "and belongs to the traveler 60-ies of the Caucasus, the Black Judas.
     This traveler, a decent respect to myocardial infarction difficulties and hardships in an unknown and not very safe territory, said at the beginning of his article that he had to travel to the edge of the Caspian and the Tver region two years. During this period he studied, "wherever possible", a life of their countrymen, their lifestyles, customs, mores, prejudices, etc.
     Taking into account the time at which traveled to the Caucasus Black Judas, low moral state of the Mountain Jews, their hostile attitude to Russian or European Jews can not even go into a critical analysis of works of Black, definitely say that "the possibility of communication of accurate data on life of the Mountain Jews had for him is very limited. " If the author had to observe in their lives something that only a very tiny fraction of the rest as he describes, or at a private home a few villages, or hearsay.
     But speaking about the shortcomings of Article VI of the Black, to the other side of justice to the late author and noted that, as a lover and traveler, he presented a lot of interesting things from real life, the Mountain Jews, described their home environment and to collect statistical information on their number and places of settlement. Note also that the same author hybrids in 1869 in "Terskikh Gazette brief historical information about the Mountain Jews, embracing the period of their life in the Caucasus by the beginning of the XVII century. to this day. These data relate mainly to the resettlement of Jews from the village to the village in Dagestan and are based on local traditions. There is no doubt that the work of the late author, yet acquainted with the life of Russian Jews and the rights of their co-religionists, abandoned by fate in a wild country among wild tribes.
     The fourth and last article about the Mountain Jews was my article entitled "Caucasian Jews Highlanders, where they were placed some information on the customs of the Mountain Jews at a wedding, funeral and the murder, the article is also far from embracing all sides of life of mountain Jews.