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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>, <rvining AT log.on.ca>
  • Subject: Re: Babylonian Jewry
  • Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1999 00:28:08 -0500


The Babylonian Jews are alive and well and living down my street -
seriously! Well, maybe. There is here in Azerbaijan, also in the north
Caucasus, a community of "Mountain Jews" who have been in this area
for many centuries. Previously they lived in mountain villages, now
mostly in a number of towns. Some of them literally live in my street,
others have recently moved to Israel. Their history is obscure, but
many people hold that they are descendants of the Babylonian Jews.
Others have suggested that they are descendants of the lost northern
tribes, but they have surely had contact with the rest of Jewry more
recently than that (but before their 19th century contact with
Ashkenazi Jews migrating from Russia). Their traditions, I am told,
are similar to Sephardi but with significant differences also. Their
language is Iranian, close to Tat and to the language of the Bukhara
Jews and sometimes known as Judeo-Tat, and includes many Hebrew loan
words; it was formerly written in Hebrew (square) script. Maybe the
Jews of Bukhara in Uzbekistan are also of Babylonian origin. Estimated
numbers: 71,000 speakers of Judeo-Tat, 60,000 speakers of Bukharic or
Judeo-Tajik - doubtless only a fraction of the actual descendants of
the Babylonian Jews.

I'd be interested to see what that expensive CD encylopedia has to say
about these Mountain Jews.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Babylonian Jewry
Author: <rvining AT log.on.ca> at Internet
Date: 20/11/1999 14:08


BABYLONIAN JEWRY

When the Persians conquered Babylonia and allowed the exiles to return
home, not many did.(1)It was a minority of Jews who returned from the
Babylonian exile under the benevolent rule of the Persian monarch,
Cyrus.(2)

<snip>





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