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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Zech 1:19,21

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Zech 1:19,21
  • Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:38:05 +0100

On 11/04/2007 00:22, K Randolph wrote:
...
An aside, I read a book several years ago that claimed, among others,
that the reason Russian uses the word "Yevrei" instead of "Zhid" to
refer to "Jews" is because there are many, particularly around the
Caspian Sea area, who trace their ancestry back to Israel, not Judea,
though by oral tradition.

Karl, I happen to know a fair bit about the Jews who live in the Caspian Sea area, and have visited two of their synagogues in that area. There are two distinct communities of Jews in the area. One is Ashkenazi and mostly Russian speaking, clearly Russian Jews who have moved into the area. The other community, sometimes called "Mountain Jews", traditionally speaks the Judeo-Tat language, related to Persian. This community appears to be what is left of the early mediaeval Jewish Khazars, who were in fact mostly converts to Judaism. As I understand it they have little memory of their own distant origins. But even if they were demonstrably of northern kingdom origin, it is unlikely that the Russian word for "Jew" came from this source, for the dominant Jewish community in the central parts of Russia is certainly the Ashkenazi one.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://www.qaya.org/blog/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





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