Judaism in Dagestan is mainly practiced by Mountain Jews. By the beginning of the 8th century BCE Mountain Jews had reached Persia from Israel. Under the Sasanian Empire, with the arrival in Dagestan of Iranian-speaking tribes from the north, they settled in different regions of the Caucasus.
Derbent Synagogue
Makhachkala Synagogue
Mountain Jews or Caucasus Jews, also known as Juhuro, Juvuro, Juhuri, Juwuri, Juhurim, Kavkazi Jews or Gorsky Jews, are Jews of the eastern and northern Caucasus, mainly Azerbaijan, and various republics in the Russian Federation: Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. The Mountain Jews comprise Persian-speaking Jewry along with the Jews of Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The Mountain Jews are the descendants of Persian Jews from Iran, and fall within the Mizrachi category of Jews. Mountain Jews took shape as a community after Qajar Iran ceded the areas in which they lived to the Russian Empire as part of the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813.
Mountain Jews
Synagogue at Qırmızı Qəsəbə, Azerbaijan
Synagogue in the Gilaki quarter of Qırmızı Qəsəbə, reopened in 1941 after being closed by Bolsheviks
Mountain Jew Eric Sireni and his family with chokha resting after a day of work