Among the Jews of Dagestan, after the anti-Semitic riots, “a feeling of betrayal”

2023-11-21 07:01:44

The story is so beautiful that it seems straight out of a volume of Tales and legends of the Caucasus, or a Soviet promotional brochure boasting friendship between peoples, but it is true: if the rabbi of Makhatchkala, in Dagestan, is called Ali-Sultan Alkhazov, it is because his father, himself a rabbi, had a Muslim as his best friend; since he was unable to have children, he asked his friend to give his first name to his eldest child. This is how the 66-year-old rabbi has a Muslim first name, slightly transformed into Eli-Sultan so as not to confuse the faithful too much.

This testimony recalls the deep ties between communities in this predominantly Muslim Russian territory, located on the Caspian Sea, which has dozens of ethnic groups and as many languages. ” That is to say as all this was impossible to imagine and shocked us”adds the rabbi in his soft voice, in his synagogue heavily guarded by the police.

“All that” are several anti-Semitic incidents that occurred in several Russian regions of the North Caucasus at the end of October – anti-Jewish demonstrations, siege of a hotel supposed to house “Israeli refugees”, fire of a community center… – which culminated on October 29 with the attack on the airport of Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan. That day, a wild crowd chanting pro-Palestinian or religious slogans (“Allahou Akbar”) took possession of the premises in search of Israelis, or Jews, going so far as to check passengers’ documents or to besiege planes on the landing strips.

In the center, Valeri Dibiaev, as well as members of the Jewish community of Makhachkala (Dagestan), meet in the city’s synagogue, November 16, 2023. MARIA TURCHENKOVA FOR “THE WORLD” View from the heights of Makhachkala (Dagestan) , November 17, 2023. MARIA TURCHENKOVA FOR “THE WORLD” Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The Russian Caucasus plagued by multiple anti-Semitic incidents

Three weeks later, the dust has settled, but the trauma is still present. One of its symptoms is the extreme caution displayed by representatives of the Jewish community. “We can only pray that this never happens again”said the rabbi. “We stay here… There are subjects that are too sensitive, supports the head of the local community, Valery Dibiaev. The deaths of Gaza and those of Israel pain us all equally…”

“Clearly designated”

In Derbent, on the border with Azerbaijan, the “capital” of the Mountain Jews, an indigenous people of the Caucasus, where a rabbi had mentioned in the press a possible “evacuation” from the community, the reception is even frosty, the interlocutors turn away.

THE Mountain Jews, who numbered up to 30,000 during the Soviet era, with their newspapers and theaters in Juhuri, a language derived from Farsi, are now only a handful: a little over a thousand of them remained after the mass exile of the 1990s – to Moscow, Western countries and especially Israel. Despite their millennia-old presence in the region, their small number and their dispersion today accentuate the feeling of vulnerability.

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