Georgian Jews

Origins

By tradition the first Jews reached Georgia after Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, while other accounts tie their arrival to the Assyrian conquests of the eighth century BCE.¹ The eleventh-century chronicler Leonti Mroveli records refugees who fled Jerusalem and settled at Mtskheta, capital of the kingdom of Iberia, followed by a second wave after Rome destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE.³ Archaeology confirms a Jewish presence at Mtskheta by the first–second centuries CE.² Later, sixth-century Byzantine persecution reportedly drove some 3,000 Jews eastward into Persian-held eastern Georgia.⁴

Religious life

Georgian Jews followed Rabbinic Judaism, though in the late ninth century Abu-Imran Musa al-Za'farani (al-Tiflisi) founded a Karaite 'Tiflis sect' that lasted more than three hundred years without ever displacing the Rabbanite majority.⁴ Observance was intense and family-centred, and it survived the Soviet era with unusual vigour: in 1952 the Jews of Kutaisi lay down in the road to block trucks sent to close their synagogue.² Congregations led by hakhamim preserved a distinctive liturgy, and on reaching Israel the immigrants insisted on separate synagogues to maintain their own rites.⁴

Language & culture

Georgian Jews spoke Georgian, a Kartvelian language, and among themselves used Kivruli (Judeo-Georgian), a Jewish variety laced with Hebrew and Aramaic loanwords such as xaxami, 'rabbi' (from Hebrew ḥakham), and pesaxi, 'Passover'.⁵ The source identifies the language's endonym as Qivruli.⁵ Hebrew remained the language of liturgy and scholarship, while the earliest settlers may have spoken a form of Aramaic.¹ Their literary culture at times reached beyond the community: the Kutaisi-raised translator Boris Gaponov produced a celebrated Hebrew rendering of Rustaveli's national epic.⁶

Relations with neighbours

For most of their history Georgian Jews lived, in one scholarly account, with 'few traces of antisemitism', assimilated into rural Georgian society and even, exceptionally for the medieval world, sometimes holding land and Christian serfs.² From the late medieval period many Jews were themselves serfs (kamani) bound to nobles or the crown until Russian authorities emancipated them between 1864 and 1871.⁷ Blood-libel charges were rare and largely imported under Russian rule; the nine Jews accused in the 1878 Sachkhere affair were tried at Kutaisi and acquitted.⁷ The Georgian Orthodox Church, unusually, did not incite against the Jews.¹

Decline & dispersal

Georgian Jewry ended not in expulsion but in emigration. After the 1967 Six-Day War a wave of Zionist feeling swept the community, and in 1969 eighteen Georgian-Jewish families sent a celebrated appeal for the right to leave for Israel, a landmark of the Soviet Jewry movement.² Departure was communal, moving whole extended families: of the 55,400 Jews recorded in Georgia in the 1970 census, about 40,000 were Georgian Jews, and by 1979 the total had fallen to 28,000.¹ Post-Soviet economic collapse after 1991 accelerated the exodus, and the largest Georgian-Jewish community now lives in Ashdod, Israel.⁴

Notable figures

• David Baazov (1883–1947) — Rabbi and Zionist leader. Leader of Georgian Zionism who founded the newspaper Ebraelis Khma and Jewish schools across Soviet Georgia, and was imprisoned during Stalin's 1938 Great Purge.⁸
• Gerzel (Herzl) Baazov (1904–1938) — Writer and playwright. Poet and dramatist, son of David Baazov, who brought Georgian-Jewish life into Georgian literature; arrested and killed during Stalin's 1938 purge.⁹
• Boris Gaponov (1934–1972) — Translator and lexicographer. Kutaisi-raised translator whose 1969 Hebrew rendering of Rustaveli's The Knight in the Panther's Skin won Israel's Tchernichowsky Prize in 1970.⁶
• Tamir Sapir (Temur Sepiashvili) (1946–2014) — Businessman and philanthropist. Tbilisi-born émigré who left Soviet Georgia and became a New York real-estate billionaire and philanthropist.¹⁰
• Mikhael Mirilashvili (1960–) — Businessman and philanthropist. Georgian-Jewish businessman and philanthropist, a leader of St. Petersburg, Russian, and Euro-Asian Jewish communal organizations.¹¹

Key events

• 70 Jewish refugees settle at Mtskheta. After Rome destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE, refugee Jews settled at Mtskheta, capital of Iberia, joining an older community.³ Archaeology confirms Jews there by the first–second centuries CE.²
• 880 Karaite 'Tiflis sect' founded. In the late ninth century Abu-Imran al-Tiflisi founded a Karaite sect at Tiflis that endured more than three hundred years but never supplanted the Rabbanite majority.⁴
• 1864 Emancipation of the Jewish serfs. Between 1864 and 1871 Russian imperial authorities freed Georgia's Jewish serfs (kamani) from bondage to nobles and the crown, driving migration into the towns.⁷
• 1878 Sachkhere blood libel trial. Nine Jews accused of ritual murder for Passover in the 1878 Sachkhere affair were tried at Kutaisi and acquitted, one of several short-lived blood libels imported under Russian rule.⁷
• 1918 All-Jewish Congress in Tbilisi. In 1918 David Baazov convened an All-Jewish Congress in Tbilisi and launched the Zionist paper Ebraelis Khma, as assimilationists, Orthodox and Zionists debated Jewish life in newly independent Georgia.⁸
• 1969 Letter of the eighteen families. In 1969 eighteen Georgian-Jewish families sent a celebrated appeal demanding the right to emigrate to Israel, helping to ignite the international Soviet Jewry movement.²
• 1970 The great aliyah begins. From 1970 Georgian Jews began emigrating communally to Israel; of 55,400 Jews recorded in the 1970 census about 40,000 were Georgian Jews, and by 1979 the total had fallen to 28,000.¹

Where they lived

• Georgia · 100 BCE