The Jewish Diaspora

Migration

Persian Jews to the Caucasus

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500–700 CEPersia (Isfahan, Shiraz, Hamadan) → Eastern Caucasus (Mountain Jews)

Why it happened

Iranian Jews moved north into the Caspian Caucasus during the Sasanian Empire (224–651);1 some historians hold they were Jewish military colonists settled by Parthian and Sasanian rulers as frontier guards against steppe-nomad incursions.1

The migration

They were descendants of Persian Jews whose 'migration from Persis to the Caucasus took place during the Sasanian Empire (224–651).'1 Local tradition recalls some 19,000 Jews who left the Land of Israel and 'passed through Syria, Lower Mesopotamia, and Persis, and then, heading north, entered into Media.'2 Encyclopaedia Judaica cautions that 'it is uncertain when Jews first arrived in the area,'3 yet archaeologists uncovered 'the remains of the 7th-century Jewish settlement near Baku,'4 and their numbers were later 'supported by a constant flow of Jews from Iran.'5 Jews had settled the Sasanian frontier city of Derbent 'in ancient times,' becoming prominent under the Khazars.6 From this Iranian stock grew the Judeo-Tat–speaking Mountain Jews of Dagestan and Azerbaijan, whom one genetic study dates to a movement of Jews from Iran in the 8th century CE.7

Genetic corroboration

  • mtDNAThe study's historical background describes the Mountain Jewish community as established in the eighth century through movement from Iran.7 Its mitochondrial result found an extreme , with 58.6% of sampled variation tracing to one woman.7 The genetic data place that lineage only broadly in West Eurasia or the Near East, not specifically in Iran.

Sources

  1. BKevin Alan Brook. 2006. The Jews of Khazaria (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham link
  2. C2025. Mountain Jews. Wikipedia link
  3. BSlutsky Y. 2007. Caucasus. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed., Thomson Gale) link
  4. B2026. Азербайджан (Azerbaijan). Электронная еврейская энциклопедия (Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia, online; based on the Short Jewish Encyclopedia, Jerusalem 1976–2005) link
  5. C2025. History of the Jews in Azerbaijan. Wikipedia link
  6. BHerman Rosenthal. 1903. Derbent. The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 4 (Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1901–1906) link
  7. ABehar DM, Metspalu E, Kivisild T, et al.. 2008. Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora. PLoS ONE 3 e2062. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002062