Mountain Jews: From a History of Local Groups to the Transnational History

Abstract

This article is an introduction to the issue’s special theme on “Mountain Jews: Identity, Multilingualism, and History of Studying the Group”, featuring contributions by Dmitriy Sen’, Vladimir Kolesov, Svetlana Amosova, Arusyak Agababyan, Leonid Dreyer, Igor Kuznetsov, and Rita Kuznetsova. The theme is devoted to the discussion of a sub-ethnic Jewish group. Mountain Jews lived dispersed in the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, and now this is a transnational group. This group has experienced processes of active migration and adaptation in new places of residence, economic and social changes over the past few decades. The main topics of the special theme are the ethnic identity of Mountain Jews, as well as their multilingualism and attitude towards their language.