On the related subjects of Russian (Mountain) Jews and Chechnya, BTW:
Mountain Jews in the Caucasus eager to leave the war-torn region LEV GORODETSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
MOSCOW -- As Russian troops push Chechen separatist rebels deeper toward the Georgian border, Western protests are mounting against the Russian army's tolerance for civilian casualties.
But Jews in the Caucasus region appear to be overwhelmingly supportive of Russia's military action.
"I think, and many of our people here think, that the military operation has to be accomplished. Only then are we going to have a stable situation in the region," said Svetlana Danilova, a Jewish community leader in the city of Nalchik, located in a republic bordering Chechnya.
Boris Shubayev, who works in Nalchik for the Jewish Agency for Israel, said his mother and sister gave homemade pirogen, or Russian-style dumplings, to Russian soldiers passing through town on their way to the front.
"We want them to finish the Chechen rebels. There is no other way out," Shubayev said.
"We are not against the Chechen people," he added apologetically. "My family lived in Chechnya and had always been friendly with the Chechens. When Stalin deported the Chechens in 1944, many of them left their houses to their Jewish neighbors and knew that not a single cushion on the bed would be touched. Now everything has changed."
Shubayev and other so-called Mountain Jews here say the Chechen war has destroyed the tenuous multicultural balance that served as the underlying fabric of life in this region. The atrocities committed by the Chechens and other "ethnic gangs," including the kidnapping of Jews, has made the situation even worse.
The first Mountain Jews, who currently constitute more than 50 percent of the roughly 25,000 Jews of the North Caucasus, came from Persia to the North Caucasus well before the ninth century. They spoke a sort of "Persian Yiddish," a Farsi dialect with a heavy mixture of Hebrew.
Living for centuries surrounded by Muslims and Christians, Russia's oldest Jewish community managed to preserve its identity and maintain stable relations with its neighbors.
Today, many live in the cities of Derbent, Makhachkala and Buynaksk in the republic of Dagestan, where the Jewish population has shrunk from 50,000 to under 10,000 over the past 10 years. Most of the Jews who have left -- many fled before the first Russian-Chechen war in 1996 -- have immigrated to Israel or America, or have moved to Moscow.
Despite their reduced numbers, the Mountain Jews in Dagestan and elsewhere in the North Caucasus have maintained their communities. Until recently, many of them intended to stay put.
But the increased interethnic tension and the number of kidnappings and acts of violence -- which have rapidly spread to the neighboring republics and even to Moscow -- have convinced many of the remaining Jews to leave.
Roman Ashurov of Nalchik was already considering a move to Israel.
But then Ashurov, whose children had already immigrated to Israel, was kidnapped by Chechen gangs who believed that the international Jewish community and Israel would be willing to pay dearly for Jewish captives.
Released two month ago, after having spent a year in captivity, the 61-year-old is physically and emotionally fragile and is reluctant to speak. His relatives told JTA that female members of the gang had mutilated his genitalia.
Ashurov, who urgently needs an operation, recently arrived in Israel -- and is planning to stay.
Chechen gangs released another Jewish hostage in early March after a Moscow-based Chechen businessman paid a ransom, according to Russia's security services.
Yefim Kazarets, 51, who had been held in Chechnya for eight months, was reported in relatively good condition.
The number of Jewish hostages is estimated at fewer than 50. But as knowledge about each case spreads, more Jews are tempted to leave.
The war is also creating a refugee problem, and Jewish organizations in Russia and the West have recently launched a fund-raising campaign to aid both Jewish and non-Jewish refugees fleeing the region.
Karen Gurshumov, one of the leaders of the Dagestani Jewish community, is disappointed with the aid programs, with the exception of the Chesed social service programs run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Gurshumov and other Jewish activists say the real problem is the deplorable situation of thousands of "non-refugee" Jewish families, who can't sell their apartments or houses and don't want to leave penniless.
The economy of the region is poor, and many people are unemployed.
Yeshsya Abramov, a Moscow-based Russian Jewish Congress leader in charge of helping Caucasian Jews who want to resettle elsewhere, said he is negotiating with municipal authorities to acquire an apartment for 300 families near Moscow.
But Abramov said he expects an evacuation of most of the Jews from the North Caucasus.
"Seventy percent of Jews," said Abramov, would "leave immediately if they had the opportunity to sell their homes."
http://www.jewishsf.com/bk000414/imtnjew.shtml
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