Coming Closer

As told to Esther Shaindy Leshkowitz by Elana Chaya Krasinskaya

MYfamily is from Azerbaijan, and we are called Kavkazi or Gorsky Jews, as well as Mountain Jews, because our communities were traditionally located in the remote mountainous regions of the Caucasus. For centuries, our community kept to itself; we have different minhagim from other Jews. In more recent years, the majority of Kavkazi Jews lived in the district of Quba, and for years, we had a strong frum community with shuls, yeshivot, and talmidei chachamim. Historically, many families would send their children to learn Torah in Eretz Yisrael (in what was then Palestine).

Then communism came, and it became difficult to observe mitzvot. By the time I was born in 1974, we were afraid to say we were Jewish, and we didn’t observe anything. I only knew that my mother was Jewish.

Every Friday, my mom would pick me and my sister up from school and say, “We are going to Bobbie tonight.”