Although the non-Ashkenazi or Oriental Jews constitute only a small minority of some 5% – 7% of the total Jewish population in the Soviet Union, there is every justification not only for including them in this book but also for devoting a separate chapter to them. These communities, their history and way of life are of interest in themselves, but it is in the context of the study of Soviet Jewry as a whole that the struggle of the Oriental Jews against the waves of assimilation and for independent national and religious existence is of particular significance.

The Oriental Jews of the Soviet Union are divided into four separate communities: the Georgians, the Mountain Jews, the Bukharans and the Krymchaks. While they share a certain common past and characteristics they differ in several respects.

The Georgian Jews

The origins of the Jewish community in Georgia, one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union, situated in the south-western Caucasus, are shrouded in the mists of ancient history. According to one tradition current among the Georgian Jews themselves, they are descendants of the ten tribes carried off into exile by Shalmaneser in 724 bc. Another tradition connects the arrival of the Jews in the Caucasus with Nebuchadnezzar's exiles. Be that as it may, it is generally accepted today that there were Jews settled in the Caucasus by the early centuries of the Christian era.