Kurdistan Jews

Kurdish Jews ( lahluhs , Kurdish or Assyrian Jews; self-named Hōzāyē , novoram . Hūdāyē ; Hebrew יהודי כורדיסטאן Yehudei Kurdistan , also כורדים Kurdim ; Kurdish Kurdê jungen , Kurdish Juhden , Kurdish Juhden , Kurdish whose languages ​​were Hebrew-Aramaic . Until the early 1950s, they lived mainly in Kurdistan and neighboring areas (the territory of modern Iraq , Iran and Turkey ). Then almost everyone moved to Israel . Kurdish Jews often call themselves also anšei targum "the people of Targum ." The origin of the widely used name "lahluh" is not clear; according to one legend, this was originally a contemptuous name given to Kurdish Jews from the outside (the word "crap" in Hebrew means "dirt"), but this hypothesis actually has no confirmation, except for phonetic harmony.

Hebrew Aramaic to Ser. 1950s

Lahlukhs lived in Iraqi Kurdistan (more than 20 thousand; Zahu , Acre, Erbil (3.2 thousand), Kirkuk (4 thousand), Suleimaniya (2.3 thousand), Hanakin (2.8 thousand)), Iranian Kurdistan (about 12 thousand, Senenage, Seckez, Kerend), neighboring areas of Turkish Kurdistan (11 communities) and Syria (mainly in the area of ​​the city of El-Kamyshly ). Jews of Iranian Azerbaijan (the region of Lake Urmia and the territory north of it) who speak Aramaic languages ​​who are also living outside Kurdistan are classified as lahlukhs. At the same time, the Jews of Mosul (Iraq, Kurdistan), known as miṣlawim (10.3 thousand), as well as the district of Urfa (Turkey), the so-called urfali , close in their way of life to the Jews of other regions of Kurdistan, some researchers do not rank lahlukham, since they mainly used the Arabic language in everyday life. Lahlukhi of the city of Miandoab in Iranian Azerbaijan, apparently, by the beginning of the 19th century switched to the local (Miandoab) Jewish dialect of the Azerbaijani language .

By the time of resettlement to Israel, only about twenty thousand lahlukhs remained native speakers of the New Aramaic. The rest switched to Arabic or Kurdish .

In Palestine (mainly in Safed ), lahluhi began to settle back in the 16th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, a community of Lahlukhs and their synagogue (built in 1908) settled in Jerusalem (in the area of ​​the current Mahane-Yehuda market ). They were mainly engaged in physical labor; and now ^{[ when? ]} there are many among the movers in Jerusalem. By 1916, there were 8560 people in Palestine. In 1920-1926, 1.9 thousand lakhlukhs moved to Palestine . In 1935, 2.5 thousand lakhlukhs arrived in the country. In 1950-1951, almost all Jews in Iraqi Kurdistan repatriated during Operation Ezra and Nehemiah (they settled mainly in Jerusalem and its district).

In those same years, out of 12 thousand lahlukhs living in 15 communities of Iran (the largest - in the cities of Senenj , four thousand people, and Seckez , 1.3 thousand people), 8 thousand went to Israel. After the fall of the Shah’s regime in Iran in 1979, most of the remaining lahlukhs moved to Israel.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a number of lakhlukhs resettled in Transcaucasia , mainly in Baku and Tbilisi . In Tbilisi, lahlukhs worked as builders and drivers; prayed in the Georgian synagogue ^[5] A part left in the mid-1930s, when the Soviet government demanded that residents with foreign passports either accept Soviet citizenship or leave the country. In 1951, the lahlukhs remaining in Tbilisi, among the “former Iranian subjects,” were deported to Siberia and East Kazakhstan . Since 1956, some of the exiles returned to Georgia. By the mid-1980s, in Tbilisi and Alma-Ata, there were about 2 thousand plots. Most then went to Israel. As of 2010, about 200 families of lakhlukhs continue to live in Tbilisi and Alma-Ata.

An insignificant number of lahlukhs still live in Turkey and Syria . In Israel, there are now about 100 thousand lahlukhov.