THE LAST SHTETL: Visiting Azerbaijan’s Mountain Jews

it's something I've never seen before deep in the Caucasus Mountains of Azerbaijan lies a small town called Krasnaya Sloboda in Russian that means red village but the locals of the village call it grim easy what's special about the museum grim easy is the last known state on earth a state though is an all Jewish town typically with a couple hundred people living there and prior to the Holocaust there were hundreds if not thousands of these settles all over Europe and Central Asia but they were all destroyed by the Nazis and later communism so nothing really remained from those places all the inhabitants were either killed or moved out to other places where they'd be more welcomed but there's one place in the world that has been continuously inhabited by Jews and only Jews for hundreds of years and that is grim easy the following video you're about to see is from my trip to this small mountain village in Azerbaijan okay I just arrived in a Krasnaya Sloboda I'm not sure if I'm saying it correctly but it scream easy or kuba as it's known locally it's a small Jewish town in Azerbaijan I'm in my hotel room cute little place I'm running late of course to the morning prayers chakras so I'm just leaving the hotel right now I'm gonna have to run over to this to the shul to the synagogue I'm not sure I know the way either like it's sort of like straight down the main road but then at some point you have to make a left and I'm not sure where that is I don't play I'll find some people who can help me holy moly to college okay so I'm just I just got a hit from a nice Jew his name is your son and he's gonna take me to the synagogue which is awesome I love the this is one of the benefits of being in an all Jewish town you know we're all brothers we can all trust each other and you get into the car with a total stranger and before I even you know just as he saw me walking on the street he already knew where I wanted to go and now I'm gonna be a little bit less late to the prayers okay so and now we're a class is being given a tomorrow time would class be given right now take a look [Music] so these are local truth there's a rabbi sitting at the front he's giving the class and the rest of them are locals live here this is where the okay so I'm just about to get back to my hotel I spent the whole morning out with the community at the synagogue and then at the at the college the Achieva and I'm getting back to the hotel now I love this town everyone is so nice people just stopping on the side of the road you know stopping their cars asking me if I need to ride anywhere everyone wants to have their photo taken people are just stopping to wave and say hi so just davin by the by the grave of Rebbe garam who was one of the rabbis of this town and now I'm gonna head down the stairs check out some other old graves here in the cemetery behind me is the town of Krasnodar which is the Jewish town and if you can see there's this town right here at the bottom now there's empty space where there's a river and across the river is the town of kuba which is the non-jewish part of this town okay so now we're headed to another cemetery which is older I don't know if you can see there's a really really steep hill here and we just climbed it and now hopefully it's not too far there's a more ancient cemetery then we're gonna go check out oh my god this is a workout oh okay here we are [Applause] something weird just happened I was walking through the cemetery and I don't know why I felt like I was gravitating towards this grave right here so it was full of moss and quite dirty the words were filled in with green moss so I took a piece of wood that I found here and I cleaned it off so here lies the beloved person his name his son Ben Menachem passed away on to Bharat in 1948 so I said I I set a ticking Chloe here and next week is too much math so God willing we're gonna try to remember and light a candle for him and make some breakfast in his merit anyway I'm gonna continue continue exploring the cemetery so this is actually the second cemetery that I went to earlier I went to one cemetery and then it was divided into two parts there was one lower part and a higher partner with a steep mountain then the boys showed me that I'm supposed to come here which is across the street there's a whole nother Cemetery it's a newer Cemetery but there are also many older graves here too so I'm checking that out now okay so I finished at the cemetery and now I'm taking this long zigzag dirt road back into town some people don't ever go to cemeteries some people don't like to spend time in cemeteries I go to cemeteries a lot and I'd like to spend time there many people think of it as creepy but I I sort of get inspired by being in cemeteries and I'll explain why it's because only once you can understand death do you appreciate life and I feel like it's healthy to go to a cemetery and realize that all these people before before me have died and every one of my generation will die and the future generations will die everyone's gonna die one day so it's like you can't escape death but you also want to make sure that life doesn't escape you so if you hang out at cemeteries in my opinion perhaps you can get a deeper understanding of death and see it as a reality like you know you're spending time in a cemetery everybody there is dead and for me at least it helps me live a more meaningful life and it helps me remember that at some point life is gonna end and I want to make the most of it while I'm still here while I still can so that's my little wisdom for the day really tired it's about 9:20 p.m. I want to go sleep but I still haven't really hung out in the tea house downstairs and all the people are there now so I'm gonna go check it out for a little bit and then I'm gonna come back and go asleep okay so it's even in here in town I came outside of my room I wanted to go into the tea house but it is closed then I remember that last night when all the men of the town were saying condition Ivana I was too busy taking pictures of them so I didn't say it so I just blessed the new mood can you see it up there and I had a little dance out here on the street and I went ahead inside make myself a hot soup and go to bed did he be up early tomorrow cuz tomorrow is my last day in Krasnaya Sloboda it's early morning here and I'm on my way to shul again this is my last day here in Krasnaya Sloboda for this day me for this trip so I can try to make the most of it so far it's been wonderful people are really nice the weather is nice and I've learned a ton it's supposed to be a snowstorm today so I hope I'm able to get out of the city okay let's see what happens with that as you can see here many of the houses are really old some more over here that one's like falling apart many of the houses are also empty probably most of the houses in this town are empty as the owners of the house live abroad [Music] the synagogue here is 200 years old although it looks new it's been redone there's something it's very beautiful this is the winter synagogue and during the summer they use a different one which is larger because many people vacation here so they do needs more space so the Persian carpets on the floor allegedly costs $2,000 apiece and I counted 15 of them people are super friendly I just was in the tea house where the men were playing board games and smoking cigarettes drinking tea and I didn't have a chance to film in there but I'll go back there later film with them very jolly bunch everyone wants to have their picture taken everybody everyone is really jolly here no game no Rummikub play okay so I'm leaving the hotel right now it's snowing have to be careful going down these these stairs because last night I fell down the last stairs pitch black hair I didn't notice there was one last step I fell on my face so that was fun this has been such an enjoyable stay here peoples are so nice it's an all Jewish town everyone trusts each other everyone knows each other wherever you go in the street people offer you rise and and it offers you help everyone says I to you I think maybe one of the friendliest places i've ever visited and i think people in general can take a a lesson from this place to be more friendly and to do more kindness I'm heading into the car now and the rabbi said that we should go now before it gets dark because there are no roads there no lights on the road and that could get a little dangerous especially in this weather when it gets dark we do not want to be driving in the dark so I'll see you soon [Music] okay so we are okay good we're all the way leaving town right now and we're gonna head back tobacco chickens and some kind of there's fresh fruits here at the side of the road it's something I've never seen before interesting watch it's gonna cut up another piece of meat that this guy's at the side [Music] so I just got back to my hotel it's about quarter to 12:00 at night check out this hotel I'm not sure if they did like this on purpose or it's just the way it is but they they gave it this ancient look this is my room arch stone ceiling all the furniture is very rustic and old I love it in three and a half hours I have to leave here to go to the airport I want to try to get some sleep now and Maariv and go to bed see you later good night