The Gruzim are Jews from the nation of Georgia, in the Caucasus. The word Gruzim comes from the Russian term Грузинские еврэя (Gruzinskie Yevreya, i.e., "Georgian Jews"). The Georgian name for the community is Huria or Ebraeli.

Population

The Gruzim have traditionally lived separately, not only from the surrounding Georgian people, but even from the Ashkenazi community in Tbilisi.

The community, which numbered about 100,000 as recently as the 1970s, has largely emigrated to Israel, Austria, the United States, Russia and Belgium. As of 2004, only about 10-20,000 Gruzim remain in Georgia.

Language

The traditional language of the Gruzim is Gruzinic (also called Judæo-Georgian), a variant of Georgian, characterized by a large number of Hebrew loanwords, and written using either the Georgian alphabet or Hebrew alphabet. Besides speaking Judæo-Georgian, the Gruzim speak the languages of the peoples surrounding them. In Georgia, these include Georgian and Russian. In Belgium, French, in the United States, English, and in Israel, Hebrew.

History

The Gruzim are among the most ancient communities of the Jewish diaspora, although the exact dates of their arrival are the subject of some disagreement. The various claims are that they arrived:

• Following the Assyrian destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 770 BCE.
• Fleeing Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian armies around 586 BCE.
• Following the destruction of the Second Temple by Roman armies in the first century.

Some other sources give other dates, but none later than the second century C.E. It is entirely possible that the community is an amalgam of refugees from all of these historical calamities.

External link

• Jewish life in Georgia from Canadian Jewish News
• Jewish Community of Tbilisi

Resource

• Caucasus article in the Jewish Encyclopedia