Fading echoes of Jewish life in Muslim Azerbaijan

He wanted to show off the synagogue. It was built in 1897. When he was young, a thousand Jews lived in Oğuz. Fewer than 60 remain. All his children were in Tel Aviv. His wife was in Tel Aviv. He spent part of each year in Tel Aviv. There simply was more opportunity, he said, in Tel Aviv. He stayed behind to operate his hotel and tend other family property. He kept an eye on all the empty Jewish houses.

"Not one pane of glass broken!” he said, proudly. "Our relationship with Azeris has always been good. We married Azeris. I just came from a Muslim friend’s funeral.”

The Jewish community in Azerbaijan is indeed one of the most integrated in the Islamic world. But most Azeri Jews have emigrated anyway since the country declared its independence from the Soviet Union. Only about 7,500 remain from a high of 30,000.

In Oğuz, the synagogue had been converted to a warehouse during Soviet times. Now it was beautifully restored by diaspora money. But there was no rabbi. Only a few old ladies came on Shabbat. The place had the high polish of a museum.

My volunteer guide introduced me to the synagogue’s caretaker, another hearty old man. "We moved to this place hundreds of years ago,” the caretaker said.” We moved slowly, from the south and west, over many generations.” He may have meant an exodus of Jews from Persia 2,000 years ago. They were one of the Lost Tribes.

The men pulled out a book map of these migrations. They argued about it. They couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It was in Hebrew, which neither of them read.

The guide’s name was Rafik Liviyer. Rafik derives from "friend” in Arabic. The caretaker’s name was Timur Natalemov. Timur honors the Turco-Mongol khan of the Golden Horde.

NOTE: Paul Salopek is walking the global trail of the first humans who migrated out of Africa in the Stone Age. His continuous 21,000-mile foot journey, called the "Out of Eden Walk,” is recorded in dispatches.