Although Jews began
to leave Muju in the 1860s, no one remained in the village after the unrest of
1918, when they were threatened by Armenians and fled to different parts of the
country. During that time, the village’s Jewish cemetery was also destroyed.
Only a few graves from as recently as the 1910s have survived. It has now been
restored, and the land has been cleared and fenced in. On a separate small stone
podium, small headstones are displayed. When people didn’t have enough funds,
they erected small tombstones and replaced them with larger ones when they
could.
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Arch Bridge
Of the seven bridges that existed in the Guba region between the 17th and 19th centuries, this is the only one that still remains. This longest bridge was built in 1894 by Alexander III to strengthen Russia’s military presence in the Caucasus, replacing a wooden bridge built over the Gudialchay river in 1851. Originally, a 19-span bridge was planned. However, due to landslides during construction, lower numbers were chosen.
The bridge has 14 spans, a
total length of 275 meters, and an 8-meter width. Because of its multi-span
design, the bridge can withstand powerful massive flooding and mudflows that
raise the river’s water level. This is Azerbaijan’s only bridge of this type
from the nineteenth century. The bridge is now only used by pedestrians and
offers a spectacular view of Red Village. It provides easy access to Red
Village from Nizami Park, the city’s oldest park. The bridge has been
designated as an architectural landmark by the state.
Many young Mountain Jews have
relocated to cities to further their education and learn trades. The burnt
bricks used to build the old bridge saw many changes in Red Village, from the
heyday of religious life in the early twentieth century, when the village had
13 synagogues, to the arrival of Soviet power and subsequent religious
repression, to soldiers being escorted to the front in World War II, many of
whom never returned. It has come to represent the settlement and the close ties
between two cultures: the Muslims of Guba and the Jews of Red Village.
Great Patriotic War monument
Monuments to soldiers who died
fighting for peace and freedom have been designed and built throughout
Azerbaijan. Red Village is home to one of them. On June 22, 1941, Azerbaijan,
as part of the Soviet Union, joined the Great Patriotic War to defeat fascism.
The Nazi command was particularly interested in Baku’s oil during the war and
attempted to seize control of it during the battles for the Caucasus.
Memorial Board of Albert Agarunov
Albert Agarunov, who
was born in Baku’s Amirjan settlement, joined the Azerbaijani army as a
volunteer during the First Karabakh War in 1991. He was able to eliminate 9
tanks and 7 armored personnel carriers in only a few months as a tank commander
in the 777th Special Battalion. However, on May 8, 1992, while climbing out of
his tank to separate the bodies of fallen comrades, he was shot by a sniper. On
the battlefield, he was killed. Albert Agarunov was posthumously honored as a
“National Hero of Azerbaijan” in 1992 for his bravery and heroism in
defending Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and civilian population.
Both the mullah and the rabbi
prayed at Albert Agarunov’s memorial service. He was laid to rest in The Alley
of Martyrs, located in Baku. Albert had numerous opportunities to leave
Azerbaijan, but he chose to stay and fight for his country. His valiant life
continues to be a symbol of Azerbaijan’s centuries-long Jewish-Muslim unity and
brotherhood.
During
the Second Karabakh War in 2020, when Azerbaijan liberated its lands after 30
years of occupation, Albert remained a hero and source of inspiration for all
of Azerbaijan.
Gisory Cemetery and grave of Rabbi Gershon
Gisori is one of the main neighborhoods of the Red Settlement. Gisori is one of several neighborhoods that make up Red Village. Former residents of this neighborhood are laid to rest in Gisori Cemetery, one of Red Village’s oldest cemeteries, located on the hill’s steep slope. The earliest gravestones in this cemetery were erected between 1807 and 1814. They are approximately 80cm tall and made of fieldstone, with inscriptions chiseled into the stone slab. Other early 19th-century tombstones are plain rectangular stela. Simple ornaments in the form of an open rosette first appeared on stones in the mid-nineteenth century, and those from the second half of the 19th century are adorned with leaves and David’s stars. The inscriptions are framed by a pointed arch. A pointed arch frames the inscriptions.
Heydar Aliyev Park
This park, named after Azerbaijan’s national leader, Heydar Aliyev, was built in 2011 for the local community and visitors. The area of the cafe includes gardens with blooming roses, benches for visitors to rest, an administrative office, and a teahouse for the village elders.
In the park, there is a well-known club and teahouse where local agsakkals (literally “white beards,” or village elders) gather to drink tea and play backgammon, free of charge. The club teahouse is built on the site of a synagogue that was built in 1911 and subsequently transformed into a manufacturing site during the Soviet era before being demolished.
The Dubai Desert Safari
The Dubai Desert Safari provides the best deals on tour packages in Dubai, including the hatta tour, Zabeel park, mushrik park, and the Dubai city tour. Our desert safari is an unforgettable experience that you will never forget.
EASY ISRAEL TOURS Pty Ltd
WELCOME TO EASY ISRAEL TOURS
Our niche tours are especially designed for slow walkers or seniors at a relaxed and sensible pace. The comprehensive itinerary has minimal standing, steps, slopes or rough ground.
You won’t have to worry about struggling to keep up with a regular fast-paced tour.
We run our exclusive tours in spring and fall, the most comfortable seasons to visit Israel. The temperature is around 70F. Our aim is to provide you with a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime vacation and experience in the most special place on earth.
It would be an honor for us if you joined us on tour!
The hotels rooms have air con, TV and ensuite bathrooms with a walk-in shower. Hotels we use are frequented by locals for their own vacations, family celebrations
and business meetings. If these hotels don’t give good service and food, it will be around Israel on social media within days and give them a bad name. We all want quality as well as comfort, don’t we? Not the big soul-less tourist hotels.
Huge buffet breakfasts and evening meals are included in the tour price. Fresh from the kibbutzim, there are plenty of delicious choices for everyone’s dietary requirements.
Top, licensed, Jewish guides inform, inspire and lead us to authentic, interesting and often less-known sites as well the most desired places to visit.
Legends Tours & Travel, our agent in Jerusalem, book the hotels, transportation, entrances to sites, etc. Between the guide, Trish and Legends we have over 100
years of experience.
Starting in Tel Aviv with drinks, dinner and a good night’s sleep, we travel up to Caesarea and beyond for three nights in the Galilee/ Golan Heights, two nights over Shabbat at Ein Bokek on the Dead Sea and of course the jewel in the crown, Jerusalem for four nights.
The full itinerary can be viewed on the ‘Jewish Tours’ page on EasyIsraelTours.com
Keep scrolling down here for a summary….
While you are on the website, please check the ‘Reviews’ page to see what past guests have to say.
For more information contact Trish Duke, Founder and Tour Director on [email protected]
Cell phone: +61 414 543 843
(Our head office for EasyIsraelTours.com is in Australia, 12 hours ahead of EST)
Many guests like to arrive a day early to wander around Tel Aviv, enjoy the Mediterranean beaches and get over the jetlag.
Adding one day in Jerusalem at the end of the tour is popular. You won’t want to go home anyway! Visit the shuk, explore parts of the Old City not included in the tour, have lunch at the King David hotel… Possibly with new tour friends.
We can book the pre and post hotel nights for you to save another hotel change.
Talking of changing hotels…
There are only 3 hotel changes on our tours and a full porterage service, so you don’t have to move luggage from your room to the bus.
The luxury bus has air con, Wi-Fi and speakers so you can hear the guide. Instead of giving us the information at each site while we stand for 15 minutes or so, our guide give us most of their information while we are traveling in-between places. Saves time…and our bodies! There are more seats on the bus than we need so you can move around.
Seniors sometimes bring an adult son or daughter. The slower pace is not frustrating as they also enjoy the relaxed itinerary. There are opportunities for the more active guests to walk further in some places or have a swim or walk before the evening meals.
It would be an honor for you to join us!
For more information contact Trish Duke, Founder and Tour Director on [email protected]
Cell phone: +61 414 543 843
(Our head office for EasyIsraelTours.com is in Australia, 12 hours ahead of EST)
Jewish Vienna, Austria: A Community of Influence and Suffering
The History Jewish Vienna: Amazing and Devastating
Vienna is a city with a rich artistic and intellectual legacy. With its palace-like architecture, decadent chocolate and iconic waltz, it is one of Europe’s shining jewels. Vienna’s Jewish community had a large hand to play in forming this respected reputation. For years the Jewish community was the intellectual life blood of Viennese culture. Several times throughout their history the community has known devastation and rejection. Even till today antisemitism occurs within the nation, despite the lessons of history that followed the destruction of the Holocaust.
The Difficult Beginnings of Jews in Austria
Since the 12th century Jews have made a home for themselves in Vienna. The first employment Jews had within Vienna were as financial advisors and mintmasters to Duke Leopold V. Not long after they arrived they were in need of protective orders. The antics of the third crusade had resulted in murderous devastation for the community. In 1238 Emperor Frederick II gave the Jews a charter of privileges allowing them a certain level of protection and autonomy. However, this didn’t last long.
Over the next few centuries the Jews of Vienna continued to fall victim to brutal persecution. Oftentimes they were either annihilated or baptized by force. The community was finally expelled in 1420, although some families remained undercover or lived their lives as Christians.
Judenplatz: The Jewish Ghetto of Vienna
There would not be another large wave of Jewish immigration till the 17th century with the arrival of Jews from Ukraine. Around that time Emperor Leopold established the first Jewish ghetto, Judenplatz, which is today the Leopoldstadt area of Jewish Vienna. There were roughly 130 households within the ghetto, and within its walls Jews were left to conduct their affairs in peace.
The Jewish Ghetto of Vienna, Judenplatz
This small window of acceptance allowed the community to thrive both financially and intellectually. However this happiness was not meant to last with more waves of increasingly violent antisemitism crashing through the walls of the ghetto. The Emperor eventually liquidated the ghetto and evicted all its inhabitants. One of two great synagogues in the ghetto was repurposed as the Church of Leopold. Today the quarter remains a historic site, complete with additional monuments dedicated to preserving Jewish history.
The Rise and Fall of Jewish Vienna
Despite all the barriers, expulsions, and pogroms the Jews of Vienna continued to grow exponentially. This had a great deal to do with the fact that Jews had been granted lawful citizenship in 1867. With this development waves of Jewish immigrants arrived to make the city their home.
By the 19th century Jews played major roles in the academic, musical, intellectual, and artistic worlds of Vienna. Three out of four Nobel Prize Winners at the time were Jewish. This was also when the birth of the Haskalah movement, or Jewish enlightenment, took place. It is no surprise that with such a rich intellectual and cultural pulse the Jewish community of Vienna has produced some of the most influential Jewish figures in history.
One area of expertise in which Jews seemed to thrive was in the concert halls of Vienna. Arnold Schoenberg is one such name with a heavy degree of weight and brilliance. He is hailed as being one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. Most notably he is recognized for his unique contributions to Austria’s expressionism movement.
Arnold Schoenberg twelve-tone composition for the opera Moses and Aron, on loan from the Arnold Schoenberg Foundation
By 1938 the community of Jewish Vienna had made a reputation for itself as one of the most influential Jewish communities in the world. The antisemitism Jews had experienced seemed to be a thing of the past.
However under the surface the seeds of hatred still ran deep. When Austria was annexed to Germany, an event known as the Anschluss, violence and torment amongst the community returned. Jews were forced to close their businesses, were banned from most public spaces, and had their property confiscated. The Viennese Jewish community was also one of the first to be deported to concentration camps. More than 65,000 Jews were sent to the camps and only a handful returned.
Encounter the Past of Jewish Vienna
All this history and more can be found at the Jewish Museum of Vienna. Established in 1895 the museum houses some of the oldest surviving Jewish Viennese artifacts. While most of the artifacts were either destroyed or sold by the Nazis, the museum has managed to reclaim numerous items. However, the whereabouts of over half the original collection remains unknown. Nevertheless, the museum manages to take visitors on a journey of discovering the religious, cultural, and spiritual history of Viennese Jews.
Of course when discussing the history of Jews in Austria, attention must be paid to sites commemorating the Holocaust. The Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial also known as the Nameless Library almost resembles more of a military bunker than a monument. The concrete shelves house books, whose spines have been turned inward. The intention behind this choice is to commemorate the empty space of memory that came with the murder of 6 million Jews. Entire generations were lost and with them their knowledge, traditions, and families.
Austria is Celebrating Jewish Culture Once Again
While there are plenty of avenues to explore the extensive past of Jewish Vienna there are also ways to celebrate its present. The Vienna Jewish Film Festival offers a rich outlook into the various shades of Jewish life from around the world. The films shown at the festival cover a whole range of international Jewish films. At the end of screenings guests can ask the director questions, sit in on specialist lectures, and other activities to better connect with each film.
Jewish culture and history is once again being celebrated in Vienna, yet the horror of its past will never be forgotten. It is even more amazing that with such a dark history the Jewish community of Vienna managed to fulfill a major Torah requirement. They were and are a light unto their nation.
Western Wall (Kotel)
The Western Wall, otherwise known as the Wailing Wall, often shortened to The Kotel, and known in Islam as the Buraq Wall, is an ancient limestone wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. It is a relatively small segment of an ancient retaining wall, originally erected to expand the Second Jewish Temple. Herod the Great initiated this construction, resulting in the enclosed, natural, steep hill that today, Jews and Christians refer to as the Temple Mount. It is a large rectangular structure topped by a flat platform, creating additional space for the Temple itself, auxiliary buildings, worshippers, and visitors.
The Western Wall’s holiness in Judaism is a result of its proximity to the Temple Mount. Because of the Temple Mount entry restrictions, the Wall is the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray, though the Foundation Stone, the most sacred site in the Jewish faith, lies behind it. The original, natural, and irregular-shaped Temple Mount was gradually extended to allow for an ever-larger Temple compound to be built at its top. This process was finalized by Herod, who enclosed the Mount with an almost rectangular set of retaining walls, made to support the Temple platform and using extensive substructures and earth fills to give the natural hill a geometrically regular shape. On top of this box-like structure, Herod built a vast paved platform that surrounded the Temple. Of the four retaining walls, the western one is considered closest to the former Holy of Holies, which makes it the most sacred site recognized by Judaism outside the previous Temple Mount platform.
Just over half the wall’s total height, including its 17 courses located below street level, dates from the end of the Second Temple period, and is commonly believed to have been built by Herod the Great starting in 19 BCE, although recent excavations indicate that the work was not finished by the time Herod died in 4 BCE. The very large stone blocks of the lower courses are Herodian, the courses of medium-sized stones above them were added during the Umayyad period, while the small stones of the uppermost courses are of more recent date, especially from the Ottoman period.
The term Western Wall and its variations are mostly used in a narrow sense for the section traditionally used by Jews for prayer; it has also been called the “Wailing Wall”, referring to the practice of Jews weeping at the site over the destruction of the Temples. During the period of Christian Roman rule over Jerusalem (ca. 324–638), Jews were completely barred from Jerusalem except to attend Tisha B’Av, the day of national mourning for the Temples, and on this day the Jews would weep at their holy places. The term “Wailing Wall” was thus almost exclusively used by Christians, and was revived in the period of non-Jewish control between the establishment of British Rule in 1920 and the Six-Day War in 1967. The term “Wailing Wall” is not used by religious Jews, and increasingly not by many others who consider it derogatory.[5]
In a broader sense, “Western Wall” can refer to the entire 488-metre-long (1,601 ft) retaining wall on the western side of the Temple Mount. The classic portion now faces a large plaza in the Jewish Quarter, near the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, while the rest of the wall is concealed behind structures in the Muslim Quarter, with the small exception of an 8-metre (26 ft) section, the so-called Little Western Wall. The segment of the western retaining wall traditionally used for Jewish liturgy, known as the “Western Wall” or “Wailing Wall”, derives its particular importance to it having never been fully obscured by medieval buildings, and displaying much more of the original Herodian stonework than the “Little Western Wall”. In religious terms, the “Little Western Wall” is presumed to be even closer to the Holy of Holies and thus to the “presence of God” (Shechina), and the underground Warren’s Gate, which has been out of reach for Jews from the 12th century till its partial excavation in the 20th century, even more so.
Whilst the wall was considered Muslim property as an integral part of the Haram esh-Sharif and waqf property of the Moroccan Quarter, a right of Jewish prayer and pilgrimage existed as part of the Status Quo.[6][7][8] This position was confirmed in a 1930 international commission during the British Mandate period.
The earliest source mentioning this specific site as a place of Jewish worship is from the 17th century.[9][10] The previous sites used by Jews for mourning the destruction of the Temple, during periods when access to the city was prohibited to them, lay to the east, on the Mount of Olives[5] and in the Kidron Valley below it. From the mid-19th century onwards, attempts to purchase rights to the wall and its immediate area were made by various Jews, but none was successful. With the rise of the Zionist movement in the early 20th century, the wall became a source of friction between the Jewish and Muslim communities, the latter being worried that the wall could be used to further Jewish claims to the Temple Mount and thus Jerusalem. During this period outbreaks of violence at the foot of the wall became commonplace, with a particularly deadly riot in 1929 in which 133 Jews were killed and 339 injured. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War the eastern portion of Jerusalem was occupied by Jordan. Under Jordanian control Jews were completely expelled from the Old City including the Jewish Quarter, and Jews were barred from entering the Old City for 19 years, effectively banning Jewish prayer at the site of the Western Wall. This period ended on June 10, 1967, when Israel gained control of the site following the Six-Day War. Three days after establishing control over the Western Wall site, the Moroccan Quarter was bulldozed by Israeli authorities to create space for what is now the Western Wall plaza.[11]
