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Caucasus

US President Donald Trump, center, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, right, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, at a trilateral signing ceremony in White House, August 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)
August 22, 2025, 4:28 pm
After decades of conflict, Armenia-Azerbaijan peace plan gives Caucasus Jews new hope
Jewish communities in the two former Soviet countries have had no communication, while Armenian ties to Israel have been strained over arms sales to its foe. All that may change
By Larry Luxner
Beniamin Levishvili, 23, is the gabbai of the ancient synagogue in Akhaltsikhe, Georgia. His late father Simon and grandfather Ioseb Levishvili held the position before him. (Sofia Poznansky)
April 18, 2025, 8:23 am
In Georgia, a 23-year-old maintains a venerable synagogue, the last remnant of his community
Soviet repression caused most Georgian Jews to flee, leaving behind a 2,500-year-old history whose memory is beginning to fade. In his village, one young man seeks to preserve it
By Sofia Poznansky
Pianist Larissa Eliyahu (left) and her husband, Tar player Piris Eliyahu, will perform together for the first time in their 41 years of marriage on April 20, 2023 at Jerusalem's Confederation House (Courtesy Peter Vit)
April 19, 2023, 8:37 pm
Tar player Piris Eliyahu melds East and West, with pianist wife
It’s a family affair at the Eliyahus’ concert at Confederation House, breaking new musical ground
By Jessica Steinberg
Rabbi Gershon Burshteyn, spiritual leader of the Mordechay Navi Jewish Religious Center of Armenia, seen outside the center he leads. (Larry Luxner)
October 23, 2022, 2:27 am
Armenia has had few Jews and a poor relationship with Israel. That could be changing
Most of the Jewish community fled in the early 20th century, and Israeli-Azerbaijani relations have been a damper, but ancient ties and renewed diplomacy sow hope for the future
By Larry Luxner
Clergy from the Peace Cathedral and its inspirations, including the House of One in Berlin, seen outside the complex in Tbilisi. (Nano Saralishvili/ via JTA)
August 6, 2022, 6:02 am
Can an interfaith Peace Cathedral help save Tbilisi’s dwindling Jewish community?
A house of worship for Jews, Christians and Muslims seeks unity in an increasingly divided Georgia. Its founder, Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, says it’s so crazy it just might work
By Johanna Ginsberg
Yedidia Yehuda, right, and a childhood friend walking down the stairs that overlook Krasnaiya Sloboda, August 2013. (photo credit: Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)
March 27, 2021, 9:13 pm
Central Asian Mountain Jews try to preserve centuries-old Passover traditions
No pickles, no shankbone, no cemetery visits during the holidays for the 1,000-year-old community, once based in Krasnaiya Sloboda on the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains
By Cnaan Liphshiz
Chef Max Malkiel at home in Berlin's Wilmersdorf neighborhood, January 2020. (Yaakov Schwartz/ Times of Israel)
October 24, 2020, 9:10 am
From line cook to YouTube star, a Berlin chef dishes out his recipe for success
Max Malkiel’s homestyle cooking tutorials have earned him well over 100,000 subscribers across Israel, Russia and the US, but he claims his wife is the better cook
By Yaakov Schwartz
Women and children stand in a field after they fled from the Baghouz area in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor during an operation to expel hundreds of Islamic State group jihadists from the region, on February 12, 2019. (Fadel SENNA / AFP)
February 18, 2019, 2:26 pm
Russia pioneering return of Islamic State children to their families
In program backed by Putin, youngsters who grew up in jihadists’ Middle East ‘caliphate’ are brought to relatives living in Russian North Caucasus
By Maxime Popov and Olga Rotenberg
People attend a protest against the new land swap deal agreed by the heads of the Russian regions of Ingushetia and Chechnya, in Ingushetia's capital Magas, Russia, Oct. 8, 2018 (AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)
October 15, 2018, 3:12 pm
Amnesty says researcher abducted, beaten, subjected to mock execution in Russia
Rights group says Oleg Kozlovsky was kidnapped earlier this month by men who claimed to be from Ingushetia’s anti-extremist unit and threatened to kill him unless he cooperated
By ToI Staff and AP
Islamic State video threatening the 2018 World Cup in Russia (Screenshot/MEMRI)
June 15, 2018, 8:15 am
Islamic State threatens World Cup with video of burning stadium
Footage, most of it recycled from earlier clips, also threatens the ‘dog’ Putin will ‘burn in the hellfire’
By ToI Staff and Agencies
A woman lays flowers in memory of victims of the blast in the Saint Petersburg metro at a memorial stone reading Leningrad by the Kremlin wall in central Moscow on April 3, 2017. (AFP Photo/Vasily Maximov)
April 22, 2017, 5:03 pm
Russia says two IS ‘bandits’ killed near Caucasus
Dead men were allegedly part of an Islamic State sleeper cell planning to kill religious leaders
By AFP
Islamic State fighters in the Caucasus region (screen capture)
December 4, 2016, 5:09 am
Russia says it killed Islamic State ’emir’ in North Caucasus
Rustam Aselderov, linked to dozens of killings, said to have died in raid along with ‘four close associates’
By AFP
Pope Francis addresses the crowd during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican on November 18, 2015. (AFP/Andreas Solaro)
July 12, 2016, 9:52 am
Pope to meet Jews of Azerbaijan and Georgia
In talks with Azeri president and officials, Francis is also expected to raise the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
By Nicole Winfield
In this Monday, Nov. 16, 2015 file photo, US President Barack Obama, right, talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to a session of the G-20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey. (Kayhan Ozer/Anadolu Agency via AP, Pool)
July 6, 2016, 11:02 pm
Putin calls Obama to discuss ‘better coordination’ in Syria
Russian president reaches out twice in one week in apparent bid to patch things up with Washington
By AP
Illustrative image of jihadists from the Caucasus seen in a video posted on Facebook. (screen capture: YouTube)
November 22, 2015, 8:50 pm
Russia: 11 IS-linked fighters killed in North Caucasus terror raid
Moscow says police uncovered bomb-making workshop, weapons stockpile while raiding hideout of Islamist militants
By AP
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