A rabbi walks in the courtyard of a synagogue in the ancient city of Debent on the Caspian Sea coast in Russia's Caucasus region of Dagestan August 17, 2007. Dagestan became part of the Russian empire in 1813, when Tsarist forces prised it away from Persia. Known locally as "Mountain Jews", they speak a dialect of the Farsi or Persian language spoken in Iran to the south. Some scholars believe that the first Mountain Jews, like members of many other Jewish communities, started to emigrate to a prospective homeland in what was then Ottoman-ruled Palestine as early as the 19th century. Rabbi Ovadia Isakov, the best-known contemporary Mountain Jewish rabbi, told Russian media that 300-400 families remained in Derbent.

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Persons: Thomas Peter, prised, Rabbi Ovadia Isakov, Isakov, Shneor Segal, Filipp Lebedev, Kevin Liffey, Grant McCool Organizations: REUTERS, Palestinian, Thomson Locations: Debent, Caucasus, Dagestan, RUSSIA, Israel, Gaza, Derbent, Persia, Iran, Ottoman, Palestine, Soviet Union, Russia, Azerbaijan