Azeri Jews host charity event to honor victims of Black January
Besides the charity event, the Azeri Jewish community held a memorial service at the Ardabil mosque in Quba.
By CODY LEVINEPRISONERS LABOR at the site of Belomorkanal, the man-made channel connecting the White Sea and Baltic Sea that was constructed by Soviet Gulag inmates. Tzvi Netzer served a full year in the infamous Siberian Gulag.(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Azeri Jews hosted a charity event marking the 31st anniversary of Black January, when in 1990, Soviet troops entered Baku, the capital of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, and cracked down on pro-independence protesters amid the slowly collapsing USSR.Following Soviet military intervention against protesters, some 170 civilians were killed, among them three Jews, including ER doctor Alexander Markhevka, a 17-year-old Vera Bessantina, and Yan Meerovich who died from sustaining 22 wounds. Some academic experts have claimed the event marked the onset of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, prompting protests in other Soviet republics for independence.In addition to the charity event, the Azeri Jewish community held a memorial service at the Ardabil mosque in Quba, where local government officials in Krasnaya Sloboda, including Pisakh Isakov, representative of the religious community of Mountain Jews, Yuri Naftaliyev, chairman of the city council, honored the victims of the massacre.Representatives of the Mountain Jews also distributed food parcels provided by the STMEGI International Charitable Foundation to family members of the victims, and underserved and lonely senior citizens.“We do not set ourselves apart from our Azeri brothers and sisters,” community leaders of the Mountain Jews said.Israeli Ambassador to Baku George Deek tweeted in light of the anniversary that “Today I came to the Alley of Martyrs, on behalf of the State of Israel, to honor the memory of those who fell for the freedom of Azerbaijan. All sacrificed some, but some sacrificed all. We stand with Azerbaijan in honoring the victims of Black January.”
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