Religious activity of the mountain jews: state and trends

Abstract

The article discusses the cult behavior of the Mountain Jews, the frequency of their observance of religious precepts and rules of Judaism. The study of the cult behavior of the Mountain Jews using F.N. Ilyasov’s methodology of diagnosing religiosity, where “faith” and “attitude to religious (atheistic) activity” are used as indicators, allows us to classify them as active and passive. It has been found that the Mountain Jews show the behavior inherent to “convinced believers” in terms of participation in religious practice, although in terms of the totality of indicators there is also a behavior characteristic of the types of “hesitant”, “unbelievers” and “convinced unbelievers”. At the same time, the interviewed Mountain Jews demonstrate the cult behavior activity, expressed in visiting synagogues, reading religious texts, prayers and abstinence. Meanwhile, there is also a certain inconsistency between the religious behavior declared by the Mountain Jews and their real cult behavior. According to the results of the study, it has been established that the religious factor plays a key role in the daily life of the Mountain Jews and regardless of their worldview (a confident believer, a believer, a hesitating person, an unbeliever, a convinced unbeliever) they are focused on observing the precepts of their faith in the family, marital and funeral ritual sphere.

Keywords

• горские евреи
• иудаизм
• культовое поведение
• религиозность
• типы религиозности
• религиозное сознание
• религиозные ценности
• религиозная сфера
• the mountain jews
• judaism
• cult behavior
• religiosity
• types of religiosity
• religious consciousness
• religious values
• religious sphere