There is a famous joke in Judaism about the way Jews are never quite happy with their local congregations.
A man is rescued from a desert island after 20 years. The news media, amazed at this feat of survival, ask him to show them his home.
“How did you survive? How did you keep sane?” they ask him, as he shows them around the small island.
“I had my faith. My faith as a Jew kept me strong. Come.” He leads them to a small glen, where stands an opulent temple, made entirely from palm fronds, coconut shells and woven grass. The news cameras take pictures of everything — even a torah made from banana leaves and written in octopus ink. “This took me five years to complete.”
“Amazing! And what did you do for the next fifteen years?”
“Come with me.” He leads them around to the far side of the island. There, in a shady grove, is an even more beautiful temple. “This one took me twelve years to complete!”
“But sir” asks the reporter, “Why did you build two temples?”
“This is the temple I attend. That other place? Hah! I wouldn’t set foot in that other temple if you PAID me!” Source: Wikipedia, “Jewish Humour“
Reading the paper by Marat Grebennikov on the origin of the Mountain Jews in the Caucasus, I noticed that Ashkenazic Jews live side by side with the mountain Jews. Since it is very likely that they share a common origin, it is peculiar that the two community despise each other and explained to their Russian authorities why they need separate synagogues. It is unfortunate that this review does not explain more about how the two communities grew apart. Nonetheless Grebennikov does an excellent work describing the history of the community as far back as 2500 years ago. It is also unclear what the term Ashkneazic Jews denotes here. It is unlikely refers to German Jews, but rather Russian Jews who consider themselves different from the mountain Jews. The Ashkenazic concept is very poorly defined usually based on what one is not. It is also reported that the two communities are at odds as to what constitute a Jew, in which case, both are at the right club.
The DNA Project 