AZERBAIJAN'S JEWS SEEK MEMORIAL FOR 3000 MURDERED BY ARMENIANS

Memorial sought for Mountain Jews (JTA)
Azerbaijan's Jewish leaders sought permission to put up a memorial for the several thousand Mountain Jews they say were murdered by Armenians in 1918. The Baku Sun reported that the Jewish leaders made the request to President Ilham Aliyev at a gathering last month at the Human Rights Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan.

The Jewish leaders cited research saying that some 3,000 Mountain Jews, along with tens of thousands of Azeris, were murdered in the region of Guba by Armenian bandits and nationalists -- an incident marked March 31 by the Azeris as genocide. Historians are still investigating the killings, which they say where were covered up by for decades by the communist regime.

Perhaps 40,000 Mountain Jews remain scattered about the remote passes of the mostly Muslim Caucasus.