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PlacesPeople & PlacesLiving · since 500

GEORGIA · 41.7°N 44.8°E · CITY

Tbilisi

Kingdom of Georgia · to 1801Russian Empire/USSR · 1801-1991Georgia · 1991-present

Capital of Georgian Jewry, one of the oldest Diaspora communities (tradition holds 6th c. BCE exile origins), which uniquely suffered no recorded medieval pogroms and where the vernacular was Georgian, not a Judeo-language.

Modern locality anchor

Tbilisi

Georgia · City · 41.7°N 44.8°E

This anchor orients the sourced locality record. It is not a reconstructed historical position or border; the single map below provides geographic context.

View location

Where is Tbilisi?

Land geometry: Natural Earth 1:50m via world-atlas. Pins mark modern localities or representative regional anchors stored on Atlas place records, not historical borders and not reconstructed positions. · Sources & methods

THE COMMUNITY TIMELINE · EVERY NODE DATED

What happened to the Jewish community of Tbilisi?

500–1801

Georgian Jewish community (origins dated to 6th c. BCE exile by tradition; medieval era documented)

1801–1991

Russian Empire and Soviet era

1991–present

Post-1991 mass aliyah; small community

Today

Today

Small community; 26 centuries of memory (mostly in Israel now). Note: the community vernacular was Georgian (Judeo-Georgian outside the 12-canon), described here in prose, not tagged.

LANGUAGES & COMMUNITY

What did Tbilisi sound like?

Hebrew (עברית, Ivrit)

AFTER · IN FULL COLOR

What survives today?

In Tbilisi

Small community; 26 centuries of memory (mostly in Israel now). Note: the community vernacular was Georgian (Judeo-Georgian outside the 12-canon), described here in prose, not tagged.

  • Great Synagogue of Tbilisi

    synagogue · public landmark

    Built 1895-1904.

  • David Baazov Museum of History of Georgian Jews

    museum · museum

In Israel & the diaspora

The community's story continued elsewhere, these places carry it now.

MoscowSaint PetersburgKyivMinskOdessaTel AvivHaifaJerusalemBeershebaNew York CityBerlin

KEEP GOING

Related places & stories

Moscow

Russia

Outside the Pale until 1917, then the Soviet Jewish capital, GOSET Yiddish theater, the Choral Synagogue (1906), Stalinist persecution (1952 Night of the Murdered Poets), the refusenik movement, and a post-1991 institutional revival.

Open the place story

Saint Petersburg

Russia

Court Jews and capital elite under residence quotas (Gunzburg, Polyakov); home of the Grand Choral Synagogue (1893, second-largest in Europe) and Russia's second-largest community today.

Open the place story

Kyiv

Ukraine

From the 10th-century Kievan Letter to Sholem Aleichem's Jewish Kiev and Babi Yar (29-30 Sept 1941: 33,771 Jews murdered in two days), today Ukraine's largest, war-affected community.

Open the place story

SOURCES & REVIEW

  • Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. (place entry)

    Macmillan Reference USA · 2007

  • YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe

    YIVO Institute for Jewish Research / Yale University Press · 2010 · open source

  • Vital Statistics: Jewish Population of the World (2024 country figures)

    Jewish Virtual Library · 2024 · open source

  • Georgia: Virtual Jewish History Tour

    Jewish Virtual Library · open source

Reviewed 2026-07-30

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