Paid to pray in mountain minyans

WHEN LAURENCE Brass, former treasurer of the Board of Deputies, visited Azerbaijan on behalf of the organisation Faith Matters, he was intrigued to find two functioning shuls among the Mountain Jews of Oghuz. “When I enquired how they maintained two weekly services,” he said, “I was informed that the government insists on paying a dozen Jewish men to attend the shuls each week to maintain a minyan, just in case others want to join in the service.”