This paper examines some historical, cultural, and institutional processes involving a Jewish minority from the Russian and Azerbaijani Caucasus, now mostly displaced in the huge and multiethnic Moscow: the Mountain Jews, or Juhuro. These Jews were subjected to a historically multifaceted and endangering diaspora, but they have been making big efforts to preserve their identity and survival by means of accommodating, mimetic, and cultural strategies. In the present day, despite the few representatives living in the Russian capital, the community is striving to find its own niche to transmit its history, language, and tradition within the multicultural “salad bowl” city of Moscow. More changes and transformations are at stake to preserve their long-lasting ethnic, religious, and linguistic characteristics. This paper is devoted to analyzing such elements, in an attempt to explain why and how Juhuro seem likely to succeed in preserving their religious community by innovating it in spite of their minority position within a globalized society.

Evaluating linguistic rights—or any type of claim in legislation on the basis of cultural differences—is a difficult task for legal professionals working within the framework of the contemporary pluralistic state. This paper lays down some simple methodological guidelines for the assessment and classification of these rights by recently established minority religious groups in Europe, especially Islamic groups in Italy, within a democratic and pluralist polity. It is divided into two sections. The first concerns the definition and interpretation of “culture” as a legal good, as depicted from many kinds of international and constitutional provisions on the subject. The second deals with language rights of Muslim communities in the Italian legal system.

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