The The Kingdoms of Ararat: Zvi Kasdoi, the Ten Lost Tribes, and Jewish National Identity
Journal: Iudaica Russica
Year: 2025

Zvi Kasdoi (1862–1937) was a Russian Jewish traveler and Zionist who, along his travels, encountered unfamiliar Jewish communities like the Jews of Georgia. Kasdoi’s 1912 book Mamlekhot Ararat [The Kingdoms of Ararat] is an account of the author’s travels in the Russian Empire’s Transcaucasus region, during which he encountered and observed Georgian Jews. As a proponent of Jewish nationhood, Kasdoi set out to explain how the Jews he encountered could be so culturally, linguistically, and even hi