- Population
- ~600-1,200
- Location
- Tel Aviv-Jaffa and other central cities, dispersed
The Krymchaks are the Turkic-speaking Rabbanite Jews of Crimea, a tiny people nearly destroyed in 1941-42, when the Nazis murdered three-quarters of them. Most survivors and their descendants emigrated to Israel after the Soviet collapse, where several hundred to about 1,200 now live among the Russian-speaking immigrant community. Their language, a Jewish form of Crimean Tatar written once in Hebrew letters, is remembered only by a few elderly people. A Krymchak association founded in Tel Aviv in 2021 keeps their memory, their own medieval 'Kaffa' prayer rite and their 11 December Holocaust remembrance day alive.