Community
Head of the Baku religious community of European Jews
For many years Alexander Sharovsky headed the Baku religious community of European Jews — the Ashkenazi community of Azerbaijan's capital. It was not an honorary line in a biography: he dealt with the community's daily affairs and represented it both inside the country and abroad.
He sat on the board of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, one of the largest international Jewish organisations, which unites communities across Eurasia.
This side of his life was recalled in the very first reports of his death: state agencies and Jewish media alike described him in exactly those words — a theatre director and the head of the community.
Community
Jewish BakuJewish Baku
Three communities of one city
Jewish life in Azerbaijan rests on three communities: Mountain Jews, Ashkenazi (European) Jews and Georgian Jews. The Ashkenazi synagogue of Baku — a large modern building opened in 2003 — is one of its centres.
Azerbaijan is a rare example of a country with centuries of Jewish history and no tradition of antisemitism. Krasnaya Sloboda near Quba remains one of the few places in the world where a Mountain Jewish community has lived compactly for centuries.
Sharovsky was living proof of that norm: a Jew at the head of a Russian theatre in a Muslim country — and in Baku no one found it surprising.
MulticulturalismMulticulturalism
The Board of Trustees and a position
Since 2016 Alexander Sharovsky had been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Baku International Centre of Multiculturalism, by order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
He disliked grand declarations and spoke about peoples living together in the language of practice: a theatre where Azerbaijanis, Russians and Jews work on the same stage is multiculturalism itself, not a report about it.
“Why should you set yourself against anyone? You should do your own work, the work you believe in,” he said in one interview.
Roles off stage
What he did besides the theatre
Baku religious community of European Jews
Head of Baku's Ashkenazi community — representation, daily affairs, links with international Jewish organisations.
Euro-Asian Jewish Congress
Board member of one of the largest international Jewish organisations, uniting communities across Eurasia.
Baku International Centre of Multiculturalism
Member of the Board of Trustees since 2016, by order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.