History of the Jews in South Ossetia an artillery shell in its facade. On Sundays, Baptist services are held there. According to the Soviet censuses of 1926 and 1939 there were about 2000 Jews in South Ossetia, all but a few in Tskhinvali. As late as 1926 almost a third of the town's inhabitants were Jews. Their number declined later as they moved to bigger cities of Soviet Union or emigrated to Israel or other countries. Most of the Jewish population fled South Ossetia for Israel and Georgia proper during the First Ossetian War in 1991. The remainder fled in advance of the 2008 war. Today, only
International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was threatening them or putting them in a position where they had to secede. On the contrary, Belgrade even went so far as to refrain from exerting any military or economic pressure on Pristina." In October 2009, Dmitry Medvedev said that parallels between Kosovo and South Ossetia are "inappropriate". "We are categorically against drawing parallels between the Balkan events and the events in the Caucasus," he said. "As concerns South Ossetia – it’s our unambiguous, absolutely clear position – it about repelling direct military aggression. And what was done by Russia after that, was done in full accordance with the