Kesher Talk

Jews in odd places: Central Asia: Jewsweek examines the Bukharian Jews--so-called because they hail from the city of Bukhara, Uzbekistan, and the Central Asian countries of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan that surround it--who live in Queens, NY.

The Bukharan Jews trace their ancestry to an Israelite clan that never made it back from Babylon after exile in the 7th century B.C.E. In Bukhara, they survived for centuries subjugated to one conquering influence after another, first the Persians, under whom they learned to speak Farsi, then the Muslims, then the Mongols, then the Muslims again. Some traditions say the three magi who came to Bethlehem bearing gifts for Baby Jesus were rabbis from Bukhara (known in the bible as Hador), though the Bukharan Jews were essentially cut off from the rest of the Jewish world for 2000 years.

Under Soviet rule, anti-Semitism got worse, and the establishment of Israel fueled frictions with the Jews' Muslim neighbors. Finally, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, refusenik status was lifted and some 100,000 Bukharan Jews emigrated. Half wound up in Israel, while nearly all the rest -- more than 40,000 -- came here, to Queens.

Previous discussions of the Bukharan Jews on Kesher Talk can be found here, here and here.

posted by William @ 9/05/2003 08:40:44 AM