Posted on by TC0241

Bukhara 29




This Post is a little indulgent of me but hopefully you will stay with it as I found all of this incredibly fascinating.


 


One of our group made a casual remark about Jews in Bukhara and the local guide said there was a synagogue and a cemetery close by.


Just to make sure my companion was safe and not wandering around alone we decide we will go and try and find both sites.


 


The synagogue was actually very easy  as it was only a couple of streets away. It was in fact really an old house on the outside as originally it was not allowed to build a synagogue here.


Inside there were a couple of enthusiastic guardians who were only too happy to show us around and explain more about the place. We saw a normal courtyard and to one side was what resembled a classroom

  

  


Rather old and a little on the damp side. Our hosts were trying in very broken English to explain how old the place was and how often services were held and something about there used to be 30,000 Jews here but now only 300 but they were very keen to explain they still held lessons for the children.


They were happy to show us a Tora  which they said was 500 years old. They also said they had one which is 100 years old but was only brought out at services.


Now not one to contradict a good story my understanding was the oldest confirmed Tora was around 800 years old and in Bologna but so what.

 


I have to say the place was fascinating and  I regret not taking more pictures. As we left we got directions which were more “go that way and when you reach the end of the Jewish quarter its there” so that’s what we did although it was a kilometer or so away and we were concerned at several points that we had missed it. eventually we found the place with a brand spanking new gatehouse and a very large striking cemetery behind it.


  


Given how big this place was I decided to do some research on the place and
these are some links






On this trip I wanted to find something which might give me a sense of time and history, this place has done both.

 


Some Bukharan Jews claim they are the descendents of the ten lost tribes of Israel who were exiled by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC. Whether or not this is the case, the Bukharians can trace their ancestry back to the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus, the King of Persia, in 539 B.C.E. Cyrus decreed that all Jews in exile were free to return to Jerusalem, though many remained in Persia. The Jews lived peacefully in Persia until 331 B.C.E., when Alexander the Great defeated the Sogdian King Spitamenes and conquered the region. At Alexander’s sudden death in 323 B.C.E., the Seleucids gained control, followed by the Parthians, who reestablished the Persian Empire. The Parthians gave the Jews citizenship and allowed them to practice Judaism freely. Under Parthian rule, the Bukharian communities flourished. In 224 A.D., however, the Sassinids conquered the region. They made Zoroastrianism the official religion and persecuted the Jews for their unwillingness to convert. Some Bukharan Jews moved to the northern and eastern parts of the region due to anti-Jewish
hostilities.



There seems to have been around 20,000 Jews here in Bukhara at their peak but most have emigrated to either Israel or the US predominantly New York. here is a snip I found looking at a NY site. With such a concentration of Bukharan Jews along 108th Street in Forest Hills, the street has been dubbed “Bukharan Broadway,” and neighboring Rego Park has been dubbed “Regostan,” both, of course, part of “Queensistan.” The Bukharan Jews are so concen-trated in the borough that Queens College actually started a Bukharan Jewish history and culture class in 2010.
While only a few hundred are left in Central Asia today, an estimated 50 thousand now call Metro New York home, making it the largest concentration of Bukharan Jews in the world and home to one fourth of the world‟s Bukharan Jewish population.

There appears to be around 300,000 Bukharan Jews in Israel so this is a big slice of history.


I have to say all this I found fascinating and like one of those threads which crosses many paths at many times. I think I have to find out a little more and see if I can piece the bits together a little more coherently.