Farewell to ancient minority in Central Asia

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Subject: Farewell to ancient minority in Central Asia 

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Farewell to an ancient minority in Central Asia  
David Kohn 
Special to The Christian Science Monitor  
 
05/21/2001  
Christian Science Monitor  

Along the narrow, crooked streets of Samarkand's Ivritski Mahalla -
the Jewish Quarter - the signs are everywhere: House For Sale;
Desperate To Sell Now. The going rate: around $2,000. 

In 1990, between 20,000 and 50,000 Jews lived in Samarkand, the
second-largest city in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic in Central
Asia. Today, a few hundred remain out of a community whose presence
dates back millenniums. Most of them are planning to go. "After five
years there will be no Jews in Samarkand," says Yuri Yusupov, a
retired veterinarian who is selling the last of his equipment and old
extension cords at a street bazaar. He has lived his whole life in
this arid, balmy city, famous for its fantastic Muslim mosques and
palaces. But his brother and children have moved to Queens, New York,
and Yusupov says he will probably join them. 

All over Central Asia, Bukharans, as they are known, are departing.
There is a certain irony to the exodus. With the collapse of the
Soviet Union a decade ago, Jews can finally practice their religion
without interference. But some want a more prosperous life, while
others are concerned about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in the
largely Muslim region. 

Uzbekistan's leaders have tried, with limited success, to transform it
into a secular, open nation. But the economy, largely controlled by
the government, has stagnated. The average monthly income is around
$60. To the south lies Afghanistan, where the Taliban imposes its
harsh brand of Islamic rule over 95 percent of the country. A militant
group with reported ties to the Taliban, the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan, appears to be gaining influence in some parts of the
country. 

"These Taliban, they are threatening that they will come and establish
radical Islam," says Aron Aronov, who left Uzbekistan for New York 10
years ago. "This threat looms over the heads of Jews there." 

Back in Samarkand, Yusupov and his wife, Clara, serve a lunch of
kosher beef - once a week, an out-of-town rabbi arrives to supervise
the slaughter of three cows, enough to supply the small community -
and talk about their lives. 

Mrs. Yusupov was born in this house, a small, airy place that looks
out over a cluttered courtyard. Her father built it himself more than
90 years ago. "We had a very beautiful life," she says. "Weddings, we
used to celebrate for the whole day.... Once, the streets were full of
Jews." 

No one knows when Jews first arrived in Central Asia. Many scholars
believe they fled to the region 2,500 years ago when the Babylonians
conquered Israel. Their name stems from Bukhara, another Uzbek city
that was once a center of Central Asian Jewish life. They speak a
distinct language, known as Judeo-Tajik, and traditionally worked as
skilled tradesmen, mostly as weavers and cloth-dyers. 

Over the centuries, they developed customs and rituals that differ
from those of Jews in Europe, the Mediterranean, and present-day Iran.
"A lot of times, people assume they're Sephardic, but they're not at
all Sephardic. They comprise a separate cultural group of Jews," says
Theodore Levin, an ethnomusicologist at Dartmouth College in Hanover,
N.H. 

Once they leave, many Bukharans have trouble in their new
surroundings. "Their communities and families have been splintered in
the process of immigration," says Alanna Cooper, an anthropologist who
has done extensive fieldwork on Bukharans in Uzbekistan, the US, and
Israel. "The values and expectations are really different in the West
than in Uzbekistan." 

"With TV and movies, assimilation here comes very quickly," says Mr.
Aronov, who he says he emigrated "to join my family." 

A short, stocky man with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, Aronov
is a former linguistics professor who now works for a Jewish
social-service agency. He has started a Bukharan Jewish museum in his
Queens rowhouse. His basement is crammed with historical objects,
among them a 450-year-old torah made from deerskin, antique silk
robes, water urns, a wooden abacus, and thousands of photographs.
Aronov dreams of moving his collection to a larger, more public space.
The clock is ticking, he says: "2,000 years of history - finished." 

On a recent Saturday morning in Samarkand, Sabbath services take place
at the 120-year-old Gumbaz Shul, one of two remaining synagogues in a
city that once held 50. The unofficial rabbi, a fleshy electrician
named Boris Muratov, leads the prayers in a mixture of Bukharan and
halting Hebrew. 

Mr. Muratov took over when the previous rabbi left. Soon he, too,
plans to depart - for Israel. Who will take his place? "Nobody," he
says. "There are no other rabbis." 

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor 

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