Jews and Judaism in Tajikistan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is a long and varied history of Jews and Judaism in Tajikistan. Most Jews in Tajikistan were originally Bukharan Jews.

[edit] History

Jews first arrived in the eastern part of the Emirate of Bukhara, in what is today Tajikistan, in the 19th century. After the Communists came to power they organized the country into republics, including Tajikistan, which was first formed as an autonomous republic within Uzbekistan in 1924, and in 1929 became a full-fleged republic.

In an effort to develop Tajikistan, Soviet authorities encouraged migration, including thousands of Jews from neighboring Uzbekistan. Most Jews settled in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, where they opened the Dushanbe synagogue. During the Second World War a second wave of Ashkenazic Jews migrated to Tajikistan.

In the USSR, including Tajikistan, beginning in the 1970s, Jews who were able, began to emigrate to the United States and also to Israel. By the late 1980s, many of Tajikistan's Jews had left. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tajikistan gained independence and the country fell into a state of civil war. In the fall of 1992 most of the country's Jews were evacuated to Israel.

During the 1990s most the remaining 1,000 or so Jews emigrated. One tragic event in the Jewish community was the murder of journalist Meirkhaim Gavrielov in 1998.

Today there are only a few hundred Jews left in Tajikistan.

[edit] Dushanbe Synagogue

As of 2006, the Dushanbe synagogue was the last remaining synagouge in the country, and was actively being used for worship. However, the Tajik government gave the order to the local Jewish community to vacate the synagouge, which was going to be demolished for a new presidential palace. After the destruction of the community's mikvah, kosher butcher, and several classrooms, as well as an international outcry, the demolishion was halted, and the community is now rebuilding the synagouge at (their own expense).

[edit] See also

• Bukharan Jews.