Where Have All the Jews Gone? Mass Migration from Independent Uzbekistan · 205and the bad—against what they imagined they would find upon reset-
tlement. As illustrated below, this difficult decision-making process has
been shortchanged by the media.
Mass Migration as Portrayed in the Media
During the Soviet era, few westerners had the opportunity to visit Soviet
Central Asia, and little attention was given to the region in the press.
Beginning in 1989, when the Soviet empire teetered, about to collapse,
dramatic political changes began to attract the attention of journalists.
Against this backdrop, articles about Bukharan Jews appeared that
mainly focused on their large migration to the United States and Israel.
While these articles offered a variety of reasons to explain their mass mi-
gration, the most often-cited was the oppression they suffered as a result
of rising Muslim fundamentalism. The appearance of articles with this
angle coincided with four particular political events.
The first was the advent of glasnost in 1989, Gorbachev’s policy of po-
litical openness. Press reports about Bukharan Jews at this time focused
on the connection between the decentralization of power in the Soviet
Union, the emergence of nationalist movements, and the accompanying
“rise of Moslem fundamentalism in the Central Asian republics.”^15 Mi-
gration, the press explained, was due to the swelling tide of anti-Jewish
sentiment indirectly caused by the inauguration of glasnost.
The second event that prompted press reports about Bukharan Jews
was social unrest in May 1990 in Andizhan, located in Uzbekistan’s Fer-
gana Valley, near the border of Tajikistan. An outbreak of mob violence
there led to the looting and destruction of Jewish, Armenian, and Russian
homes, as well as a Communist party building.^16 The media described
local Jews as “‘terrified’ in the wake” of these riots. Follow-up articles
reported on a surge in emigration applications from Andizhan’s Jewish
community as well as from other neighboring Jewish communities in
response to this violent episode.^17
The third event was the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the cre-
ation of the independent states of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in 1991.
Press reports once again highlighted the precarious situation of the Jews
as a result of rising Islamic fundamentalism.^18
The final event to prompt media attention about Bukharan Jewish